Northgard: Kröwns & Daggers

Hey everyone!

We are very happy to finally present to you the sixth major free update to Northgard, Kröwns and Daggers, available now!

The Kröwns and Daggers update brings a host of new features, gameplay additions and even a new neutral faction to Northgard.

With an increased focus on diplomacy, and a complete overhaul of how you develop and maintain relations with your fellow factions, Kröwns and Daggers is easily one of our most ambitious content updates yet!

Read on to find out more about what to expect...

TRAILER

NEUTRAL FACTIONS

Diplomacy Screen

The relation system with neutral factions has been reworked. Each faction now presents 4 relation statuses offering new rewards and risks depending on how you treat the faction.

All new interactions with Neutral factions and Clans are reunited in a new Diplomacy screen.

The Offering Well

A new building is available to improve your relations with the neutral factions: the Offering Well.

New Neutral Faction - The Dwarves

The Dwarves are joining the Northgard party!

Dwarves, well known for their mining prowess, will obviously have access to and supplies of many treasures and precious resources but come too close, and you might regret it...

On the other hand, they might lend you a helping hand if you manage to gain their trust.

SCOUTING & SPYING

Interactions with rival clans are evolving:

While scouting, the borders of territories under the Fog of War are now colorless.

By sending your scouts to spy on an enemy's Town Hall, you may access new information like their Lore-tree or resource stocks.

In addition, notifications regarding the other clans now feature the portrait of their Warchiefs.

RIVALRY

Rivalry Screen

Based on the information you’ve gathered, you can now declare an enemy clan as your Rival, for a gain, but at a cost:

- Town twinning boosts your population growth, but it also increases the population growth of your Rival.
- Eavesdropping gains you more Lore based on how much Knowledge your Rival has discovered that you have not.
- Target a Clan with less Fame than you with Bullying and you will gain more Defense against them, but if they come out on top, they get significantly more Fame in return.
- Manhunt places a target on your Rival’s back by hitting them with an Attack malus outside their territory. In exchange, they get a bonus as long as they stay within their territory.

The Emissary

To establish this Rivalry, a new building is available: the Emissary Lodge and corresponding unit, the Emissary.

COMPETITIVE EVENTS

New competitive events for you to take part in against the other clans for a reward.

ACHIEVEMENTS

That Still Only Counts As One
Kill 3 enemy Dwarves Champion in a single game.

Neutralophobia
Win a game with every started neutral faction alive and not befriended by anyone.

Clean State
Eliminate 3 different neutral factions in a single game.

My Little Neutral: Friendship Is Magic
Befriend 3 different neutral factions in a single game.

If I Can't Have Them No One Can
Eliminate 5 neutral factions after they were befriended by another clan.

Spygame
Send a scout to spy on 3 different clan's Townhall in a single game.

Cold War
Maintain for 2 years "Eavesdropping" Rivalry with a clan doing the same with you.

The Biff Tannen Paradigm
Eliminate a clan targeted by your "Bullying" Rivalry.

Your Name In The Death Note
Be the target of 3 Manhunt Rivalry at the same time.

In Your Face!
Win a competitive event in which all clans have participated.

GENERAL CHANGES

Multiplayer Mode

- Player names are now displayed in the chat, but they are colorless until scouted (and so are the borders).
- When a player pauses the game, the player name is displayed to all players.
- When a player ends the pause, the name of that player is also displayed.

End Game Stats

- Stats for Squirrel Meals have been added.
- In Food stats, the Feasts are now indicated.
- In Forge stats, the Unit forged is now indicated.

Knowledge

Coinage (and similar Knowledges that unlock trade routes):

- Coinage no longer unlocks trade routes.
- Trade routes are available since the beginning of the game.
- Trade routes without Coinage are less effective than before
- Knowledges replacing Coinage in the Lore Tree also benefit frome the trade route bonus "Your trade routes produce +100% Kröwns".

Erudition:

- T̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶C̶a̶r̶v̶e̶d̶ ̶S̶t̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶r̶e̶e̶.̶ - Your next carved stone is free.

Knowledge from Beyond:

- R̶e̶v̶e̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶n̶e̶u̶t̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶f̶a̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶.̶ - Reveals the position of all neutral factions (without removing the fog of war).

