Build the Ages The Norse A harbour town builder · in the browser

Founding a town · open to all settlers

The Norse

Found a trading settlement on a Scandinavian fjord. Moor knarrs and longships, trade their cargo, tap your banks, send voyages out to chart new regions, and grow one timber jetty into a great market town. Then do it again on the next shore.

Found a town How it plays
  • Plays in the browser
  • Saves on your device, or sign in to save across devices
  • No account
  • Free to play

Six systems · one harbour

What you do

  1. 01Harbour

    Moor the traffic

    Merchant vessels tie up at your jetties for provisions, repairs and a hot meal, and pay on departure. One jetty, one vessel at a time; every jetty needs an open side for the approach.

  2. 02Trade

    Trade the cargo

    Vessels sell what their home port exports and buy what it imports. Set Buy and Sell per good, hold bog ore for a bloomery, and ride the booms.

  3. 03Income

    Tap the banks

    Every building earns hack-silver by the minute into its own bank. A glowing coin means it is ready: tap it and watch the hack-silver fly home. Banks keep filling while you are away.

  4. 04Timers

    Build on the clock

    Buildings take real time to open, from ninety seconds to four hours by tier, and upgrades take longer still. Queue a build, go live your life, come back to a brighter town. Favor of the Norns skips the wait.

  5. 05Voyages

    Sail out

    Send voyages from your jetties to any of eight regions. They come back with cargo, charts, Favor of the Norns and discoveries for the Saga Book: vessels, peoples, treasures.

  6. 06Known world

    Claim new shores

    Clear rings of unclaimed land around your great hall as the town grows, then found the next town in one of eight regions: frozen Birka, the Novgorod river road, the Hedeby inlet, fire-born Iceland, Miklagard. One purse across all of them.

There is always something on the fire

Come back for

  • Missions

    Fifty goals in seven chapters, three live at a time. Finish one, come back and claim the hack-silver, Favor of the Norns and rank it pays.

  • Achievements

    Twenty-four lifetime achievements in bronze, silver and gold, from your first fifty vessels to the whole Saga Book, each tier paying Favor of the Norns.

  • Daily reward

    A seven-day streak of hack-silver, crates and Favor of the Norns, with a banner token on day seven. Miss a day and you can mend the streak.

  • Standing

    Freeholder to Hersir and on to Jarl of the North. Ranks are earned across every region and grant real powers: collect all banks at once, a fourth mission, a bonus on every rate.

  • The Saga Book

    Twenty-four vessels, twelve peoples of the Viking world and sixteen treasures to find, with a story for each. Completing a set pays Favor of the Norns and a title.

  • Territory

    Every town starts on a small plot. Buy the next ring of unclaimed land, wait for the workers to clear it, and the town grows outward, ring by ring, in every region.

Unlocked by renown and building count

Five tiers

  1. L1

    Fishing Camp

    One timber jetty and 6,000 hack-silver. Build a jetty, a storehouse and a well, then serve your first vessels.

  2. L2

    Trading Beach

    A skalds' house, a strand market, turf longhouses and a stream channel. Merchant houses begin to trust you, and the second region opens.

  3. L3

    Market Town

    A lore house, a weigh house, a craft row and a shipyard. Residents run businesses; you lend hack-silver at interest.

  4. L4

    Sea Realm

    A hilltop hof and the great beacon. Long-haul imperial dromons arrive.

  5. L5

    Great Market

    The end of the road: a market the whole North sails through.

Premium currency

Favor of the Norns

Earned by missions, daily rewards and voyages, and offered in the Store. Spend it to skip a build, call a voyage home, open a region before you have the charts, or dress the town in a region banner. The game is free to play; nothing in it needs Favor of the Norns.

Store items are real purchases, handled securely by Stripe Checkout and charged in US dollars. Items arrive in your town as soon as the payment goes through.

Favor of the Norns every new founder starts with
20
Regions to unlock, with hack-silver or Favor
8
Favor skips eight minutes of any build, upgrade or clearing
1
Things to find for the Saga Book
52

Keys · saves · screens

Harbour notes

Controls

Space
Pause
0 · F
Fit the town, focus the selection
B O M F
Build, Town, Market, Fleet
V K I S
Voyages, Known World, Missions, Saga Book
Wheel
Zoom the world; drag to pan
Esc
Close a panel, stop placing

Saves

Your profile saves to your browser every few seconds and when you leave the tab. Timers run on the clock, so builds finish and banks fill while you are gone.

One profile per browser, every region inside it. Export and import it from Settings, or sign in to keep a cloud save and pick up on another device. Without an account your save stays on your device.

Screens

Built for a desktop browser at 1280 px and wider with WebGL on; a landscape tablet works, and on a phone the panels fold into a bottom bar and sheets.

Current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Reduced-motion settings are honoured, and the effects tier steps down on slower machines.

Questions

What kind of game is this?

A calm harbour town builder. You start with one timber jetty around AD 800 and grow a town over weeks of short visits. Timers run on the real clock, so it keeps working while you are away.

Is it free?

Yes. Every building, region, mission and achievement can be reached with hack-silver and patience. Favor of the Norns can also be bought with real money in the Store to skip waits; prices are shown in US dollars before you pay.

Do I need an account?

No. Your town saves in your browser. Sign in only if you want a cloud save on more than one device.

How true to history is it?

The places, trade goods, buildings and peoples are real, and the buildings and titles are drawn from the Norse world between about AD 800 and 1050. Centuries are compressed for play, and Vinland, which lasted only a few years, gets the future it never had. It is a game about harbours and trade. Raiding and the trade in captives were also part of the age, and the game does not make them into play.

Do the Norse gods appear in the game?

Hilltop hofs and festivals are part of town life, and Favor of the Norns is the name of a game currency. No god is a character, and nothing in the game makes light of anyone's beliefs. Runes appear only as history, in one discovery, and never in the art.

Who are the peoples in the Saga Book?

Real cultures who met and traded with the Norse, among them Frisians, Irish, Picts, Slavs, Franks, Byzantines, the Abbasid court and the people of the far shore of Vinland. Each is written as a people with their own skills and history.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. On a phone the panels become sheets over a bottom bar, and the world pans by drag and zooms by pinch. A desktop screen shows more at once.

Ready to found a town

Town name. Pick one on the title screen, or take the one the register hands you.

Found a town

Register NR-0000 will be assigned at the founding