NetEase hardly needs any introduction as it is recognized as among the biggest names in the world of mobile gaming. Over the years, NetEase has been home to a wide range of successful titles spanning across various game genres. Cyber Hunter, Marvel Super War, and LifeAfter are just a trio of the most popular games under its app portfolio. Each one, like most of their titles, has made their mark on top ten lists of games across both mobile platforms.
The company’s latest mobile game, Vikingard, is a unique RPG adventure with a mix of base-building and kingdom management elements. While set in the Viking Age where raiding, colonizing, and conquest were prominent undertakings across the land, Vikingard offers more activities for players to engage in beyond waging battles to expand your kingdom.
Vikingard puts you in the role of a Norseman Chieftain, whose host of tasks involve more than just the daily management of his village but also its continuous growth and development. Growing livestock, mining, and tending to your companions and offspring form part of your numerous responsibilities at home while explorations, combat, and more adventures await you beyond your camp’s walls.
Vikingard boasts a plethora of content and features that you will unlock as make progress through the campaign. The initial minutes of your dive into its world takes you through the basic tutorial session but every new experience comes with its own simple guide. Considering everything, players regardless of experience and available free time can make progress in Vikingard although more time afforded to it as well strategies used can lead to faster rate of progression.
Now, if you have just jumped into the massive world of Vikingard and want to grow your kingdom and army fast, then read on as our Vikingard beginner’s guide comes with tips, tricks and strategies to help you become the top chieftain across the land!
1. Follow The Main Quest
The tutorial session in Vikingard takes you through a variety of features early on and while you may be primarily engaging in campaign battles that take you through different regions, each new feature unlocked will lead you to visit them and partake in the required activity. At some point, you will be free to venture across every location available within your kingdom with each area requiring your attention having an exclamation mark indicator on them.
While the campaign battles stand as the core game mode within which progression can be made, you simply cannot progress across each battle stage one after another as each new stage has higher power requirements that you need to meet or exceed to push forward. As such, you will need to shift your attention to other activities from time to time to amass more power and take on the next set of challenges.
Although Vikingard is very liberal as far as venturing on your own is concerned, the main quest feature stands as its most basic guiding light. You can see the current quest at the lower left side of your screen but only the current quest can be identified. Each of these numbered quests come with its own set of rewards, enabling you to strengthen your armies further in-between battle stages as well as other challenges.
While adherence to the task at hand is recommended, there is no need to worry about meeting some unknown targets ahead of time as the objectives will be marked as completed once they pop up and you will be readily able to proceed to the next quest.
The main quest objectives are actually easy to achieve, most especially during the first few days of gameplay. Pursuing the quest at hand is important as the rewards associated with it will surely make your kingdom and army stronger. Likewise, in the event that you have already accomplished some of the upcoming quests, then the host of rewards waiting for you to claim them can be obtained faster.
Beyond focusing on the current main quest objective and claiming rewards after its completion, it is important to take note of your progress across each of the tasks you completed. Given that you will naturally complete some targets ahead of the quest’s actual appearance, it is highly likely that you have exceeded the requirements for some of them. Main quest targets typically cycle you through different aspects of the game and this essentially helps you identify aspects of progress you should consider spending more time and effort on.
2. Push Forward Through Campaign Battles
The main test of your army’s strength in Vikingard lies in their performance across the main campaign battles. The battles themselves are as simple as it comes and purely a battle of strength. Every hersir you recruit, as well as their individual strengths, count towards the entirety of your army’s total power, making it important to recruit as many of them as well as strategize around making them stronger.
Although we recommend prioritizing the main quests over anything in Vikingard, it will happen sooner or later that you will find yourself temporarily unable to satisfy the requirements of the current objective. There are still plenty of activities to engage in especially once you have unlocked the rest of Vikingard’s features but considering everything, the stage battles ought to be your next priority.
