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I set a bishop on fire in Norland and the sicko loved every second of itJust a little sin
Just a little sin
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
I am burning the Bishop while he sleeps. I’d say it’s nothing personal, but quite a lot in medievalmanagement simNorlandis personal. He shouldn’t have slept with the Queen’s sister, for example. He shouldn’t have insisted his lover subsequently pay him for a confession to absolve herself of the guilt accrued from sleeping with him. He shouldn’t have felt safe in a room next to the Queen, a woman described as “reckless” in her character traits, and who is perilously close to having a nervous breakdown. This, my holy friend, is how your bed chamber becomes a raging inferno.
My test for likening a game toDwarf FortressorRimworldis whether the little dramas that unfold are funny. Are they laced with enough unexpectedness and bitter rivalry to constitute a story generator? Or are they at least a funny anecdote generator? Some management games can simulate a compelling tale of conflict yet feel, at their core, a restricted machine (hiFrostpunk) while others can offer a lot of moving parts but be quite empty of conflict or humour (hiClanfolk). Norland pushes you into a deep pool of fuck-ups and shortages with the smug enthusiasm of a sim containing enough gears and cogs to crack a hundred nuts. I laughed a lot.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
Here you’re asked not only to build new structures - flour mills, rutabaga farms, iron mines - but also to assign a Lord to each building to oversee and give instruction to all the peasants working in that building. These Lords are basically your major cast of characters, each with their own traits, skills, likes, dislikes, and attitudes towards others. If Rimworld is the first big touchstone, thenCrusader Kingsis the second. You can ask Lords to spend time with one another, go hunting together, duel, play dice, and so on, all in some effort to resolve disputes or improve relationships.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
I spent a similarly long time just naming the provinces and neighbouring kings before the game even kicked off. And I think this is where I understood Norland had some claws. It wasn’t long before I was in the thick of town management, staring down at five peasants sleeping rough in the streets, with a bunch more wandering around the fields in the morning looking clueless because the Lord who was supposed to give them instructions was too busy teaching management to a toddler.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
In the end, this is not how my personal disaster unfolds. That begins when the outsiders arrive…
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
The next visitors to upend the natural order (what little natural order we have established in Nandos) are quick to follow. King No Nose of Pringleton is coming to visit. I can even see him as he trundles towards the settlement on the world map. We are pleased to receive him, because I want to improve my relationship with his kingdom, enough to set up a long-term trade agreement to offload my overabundant stocks of rutabagas in exchange for something better. He actually seems lovely. Unfortunately, he arrives alongside a companion. A Bishop called Ingo, who triggers some tutorials about the mood-destroying effects of sin. Mood is important in Norland. If your Lords get too depressed, overworked, or annoyed, they will refuse to perform their overseeing tasks, and the peasants will take the chance to chill out. So if the guilt from sinning can wreck a characters mood, it is indeed a thing to be wary of.
But don’t worry, the church informs me, you can confess to the Bishop and relieve this spiritual pain. That sounds wonderful. Sin is clearly to be avoided, and his holiness blesses us with his mere presence. We offer the Bishop a room in one of our unoccupied lordly houses. Piety is important to the people of Nandos. We are a holy and modest people.
In the next room Jula is fucking a rutabaga farmer called Oisin.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
She pays him when he leaves. For a minute I think this will not bode well. I mouse away for a moment. What will the bishop think? I hope he hasn’t notic–
But the Bishop is in Madam MacDrip’s room. They are also having sex.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
The good news is that King No Nose has slept through the entire horny fiasco. The bad news is that Madam MacDrip is so overcome with sinful guilt the next morning that she refuses to work until she can absolve herself. Of course, the way to achieve absolution is to confess her sin to the same Bishop she was riding last night. That’s when I find out the cost of this ritual: six silver rings.
I see now what is happening. Who would have thought the church could be so conniving?
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
I dismiss the letter with grim cynicism and look at the Bishop who still hasn’t left our town, is still abusing our hospitality, drinking our moonshine and eating our vegetables while doing nothing useful. He fills one of our manor houses with his stench every night. I’ve had a good time with Norland so far. I gained far more laughter from it than other Rimworld competitors in any case. And I haven’t even got truly stuck into the inter-city trading or the marriage proposals, the alliance making or the war-mongering (one downside about the game is that it will take some time to learn). But if I am going to get into all that, it won’t be from the god forsaken town of Nandos. Let the wolves come, I decide. One last time I examine Ingo, the clerical bed pest and sextortionist in purple robes, as he meanders smugly around town. And I remember something else the game lets you do. I set a task for one of the lords: Attempt to Kill the Bishop.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Hooded Horse
