Things I wish I'd known as a new player

[Tachyon]

In no particular order...

Firstly, always, without exception, learn Camp Fire, and always carry a Camp Fire on you, plus another one on the horse. Make a new one every time you use one up. It's VERY useful to place one before attacking a lot of enemy because you will respawn there when you "die". A Camp Fire also allows access to your settlement inventories and also your Social Stash and Trade window.

Learn Arrow and Stun Arrow as quickly as possible. Arrows can be picked up after use, unlike Wooden Arrows and Stun Arrows will KO an NPC without letting them make a noise if you hit them with a headshot. Stun arrows, like several other types of arrow, can't be picked up and reused.

Once you have Stunned someone with a Stun Arrow, Stone or just stunned them with a Grab, you can either pick them up to take them somewhere less busy or just leave them where they are, but they won't be Stunned for long and their comrades can wake them up if they find them. You can wake them yourself with the Z key to kick them, and then instantly press F to grab them and Interrogate them. This is easier said than done when you are starting out, and it rarely works, but it's MUCH easier with at least one level of Improved Grab, which lets you grab people who are at 30% HP or less. Level 2 skill let's you grab people with 60% HP or less. Basically the more HP they have when you wake them the harder they are to Grab again.

When a camp is cleared, put all the loot you want to take in ONE of the camp's loot containers - stick as much in there as you want because it will hold everything. When you are done, take ALL the loot out of it and don't worry about being able to move... Burn the camp down, use a Camp Fire and use it to transfer all your new goodies to one (or more) of your camps. NOTE: There are a couple of Lumber Camps that can't be burnt down, so that means you can't actually use a camp fire there because of "settlement too close". In this situation see if they have a horse-drawn wagon and put all the loot in that and just drive it away. (I have a wagon at my main camp for storing items I don't want my tribesmen getting their hands on, such as HQ guns, scarce ammo types, etc.) If they don't have a wagon and you can't burn the camp down in order to place a Camp Fire, take all the loot you want that you already stashed in a camp loot container and open your inventory and use the Stuck option. There will be a 60 second wait and then you and your horse will appear at the closest Camp Fire to you (you will not appear at an actual tribe's camp fire. From there you can move all your goodies to one of your actual camps. (I try not to abuse this in case they patch it out of the game!)

Warpaints can be incredibly useful, so have a look through them and check through the Trade Store to see if anything new comes up. I have two favourite warpaints that I use... One is "Smoking Wolves Ash" to give me 5m extra radius of effect for Detect Enemies, 0.4 Stamina Regen per second and -100% Animal Reaction, so hostile animals won't aggro me halfway across the map. The other is "Black Deers Graphite" which gives me 1.4 hp regen per second, 150% Spyglass (tags targets almost instantly) and 200% warrior gather bonuses on it. See what suits your style of play. :)

ALWAYS use the horse for getting around, because Stamina will never be much of an issue for you because the horse can run forever. When I "die", the horse is left unharmed (well, so far!) and it's great to use the horse's icon on the compass to see where you died. The horse can be "levelled up" too when it reaches certain bonding levels. For example, at the moment my horse has a 92 Carry Capacity. If your horse gets seriously wounded you can heal it with a Hay Bale or two.

You will notice tiny orange dots on the map sometimes. These are Treasure markers (carry a Shovel on the horse) and also mark points where you, and other "players" have died. You can get your stuff back as well as claim whatever the other player dropped in their single-player game. It's a nice touch. I got one of the flintlock sniper rifles from a "player" drop. You can also find Ancestor Bows in "player" drops, which is handy if you don't have the DLC I suppose. So-called Treasure has, up to now, been very uninspiring herbs and plant extracts though.

Always carry a replacement bow and Arrows (because you can pick up the Arrows after use) on the horse at all times. Maybe some spare Stun Arrows too. Also have spare weapons in your Social Stash, because you can access the Stash, and your Camp Inventories, at a camp fire.

