Expeditions: Viking - historical Viking RPG from Logic Artists

[Jackpot]

Can you not eat in cities?
Like I get not being able to rest in cities, but not eating?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Can you not eat in cities?
Like I get not being able to rest in cities, but not eating?

That's just bad manners yo.

 

[Jackpot]

Can you not eat in cities?
Like I get not being able to rest in cities, but not eating?

That's just bad manners yo.

I forgot about the traditional viking respect for table manners where they have to hike five hours away from the town they bought their dinner at to eat it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Can you not eat in cities?
Like I get not being able to rest in cities, but not eating?

That's just bad manners yo.

I forgot about the traditional viking respect for table manners where they have to hike five hours away from the town they bought their dinner at to eat it.

Jackpot.

 

[Cadmus]

Guys what the fuck does the base management do? I finished the game and have no idea what is it for.
I visited Skjern I think 3 times after leaving and it was useless anyway because I had better crafter than the village blacksmith. What is the whole upgrade system for?
P. cool game tho.

 

[NJClaw]

Guys what the fuck does the base management do? I finished the game and have no idea what is it for.
I visited Skjern I think 3 times after leaving and it was useless anyway because I had better crafter than the village blacksmith. What is the whole upgrade system for?
P. cool game tho.

It determines which ending you can go for. You need at least 100 prosperity for the peaceful ending and at least 100 power for the true conquest ending.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Guys what the fuck does the base management do? I finished the game and have no idea what is it for.
I visited Skjern I think 3 times after leaving and it was useless anyway because I had better crafter than the village blacksmith. What is the whole upgrade system for?
P. cool game tho.

It determines which ending you can go for. You need at least 100 prosperity for the peaceful ending and at least 100 power for the true conquest ending.

Why not both?

 

[Cadmus]

My ending was I helped Northurmbia and made a strong base on that island and the Franks decided not to invade I think. Which ending is that?

To be honest I didn't notice where the endings are branched.
I only noticd I had the change to attack Northurmia during the victory feast but I didn't have any ships because I had not visited the island before that.
Other than that I don't know.

 

[Sensuki]

Why not both?

It is apparently possible to get both to 100 according to a Steam guide I read but you still have to 'choose' an ending.

Power points 50 unlocks Wrath of the Wretched Heathens quest, Other than that it's pretty minor - the camp upgrades bonuses are super minor. certain levels of prosperity changes some fluff responses from Astridr etc

I'd like to do the second last battle of the game without the wall upgrades but 2/3 times I've finished the game I've done the power option and I upgraded the walls at least one level in the prosperity one.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

As far as i can remember there is a uber ending if you reach 100 in both power and prosperity, where your main village and clan becomes a powerhouse and you invade and conquer the southern lands. Cant remember additional details tho

 

[Thac0]

So, as has become tradition for me the release of a new rpg by a developer has lead me to pick up their old title again to finish my run. I finished Expeditions Viking a while back.

A summary of my thoughts:
Overall my opinion hasn't changed that much. The core problem of this game is that it reuses a lot of the mechanics from Conquistador which were designed for a weird Kings' Bounty esque survival experience and puts them into the structure of a normal rpg. Overall my opinion improved and I no longer think it is a bad game, but I still like Conquistador more.

The drawbacks of keeping Conquistadors' mechanics around:
Without the threat of real death through survival conditions resting, wounds and the entire world map are no longer an engaging main gameplay mechanic but extremely annoying tedium. The moral system was also insanely annoying to me, as Conquistador gives you the ability to assemble a balanced group that mostly aligns with your morals, and only has a few outliers who you can cater to especially, and whom you keep around for their extreme usefullness. Here my entire host had highly conflicting morals, and making decisions to keep their morals high was extremely annoying due to the immediate penality of bad morale on your saves. As an example, why is every single archer and every single support character you get peacefull? Almost every melee character is aggressive. If you run a balanced party then half of your hird will be demoralised if you consistently pick aggressive or peacefull solutions. Survival, Resting, Wounds, Morale, nothing really works to the benefit of the game in Viking.

