Mastering Northgard‘s resource system is essential for survival and long-term success. This guide breaks down the key resources, their production mechanics, and strategies to optimize your economy.
Understanding Time & Production
Each in-game month lasts 60 seconds. Resource production values are shown per 10-second period, meaning you can multiply the displayed values by six to estimate monthly totals. Understanding this helps plan long-term strategies, especially for winter preparation.
Food Management
Food plays a vital role in Northgard, ensuring survival and expansion. Villagers naturally forage for food, but specialized roles such as fishermen, hunters, and farmers produce significantly more. Villagers produce the least food and fluctuate between seasons, making it essential to reassign them to better food-producing buildings when possible.
Hunters produce more food on average but experience seasonal variations, while fishermen maintain steady production year-round. Farmers have the highest potential food yield but suffer a substantial drop in winter. Prioritizing the construction and upgrading of food production buildings is key. Adding silos further increases yields, but upgrading the buildings themselves provides the most significant benefit.
Healers also contribute to food gathering when idle, but they cease food production when healing units, making it important to balance the workforce carefully.
Wood Production
Wood is primarily gathered through Woodcutter’s Lodges. Each woodcutter contributes a steady supply of wood, which can be increased by upgrading the lodge. Wood is consumed at a higher rate during winter, requiring stockpiling in the preceding months to prevent shortages.
Sheep positioned on tiles reduce winter wood consumption, and certain lores, such as Hearthstone and Freya’s Blessing, can further mitigate winter effects. Planning ahead by ensuring sufficient wood reserves before winter begins is crucial for maintaining building upkeep and expansion efforts.
Winter Preparation
Winter significantly impacts food and wood resources. Food production decreases for most sources except for fishermen, while wood consumption increases. To estimate winter requirements, multiply the negative monthly food and wood balance by three, as winter lasts for three months. Ensuring that stockpiles exceed this total prevents shortages that could lead to starvation or inability to heat buildings.
Blizzards are a harsher form of winter, further reducing food production and doubling wood consumption for one and a half months. Having extra stockpiles and utilizing reductions like Hearthstone and Freya’s Blessing becomes even more vital in these extreme conditions.
Crown Economy
Crowns are a critical resource for unit recruitment, building upkeep, and advanced upgrades. They can be generated from the Town Hall, Merchants, Sailors, and Trading Posts. Merchants offer a stable income, while Sailors provide both crowns and the option to generate lore or fame.
To maximize crown production, placing Trading Posts and Marketplaces on the same tile enhances output. Additionally, selling excess resources like food and iron for crowns can be a profitable strategy in the late game. Keeping track of building upkeep and limiting unnecessary towers prevents excessive crown expenditure.
Stone & Iron Prioritization
Stone is primarily used for upgrading buildings, while iron is crucial for improving unit efficiency and recruiting War Chiefs. Since both resources are finite, prioritizing their use is necessary. Upgrading food, wood, and crown-generating buildings should take precedence over non-essential structures.
Iron is best allocated towards upgrading key unit tools and training War Chiefs, as these investments provide significant long-term benefits. Using the Mining Efficiency lore speeds up extraction, ensuring that resources are gathered as quickly as possible.
Happiness Management
Happiness directly influences population growth. Expanding territory increases happiness, but if expansion slows, happiness may decline. Breweries provide a steady source of happiness, and certain clan bonuses can also help sustain morale. Monitoring and addressing happiness levels ensures a continuous flow of new villagers for economic and military growth.
Feasts & Altar of Kings
Feasts provide a temporary 20% boost to all resource production and a flat increase to food, wood, and crowns. Early-game feasts have minimal impact, but in mid-to-late game, they provide a significant economic advantage. Using feasts strategically during periods of high resource demand enhances overall efficiency.
The Altar of Kings is a substantial investment required for Fame Victory. While it eventually pays for itself, the return on investment takes over a year for most clans. The Boar Clan benefits from it sooner than others. Investing in the Altar of Kings should align with specific victory strategies rather than general economic growth.
Top 5 Resource Management Tips
- Multiply displayed resource values by six to determine monthly impact.
- Always prioritize food production buildings over relying on villagers.
- Upgrading production buildings yields the biggest economic gains.
- Pair Trading Posts and Marketplaces to maximize crown generation.
- Save feasts for later in the game, as early usage has minimal benefit.
Final Thoughts
Mastering Northgard’s economy involves strategic planning and resource allocation. Ensuring stable food supplies, preparing for winter, and optimizing crown production are crucial for long-term success. Efficient resource management allows players to sustain expansion and military efforts, ultimately securing victory.
My Gaming Tutorials 
Leave a comment