The battles in Vikingard take place across different areas of the world map and you will conquer the whole world region by region, one area and stage after another. There are 6 stages within each location with the last one being a boss battle. You can obtain rewards for every 2 stages you conquer and every cleared stage also comes with its own set of rewards. More importantly, reaching certain milestones across the campaign stages serve as your key towards unlocking new features in the game.
Progressing through the battle stages only take a few seconds at a time as battles run automatically. Tapping on the charge button will hasten the attacks early on and at some point you will unlock a quick battle feature where your army will simply plow through stages beneath their overall power. There are no real penalties for conquering any battle stage so attempting one without fully knowing whether you can completely beat them is a must.
3. Strategize Around Enhancing Hersirs
Your goal of colonizing wherever your travels take you is not entirely dependent on your strength as a chieftain alone. There are companions and hersirs you gather through your journey and both are instrumental to your success. There are currently 39 hersirs to recruit and enhance in Vikingard, each with their own distinct features and characteristics. Despite having different classes, the more significant classification of hersirs come with their rarity grade.
You can obtain lucky gems as well as lucky gem shards from the mysterious store that you can access via its icon at the upper left corner of the main screen. The lucky stones can be exchanged for hersirs or companions of your choice provided that you have enough lucky gems for the hersir or companion you want. Beyond that, Vikingard provides a plethora of events that can help you earn some hersirs as well.
Another important reason why you should push forward with the campaign battles is for you to earn Konungr EXP, which basically levels up your chief or virtual avatar. With each new level gained comes a set of perks that boost your overall power and an opportunity to challenge a hersir back at the Allthing. Beyond meeting the required Konungr level, you also need to satisfy the might requirement to challenge and recruit each hersir.
Food, which is among the most basic resources you continuously gather from your farm as well as from battles you engage in is used for levelling up each hersir in your roster. Each hersir, regardless of rarity grade, increases in power with each new level reached and has level caps every 100 levels.
Once the cap is reached, the hersir must go through the ennoble process using a brooch, amulet, and goblet for the next ennoble grade. It can be expected that these materials will be more difficult to acquire for the next higher grade, which makes it necessary to strategize around which hersirs to invest it in.
Beyond the hersirs themselves, each one’s weapon can also be upgraded. The various ores and ingots you acquire from your mine can be used to strengthen the hersirs’ weapons and further boost their might. Each hersir’s aptitude also has an effect on their overall might and can be increased using aptitude fangs.
The maximum aptitude of a hersir is dependent on their rarity grade, further increasing the potential gap from one rarity grade to another. Note that some aptitude fangs work differently depending on the hersir’s class so be sure to consume it with a mindset of getting the most boost out of each one.
Finally, hersirs also have star levels that you can upgrade using serpent bones. Each one starts having 0 stars and the higher the star grade, the more serpent bones are required. Hersirs can be taken to the next rarity grade as well through star ups and certain milestones within the process can unlock new skills for them or improve existing ones.
While most of the challenges you take on in the world of Vikingard takes into account the combined might of all the hersirs under your command, some game modes make it important to have a strong hersir to take into battle. As such, simply dividing resources across all of the hersirs you have may not necessarily be the best option to consider.
Keeping individual strengths as well as rate of growth that consequently lowers, the higher the hersir’s level, it is still recommended to level each one up. However, it is important to keep one of them well above the others in terms of overall might, which requires you to consider your favorite hersir as priority one, when it comes to levelling up as well as using all other resources for increased might.
4. Tailor Companions And Heirs To Your Hersirs’ Needs
As we mentioned earler, war is not the only way for you to expand your kingdom and strengthen your army in Vikingard. Having more companions and heirs are almost as important as having many hersirs as they can greatly contribute to increasing your overall strength.
As awkward as it sounds, collecting companions and regularly visiting them for a chance of bringing heirs to life forms part of the mechanics that contribute to amassing more power for you in Vikingard. Not only that, but each companion and heir also require some strategy to ensure that each one’s growth and development is well in line with your hersirs.
