Compilation of quick and easy game tips.

[William Bonney]

Current game version 0.6.0.5

I'm not a big fan of watching folk's YouTube videos personally, or even reading lengthy guides that are out of date more often than not. So as I update this gonna try to update the game version I'm currently playing. As I know I don't know everything and don't pretend to be an expert, other folks can feel free to add their own personal tips and I'll edit this post giving whatever handle/moniker shows credit. If there is none, or I'm wrong about something somewhere (it happens), the tip likely comes out of my mind.

1. Stone campfires continue over seasons, whereas the Simple and Wooden ones do not.

2. You must have a torch (simple or otherwise) in your inventory to light a fire.

3. Hunting can earn a lot of early money, especially your first day when you're by yourself and using wood spears. Just kill rabbits and foxes while having 5 or so spears in inventory (for when fox attacks) and things go better. Can hunt deer too that way, just takes too long imo. Sell the leather and fur, cook the meats and then sell. Buy better bows and arrows when you can off of NE storyline guy, I forget his name off the top of my head.

4. Buy or make a Waterskin as quickly as you can. I personally hate having to find the nearest lake or river to grab a drink. A 4 use item that fills you about 20 water per use, that can then be refilled at a water source later. It does have a durability, -1% per use.

5. In "Furniture and Decorations," the miscellaneous section, is the option to build a washtub. You then need a bucket and have to fill the tub multiple times with that bucket with water. Then use the washtub when you are dirty to remove some of the dirt.

6. Stone Sickles are your friend. Taking 4 stone and 4 sticks, valued at 35 coin per and weighing at .75kg per (where as the materials to make take 4.4kg and value at 1.6 coin per). Saves a lot of weight, earns a decent amount of coin, and makes use of some worthless and easy to acquire materials. You get crafting experience too so.

7. Plant flax. You can make a lot of coin off selling the seeds you get, not to mention getting ahold of the linen strings to then make either fabrics or bows, once you have a sewing hut. Even if you don't have a sewing hut, flax can earn a lot of coin.

8. Don't be afraid to buy simple things from NPCs. It can save a lot of time buying logs or firewood off them, as well as manure for making fertilizer. About the most expensive item I buy (other than stuff I can't make yet) is Animal Feed. I always seem to get close to running out.

9. Take a shovel, even a wooden one lasts a long time, with you when you chop trees down for logs. Digging up the stump adds another log. I normally have my axe in 1, switch to my wooden shovel in 2, and my hammer for building I leave in 3, when I'm tree chopping for building logs.
9a. Amending to add Capuzzi09's and Millinia's parts: Trees only grow back if you leave the stumps. So with the shovel use and removing the stump for the extra log, use areas where you want to clear an obstacle for building, and not where you'd want to have trees regrow. It takes two years for that stump to regrow into a tree, or 8 seasons.

10. From Sin: Berries - and I'll add in mushrooms as well - can be left either in your food storage, or dropped on the ground and will turn to rot at the season change. 10xRot is changed into Fertilizer in a Barn's workbench. Is a quick and easy way to get fertilizer before you have Pigs and better that make manure, or buy manure from NPCs.

11. From both subwaybananas and Millinia: Planting Cabbages are also great for making rot. One cabbage spoils into four rot, is a effective way at feeding your village early on, and can be planted in both Spring to harvest in Summer and replanted in Summer to harvest in Fall. You can get a lot of cabbage quickly. I also found Cabbage to be great for my first tavern, producing Pottage over and over for crafting skill experience and then later having a use for the Craftsmen making bowls and a Tavernkeeper making Town Soup.

12. When Mining, is a good idea to know where the Tool vendors are, and buy 2 or 3 Iron Pickaxes when you can for personal use. Those picks only take 4 swings to collect the ore, bronze picks take 5. Also, drop your stone when you get overburdened in a cave. This way you can keep on mining and clear it in that season for it to respawn/refresh for the next and not have to keep going back and forth to forge/storage.

