Raiders of the North Sea

Review

The Vikings were well-known for being tall and super strong individuals. They worship the god Odin, and would fight bravely to the death to earn the right to enter the majestic hall known as Valhalla. As great sailors, both men and women, they conquered the seas to reach new shores in the hope of finding villages to plunder and destroy without mercy! And now, it’s your time to show Odin what are you capable of; but it won’t be easy, as you must fight against other Viking chieftains in the Raiders of the North Sea.

Raiders of the North Sea is a board/strategy game developed and self-published by Dire Wolf, released on the 31st of July 2019 on Steam. It is a digital adaptation of the board game which was released in 2015. The game is also available on the Nintendo Switch, Google play (android phone and tablet) and iTunes (iPhone and iPad).

The game consists of 10 single-player missions and can be played online (cross-platform available) against up to 3 opponents (4 players maximum) or against the AI. Your goal is to finish the game with more victory points than your opponents.



The game will be played on one map or screen; you will have a Viking village in the South which has 8 different buildings and several settlements to plunder as you move your mouse towards the north.   

Each clan (player) will start with a black worker figurine in hand. On your turn, you can place your black figurine on one of the eight unoccupied buildings. For example, you might want to gather provisions which you will need to go on a raid. Therefore, you’ll place the figurine on the mill.  But then you must take back a figurine that has already been placed on the board before your turn. If you want silver (coins), you’ll pick up the figurine which is situated on the Silver Smith building and collect a few coins, effectively giving you two moves per turn.

Now you can also go on a raid, but that will take a full turn. Before raiding any of the northern settlements, you must have the right number of supplies, units and coloured figurines (black, grey or white). Each settlement will have either gold, silver or livestock, which you’ll take after the raid. If there is one black skull, you’ll need to sacrifice one of your units to Valhalla. They will also have a figurine of another colour (grey or white) which you’ll take back to your village.

As you go further north, you’ll need either the grey or white figurine to be able to raid these settlements and acquire Victory points. Bear in mind that the further north you go, the stronger the camp defences will be; so you’ll need units with high armour. You can hire these units, but first they must be part of your deck cards (8 cards maximum). At the start of each game, each player will receive 5 cards, but will only be able to keep three for their first turn. These cards will have a red number (which represents its armour) and a coin with a number on it (which represents the cost of hiring the card and becoming part of your raid unit). Now to get more cards (2 minimum per turn), you’ll need place figurines on the gatehouse building in the village and hire one these cards, and if a figurine is already placed on the barrack, you can do it in one (otherwise, it will take you at least two turns).

The beauty of this game is that you start to look closer at what your opponents are doing. One might be hiring soldiers every turn, which might indicate that they will soon attack, or that they’re looking to attack, a bigger settlement to get bigger victory points in return. Others will be gathering more provisions but doing less hiring, which might indicate that they are looking at raiding a lot of small camps, grabbing small victory points and whatever resources are for the taking. It becomes a watch-who-does-what.  It’s fun!

Graphically the game looks good and works very well. It’s easy to play, and there is a very good tutorial on how everything works. The game is translated into five languages, and you can play the game full screen or windowed at the resolution you desire. Really fun to play against your friends as well as the campaign.


Positives

+ Nice graphics
+ Easy to play
+ Single-player campaign and online
+ Good AI
+ Achievements

Negatives

- No trading cards as yet
- A bit repetitive

Review Summary

A fun digital adaptation of the 2015 board game. By Odin, give it a go with your friends or against the AI.

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Zeepond Rating: 7/10

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