Expeditions: Viking - historical Viking RPG from Logic Artists

[Sensuki]

I never actually had a CTD when I played but it got stuck loading twice in my playthrough - stopped during loading screen.

This occurred for me when I had to go see the Bishop about doing a quest. It never loaded the interior of the Church properly and it worked the second time on reload.

 

[Shadowfang]

I loved Expeditions Conquistador but everytime i pick Vikings i end up dropping it before ending Denmark.
Playing right now and this time its the difficulty that is bothering me the most which is easy to fix. I am playing at Insane, because i think thats the difficulty i picked for my old saves (how can i check that out, anyway?), but because i didnt remember most of the game
i started over at insane. Why insane? because Conquistador was very easy and i had to play at the hardest difficulty for enjoying the game.

Right now i reached Ribe and i am already at game over. 4 of my companions are injured, i have two medics at my party, one being myself, and even after wasting valuables buying medicine i cant heal some of the injuries. From my previous experience with Conquistador i know that i have entered the infinite downard spiral of doom. Maybe i will have to lower the difficulty to hard. Anyway i hope i play it through this time.

 

[Sensuki]

You can return to Skjern to get fully healed by the witch (seems like easiest solution).

 

[Shadowfang]

You can return to Skjern to get fully healed by the witch (seems like easiest solution).

I didnt knew that was an option, thanks for sharing Sensuki. I can only now imagine how much easier it would have had it.

 

[Sensuki]

I forgot it existed in my last playthrough as well (which is p. dumb as I played the beta before and after it was added) and ran into a similar but less bad situation where I had to spend pretty much all my money on herbs and medicine and almost ran out the Denmark clock trying to fully heal before leaving for Britain. Only after I did it did I remember you could get healed at home

 

[NJClaw]

I've just finished Expeditions: Viking and I don't know where to start to describe how much I enjoyed my 50 hours with this game. I haven't played Conquistador, but I'm going to buy it as soon as it's on sale (I would pay full price right now if I didn't have an already huge backlog).

You can play characters with different motivations and you can deal with situations according to the kind of adventurer you want your character to be. I don't think it has an insane amount of replay value, because, even if quests have multiple outcomes, they usually impact the world in ways that don't change what you are going to do during your playthrough, but it's still nice seeing your actions affect the story. Usually I always play a goody two-shoes "paladin" character, but this game made want to play a blood thirsty barbarian with no regard for human lives outside of his clan.

The story is well grounded and I can't remember when was the last time I enjoyed the writing in a game this much. The only false step that bothered me is the occasional "huge battle between armies" that ends out being simplified in the same exact encounters you fought for the entire rest of the game.

The resources management is extremely simple and it doesn't overstays its welcome, exactly like crafting and combat. My only problem with combat is that most skills are useless, while some of them are always extremely useful or outright broken. Encounters are still satisfying, even if a bit repetitive.

Overall, an excellent game with great atmosphere that lets you experience a fascinating adventure.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

Finally finished this. They went more traditional RPG with this compared to Conquistador (which had a bigger emphasis on survival/camp management). In Vikings I felt the camp management was just dragging. And all those "oh, you were hit in the shoulder" events while traveling were just a little bit annoying...
The mechanics are more complex than in Conquistador, but poorly balanced. Half way through the game, you have to pick lots of useless skills to "unlock" the skills you want. Which is how they balanced the skill progression...
Gameplay becomes boring by the mid game, unfortunately. The story itself is a very satisfiying though.
I played mostly on hard, but archers spike the difficulty too much for my tastes.
Loved Conquistador (it was a very welcome game in times of decline) with all its faults. Vikings is "nice".
Oh, and in every game they make, they manage to build in some effects which make simple looking environments trigger your PC to prepare to fly into space...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Half way through the game, you have to pick lots of useless skills to "unlock" the skills you want.

In early versions of the game, you were not so limited. Leading to people steamrolling with the combat.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah it's definitely better now that the skill levels are gated.

I used all of the combat skills in my completed playthrough and found it handy to have a few different ones on each char. Some were way more situational, however.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

If -- like me -- you've somehow missed this game:

It's currently included in a Fanatical 5 bucks bundle alongside to the Dude Duke:
https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/kingslayer-bundle-2

Looks pretty neat so far, the only thing driving me nuts is the mouse/keyboard scrolling. It's non-adjustable and by default is this fast the game feels like you'd load up an ancient DOS game on a far too fast 5 Billion Gigahertz Core i3000 (unfortunately tho, capping the frame rate at 30 fps doesn't help).


Absolutely adore the resting system. Is there any way to slow that down too? Pretty impossible to keep up with all the results and dice rolling else.

 

[Sensuki]

Due to lockdown boredom I've started up a new playthrough of this, going to go for the Prosperity victory and probably an alliance.

First playthrough was as a female Archer, this time I've gone with a Male dane-axe wielding Chad. I've found it very weird how much the difficulty of battles has varied (Hardest difficulty), although it possibly just has to do with the hindsight of completing the game semi-recently.