While normal progression and satisfying some special event conditions can help you have more companions, some will simply have to be recruited from the mysterious shop. Explorations also lead you to meeting new companions, provided that you have cleared the required campaign stages associated with them. Meeting them, however, will not instantly win them over and it will take several visits to win their hearts.
By default, you have 3 chances at a time to randomly visit a companion, with an additional chance earned once every 30 minutes. A preferred visit can be performed but it requires spending gold, so we do not recommend it. Visiting a companion earns them affinity EXP, which is needed to level up their skills. Giving a companion a gift will raise their affinity, indicated by a heart on their portrait. A higher affinity determines how much affinity EXP they earn with each visit and considering that you will mostly visit them at random, it is best to spread it as evenly across.
Beyond affinity EXP, each visit has a chance to bear fruit, leaving you with a baby as an heir, provided that you have enough room for them. Heirs have random attributes and qualities as well. Keep in mind that affinity EXP is exclusive for each companion and you should use all affinity EXP they earn to level up their skills. After reaching certain milestones as far as affinity is concerned, additional skills can be unlocked.
Each companion you acquire will also have a special bond with select hersirs. This means that having them will specifically improve the strength of the bonded hersirs and increasing their skill levels will benefit those hersirs. In a sense, hersirs of the same level and grade, using equal invested resources can have a disparity in overall strength based on whether or not they have bonded companions as well as the skill level of those companions.
You will start off with only 1 slot for an heir but this can be increased using gold. Given that gold is a premium currency in Vikingard and difficult to obtain compared with other resources, we recommend using them on items that you cannot obtain in any other way. As such, additional heir slots are among what we consider as priority items for spending hard-earned gold for.
Stamina is consumed to grow your heirs from infants, to children, and then from adults to bestos or marrying age in the game. You can rack up a maximum stamina of 8 per heir and earn 1 more every 30 minutes. Rye bread can also be used to speed up the growth process and each one grants the heir 50 EXP instead of the 5 they earn per stamina used.
Once the heir has grown into a child, you can choose to become a warrior, spearman, or archer in preparation for when they will follow one of your hersirs. Naturally, what you have to consider for this decision is the priority hersirs’ class as well as the heir’s quality or grade. You would naturally want your best hersir to be followed by your best heirs.
Once an heir reaches full maturity or besto, you should consider having him or her married to another chieftain’s heir. There are free ways and easy ways to go about this but it is important to not that having an heir married will have them earn additional might from their partners.
Ultimately, this will lead to an increase in the overall might of the hersir they follow as well as your army in whole. Married heirs will still follow your hersirs but will no longer be occupying an heir slot inside the Long House, enabling you once again to pursue making more heirs.
It is easy and logical to think that a hersir will only have one follower. On the hersir’s page, however, you will notice that there is an abundance of unlockable slots for followers. 8 follower slots are available depending on the hersir’s level; 4 more are available based on their star level; and an extra 4 more can be unlocked at the cost of gold. This means that it would take about 39×16 heirs for you to fully equip all hersirs with followers.
5. Schedule Game Time With Availability Of Activities
Vikingard plunges you into a world where you will certainly be preoccupied with a lot of activities to tend to. Despite its seemingly demanding nature, however, the gameplay mechanics does not really need you to spend a lot of hours engaged in it. Rather, the best recourse into maximizing growth and progression in Vikingard is based on frequency of visits and ensuring that all available activities are engaged in one after another.
The exclamation marks on structures within your kingdom that indicate which ones require attention are very helpful. However, it does not necessarily appear when you can claim some items but serve more as a warning if attempts, chances, or resources are full. It becomes important to note the amount of time it would take for you to have something to return to within the day to ensure that you can yield the best results given the number of visits you can afford to perform within each day.
