The Last Settlement

Greenland, A.D. 1250.

For generations, Norse communities have survived at the edge of the known European world. Cattle still graze the Greenland farms, walrus ivory still reaches European markets, and ships still arrive from across the North Atlantic.

But the margins are narrowing.

The Last Settlement is a historical survival-management game in which you guide a Norse Greenland community through two centuries of increasing isolation and environmental pressure.

Each turn represents five years. Allocate a limited workforce between haymaking, coastal hunting, northern expeditions, maintenance, trade preparation and community life. Keep your people fed, your livestock alive and your settlement functioning as European trade becomes increasingly uncertain.

There is no single crisis to defeat. Survival depends on how, and whether, your community is willing to change.

Features

• Manage food, hay, livestock, timber, iron, ivory, hides, silver and prestige
• Balance cattle-based farming against increasingly important marine resources
• Send expeditions to the Norðrsetur hunting grounds in search of food and valuable walrus ivory
• Trade with increasingly rare ships from Norway and Iceland
• Deal with four influential settlement households, each with its own interests
• Encounter Thule Inuit communities, with relationships ranging from hostility to cooperation
• Gain Arctic Knowledge through sustained contact and adapt northern practices to Greenland conditions
• Adopt permanent strategic changes as the settlement comes under increasing pressure
• Face changing weather, livestock losses, disputes, migration, shortages, and unexpected opportunities
• Take direct control of an optional hunting minigame, or resolve expeditions automatically
• Reach the historical horizon of 1450, and, if your settlement survives, continue indefinitely

Adapt or endure?

You can attempt to preserve the old cattle-rich Norse way of life, shift toward sheep and goats, rely increasingly on marine hunting, consolidate isolated farms, maintain links to Europe, or learn from people better adapted to Arctic conditions.

Every adaptation has costs.

Historical note

The disappearance of the medieval Norse Greenland settlements remains a subject of historical and archaeological debate.

The Last Settlement does not present a single explanation as settled fact. Instead, climate variability, declining European trade, agricultural pressure, demographic weakness, social choices, and contact with Inuit communities are represented as interacting pressures.

The term Skrælingar appears in some in-game Norse-facing text because it is the historical Norse term. In the game it refers to Thule Inuit communities / ancestors of modern Greenlandic Inuit.

The campaign begins in 1250 and is historically assessed in 1450. Continuing beyond 1450 is deliberately alternate history.

Controls

Most of the game is controlled with the mouse.

During the optional Norðrsetur hunting sequence:

A / D or ← / → — Move
Space — Throw harpoon

The hunt can always be skipped and resolved automatically.