You'll soon be awash with looted .38 ammo and low quality rifles, so I always stick those into camp inventories and ensure they have 40 to 50 rounds of .38 ammo at all times. I keep all the good stuff for myself. :)

If you have the points, get Improved Throw Stone (for the npc knockout) and the Tomahawk and if possible the Spear as well. The Stone doesn't require a stone in your inventory, so it's always available. The Tomahawk and Spear have to be "picked up" after use, but both give a 1-shot, silent kill. Even if you have lost everything, you can always use the Stone, Tomahawk and Spear to kill, loot and even get your stuff back at the place you died.

Learn Meat Bait. I use the Bait as a diversion when attacking inside a camp - drop a couple and watch 4 to 6 Bears and/or Wolves arrive and cause a ruckus! You can pick people off in the confusion. If you have one of the war-paints that gives -100% reaction from hostile animals they won't even glance at you. :) Grass Bait is handy for luring in Buffalo and Deer, so presumably Rabbits as well but I never notice them anyway because they're so small. :D

Another nice use for Meat Bait is this... If you are losing tribesmen to hostile animals (and even inexplicably murderous Foxes) at marked locations on the map, go to the animal marker then drop a Meat Bait and watch them come investigating. With your nifty warpaint that gives -100% Animal Reaction they will not attack you until you get two or three arrows off, so headshot them as fast as possible as they stand there sniffing. If they turn to attack you, plan ahead by standing on a rock outcrop that they can't climb to get to you. If there is no handy vantage point, shoot from horseback so you can sprint off in case they go for you. Check the map to see if the animal marker has gone away. If not, do it again. So far, after two Meat Baits the problem is solved for good.

To maximise the recruiting of warriors, don't burn Prisons when you have cleared them out. They will be populated by settlers again and once again they will fill their prison cells up, so you can rinse and repeat. I have a lucky map with 3 Prisons at various points just outside the borders of my starting zone which is incredibly convenient. I usually get around 5 or 6 freed prisoners from each one. (Prison wagons run on the roads quite frequently, but the driver and his henchmen never seem to drop a key)

I use Custom Settings when starting a new game to turn off Reputation (kill as much as you want that way and no Karma to bother with) and I also turn the Rain off. I absolutely love the look of the rain, but I play with headphones and the noise is ear-damaging!

[bkrrrrr]

Don't allow your warriors to use low quality guns. Good bows are much better.

Stun Arrows, Stun Arrows, Stun Arrows. Always have about 80 of them on you.

[Tachyon]

Originally posted by bkrrrrr:

Don't allow your warriors to use low quality guns. Good bows are much better.

Stun Arrows, Stun Arrows, Stun Arrows. Always have about 80 of them on you.

Reasonable advice on the gun vs bow there. :) I should have mentioned Stun Arrows but it slipped my mind as I just kill everyone since I have Karma turned off. If I need to stun someone for interrogation I usually either grab them to make them talk or KO them with a stone, carry them off, wake them up and then grab them again.

[Wolf King]

Originally posted by bkrrrrr:

Don't allow your warriors to use low quality guns. Good bows are much better.

Stun Arrows, Stun Arrows, Stun Arrows. Always have about 80 of them on you.

Bow and Arrows are the best weapons to arm warriors with!

[Wolf King]

Originally posted by Tachyon:

Originally posted by bkrrrrr:

Don't allow your warriors to use low quality guns. Good bows are much better.

Stun Arrows, Stun Arrows, Stun Arrows. Always have about 80 of them on you.

Reasonable advice on the gun vs bow there. :) I should have mentioned Stun Arrows but it slipped my mind as I just kill everyone since I have Karma turned off. If I need to stun someone for interrogation I usually either grab them to make them talk or KO them with a stone, carry them off, wake them up and then grab them again.

i wish there was a way to tie up stunned guys then interrogate vs waking them up again

[Tachyon]

Originally posted by Wolf King:

i wish there was a way to tie up stunned guys then interrogate vs waking them up again

Definitely. Even though I grab them a split second after I wake them up by kicking them, it doesn't always work

[Dosboy]

Originally posted by Tachyon:

If they don't have a wagon and you can't burn the camp down in order to place a fire, take all the loot you want that you already stashed in a camp loot container and open your inventory and use the Stuck option. There will be a 60 second wait and then you and your horse will appear at the closest camp fire to you (you will not appear at an actual tribe's campfire, just one of the little wooden lean-to's) From there you can move all your goodies to one of your actual camps. (I try not to abuse this in case they patch it out of the game but thought people should make their own mind up about using it!)