The new drawback introduced:
Holy hell is the loot in this game borked. Trash containers everywhere put Skyrim to shame, and the economy is so completely retarded that looting every barrel in a huge civilllian city gives you about as much ressources as winning 100 battles. Battle loot is pathetic, random garbage laying around consists of premium materials like hides and salvage.
The crafting system is not very good either, because you can max out certain stats much earlier than others. I played a mostly nonlethal approach, so crit rate was just not important for me, as in every second fight I could not crit anyway. By the halfway point I could craft weapons with a guaranteed perk and maximum penetration and damage. There was no feeling of progression after that.
The problem of the new loot is so bad that it even mires an aspect this game is otherwise good at, the isometric maps.

What there is to like:
Combat is good enough, it is nice that they reshuffled everything, making different skills good than last time. Small nitpick was only that there were too many shields around, as these are quite hard to bypass unless you field dual wielders for shield hook. Difficulty felt good on hard, my doods went down often enough for me to somewhat interact with the wound system, but not enough to make that strongly tedious. The game can probably comfortably be played on max difficulty on first run.
Most builds had at least one skill worth using, and there were many that were bad on first glance, but pretty good the more I think about them. Skald for example. Yeah the defense buff is good, the damage buff good for melee heavy hirds, the rest looks bad on first glance. But the AI really loves to spam stun and especially demoralise against you in predictable scenarios. And it keeps doing that even after you set physical or mental resist to 100% through a buff. At the end I ran a 2 archer 1 Skald 1 Shieldtank 1 Knife Dual Wield setup, and my first turn on my Skald was almost always setting mental resist to 100% so my archers can't get demoralised.
A lot of love went into the isometric maps. I didn't see this at first glance, because the game violently shits itself at certain points when it comes to map design. York is an extremely bothersome map, with tons of stupid quests, random fights, garbage loot and just a shitty layout in general. Later maps, especially those related to the Pict questline or the Romans however, were full of hidden quests, C&C and just love in general.

Stuff I am neutral about:
Factions. Some stuff was cool, but I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos, and the best ending is betraying both even. What annoys me so much that two of the most interesting companions in Aife and Morcanth through their unique skills and their ton of unique dialogue and even unique quest selections get taken away from you if you betray their faction. But not at the beginning, only in the last 5 hours of the game you get massively inconvenienced if you ran both and were buddy buddy with both picts and anglos. But ah well, it is cool C&C in a way, even if it inconveniences the player.

Towards the end of the game my morale to finish the game weaned a bit, as my double archer hird got really strong, and most fights were a waste of time. And damn, there were a lot of fights. The bossfight was also really disappointing. But when I look back at the game it had some great moments.

Spoiler

Fighting together with the Einjerhar in the afterworld. Renaming your companion. Saving a druid from a town that wants to stone him. Deciding wether Romulus or Remus should lead the last Roman legion. Fighting for control of Orkneyar.

I had my fun with this game. It is probably better if you don't go into it directly after Expeditions Conquistador, expenting more of the same.
Overall my impression is this: A diamond in the rough, when it hits its' stride it is really fun, but it inconveniences you at every opportunity, trying to keep you from prying the fun from the game.

 

[Lawntoilet]

I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos,

Not if you go for the Prosperity ending.

As far as i can remember there is a uber ending if you reach 100 in both power and prosperity, where your main village and clan becomes a powerhouse and you invade and conquer the southern lands. Cant remember additional details tho

I had 112 Power and 100 Prosperity and just got the regular Danelaw ending, nothing about invading Frankia or anything.

 

[Thac0]

I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos,

Not if you go for the Prosperity ending

Thats an interesting idea. I wondered what the point of a prosperity ending was, as it doesn't unlock any new content unlike the Power ending as opposed to just forging an alliance. Allowing you to end the game without an alliance, and thus without declaring war on either the picts or the anglos is a fact I didn't even consider.
On the one hand, don't you cuck yourelf out of a lot of content if you do that? The battle of the village, two entire locations and the battle for the respective city. Then again, I did complain that there were too many battles in the end and that the final boss was a joke, maybe that would have been better if I arrived at Skullcleaver with 20 battles less fought and 30 skillpoints less earned.

 

[Saduj]

I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos, and the best ending is betraying both even.

