Snake Guide (Conquest) - 2023

A guide for the up to date version of the clan of the snake, Svafnir. This guide so far will be only focused on conquest experiences as those are the ones I can actually provide, but will be eventually updated with multiplayer experiences (when I am finally no longer too cowardish to make them)

Introduction

I am going to divide this guide into the different aspects of conquest gameplay to take in account.
Early game build/game order, Lore, conquest bonuses to strive for, and general strategies.
This guide assumes that you have played enough games of Northgard before to be aware of the general tips applying to all clans and all situations (basic universal build order, basic military strategies, ...) to focus on the Snake's unique mechanics and strategies instead.

Early Game

Beginning

• different to most other clans, the snake clan kinda has a pretty flexible early game already due to Signy's looting ability (and having early access to Signy). Scouting first is the most important, then you actually have to make decisions. If you loot a neighboring tile, you can get food, lore and wood for free giving you a pretty good early game boost (especially when looting lore), but you will have the depleted field effect for two minutes (two whole months!), making it impossible to use efficiently in 800.
  
• my personal preference so far has been looting the area with lore on it for getting Rapacious Exploitation as early as possible. My second favorite resource to loot is iron, to be able to upgrade the skirmishers as early as possible. I recommend not taking your neighboring iron for that though as the depleated field would decrease the mining speed incredibly

Lore

As mentioned previously, you will want to speed to Rapacious Exploitation as soon as possible.

The Stolen Lore is not even as relevant in the early game. Regard it as a flexible boon depending on what the current conquest map's special rules and winning conditions are.
In most cases (= domination victory possible) I find myself picking journeyman or field rations.
If domination is not an option, I'd suggest either Ancestral Influence or City Builder.
For the one specific map called "Last one Standing" or "Death Match", you'll find it incredibly satisfying to pick the Dragon's Lore (rush for this lore before the first death match gets organised)

Go into the military tree as soon as possible. Your entire economy will be based on skirmishers stealing food / wood / crowns from enemies using Under Pressure as well as Signy Looting and your military units harvesting ressources with the Rapacious Exploitation

I strongly recommend ignoring the third lore path unless you need to acquire a trade victory, as snake is not really about creating a strong economy (since you'll be able to steal crowns easily from enemies as soon as you are able to rush in)

Upgrades and Mining

I strongly recommend rushing to that iron and upgrading skirmisher tools as soon as possible. The only other tools you might be needing are scouts, otherwise you should forge your relic as soon as possible.
The Relic of the clan of the snake not only grants all military units a nice dodge chance, no, its main feature is that your military is entirely unbothered by defense towers (except from those of the clan of the lion, not sure whether that's on purpose or if it's an oversight by the developers). Especially in extreme mode, it's a huge comfort if you can just clear the town hall comfily without having to bother about the two upgraded defense towers and then clearing those as soon as your units have healed enough with Rapacious Exploitation on a neighbouring tile (or on the townhall directly if you happen to already be past 803 which is highly likely in extreme mode)

Combat

As mentioned previously, your entire economy will depend on your Signy and Skirmishers looting and stealing strategically wise. As it might require some sort of micro management that could be tedious, at least you won't have to wonder much about what units to pick. Go in full Skirmisher with the Leadership path.

Scorching Earth

As soon as the timeline hits march 801, Signy's scorching earth will be able to make foes leave the zone. Pretty useful if you want to colonise a zone inhabitated by 8 draugrs.

That's not its main use though. What you want to do is to create a wall of foes between you and the enemy clans by mindfully moving around foes to block zones for you. They will never move onto a zone you yourself or an allied clan has colonised, so you can control the flow of it a bit with that.

When rushing an enemy prior 802 (so before you get the ability to affect two zones silmutaneously), you should save up your scorched earth for a zone neighbouring the enemies townhall. That way you can easily get units out to heal as well as collect ressources in the process of defeating the enemy.
Obviously, if you happen to live past 803, put the scorching earth on the townhall directly, kill all the enemies, then peacefully destroy the towers that you have been able to ignore before thanks to your relic.

Conquest Battles

The three Snake's Challenges

• Greed's Price
  Incredibly satisfying as snake, even on extreme mode.
  You can shove around enemies from the neighbouring zones so that your zones are getting left alone and then it's just a matter of finding that damn thing. Even in extreme mode you won't have to do the usual safe & reload with this one as the AI is not capable of enough of going through all those tiles with tens of thousands of draugrs that you can just ignore. I've found that as soon as the skirmishers are upgraded it just takes four (so two camps) and your Signy with her bodyguard to defeat it easily (after shoving all the other foes from its zone away (yes they just leave, but the giant boar stays on the scorched earth (yes it's satisfying))). I even only had one ruin next to me and only got access to another ruin mid 801 and was still able to beat it on extreme, it's that easy as snake. You can do it, imagine I am holding your hand while you're navigating through it.
  
• Dystopia
  Incredibly satisfying as well. No worries about happiness, having all zones with defense towers also leaves no worries about the Spectral Warriors. Most satisfying to wait until villagers get turned into spectral warriors and then attack your enemies alongside them. Since this map, Signy is capable to fight off three wolves at once in the early game due to the nice conquest bonus that increases all her stats.
  
• Hostile Lands
  Probably the most scariest one by far for this conquest in extreme mode. This is the map where you probably will have to reload quite a few times if map rng is not on your side. You need to be able to rush kill the first ai enemy in 801 or you'll be doomed. As soon as the first one is gone, it's not as bad anymore. Despite the map making it impossible to upgrade towers (which we're not doing ever anyways), the ai enemies still have their two upgraded starting towers on townhall so rushing the relic is more important than ever.

General Conquest Bonuses

• The very best ones you could imagine getting for Snake are free Skirmisher Weapon upgrades and Skirmisher Camps requiring no building slots (since we're never ever going Guardian (since we want to give Signy the Skirmisher Weapons as well so that she can poison as well), we'll need the military space)
  
• After that all bonuses increasing Skirmisher Stats are incredible. I've personally found that it's not worth it getting the cheapened Skirmishers, as Skirmishers already are pretty cheap by default. If you have to make a choice, I'd pick skirmisher defense over skirmisher attack simply because it's reducing the micromanaging you'll need to do since Signy is usually attacking from behind so enemies tend to not target her but your bodyguard and skirmishers instead.
  
• Reducing the smithing time and cost for your relic is super useful for those early rushes
  
• The free iron each 3 months bonus is great in case you're usually struggling with mining fast enough for weapons + relic and haven't been able to get the relic boon described above.
  
• Increased production for woodworkers / sailors / miners / brewers is also useful, but not as life changing as the other ones.
  
• The others are pretty much useless for the snake though. Since you already start with Signy and will probably keep her for the entire game even in extreme, you won't ever notice getting warchief costs cheapened. And even if you happen to loose Signy, she doesn't even cost any iron, so it's not a big deal.

[Snugglebell]

aww, I am happy to hear

[vortexrap]

thank you much for this. just completed my snake extreme conquest with this guides help. ive always had a hard time understanding what makes a snake slither (lol). no more! rush Rapacious Exploitation and all the skirmisher upgrades.

[Snugglebell]

<3

[apple🍎]

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