For example, the farm is among the most basic structures that provide you a simple yet very valuable resource. You will frequently visit the farm early in your adventure as you will acquire more livestock form campaign battles and quest rewards to put in the farm. Later on, though, and without new animals to add to your livestock, you will simply note the number of hours it takes to reach the food cap and visit it within the period of time to claim food.
The mine is almost equally as valuable as the farm as it is your main source of ores and ingots used to upgrade your hersirs weapons. Unlocking new hersirs may make you want to initiated changes to the roster of hersirs deployed for mining. Higher levels of hersirs will mine faster and each one deployed will still be available for all battles you engage in. Likewise, take note of the wolf that you will need to beat within the mine to unlock more mining spots.
You can also earn gold from the mine through manual tapping every once in a while and there are additional rewards available as well within certain time period within the day. Just like the farm, the mine is also one structure you should visit first with each dive into Vikingard as every bit of resource you gather from it basically converts into more power for your kingdom.
Next to that, the Longhouse is yet another structure you need to habitually visit as the chances to visit your companions and grow your heirs also replenish every 30 minutes. Considering this and the above sources of materials, visiting Vikingard every 90 minutes will be the best way to speedily grow your kingdom’s might.
The Allthing is not just a place to visit when you are ready to take on the next Hersir Challenge following a rank up in your Konungr level. It also houses a library where you can learn more about the different mechanics of Vikingard. Also, there is quiz you can take to test your knowledge and understanding of the basic mechanics. These are simple questions you should be able to ace in no time and the rewards are well worth it.
The Expedition is among the most exciting features in Vikingard that offer a wide range of experiences somewhat dependent on your luck as dice rolls dictate where your ship will land. Just like most features in the game, you gt an extra roll of the dice every 30 minutes so you can most certainly venture from time to time.
On top of different resources and treasures, landing in certain kingdoms will trigger a different gameplay where you will choose your own adventure. This is where you can meet future companions and slowly work your way to win their favor and have them as one of your growing number of wives.
Challenger’s Coast is a PvP game mode where you get to challenge another player’s squad of hersirs using only one of yours. You have 4 maximum attempts but will need to use a different hersir each time. It is not a direct combat as what you might expect and you will find yourself in a 3×3 board where strategy plays a more vital role than raw power.
Certain buffs make your hersir stronger while other items can lower your enemies’ strength. There are ballistas as well that you can utilize to further weaken foes. Points and rewards are earned based on the number of hersirs you defeat.
If all the above content still leaves you plenty of time to spend in Vikingard, then the Mead Hall is certainly a place to frequently visit. This is where you can have fun by engaging other players in various mini games to earn friendship points. Friendship points can be exchanged for various items at the store above the banquet. Remember to din as well for extra friendship points.
The Training Camp will be one of the last areas you will unlock but will also be one of the most beneficial. Once unlocked, you can deploy your favorite hersirs here and they will earn Aptitude EXP over time. Just like most of the features in the game, this I one place you would want to revisit every once in a while to continuously have your army grow stronger with each training session.
The Shrine feature in Vikingard is somewhat different from what most players might expect as it leads you towards climbing up the ranks from one shrine to the next, taking on NPC guardians each step of the way. There are no limited attempts here but each step higher requires more power from you. Your rank basically determines the amount of gems you earn passively and gems earned can be exchanged for various resources from the shrine shop.
If you are eager to see how you rank against the rest of the players within your server, in terms of might, affinity, and alliance, then you should check the Rankings at least once per day. Beyond knowing how you fare against the general populace, praising the top layers under each category will also earn you rewards.
6. Join An Alliance As Soon As Possible
Guilds, clans, alliances, factions, and similarly-themed player groups have long since been an integral part of most online games, most especially those belonging to the strategy and RPG genres. Although primarily serving as an extension of a virtual world’s social features, guilds have grown to have complex features and mechanics of their own, typically encouraging more active participation from players to engage in cooperative and competitive game modes.