Units & Buildings

- New unit: Emissary.
- New building: Lodge of Emissaries.
- New building: Offering Well.

New Competitive Events

- The Dwarven Prospectors.
- The Myrkálfar's Levy.
- Ceremonial Bonfire.

Other Changes

- Neutral factions attack behavior reviewed to fairer.
- Jötnar now charges enemy units when attacked on their own territory.
- All factions except Jötnar now accept Wood via trade routes.
- Every clan of the Dragon in a game now has the same Dragon Essence gauge bonuses.
- Rumor mongering was reworked to match with the new neutral factions’ behaviors.
- The detailed flux of your resources (the tooltip over a resource stock) now displays the flux as a decimal value. Meaning you can know precisely how much Stone / Iron you’re extracting and trading.
- Scouting speed is reduced by 20% in enemy territory.
- With the shortcut E you could lose the selection of Kaija by selecting/deselecting her army. This feature was removed.
- Eradicating a neutral faction no longer gives military XP (eliminating a member of the neutral faction will still provide military XP).
- Eliminating a player no longer gives you military XP.
- Several SFX have been added.

BUGFIXES

- Wounded debuff on Units is now correctly removed when healed.
- Wounded debuff only applies once under 80% of health.
- Oskoreia is no longer canceled when Mieliki is attacked.
- Achievement “Let me borrow this” is correctly unlocked.
- Happiness detail now shows the entire list of entries impacting happiness and not just the X first elements.
- Multiple bugs about achievements/expeditions not triggering upon completion.
- Fixed value display for Knowledge “value of great deeds”.
- Fixed Snake’s relic Stealth ability.
- Fixed Trading Caravan. Relations with neutral factions improved 20% faster as intended. (Instead of 10 before correction).
- Fixed victory condition cut-off in story mode.
- Fixed trade with the clan of the Boar. As the Boar, you can no longer trade with another clan.
- AI of the clan of the squirrel can no longer share a meal with an ally before obtaining “A Helping Hand” ( Fame 200).
- Icon displayed after a loot no longer cancels a mouse click.
- The link to the "How to mod" button has been fixed.
- Fixed the Bodyguard from “Tactician” Military Path sometimes no longer following his warchief.
- Fixed cursor issue. You could sometimes no longer target an enemy unit with your military units.
- Fixed console spam causing lags in modded games.
- Fixed achievements in the expedition menu. Some of them were unlocked in the game but not on steam. It was the game that considered them unlocked too early.
- In the lobby, the dropdown list no longer closes automatically when you’re selecting a clan and another player choses at the same time. The dropdown list still closes if you’re selecting a color or team at the same time as another player.
- Myrkalfar no longer stall and teleport when they attack on server.
- Fixed army selection with ‘E’ and a giant Boar.

POSTSCRIPT

Modding

All the new Kröwns and Daggers features are not scriptable for mods at this time. This will be possible very soon.

Known Issues

A few sentences in the Rivalry window will only appear in english. They will soon be available in all of the supported languages.

Update #16: Crown Station

Well this one took a bit longer than we expected. I guess we were a bit optimistic about the amount of content planned for this update. But we're finally here! We did decide to leave a couple of things for the next update, so contrary to our original plan, this one doesn't contain all the planned content yet.

Without spoiling too much, this update includes three major areas (Crown Station, Vulcan Island, and the Pyramid Tomb), EIGHT shelters (each an unique underground level), building turrets and defenses for tower-defense-like mini game (enables entering those shelters), and lots of other tweaks and additions.

About Localizations (Part Two)

We're moving forward with the localizations. Almost all reference strings are in place, and we're getting ready to order localizations for selected languages. The current game build contains work-in-progress localizations for Simplified Chinese and Russian.

The full set of Official localizations available at release include: English, Simplified Chinese, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish. The voiceovers will be in English only.

The bigger news is that we will also be opening up the Steam Workshop for localizations! We know we are not able to "officially" translate the game to all the languages you are requesting, but we can enable the community modding tools to add any language imaginable. This will happen some time before the release (hopefully). Looking forward to playing the game in Klingon and not understanding a word!

Update Highlights

Crown Station

You can now enter the Crown Station area via the elevator in Undercrown. You'll be finding out about the K23 radio station, listening to audio logs, and... progressing your Main Quest. (The ending is not included in this build yet, so you'll just encounter those familiar blue barriers at some point.)

