A number of people have reported stat loss that just magically appears, with no indication of what is causing it.

The culprit appears to be HUNGER, since for some strange reason this is not indicated anywhere on the campaign map nor the hird detail view. It is visible in combat view however - hunger comes up as a status.

What makes this even more confusing is that whereas in almost all other cases, stat loss is obvious - the stat in question is red, and mousing over the stat indicates what is affecting it and how it's affected.


Fatigue is likewise not represented in the hird detail view at all (again similar issue to hunger), but thankfully there is some information displayed on the campaign map - kind of. The problem is, the campaign map only lists the number of people in your hird that are fatigued, and doesn't appear to indicate who is actually affected.

Additionally, as others have mentioned, the endurance indicators on people's portraits in hird detail view never show the actual fatigue.

Finally, when selecting a destination on the campaign map, the path indicates sunrise, sunset and fatigue (helpfully indicating who gets fatigued). Unfortunately there is no indicator for hunger, and it appears everyone gets hungry at the same time (unlike fatigue).

On that note, a question (in case anyone sees it): It would also be good to see what impact not fully resting someone has - it simply states that the person "will not receive full rest", but I figure if they have a high sense they might be able to handle one extra shift? Or is it that they will always be fatigued unless either sleeping two shifts or sleeping one shift with the deep sleeper perk?

I'm not really sure what people are talking about in this regard. When traveling on the overland map I can clearly see a message when various characters become hungry of fatigued so it isn't coming out of nowhere. For example, a message will be displayed like "Ketil is hungry" or "Asleifr is fatigued".

That said, I do agree that it would be good to have it displayed permanently. And on the individual character's stat page.

I'm not sure what the penalty for being fatigued is: I assume it lowers stats similar to an injury but I haven't seen what as I always head for a camp as soon as my characters get fatigued / hungry. But I do not think "sense" affects how many shifts you need to rest. To stave off fatigue everyone must rest 2 shifts except for those who have taken "heavy sleeper".

I notice that characters with higher sense can travel farther on the map before they become fatigued, but everyone still gets hungry at the same time - and unlike with fatigue, there are no indicators on the travel path to let you know when this will occur, so you only know about hunger once it happens.

I think hunger hits once every 24 hours, but it might be more frequent than that.

This game needs a message log... a permanent message log. I am sick to death of messages flashing by before my eyes can even focus on them in the top left corner. It's bloody ridiculous.

I agree! The only thing close to a log is the report you get after camping, and that one disappears once you click to continue.

Although if you move the mouse to the top-left it shows the most recent 10-20 messages or so - but these are cleared once a new area loads, and even if they weren't cleared it's a messy thing to do.

I don't understand how the lack of feedback related to hunger and fatigue made it past beta testing. You'd think that ALL statuses affecting characters would be displayed somewhere obvious on each character's info/detail screen.

On top of that, it seems a strange oversight to indicate sunrise, sunset and fatigue points on the travel path while not having any indication whatsoever when people are going to be hungry. At the very least, you'd think that the first time people are hungry they don't lose stats, but instead the travel pauses and a message informs you that people are hungry and that you might want to camp soon - or something along those lines.

Also it would be helpful to have a time of day display somewhere on the travel screen at least. At the moment the only way to determine the time of day (approximately anyway) is to select a destination and then hover over one of those dots on the path - which only shows the time it will be at that particular point.

Agreed on all accounts the game could sue some quality of life improvements on the strategical map. That and a way to set a formation before battles would solve the major issues (except gamebreaking bugs ofc). Still enjoying this game a lot though I haven't played it more than 2 days now but it's definitely in need of some polish. The other recent indie game I got attached to, Battle Brothers, had much less issues on release.

Agreed on formations - their first game had it, and while they improved on how consumables are used (carried per person instead of one inventory shared for everyone), traps make less sense now. In Conquistadors there were battles where you could prepare (you could set traps and formations prior to battle start), and other battles where you couldn't prepare (traps couldn't be used, and although the start locations for your troops was pretty much fixed you could still choose where each warrior goes - so effectively you could still choose a formation of sorts).

I assume they didn't have time to implement it prior to release this time.

I'm surprised by the number of bugs actually, considering their first release wasn't anywhere near this level of bugginess. To their credit they appear to be hard at work fixing things.

Obviously the beta testers didn't play the game much, otherwise most of these would be picked up on one would think.

OK just started a new game recently, and I noticed that in Denmark at least, my hird does not need or consume food unless I camp.

EDIT: Just figured out this is only until your first camp (possibly for tutorial purposes?) since you can definitely go hungry just walking around in Denmark too.

On a side note, so far I haven't actually noticed any morale drops from lack of food (while travelling) or people getting fatigued. I guess they figured the massive stat drops are punishment enough, but morale drops would make sense - and it's not like morale is super hard to raise. I haven't seen what happens when you don't feed someone during camp - I would hope that in that case at least there would be a morale loss.

This brings up another of my gripes: why on earth can't you rest in your own longhouse? You're hungry, thirsty, have a laceration and can't get it sorted out in your own home? That's just plain stupid. Same in towns: why can't you get a bite to eat from a vendor or inn? You have to travel several hours to a campsite, just to travel several hours back again to carry on what your were doing. It doesn't make any sense no matter how you look at it.

While I can reason that there might not be available space for your hird in a town (especially in a foreign land), it definitely makes no sense that you can't rest in your own damn home!

At least while in Denmark you can get your hird insta-healed for free by talking to the witch in Skern - which does advance time by an hour or so. Apparently healing fractures and lacerations only takes an hour and costs nothing, but you can't sit down for a meal in your own home using food you've brought with you. What makes this even stranger is the description of your hearth in your long house...

I don't know why they just don't allow a subset of the camping interface in certain (friendly) towns. You wouldn't be able to hunt or scout, but you'd still need to guard and you could still do everything else.

I find that camping doesn't add as much to this game as it did to Conquistadors. Not saying Conquistador's camping didn't have its own problems, but at least there it was part of the challenge. Here it's just ridiculously easy (albeit time-consuming).

It's also not as though it's a technical issue because you have a bed in your longhouse that you click to rest at the very start of the game. Game designers! Sometimes you have to wonder...

I believe I've read somewhere that LA intended for you to be able to rest in your longhouse whenever you are in Denmark, but it was overlooked.. it may be fixed in a patch but it's obviously not as high priority as fixing crashes, bugs, and balance issues.

Anyway, if they do implement this, i think the obvious downside would be that you cannot hunt or scout... But anyway, I think the whole camping system needs some serious re-balancing. It is far too easy to acquire enough food and herbs in Vikings (compared to Conquistadors where you often had to trade for rations and medicine). The only resources that I find to be at all scarce are wood (because you need a lot of wood for homestead upgrades) and hides (if you want to craft armor and helmets).

I find a crap ton of wood by efficient scouting (while camping). The majority of the finds tend to be wood. And don't overlook looting anything and everything that's lootable.