Although Vikingard ensures a plethora of content for player to revel in on their own, it also boasts one of the most engaging alliance systems we have encountered. Yes, you can always opt to steer clear of guild memberships and participation from it altogether, but you will certainly be missing a lot of perks and bonuses that would otherwise be practically free for the taking.
The alliance system takes a little while to be uncovered and will be available towards the start of stage 7 in the main campaign. One you can access it; you will have the option to create your very own guild or join an existing one. For beginners, though, we recommend going for the latter first especially if you have little to no experience managing and leading a guild of your own before.
Active participation is all that is required for being a member of the alliance as donations do not necessarily have to cost you any resources at all. There are plenty of rewards to earn that depend on your own level of engagement and there are also perks to obtain based on each member’s level of activity. It is generally easier to be instantly accepted into alliances that have lower levels or fewer members. In time, you would want to be with like-minded players who are as active as you are in the game.
From the main alliance page itself, you can already see a lot of activities to engage in as soon as you join up. One of the most rewarding is the alliance raid, where every hersir of every alliance member has a chance to contribute for its accomplishment. Alliance members take down one boss after another, utilizing each of their hersirs twice each day.
Although it is possible for you to take down one of the earlier bosses on your own, this feature is basically a team effort and you should not expect to go far if only a few or handful of allies jump into the fight. For every boss beaten you earn a set of rewards for yourself as well as another one that you can gift to any alliance member.
The alliance clash will pit players from different alliances to compete for a prize. There are notice board quests as well that any alliance member can take on and will earn rewards for themselves as well as the alliance itself upon completion.
Beyond all that, there are cooperation quests you can check at the lower right side of the alliance page. These work much like daily quests where any alliance member’s accomplishments will benefit every member. Be sure to check out each objective here as most are very easy to accomplish.
7. Be Selective With Enhancing Pets
The Stable will become available at a later part in your adventure but will nonetheless be an important place to visit from time to time. Once unlocked, chances are that you have already amassed a great number of pets from quest and event rewards. Vikingard is perhaps the only game of its kind that has a pet feature but the mechanics of pets in the game is certainly unique in its own right.
Pets are basically categorized into types as well as rarity grades. You actually do not need more than one of each type so securing duplicate copies only lead to the fusion feature you need to perform as soon as you can. Each pet under the same type can be fused together provided that the ones being sacrificed have equal or lower grades than the main one. Fusion increases the pet’s wisdom, which in turn enhances the pet’s abilities.
Each pet has a unique set of skills that can be unlocked, and each skill can be enhanced as well. The skills are basically passive abilities that improve the performance of different areas of your camp. For example, the owl can has a probability of lowering the food consumption when upgrading hersirs and can passively boost their might as well. The otter has passive skills that can improve the performance of the farm. The deer focuses on boosts applicable to companions and heirs.
Pets can be leveled up using Pet EXP Fruits although it does not have an impact on its own. Under each pet’s skill menu comes a skill chain where the higher nodes can be unlocked by upgrading a skill to a certain level as well as reaching a level milestone. Pet Intelligence, which is acquired through fusing them is consumed with each skill level upgrade. Note that skill upgrades will not always be successful.
8. Accomplish Daily Quests And Achievements
Every activity you partake in as you journey across the numerous contents within Vikingard are at the very least sufficient for you to feel bits of progression as far as your army’s might is concerned. Additionally, there are plenty of features that essentially earn you idle rewards requiring very little effort. Beyond all that, however, Vikingard further provides additional rewards to be earned through its daily quest and achievements features.
To begin with, both daily quests and achievements do not necessarily require more hours of gameplay or effort as the objectives enumerated under each set of tasks all directly relate to the usual activities you engage in as you play the game. On top of being a source of extra resources, both these features can effectively serve as a basic guide towards developing and maintaining a basic routine for you to follow on your daily visits.