Vulcan Island

The mysterious sea area beyond the west coast is now also accessible. Spoiler on how to gain access to it: Read all the Myth Tablets on the island and you'll see a short cutscene for a clue where to go next...

Pyramid Tomb

You can now enter the Pyramid Tomb after you've completed all the Tombs on the island. You'll find tons of useful, a new weapon recipe, and the sarcophagus of the king.

All photography inside the Pyramid Tomb is strictly forbidden, so no screenshot for this, sorry.

Shelter Defense

You may have wondered what's inside those shelters on the island. You'll be able to open those hatches in this update. Unfortunately you won't be making new human survivor friends.

Build defenses to stop the horde of monsters, and the shelter is ready for entering. You may be surprised what you find there occasionally.

New Skills

A couple of new Skills added this time.

There's a new Turret Specialist Skill related to turret handling. Note that you'll also be able to make new inventions that will unlock other turret type and increase the ammo capacity.

The Animal Friend now has a third skill level. It makes the animals you've tamed fight by your side in combat. Unleash the Combat Bambi! We'll have to see how much tuning this feature still needs though.

CHANGE LOG

ADDED

- Access to 'Crown Station'. (THE ENDING NOT INCLUDED YET)
- Access to 'Vulcan Island'.
- Access to 'The Pyramid Tomb'. Requires completing all the tombs. NOTE: Revisit them if the stones don't lit up properly.
- Shelters defence now accessible!
- Shelters accessible after fighting the horde.
- New enemy type (dweller/horde).
- Added buildable Turrets.
- New material: Central Processing Unit (only findable for now)
- Level Cap is now 50. Up by EIGHT levels!
- Ark Level 1 fully accessible. (Level 2 coming later.)
- New craftables (Hard Hat, Material Transporter, turret related inventions)
- Added Turret Specialist Skill.
- Added Animal Friend skill level III (animals fight by your side).
- Added Russian localization for testing.
- Added more sound effects for different situation and actions.
- Loud weapons (eg. grenades, rifle), now produce a sound which attracts enemies.
- Main menu bg animations.
- Showing new invention notifications when leveling up.
- Home shelter Point of Interest set completed when going near it. (You may or may nor be able to enter it later, but not for now.)
- Voiceovers for the archaeologist Abby.

CHANGED

- Updated Chinese localization.
- Rebalanced Ark XP rewards.
- Tomb sarcophagi remain open after looted.
- Changed sfx falloff for certain sounds.
- Tweaks to complex collider generation.
- Performance improvements.
- "It" spins indefinitely now.
- Reworked some quests so it is more clear for the player "what to do" and "where to do it".
- All deer kills accumulate into one card now instead of one per type: male, female etc.

FIXED

- Buildables are properly persistent in Undercrown.
- Wolf and deer move animation fixes.
- Usual open world visual glitch & terrain fixes.
- CTD fix.
- Fixed some faulty soundscapes where wrong ambience was playing.
- Audio level adjustments.
- Player making a dodge roll after a power attack in some instances.
- Fixed undiggable spots in Undercrown.
- Fixes to some achievements not triggering.
- Fixed some collision issues with cylindrical objects.
- Fixed Open the Floodgates intro where people were getting stuck.
- Fixed crosshair misalignment when using hoe.
- Receiving temperature based damage while fishing does not cause animation oddities any more.
- Monster lure doesn't break from fall damage.
- Performance improvements.
- Fixed monsters trying to walk through obstacles while wandering.
- Sound (XAudio2) related crash fix.
- Fixed a Coop issue where it was possible to install more fuel cells than players had.
- Dead actors now fall under the water.
- Added some missing animations to few existing actors.
- Fixed some cases where waterfalls and other particle effects would not render correctly.

Up Next

This update contains almost
all the level content we're planning on including for the Launch Version. The Ark Level 2 and some small parts of Crown Station are coming in the next Update #17, which will hopefully not take as long as this one did. In addition to that we'll be also activating those Obelisks, adding one or two new monster types, and any missing or forgotten feature we've got time for. And of course balancing, polishing, fixing bugs, and optimizing.

The one after the next one (Update #18) will contain all the localizations and voiceovers (English only), but very little new stuff as we're trying to keep the build as stable as possible for the big launch. We'll also have our hands full with other launch related tasks.

