Northgard Chapter 7 Guide: How to Ally With the Jötunns and Win

To beat Chapter 7 in Northgard, you must win the race against your rival clan by filling the neutral Jötunn faction's relationship meter to 100% through continuous food trade. Doing this requires securing renewable food sources immediately, surviving severe blizzards, and fortifying border choke points against regular raids.

Early Scouting and Expansion Priorities

Your opening months determine whether you can produce the food surplus required to feed the giants.

1. Deploy Scouts immediately: Build a Scout Camp right away and assign two Scouts. Direct them to find tiles adjacent to your Town Hall, locate a forest tile for timber, and scout a path toward the Jötunn territory.
2. Clear nearby hostiles: Train two to three Warriors to clear wolves and other hostile wildlife from tiles you plan to colonize.
3. Claim key food tiles: Colonize adjacent zones featuring renewable food sources, such as fertile soil for Fields, Deer for a Hunter's Lodge, or Fish ponds. Avoid over-expanding into low-value tiles, as colonization costs increase with each claimed zone.
4. Boost food efficiency: Construct a Food Silo directly on your primary food-producing tile to grant a production bonus to workers assigned there.

Establishing the Jötunn Food Trade

Once your Scouts reveal the Jötunn camp, prioritize opening and maintaining a trade route before your rival gains their favor.

• Build a Trading Post: Place the Trading Post on a secure interior tile where enemy raiders cannot easily attack your workers.
• Assign Merchants: Convert at least two villagers into Merchants to operate the post and generate Krowns.
• Initiate the food export: In the Trading Post interface, target the Jötunn camp and select Food as the trade resource.
• Upgrade the facility: As soon as you accumulate sufficient Stone and Krowns, upgrade the Trading Post. An upgraded post allows more Merchants and accelerates relationship gain, shortening the time needed to reach 100%.

Only maintain active trade if your net food income can sustain domestic consumption and the export rate simultaneously.

Blizzard Survival and Resource Management

Chapter 7 features severe winter blizzards that slash resource generation while doubling wood and food consumption. Letting reserves hit zero causes starvation and illness, pulling workers off production lines.

• Stockpile wood before winter: Build two Woodcutter's Lodges early. Keep four Woodcutters active during spring and summer to build a surplus of several hundred Wood before the cold sets in.
• Upgrade buildings with Stone: Use Stone to upgrade Houses and production buildings, which lowers their winter firewood requirements.
• Monitor the event bar: When a blizzard warning appears on the timeline, pause expansion, assign extra workers to food gathering, and halt unnecessary building projects.
• Pause trade during crises: If your food balance goes negative during a blizzard, immediately toggle off the Jötunn trade route in the Trading Post. Protecting your clan's health takes priority over trade progress until the storm passes.

Border Defense and Final Victory

Hostile Draugr and rival clan raiding parties will attack your perimeter throughout the mission.

• Hold natural choke points: Identify the one or two border tiles connecting your settlement to enemy territory. Place a Defense Tower near the entrance of each choke point to absorb initial enemy aggro.
• Form a standing defense force: Station a Warband of four to six Warriors led by your Warchief behind the towers.
• Invest in military tech: Unlock the Weaponsmiths Lore to lower recruitment costs and boost basic attack power.
• Engage after towers draw aggro: Let defensive structures take the opening hits from raiders before sending in your Warband, which minimizes soldier injuries and eases strain on your Healer's Hut.

Finishing the Scenario

Reaching 100% relationship with the Jötunns locks in the alliance and awards you a Jötunn Champion. This unit has massive health and area-of-effect melee damage, capable of absorbing heavy fire from enemy defenses.

To end the scenario, merge your Warband with the Jötunn Champion and march into the rival clan's territory to destroy their Town Hall tile. Alternatively, you can hold your fortified borders and defeat the rival clan's remaining counter-raids to trigger the chapter victory screen.