Path finding requires your town scout to erect signposts or villagers can become hopelessly lost in very short distances. Completing certain levels in this game can easily eat up an afternoon.The AI in Northland is good but not without its flaws. In addition to the attention that every villager requires, the time necessary for village building is lengthy, even in accelerated mode, and may frustrate some. If you like fine-tuning, you will really like the depth of this game. An advanced RTS fan may have no trouble jumping in and playing, but most individuals will struggle initially due to the extreme level of attention required by the many minute details essential to keep your workers active while building up the village. Military units advance in experience in the same way as civilian villagers.Although some of these elements may sound very familiar, there is a learning curve to this game.

Although you are limited to swordsmen or archers, you can outfit them with increasingly better equipment as your village progresses. Sending male villagers to a barracks creates military units. Children are born and grow up quickly, so you can increase your village size easily, provided you d raw materaals i crwase eouq virequired to support them. In order to do this, however, the couple must have a place of residence. Female villagers are available to marry the males and produce offspring of either sex. Players also have the option of changing the occupation to something unrelated, but the experience level starts again at zero percent. Once a villager reaches a certain level, new occupations are available to him. Experience points increase for each villager as tasks are successfully performed. Most maps also contain treasure chests containing items such as “free” buildings, extra units, health potions and magic items.The male villagers work in an a*igned occupation such as hunter, extractor, or carrier. Losing your hero usually means losing the level, so saving often is a good idea. Each game starts with a small number of villagers, male and female, and at least one hero.

You even have a few chances to play “Viking Jeopardy” by answering simple riddles.Northland is a familiar feeling RTS title, but the nuances take some time to understand. In addition to the city building, your party must advance to a goal through a few dungeon crawling levels as well. At times, the opportunity to form alliances, buy mercenaries, and find treasures is also present. As your party progresses, basic goals are required in order to advance. For the player desiring a multiplayer-like experience, the game offers a few single player practice versions of the maps.Northland’s gameplay involves missions in which you start out with a few villagers, build a town, and eventually send a military party off with your heroes. Although the multiplayer population was nonexistent when I played this, the potential for challenging multiplayer games is present. The game also has some single player missions playable in any order as well as the requisite multiplayer maps. Although there are only 8 missions to complete, the length of time required to finish each is substantial. This, in turn, enables you to offer your supporting army the appropriate weapons and some of the gifts required for tribute to other villages or characters. In order to complete these quests, however, your citizens must do a good deal of city building to advance the village. The first few hours presented a frustrating learning curve, but, after some time, I found myself engrossed in a satisfying game experience.The basic single player story of Northland once again has you leading the Viking hero Bjarni and his friends through several quests in order to move on to the subsequent level. Initially I felt that Northland was doomed to be the last game in the series. The first two titles featured traditional RTS elements but both seemed to play too slowly and were missing the fun factor required to make a game successful. Cultures and Cultures 2 received lukewarm reviews at best and this may be the series’ last hope. Northland, published by Tri Synergy in the US and GMX in the UK, is the third release in the Cultures RTS series.

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