So far the hardest battle of the game has been the second fight, where you have to defend Skjern from three waves of invaders. I've found that generally this has taken at least a few attempts to get right on any playthrough on Hardest difficulty. Other fights that have taken a few attempts in the past, I steamrolled on the first try. Notably Ingimarr Broad-sole and the ambush while doing the quest The Stolen Heirloom, both where you don't get the first turn. Didn't lose a single char on either.

I suppose that Reckless Strike (L1 Dane Axe ability) is a more consistent source of damage than Bows are, although it may be a problem later game when Armor % gets high, as my char doesn't have the Armor Piercing feat due to not having good enough stats. I think I've also been a bit lucky with starting positions in fights.

 

[daveyd]

I think by the end it will be a cake walk no matter what your character build is. If you want even a bit of challenge towards the end of the game you'll pretty much have to bring along fewer party members.

 

[Sensuki]

Oh I know, I was talking about the Denmark campaign though.

I think the issue is just the AI, because the enemies definitely have the stats to win. Demoralize seems to significantly reduce the chance that an enemy archer will actually fire an arrow. When they do it to me I just use Aimed shot, but the AI almost never does that.

 

[Lawntoilet]

I'm not sure why I got it in my head that Expeditions was some kind of AAA ARPG franchise, but luckily the Codex disabused me of that retarded notion and I picked up Conquistador and Vikings on the recent Steam sale.
They are both quite different from one another, but both are fantastic. Absolute and unmitigated. I loved both, plan to replay both (perhaps multiple times, especially Conquistador since it seems to have more C&C) and I am looking forward to any news about Expeditions 3.

Demoralize seems to significantly reduce the chance that an enemy archer will actually fire an arrow.

I see the enemy use Cure pretty frequently if they have a good archer whom I've successfully Demoralized, which is pretty smart AI behavior I think (since they usually proceed to Ranging Shot+Quick Shot me afterwards).

 

[The Wall]

Any news on Expeditions: Rome[?]?
They've been completely silent for too long

 

[Quillon]

Weren't they making some divinity spinoff? Whappened to that?

 

[Sensuki]

Might be to do with terms from the new publisher. They now have a studio in Turkey as well as Copenhagen (maybe this was the case for a while)

 

[The Wall]

Weren't they making some divinity spinoff? Whappened to that?

Cancelled by Larian. Looked promising af

 

[daveyd]

The last news seems to be from late 2018 when they announced that THQ Nordic had acquired the IP rights to the Expeditions series, but Logic Artists is working on the next installment of the series.

 

[Tigranes]

It's not too long a time if they're keeping it under wraps until near release. Hopefully it's going strong and we'll get to see them do another spin and mix with the formula.

 

[Larianshill]

Replaying this game right now, aiming for a peaceful ending this time. I've noticed that poisoned arrows poison their target even if they're blocked by a shield. I wonder if it's intended behaviour.

 

[Agesilaus]

I am close to finishing the initial Hispania campaign in Conquistador, and am tempted to put it away and move on to Vikings. What do I need to know for the first play through? I intend to play an intelligent main character who can pass dialogue checks.


Also, let me know if the Mexico campaign is really worth the time and effort. If it is I'll do it, but I feel like I've pretty much seen all the game has to offer.

EDIT: I've decided to play around with the Mexico campaign for a bit. I liked the original campaign on the small island, so hopefully the sequel will be good. I'm going to try to be a pagan philosopher king, so I kicked out all my pious party members. Hopefully nobody will object when we engage in pagan sacrifices (although maybe the racist characters will cry if I bring natives in to the party?)

EDIT: nvm I encountered a bug and decided to move on. Mexico campaign is fun but I'm ready for Vikings. I helped the amazon lady kill the high priest, but when I went to return her talisman the game wouldn't let me interact with the amazon camp.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Agesilaus

SPOILERS ahead.
One thing I always do playing Vikings is a table for all the characters traits (greedy, aggressive, etc), first, get all the traits and their antagonist (or deduct them from your characters), then, make your table.

I think, only the characters in your active party are influenced but i'm not sure.
Anyway, it'll help you make the "good" choices without having half your crew with a terrible morale.

Also, plan your homestead upgrades to get to a the power/wealth level you want, don't pass on thralls, except if you want to make your Viking a 2020 woke broke snowflake, you'll need slaves.

Don't waste experience points, plan your characters builds ahead or your team will suck and won't be able to win some hard and optional fights in England.

When you get an option to sneak in a pict village in UK, don't, pick another option... This mission is the worse thing this game has to offer.

 

[Larianshill]

One thing I always do playing Vikings is a table for all the characters traits (greedy, aggressive, etc), first, get all the traits and their antagonist (or deduct them from your characters), then, make your table.

Not necessary. It is next to impossible to finish the game without the entire party adoring you.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I don't know, i only replayed the first "half" recently and 2 characters were at -1 and 0/1 for the other.
For example, if you use a light poison for the early duel and admit it, one of your goons starts with a very low morale, 0 or less and there's plenty of opportunities to lose morale afterward.

Maybe you were just lucky or picked the right choices for your team without putting much efforts into it.

I believe you can get everyone to 7-10 very early for your main crew if you put some efforts into it and don't try to get different outcomes during a second playthrough.