Betrayal on the part of the player really isn't possible because if you work with these kingdoms, they betray you. Both Kings have you running around doing their dirty work all game. You get to a point with each where he says "Do X and I will voice my support". Upon completing X for each kingdom, both then go back on their promise saying "I know what I said. But... We need one more small thing from you: Destroy the other kingdom". At this point, you have been lied to and betrayed. When they pulled this shit on me, I hadn't even been working towards the Danelaw ending. I wasn't even sure I would have enough time left to trigger it. But I would have rather risked losing than role play as some jackass who would continue to trust either of those weasels.

 

[Thac0]

I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos, and the best ending is betraying both even.

Betrayal on the part of the player really isn't possible because if you work with these kingdoms, they betray you. Both Kings have you running around doing their dirty work all game. You get to a point with each where he says "Do X and I will voice my support". Upon completing X for each kingdom, both then go back on their promise saying "I know what I said. But... We need one more small thing from you: Destroy the other kingdom". At this point, you have been lied to and betrayed. When they pulled this shit on me, I hadn't even been working towards the Danelaw ending. I wasn't even sure I would have enough time left to trigger it. But I would have rather risked losing than role play as some jackass who would continue to trust either of those weasels.

This brings me to another point. This game really wants you to be the marauding viking. As we both agree, both kings and both alliances are shit. If it wasn't for Morcanth and Aife there would be no reason at all to ally with either of these fags, their markets don't even sell slaves. Danelaw is by far the best ending. And Danelaw ending has tons of additional content.
Marauding Viking also has quite a lot of extra content in general, like the red wedding quest. Or scorching churches. There is a lot of stuff you can't do if you want to go for a merchant norse, who historically have been as common as raiders, if not even much more during the ancient times. I don't think being peacefull even has any quest or advantage attached.
It also doesn't help that the reputation system is so raw around the edges. The anglos had a mild dislike against me for most of the game, then they flipped over to extreme like after I toppled their king. After all quests with them are finished, and the reputation doesn't mean much anymore. The picts I never got above 40 reputation, so they were fairly cold and had shit prices all throughout the game, and I even allied with them. A murderous viking is treated by the game pretty much the same as a trader norse, only the marauder has more content.
Similarily the take hostages function, while really cool in theory, usually just was there to mock an enemy before you execute him after you knock him out.

This game is oddly weighted in its choices if compared to Expeditions Conquistador where I never felt like the game was nudging me in any direction, and both being a cruel or a curious Conquistador had their advantages.

 

[Saduj]

Yeah, the game would require additional systems before "merchant viking" would be a truly viable option.

 

[Lawntoilet]

I am a bit annoyed you need to betray either the Picts or the Anglos,

Not if you go for the Prosperity ending

Thats an interesting idea. I wondered what the point of a prosperity ending was, as it doesn't unlock any new content unlike the Power ending as opposed to just forging an alliance. Allowing you to end the game without an alliance, and thus without declaring war on either the picts or the anglos is a fact I didn't even consider.
On the one hand, don't you cuck yourelf out of a lot of content if you do that? The battle of the village, two entire locations and the battle for the respective city. Then again, I did complain that there were too many battles in the end and that the final boss was a joke, maybe that would have been better if I arrived at Skullcleaver with 20 battles less fought and 30 skillpoints less earned.

I think Prosperity is an easier "good" ending, since you can just buy prosperity points with valuables. Not like it's hard to max out Power either (though it does take at least a little bit of forethought to get >100 in both).
It's nice that you keep all your companions too, though. I believe Exp: Rome also only has 1 ending that lets you keep all companions, or at least only 1 that I found.

 

[Larianshill]

Does anyone know if the full version of this art exists anywhere?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Does anyone know if the full version of this art exists anywhere?

Yeah Pirates of the Caribbean

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Does anyone know if the full version of this art exists anywhere?

Oddly enough the largest copy I found was a thumbnail for a Youtube video. Found other crops of that with and without text in various places so presumably a full clean version exists somewhere but I'll be damned if I could find it. Even picked up the Expeditions Viking art book to look through it and they don't have that particular picture with that character.

As an extra, here's the dude that seemingly did the original character concept art.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5BB6eO

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

trying to play this (gifted from a codex bro) but my mouse pointer doesnt go to the edgeof the screen either side so many menu/UI buttons cant be reached

is this a thing or am i retarded

 

[Sensuki]

I've never experienced that issue

what resolution ?