Daily quests can be accessed via the Quest icon at the lower right side of the screen. Each daily quest objective you accomplish earns you Viking points, VIP points, and resources to help further strengthen your army. Viking points earned within the day unlock additional rewards within the treasure chests at the bottom of the page and while securing the top rewards here may still leave you a handful of objectives to clear, it is best to try and regularly clear each target.
While each daily quest target is relatively easy to conquer on a daily basis, some objectives under the achievements list can take a little more time to complete. Achievements can be accessed within the Althing, and the 1,488 target objectives to complete here is divided across 6 main categories.
The 6 categories basically group the main aspects of your progression within the world of Vikingard and, in some way, gives you an idea of which aspect of your adventure you are progressing well enough in as well as those parts where you may need to spend a little more time in.
Achievement targets met do not just outright earn you sets of valuable resources, but it also earns you branch EXP for each group that can unlock the next tier of challenges. Having each category reach the next level tier earns you handsome rewards so strive to channel a little more effort into pushing forward with the achievement branch you have that has the lowest tier.
9. Take Advantage Of Time-Limited Events
Vikingard hosts an abundance of special events that encourage players to stay as active as possible to exponentially boost their army’s growth and development. Although it is a fact that you can make progress regardless of your approach and time spent in Vikingard, actively ensuring that all attempts are expended and all idle resources are gathered regularly will ensure a more massive rate of progression.
Just like in most strategy RPGs, the special events in Vikingard do not necessarily impose tougher objectives for you to earn the attached rewards. The real challenge applies to the limited period of time provided within which you must accomplish the objectives. Some of the rewards from events, however, are difficult to obtain anywhere else, and become very much worth the extra effort to acquire.
To start off, there is a welcome event that you can access via its icon on the left side of the screen. This holds a separate set of sign-in rewards from the regular one and gives you rare resources as well as large chunks of more basic ones. There are extra benefits as well to claim form the benefits feature that you can obtain relative to linking your account to social media channels, visiting communities, and so on.
Although the Viking pass feature provides plenty more rewards for premium players, free players are not left out of the rewards system for this event. This feature basically grants extra rewards depending on the number of Viking points earned within the period provided. Completing daily quests, therefore, has an added value as some of the rewards to claim here can give you a decent boost in progressing your adventure.
More special events can be accessed via the icons that appear on the right side of your screen. Be sure to always check these out especially on your first week within the world of Vikingard. All target objctives lodged in these special events work very much like the ones in the daily quests and achievements. This means that all of them also directly relate to the usual activities you engage in as you venture across all of the game’s content.
10. Check The Warehouse For Consumables
Vikingard is designed in such a way that gathering and consuming resources is easy given that specific resources are required in specific areas within your kingdom. Save for gold, which stands as a premium currency, there are hardly any resources that have shared uses across two or more features of the game. While this makes it easy and straightforward for most beginners, it also comes with the risk of forgetting about items in the inventory that needs to be accessed from there.
Items you gather can be seen in your warehouse, which can be accessed via its icon on the lower left corner of the screen. It is important to visit this often as not every item you obtain is readily usable. Some are shards that need to be combined first to yield the usable item and other come in the form of chests or packages that need to be opened to reveal the true rewards.
There are also items that randomly improve companions’ affinity or hersirs’ might and you should consume them as soon as you see them in your warehouse. On the other hand there are unique items that will grant you an hour’s worth of food or mining yields and this can be kept for later use.
Always remember to open the beginner’s chest that you can claim with each new level you reach. In some cases, the difference between forgetting about these consumables and readily using them can be the difference between progressing through some battle stages or beating certain challenges.
Vikingard certainly has a lot more to offer than what we can cover in one guide but for now, this is where we wrap up our Vikingard beginner’s guide. We are confident that the simple tips and strategies we shared with you can help you perform much better across the rest of the challenges that come your way. If you have spent quite some time within the world of Vikingard and have additional tips, tricks, and strategies, we welcome you to share them along with your experiences in the game in the comments below!
Karla
Sunday 3rd of March 2024
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