Norland: Tips and tricks Norland guide, tips

Norland is a massive and complex strategy game so we'll gonna show what to do first. On this page, you'll find a number of useful tips and tricks to make your first contact with this title easier.

Last update: 24 July 2024

The multitude of different mechanics, systems, and dependencies in Norland can easily make many players feel overwhelmed. People who have never had contact with similar titles before may have particular problems. Considering this high entry threshold, we offer a set of helpful tips that will surely help you ease into the world of court intrigues.

• Play the tutorial
• Choose your first scenario carefully
• Choose your lord stats with caution
• Manage your lords' time carefully
• Quickly gain knowledge about basic buildings
• Take care of the lords' education, especially the children
• Hire freelance lords
• Maintain good relationships with the church

Play the tutorial

Before you start playing with your own scenario in Norlands, we strongly recommend that you play the tutorial. The set of missions prepared by the developers will help you understand the basic mechanics related to building, management, politics, and combat. The instructions will also guide you through the game's complicated interface, which isn't always intuitive. Experienced players of the genre should also take advantage of the tutorial, as they will quickly grasp the dependencies and rules that govern the game world.

Choose your first scenario carefully

After completing the tutorial, the game will let you continue playing in the scenario you were playing in. Accessing the slightly developed settlement that you have already explored is a great opportunity to further experiment with gameplay mechanics. It's worth spending some time on the "tutorial" map and attempting to keep it under control on your own.

However, if you want to start your own scenario, you can do it from the main menu of the game by clicking the New Game option. You'll customize the statistics of your lords here (which we will revisit later), and also select a starting province. For your first, independent scenario, we recommend you choose one of the easier settlements to run, such as Sparksville or Silverhaven. After selecting your starting location, you will be able to adjust additional game parameters. We suggest deactivating the Crisis option and selecting the Peaceful difficulty level when learning the rules of Norland. Favorable conditions will allow you to calmly master the mechanics without worrying about variables such as aggressive neighbors or ruthless invaders.

Choose your lord stats with caution

Let's go back to the family creation window for a moment. Pre-generated characters in the "Two brothers and a wife" configuration will have balanced statistics, ensuring important factors such as command, intelligence, and management are equally represented. The default option should work well during classic, balanced gameplay.

However, if you intend to specialize in a particular type of gameplay, a good option might be to customize the heroes' statistics yourself. In a peaceful scenario, combat skills will be rather useless, so the available points can be invested in, for instance, trade or management.

Manage your lords' time carefully

One of the most important skills they will have to master while playing Norland is proper time management of your characters. Lords, acting as stewards, are responsible for the proper functioning of the entire province. By giving them direct orders, you exercise power over your subjects. Keep in mind that the absence of one of the lords (who, for example, went to war or on a diplomatic delegation) may significantly disturb the stability of your province. If you expect that one of the lords will be unavailable for some time, prepare for this, for instance by gathering additional supplies.

Quickly gain knowledge about basic buildings

Not every basic infrastructure building will be available to you immediately. Some of them, such as the mine, the prison ward, the rye field and the mill, will first have to be "learned" by exploring the subject in the library. For the first few days, try to assign a lord with the highest intelligence to study in the library so that you can quickly build the necessary buildings.

Take care of the lords' education, especially the children

Lords can develop their skills by learning from other family members and even from guests visiting your city. Make an effort to dedicate some time to education occasionally in order to increase the basic statistics of your characters.

This activity is particularly important in the case of children and adolescents in your family. Characters younger than 21 absorb the conveyed knowledge twice as fast. So ensure that the new generation of rulers enters adulthood with impressive statistics.

More information about lords' skills and their development can be found on the All Skills guide page.

Hire freelance lords

Freelance lords are nobles traveling around the world who will visit you as guests from time to time (usually they will come with the Holy Caravan). You have the option to hire a solitary noble to help you for a period of 10 days. The hired lord will fulfill the same function as the actual member of your family, so you will be able to assign him to supervise work, teach, or even fight. Extra help with work can be extremely valuable, especially during the rapid development of your settlement at the start of the game.

After the contract ends, the freelance lord will leave, but if you manage to become friends with him beforehand, you can invite him to join your family permanently. More about lord management can be found on the Lord management page.

Maintain good relationships with the church

The Church of the Loving Family is a powerful religious organization whose sphere of influence extends over the entire continent. Maintaining a good relationship with the Matriarch can provide you with many bonuses, such as better goods from the Holy Caravan or a blessing that grants your ruler a positive Saint status for a certain time. Even if you plan to challenge the church in the future, it's more profitable to maintain positive relationships with the clergy in the early stages of the game.

You can find more about religion in Norland on a separate page of our guide.