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

nvm i found out a quick fix on one of the discussions in the steam page

literally the equivalent of turning it off then on again

required a restart all that was required

 

[Cadmus]

Dunno if I posted this somewhere but I finished the game and it was really enjoyable for me.
I still wish the crafting wasn't based around looting every container you can find. This part was annoying and boring. Basically the traditional RPG elements they introduced here as opposed to the first game were all for the worse.

 

[behold_a_man]

To summarize my impressions about Viking that I haven't seen here often:

Combat-wise, it was quite something to see how a small subset of support skills made the game very interesting:
-> Inspire allowing me to defer an action for a character (very useful for having ranged units have more actions at the start of the fight, then reversing it by the midfight).
-> Demoralise reducing the enemies' accuracy was so useful that I essentially had one character dedicated to casting it until all ranged enemies were down - and sometimes I had two characters using it, if the first missed multiple archers (also, it makes shieldless characters viable).
-> Tyr's Favour allowing to withstand quite an onslaught.
In the end of my playthrough, each character was specialized in his weapon skill, and then everyone with high enough sense had multiple skills from the support tree to cast them while other units were invested in death dealing.
Also, probably the strongest possible party build since the midgame - with spearman having Gugnir, potentially attacking 2 melee fighters each turn, ignoring their shields, and companions inspiring him to commit even more atrocities - is unavailable if you avoid glass cannons (which aren't that glassy if you disable archers using demoralisation and beat meleefellas quickly).

Until around ~200 skill points, the game gave me a rough challenge; and even by the end, a wrong movement could cost me an injury and the tedium of either restarting the fight or setting up a camp and possibly getting a new injury right after camping.

What I hated was the ?initiative? model, where I had no ability to use an attack action first, even when it made no sense (my favourite, during the Helsott Curse quest: I move close to an enemy camp, see an animation of my characters running up to a camp, then the enemy attacks first), and an artificially limited combat space (same encounter - I could not retreat behind a tree one meter from my character because of reasons).

As a side note, I saw here remarks, that only an axeman can wound Leofric (same on wiki: https://expeditions-viking.fandom.com/wiki/Leofric):

Your enemy also has one unit that will block like 95% of your attacks unless you have an ability called shield hook that disables shielding, which is exclusive to units that specialize in axe fighting. So your only way to defeat him is to shield hook (assuming you even have an axe fighter in the first place, which I was lucky enough to have) and gang up on him with all you got.

I whacked this fellow with Gugnir spear (I think I could also use Excalibur for that purpose).

There are two things to note. First, if I understand correctly, the game was trivial at launch combat-wise, and the developers made it non-banal later by artificially adding requirements for character progress (skill points spent) to make it harder. I don't have any problem with it; I think entertaining gameplay should be preferable to sensible character development. Secondly, I have a feeling my impressions of combat could be completely different had I chosen other party set-ups (specifically, experiment with parties where all melee units have shields).


Exploration was mostly bad; was I expected to highlight the containers or not? On the one hand, the containers are clickable or not depending on the camera angle, so probably yes; on the other hand, some quests expected me to find a specific place on the map (like during the Isle of Apples quest), which was trivialized by 'alt' - but then, did they consider completely counterintuitive, unnatural zooming as a form of exploration? It's not fun either way.

The game had a few bewildering bugs, including repeated icons on the quickbar and the inability to make a decision twice if it's related to a dialogue menu. It's silly; while normal games sometimes suffer from bugs related to unexpected branching, here I didn't see a single one; but I saw ones that should be trivial to cover with automated tests - or giving the player the ability to tailor the quickbar, which even the shoddiest games I've played usually had.

bugs

Above, notice how pretty the bar with available actions is.

Here, I cannot come back and take stuff, even though I say I don't want to take it yet so as not to alert the enemies - and the items are still there.
The "decision" bug also occured in a ransacked church on Lindsfarne.

Writing was good enough, but psychologization of mythology and dreams was bizarre. I wonder if the writers are used to getting a hefty lore dump every once in a while while sleeping.

Obviously, the game was eerily good in choices & consequences department; great items were appropriately sparse, but crafting coupled with overabundance of gold made most of the items somewhat trivial; and audiovisuals felt pretty run-on-the-mill most of the time. Overall, this game seems to be vastly underrated - which, well, isn't surprising given what I read about it at launch.