Whoops...it's public now... gone with the next patch... lol

I wish there was a better way of managing the inventory I carry around with me. I wish I could "lock" the inventory and do a "transfer all" for when I'm looting. It's terribly micro'ing when there is a lot of loot to pick through. In other games I use "dump chests" to temporarily put my personal inventory in, then separate the loot. Unfortunately, there aren't any "dump chests" I can use to just dump my stuff in, do what I want, then grab it. And my horse carries extra stuff. I probably carry too much, backups to the backups. I guess if I had a wagon nearby that would work. Getting so tired of sorting all the stuff, I just look quickly for high level things and just burn the camp (unless I have a larger base nearby)...

[Tachyon]

Yes, looting is a major pain in the ass. I'm at the stage I just loot Groceries, HQ weapons and all the ammo. It's even more annoying when I put all the camp loot I want to take with me into one loot container, then when I'm done I pick it all up and go to burn the camp down. Then I find I can't because "that camp is inhabited" (by some npc who has wandered off somewhere) or it just turns out it's a camp or fort you are not allowed to burn.

So, I have to laboriously put back all the loot and I hope I find the guy who is wandering around god knows where and kill him. If that doesn't work I just have to drive a wagon over... It's SO annoying.

I would hope that, one day, the fire of a camp you have wiped out instantly becomes a Camp Fire that you can use to access the Social Stash and the inventories of your settlements.

[Tachyon]

Oh, just found a name (Stormcloud, Goose) that gives me +167 strength, Max Herbalism, Improved Spyglass with penalties of -3 warriors and -87 Stamina. Now THAT character is going to be able to carry a LOT of stuff. :D

[Tachyon]

Originally posted by Wolf King:

Originally posted by Tachyon:

Reasonable advice on the gun vs bow there. :) I should have mentioned Stun Arrows but it slipped my mind as I just kill everyone since I have Karma turned off. If I need to stun someone for interrogation I usually either grab them to make them talk or KO them with a stone, carry them off, wake them up and then grab them again.

i wish there was a way to tie up stunned guys then interrogate vs waking them up again

I like the idea of trussing them up so they can't right back! That should definitely be in the game.

Since we can't though, I realised I needed to get Improved Grab up to level two to do this. To play it safe I shoot the knocked out NPC until they are at 50% or less, Kick them and then press F to Grab them as soon as they begin to get up. Level one Improved Grab lets you grab people at 30% HP or less, but you risk killing them when shooting arrows into them.

[Tachyon]

Just found a good combination of Names for October 2021. I'm very pleased with the character name and the horse isn't bad either. Probably the best ones I have discovered in my (mere) 90 hours of play.


Zuhgu (Goose)

Warriors Extra Weight
Health Regen III (350 HP over 5 mins)
+181 Weight

-3 Warriors

-67 Stamina

Horse name = Mayona (Extra Speed and Saddlebag)

[Dosboy]

Originally posted by Tachyon:

Just found a good combination of Names for October 2021. I'm very pleased with the character name and the horse isn't bad either. Probably the best ones I have discovered in my (mere) 90 hours of play.


Zuhgu (Goose)

Warriors Extra Weight
Health Regen (Maximum: 600 HP over 5 mins)
+181 Weight

-3 Warriors

-67 Stamina

Horse name = Mayona (Extra Speed and Saddlebag)

Oh, you must be Ackworth on discord?

[Tachyon]

Originally posted by duanethebathtub:

Oh, you must be Ackworth on discord?

Guilty as charged. :)

[Tachyon]

Had to edit the HP Regen level in the above Character Name - it's lvl III and not IV, but still pretty good.

[Flakk Gun]

Adding a tip to the pool.

I play hardcore mode. So one defeat and it's all over.

Because of that, I always put looted dimes and rare items like jail keys in my stash. It's saved me a lot of time on my next play.

[Eagle]

Before waking an enemy to interrogate them, loot their weapons first and then wake them. They will not have a weapon to shoot you with.