But what happens after the launch?

The game is doing pretty well at the moment, and people are liking it, so if the launch goes well, we'll also be doing Post-Launch content updates for this game. I'm not 100% promising anything as it does depend on how well the game performs, but if all goes well, that's something you can expect.

And finally, I can't say this enough: thank you for all the bug reports, nice reviews, encouraging words, and everything! It's been a long ride (especially in the midst of COVID), so all positive feedback from you guys has definitely helped to get through this! We're finally seeing the light at the end of this tunnel!

The time is finally here for you to check out our new campaign update. We've been working hard on it for months and the time has arrived! The update should be live on Steam / GoG / Gamepass Pc.

There are a few New Maps and most importantly NEW MUSIC! Andrew Hulshult came back to work on some bonus material for the game, and let me tell you... it's HAWT.

New Maps

• Corruption
• Atonement
• Progenitor
• Hexarchy
• Trials: Grenade

Update to v1.0.0.7 - Live Version

Hello everyone!

We have another update, adding a few new things, most notably the Razer Chroma system, fixing and updating the game. After a short break Hungarian is back in the game. The new version number on the live branch is 1.0.0.7.

Added

- Randomization of the number of items in random locations on the map
- Over 30 new random places generated on the map
- Quest tracker now also always tracks current chapter in addition to tracked quest
- Tutorial pop up video about chapters displayed after completing first chapter
- Razer chroma system.
- Shadows can now be turned off
- Brightness slider in graphics settings
- New dialogues sounds for children and toddlers (4 new voice color): Farawell, First time greeting, greeting
- New dialogues sounds for adult and old NPC (14 new voice color): Vendors

Fixed

- Blood not spawning correctly from fleeing and bleeding animals
- Villagers don't light campfires
- Cases where there was no castellan after loading the game and Uniegost returned after skipping season
- Cases where Alwin is in wrong place and has wrong tasks in shooting contest
- Cases where new castellan is named Uniegost
- Sometimes there is no apparent reason why a building can't be placed
- Some animals make the sound of wood when the player hits them, now it's the sound of meat
- Warm-blooded achievement is not working properly on save
- Builder's Hut is not visible in Technology tab
- On the player's death, the game is not paused which may lead to timed autosave during death screen
- Timer is displayed in Alwin's story II
- Alwin's story VIII - if the player fails bear's hunt, then the talk goal is limited by time
- Saving issue making the player unable to save game within the same session if the player removed current save game and then started a new game
- Bandit ragdoll when loading while they are dead and far from player
- Fish space program defunded - fish hit by spears should be less likely to fly away
- Iron bar gives Building Technology instead of Crafting Technology
- Animals sometimes take up feed too slowly
- Fall damage when mounted starts combat for the player
- Possibility to interact with campfires, beds while on horse
- Possibility to interact with objects while dismounting
- Player stays on horse when dying and switching to heir
- NPCs create empty wine bottle whenever they make wine from juice
- Possibility for player to get stuck in falling animation when interacting with horse
- Not being able to produce poisoned bolts
- The recipe for "Wooden Table" is placing a "Log Table" instead
- Not being able to ask Raimund about wild animals
- Washing interaction is no longer quicker when holding a hammer

Updated

- Rendering optimizations
- Optimization of some systems
- Quest to pay the taxes is now marked as Challenge instead of Chapter
- House (the biggest one) now requires 1500 technology instead of 7500
- If the player has a black screen instead of cutscene, the cutscene will turn off when the audio finishes
- A chapter objective to build a Barn is now moved to the next chapter so that the player has free building slots
- Player responses in dialogue are now with scroll bar
- Cutscenes are now skippable after 2 seconds
- Current torch is not burning out during dialogue
- Wild animals will roam more when not in fleeing state
- Adjusted head collisions for various animals
- Body collisions for deer
- Player can throw spears in the water again but cannot use bow while in deep water
- Bandits’ ragdoll optimization
- Blend time for blocking animations
- Farm Development Stage building limit increased
- Improved shadow quality on low settings
- Wooden vials price lowered
- Lowered reputation requirements for hiring villagers
- Jumping now interrupts interaction timer
- Hungarian returned to game
- German updated
- Dutch updated
- Polish updated
- Korean updated