While there has been a deluge of MMO games (with a tinge of RTS thrown in) recently, most have been rehashed versions of older games, or simplistic ‘tap quests’ that have little or no strategic gameplay involved. That is why, when a game comes along that relies on the sharpness of your wits, as well as your sword, it makes us sit up and take notice. One of these titles pops up on many a ‘top 10 strategy games’ list, and that game, is Vikings: War Of Clans, by Plarium.
Prepare for war
The premise of Vikings: War Of Clans is pretty simple. You, as the new Jarl of your town, are tasked with bringing honor back to your particular group of Vikings. To do so, you need to take as much land as possible, gaining territory and in turn, building a reputation that is as fierce as your strongest warriors. To do this however, is no easy task. Standing in your way are plenty of other human players, hell bent on taking your land instead, and hoisting your soldier’s heads onto spikes. While the ‘base building’ side of the game is great fun and rather varied, the PvP element of Vikings delivers simultaneously the most frustrating, and also the most rewarding aspects of the game, as you spar for territory across the world.
Meeting other players doesn’t necessarily mean war though, as Vikings: War Of Clans encourages you to make alliances, and places as much importance in joining clans and finding friends, as it does crushing enemies and pillaging towns. Clan members can come to your aid in battle, but they are also there to trade with, so while ‘going it alone’ may be noble, making a friend or two could be a more intelligent move.
Before you can think about pillaging though, there is plenty of city building to do. With over 20 different buildings to place and upgrade within your city walls, each player has the ability to customise their stronghold in a variety of different ways. Whether it is building defences, training soldiers, or trading goods, your life within the safety of your city walls is a busy one. A quick look at the wiki will show you the level of customization, and variety of troops, materials, and equipment on offer here. Once you have built your first barracks and trained a few soldier, you are ready to send them out for their first foray into the wider world, with the hope that they will return with enough resources to warrant their orders in the first place.
Friend or foe?
The game starts in your home town, but as soon as you switch to the world map, it becomes clear that this game isn’t going to be as sedate as you first might have imagined. As mentioned before, the best strategy is to join or create a clan, as ‘strength in numbers’ is a much safer bet than taking on the world alone. As your power and influence grows, your status will too, and as such, other clans may want to befriend you, and others may want to crush you before you become a thorn in their side. Vikings: War of Clans is a delicate balancing act between creating a great home town to live in, and taking new land to expand your borders.
Resourcefulness, the key to success
To do almost anything in Vikings: War of Clans, you are going to need resources. From lumber and food, to stone and iron ore, the needs of your city will grow as the size of your empire does. Taking, and defending other towns increases your available resources, and should stand you in better stead for the battles to come. Once you have taken enough land to provide you with the resources you need, you must also decide how many troops you want defending your newly taken posts. Leave too many plots lightly guarded, and expect to see the notification bar on your phone go crazy when a rival happens to notice this particular chink in your armour.
Graphics and sound
Aside from the game play, Vikings: War of Clans looks great. The graphics are clean and crisp, with no screen ever looking cramped or ‘overly busy’. Plarium have also done an amazing job with the optimisation for this game, as I had no problem running this game on 5 year old hardware, which is no easy feat, considering how much is actually going on within the app. On a 2012 Nexus 7 I experienced no lag, and load times were nothing to complain about either. Decent hardware released after 2012 should have no trouble at all running this game, so whether you are someone who doesn’t upgrade their hardware very often, or a complete tech nerd, this game should run great on almost any device you own.
Sound is another area where this game does rather well. The background music is perfectly suited to the time period of the game (reminiscent of Gladiator or Game Of Thrones), and the SFX are simple but effective. While the sound design is nothing to write home about, it does the job perfectly well here, with the music itself a particular highlight.
Yes there are IAPs, but you don’t need them
Where many would-be players hesitate before downloading these sorts of game, is when they realise that the game has IAPs (or In App Purchases). Typically in this sort of game, you can purchase items that speed up resource gathering, but thankfully Plarium have hit a sweet spot here, between enticing you to spend real world money, and being able to play the game through without spending a dime. Obviously, throwing a little cash into the ring can help you get your city up to a reasonable level quite quickly, but it isn’t a requirement. With a little patience, you can build at a steady rate, gathering resources and stockpiling your army without feeling like you need to ‘pay to win’. At a time when even the giant AAA console game producers are getting in trouble for doing just that, it is a relief to see Plarium being more reasonable in this department.
Overall Vikings: War of Clans is a great little MMO, that requires quite a bit of strategy and thought to succeed with. It doesn’t require you to part with your money to do well, and it doesn’t fall into the same traps that many similar games do, where you spend the majority of time tapping around the screen with little to no thought about what is really going on behind the scenes. Like many of the best games, Vikings is also easy to learn, but hard to master, with a tutorial section for the newbies to help them get off the ground. But within the first half an hour, most players will understand the basic controls and be looking to plan out the best way to take their neighbour’s land. If you have played and enjoyed some of the other games Plarium have released, such as the smash hit Vikings: War of Clans, giving Vikings a try is a no-brainer.
For newcomers or strategy aficionados alike, Vikings is a welcoming game, with a surprising amount of depth. For those interested in checking it out, Vikings: War of Clans is available on Android, IOS, and now for those who prefer a mouse and keyboard, it can now be played in browser. If you are looking for a strategic MMO with more depth than most mobile based games in this genre, you would do well to take a look.
