Cultures Online vs Northgard
Cultures Online
Cultures Online is a free-to-play browser-based MMORTS/RPG that delivers a nice “old-school” feel. In this game, you play the role of a chieftain of a small Viking village on an island in the far north. Develop your village and your army to assert your power on the realm and make any potential invader think twice about angering you! You can also send your heroes off on expeditions across the world and bring home the riches to be shared with your people. You can even band together with friends in tribes and coordinate your war campaigns.Although it may not be as great as the other Cultures game series, Cultures Online tried its hardest and had made a pretty decent effort at it. If you enjoy games like The Settlers Online or any of the Cultures' games, you might enjoy this one. Try it today!
Northgard
Northgard is a rather unique city-builder/strategy game that allows you to lead a group of Northmen to unknown new shores in hopes of making a life there. Like most city-building games, you'll need to help them set up a home, assign your Vikings to perform various roles, ensure there is enough food to feed the entire village, and amass a small army to help defend your territories from other hostile clans. The strategic aspects of the game may not be obvious at first but you'll quickly realize that new territories that you discover (you don't exactly need to conquer it for this to work) will present new strategic opportunities for your clan to expand or grow, be it new sources for food or a nice place to set up a new trading post. There are many victory conditions as well, so it's not always "kill or be killed" in this game.Northgard offers players a single player experience by playing with AIs with various personalities or with their friends online. However, many players have reported that the game does have a somewhat flawed AI-player relationship. Even if you're best buddies with an AI's clan through healthy trading relationships, their clan members will still attack your people, which frankly feels a lot like a betrayal. It'd be nice to have a tutorial as well.
That said though, Northgard is an impressive game especially if you enjoy a bit of city-builder/strategy game like Valhalla Hills.