13. Do not Rush to build a town/hamlet. I did my first game, quickly had 40 out of 55 possible buildings, and let me tell you, managing it was a completely different game than the early stages of just hunting and making the crafting stations for myself.
There's a lot more time management involved managing a town than just exploring the map

14. Personal skill experience requires you to perform those types of operations. My advice, read through the different levels of the skill point boosts to find what operations actually raise those specific skill sets. I advise having at least a 5 in every skill before starting to recruit folks into a village. NPC/AI experience, they have their own skills that are raised when they do those operations. Yes, they add to your technology side of things, because that's more for the city/hamlet management side of things. So just about anything you or the NPCs that are residents of your towns add to it.

15. House like-minded residents with each other. Those that you recruit that have 2s or 3s in their specific skill set for their jobs, say farming, house them with other farmers or animal husbandry folks that also have 2s and 3s. Crafters with crafters, hunters with hunters/fishers/gatherers. This way, when they have kids, those kids are born with higher stats in their parents specializations. 4's and 5s at birth I've seen. I'm sure higher as their skills will also raise over time.

15. Eat Broadleaf Plantain To regain health while awake by +10 per. Sleeping in your bed also recovers health, but the plants are kinda like health potions. I tend to keep 10-20 on me whenever I go out hunting. They only weigh .01 kg per.

16. From both myself and subwaybanas: Resource and Food Storage is shared. Which means, everything you see in one, you'll also see in another on the other side of the map. This means it's kinda pointless to transport large amounts of mass from one side of the map to the other. Just toss it all in a storage, move your character to your desired location, build a 2nd Resource1 shed, and take it out of there.

17. Looking for Rocks? I personally find it easier when first starting out scavenging rocks lying on the ground near the water. Sure, you can find them all over, but in the Spring and Summer, there's so much foliage around, hard to see them from afar. Also to note, pick up those Broadleaf Plantains at the same time. +10 health comes in very handy when you're out and about, hunting or otherwise. Later you can mine rocks, either from stone on various hillsides, or in caves when you collect copper/tin/salt. Very useful for making the stone knives or once you have the Smithy workbench, stone sickles to then sell to vendors. Easy resources with low value, that have quite a bit more value once crafted (and ya get exp from crafting).

18. Metallic type Arrows, Spears, and Crossbow Bolts cause a bleed to animals. Bleeds are DOTs that also stop their movements when they are bleeding. This includes when they spot you and decide to run/charge at you for attacks. Stone or Wood arrows, spears, and bolts do not cause this.

19. From NickTwist with an add from myself: If you're careful and steal a Bucket from the lone Hunter NPC in the NE, that bucket can then be used to fill up your first Washtub. It can also be used to drink from before you have a waterskin.

20. From NickTwist: Is a good idea Before Recruiting villagers to have both Food and Resource Storages, and I'll add a house for them to live in, also so they aren't homeless. Put wood (firewood, logs, sticks) in the Resource, and Food in the Food shed to fill those needs that start right away.

21. From NickTwist: Is a good idea to have a Male in each "important" job category. I say important, because there are some jobs that aren't really villager needs. But Farmers, Woodsman, Hunters, I'd even say cooks and Toolmaker/blacksmiths I prefer as males. This way, when a woman has a child, she becomes a Mother for her "job" and can't do anything else while that child is a baby. The fathers still work.

22. At Skill Level 10 in something? Then why the heck do you still have 3 points still spent in the "Knowlege" section to earn more experience? For what purpose? Cozy up to your Wife and respec those points elsewhere, you aren't getting more skill once at the cap. Technology stuff works different, and you're not getting more technology from doing the same stuff for having spent points in knowledge, that's Skill experience.

23. Want to save the durability of your Iron Axe? Equip a Stone or Copper Axe and when you're chopping, switch to it once the tree is down to chop branches and into logs. Saves the dura loss on the Iron Axe and is always the same 2 swings for making them logs.

24. Wood Demand: quite simply, 1 Stick = 1 Wood, ! Firewood = 5 Wood, 1 Log = 10 Wood, 1 Plank = 5 Wood. This is on "Wood Demand" only. So, 1 Log can burn for 10 as a Log or split into 2 Planks, or if cut into firewood, burns for 20. If you are seeking a balance of Firewood to Wood Demand, divide your Demand by 20 and then match that amount of Firewood and Logs you chop every day. Anything more than that will be extra.

