Northland
                    By Funatics Software

         Demo downloaded from www.gamesdomain.co.uk

                      Reviewed by Sue

When I found this demo on the internet on the Games Domain site,
and looked at the picture I thought, this looks just like
Cultures. As it was from the same people (Funatics) I wondered if
I'd stumbled onto an old demo and maybe this is was the name
they'd used in America - where sometimes they rename games.  But
no. It was dated Jan 2003 and seems to be the equivalent of
Cultures 3 though using a different name. Since I haven't yet
played Cultures 2 (it's just one of the games on my 'to do' pile',
I'll compare it with the original game which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I did notice that the first two games were released by JoWood
whereas this is from GMX so maybe this is the explanation
for the name change.

For those who haven't seen Cultures, a quick look at the style of
Northland. Basically it's a Settlers clone, a god game. You have
control of a group of Vikings. They have arrived in a strange land
with minimal resources and supplies. You have to set them to work,
building houses, farms and workplaces, organising food supplies,
trading with other friendly nations, keeping the population
numbers correct and solving problems or completing tasks.
Meanwhile other hostile nations may block your route or - worse -
try to defeat your people. So you also need a military force to
protect your land and its inhabitants and maybe even put the boot
into the other guy before he does it to you.

There's a technology tree whereby you don't get all the goodies
straight away. You can only construct a few buildings to start off
with. But as your Vikings gain skills, they'll learn how to
perform more complex tasks. Buildings can be upgraded to allow
them to produce better quality items.

Northland's demo has two main sections. There's a tutorial in
seven parts - Controls, Every Viking is Unique, The Food Chain,
Technologies, Trade and Ships, Battle and Diplomacy System, and
Bonus Items and Weapons. From some of these titles I could see
great changes had been made from the original so rather than
diving straight into one of the two scenarios, I decided to play
through the tutorials.

Straight away I noticed improvements. The graphics are similar to
the early games but crisper. The signposts and buildings are much
more detailed. The controls have some extras. You can select
groups of Vikings by rubber-banding or using keypresses then save
different groups under Ctrl + number key combos so you can recall
them later. Very useful.

It's easier to change a Viking's job, move him or assign him to a
building. Simply point and click. Once again I had to remember to
right click rather than left. It still seems very unnatural and I
wonder why they swapped to the more unusual key?

In the third tutorial, I found more changes with professions. When
I told three Vikings to be extractors (wood, clay and stone), each
set up a flag and put all the lumps of clay etc by it. The
builders collected them from there.

Later tutorials covered trade and fighting. The trade one seemed
to be faulty. I sailed my Vikings to the island where another
tribe lived but none of their buildings were visible so I couldn't
tell my merchant to deal with their warehouse.

By now, I wanted to get stuck into the two scenarios. At the
moment I haven't completed either. There are three difficulty
levels for each which affect how much damage your subjects take
and whether or not they have needs. I stuck to normal in each
case.

The first is called The Enchanted Valley. Your Vikings and your
hero, Bjarni, find themselves near another village. There they are
told that there are several groups of fiendish monsters about.
Your job is to clear the area of monsters. There's another tribe
to the east who are mining very rich deposits of iron and gold. If
you want some of those, you'll have to get forceful! I've seen
some of the monsters and I can tell I'm going to need a powerful
troop of fighters if I'm going to succeed.

The second is Let It Snow. Your subjects set up camp in a snowy
landscape. A magic chest nearby holds a paper which lets you build
a school without cost and two smaller chests provide shoes or
nourishing potions.  Suddenly, a group of Eskimos arrive. They
need help. Their chief has vanished, it rains all the time and now
they're being attacked. You have to find a way to stop the
conflict and stop the rain.

There are so lovely touches to Northland. I liked the changes in
weather. I liked the way the Vikings leave tracks when they walk -
footprints in sand, little puffs of dust on the roads or grass.
The footprints gradually fade with time. The other races are
varied and interesting. So are the animals in the game; I
especially liked the camels.

As with all such games, it's important to take your time. If you
rush, there's a risk you'll run out of food. This was especially
noticeable in the 'Let it Snow' scenario. I left the room for 10
mins and came back to find several people had died through lack of
food. Oops.

Cultures was great, Northland is even better if the demo is
anything to go by.












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