Daedalic Entertainment and Funatics announce Valhalla Hills, a Viking-themed, civilization-building strategy game with a comedic flair planned for release for Windows, OS X, and Linux by the end of this year following an Early Access period beginning next month. The Valhalla Hills website offers this set of screenshots showing things off, and here's word:

Valhalla Hills is inspired by traditional building games like The Settlers 2* but takes this proud heritage into the modern era, adding procedurally generated mountain landscapes and a rogue-like mechanic to intensify and expand the experience. A clever economic system provides depth and ample challenge for experienced players of strategy games and genre-newcomers alike.

“Funatics and Daedalic are a match made in the heroic halls of Valhalla - two creative powerhouses working together on one great game means gamers can expect wonderful things with Valhalla Hills," says Carsten Fichtelmann, CEO and founder of Daedalic. "We are very proud of how the game is shaping up and can’t wait to share it with the world."

* This is not name-dropping: Creative Director of Valhalla Hills is Thomas Häuser, who held the Lead Programming role on The Settlers 2 (1993).