[Spotter]

Job well done, mate! 😀👍👏

[Sin]

Berries are the most economical "free" way to make fertiliser at the start of the game. It's easy to pick thousands a year just by grabbing them whenever you stumble across a patch, and you're also gaining survival skill in the process.
Once you're able to make Food Storage 1, slam your berry stash into it and forget about them. About a year later you'll have thousands of Rot which can be converted into Fertiliser at the Barn 1 table at a 10 Rot = 1 Fertiliser ratio.

[William Bonney]

I personally found it good to let berries, ripe or not, sit on the ground right before season changes to make them turn to rot. I did the same for my mushrooms. Is a good tip though.

[subwaybananas]

one cabbage spoils to 4 rot. One field square get 8-12 cabbage. I use berries only for the first season. an extra cabbage field instead of collecting berries save a lot of time.
And cabbage is the easiest way to feed your villager in the first seasons. Easier and much more efficient as hunters with raw meat that you have to roast.

[Capuzzi09]

Originally posted by William Bonney:

[...]
9. Take a shovel, even a wooden one lasts a long time, with you when you chop trees down for logs. Digging up the stump adds another log. I normally have my axe in 1, switch to my wooden shovel in 2, and my hammer for building I leave in 3, when I'm tree chopping for building logs.
[...]

Please note that trees do not grow back once you have removed the stumps.
So you pay a high price for the "extra log", in my opinion.
You should only remove stumps in areas where you absolutely do not want them to grow back, e.g. if you want to build something there or create a field.

In all other cases, I recommend that you do NOT remove the stumps.

[Milinia]

Originally posted by William Bonney:

9. Take a shovel, even a wooden one lasts a long time, with you when you chop trees down for logs. Digging up the stump adds another log. I normally have my axe in 1, switch to my wooden shovel in 2, and my hammer for building I leave in 3, when I'm tree chopping for building logs.

Just remember when you remove the stump, the trees won't grow back. If you leave the stump the tree will grow back after two years.

Originally posted by subwaybananas:

one cabbage spoils to 4 rot. One field square get 8-12 cabbage. I use berries only for the first season. an extra cabbage field instead of collecting berries save a lot of time.
And cabbage is the easiest way to feed your villager in the first seasons. Easier and much more efficient as hunters with raw meat that you have to roast.

This! Cabbages are your friend. I get a cabbage field going usually on day 3 (I play a 3 day season) during the first spring. By then I will have made enough money from selling cart and bandit camp spoils that I can afford to buy fertiliser and seeds for two 3x4 fields, 1 for cabbage and 1 for flax. Rot the cabbages and in summer plant both fields with cabbages. Again, rot the cabbages and plant rye and wheat in autumn. I also rot any left over meat the first year and I rarely have to buy more fertiliser than the initial batch.

[William Bonney]

Updated adding tips from others, and tossing in my two cents on a couple, heh.

[William Bonney]

Hmm, an interesting idea I thought of while logging and thinking about the tree regrowth thing. Might make sense to shovel up all the Birch and Spruce trees, the ones that only give 2 or 3 logs per tree, and keep all the stumps of the Maples. Might be something I start going with.

[William Bonney]

Added some more tips I've thought of today that I've figured out. Please feel free to comment and add your own suggestions and tips. I'm fairly thick skinned so can take a bit of criticism, heh.

[subwaybananas]

addition
to 12: build a storage in front of the mine, food and ressource storage have shared storage with the other food/ressource storage, short way, no need to drop the stones >> enough stones for stone-houses, stone knife (easy money) etc. and you can ride with your donkey/horse into the mine for extra carry weight.

to 14: didn´t know why you should have 5 in every skill before recruiting npc? early workers => early (tech-point) farming support"

to 15.: the kids get the half of added skillpoints from their parents at the birth date. If both parents have skill 10 in farming at the moment they get a child, the child has farming skill 10 too. If one have 7 and the other have 3 the child will have (7+3)/2 = 5

to 16: keep in mind that you can´t farm broadleaf in winter

[Chief]

make sure you check the carts out and look for grave sites you can get shovels,stones even coin also can find piles of logs and axes clay pit can find shovel and clay all ready dug up some carts can find gifts to give to your woman even dig gifts up in the clay pits

[William Bonney]

Originally posted by subwaybananas:

addition
to 12: build a storage in front of the mine, food and ressource storage have shared storage with the other food/ressource storage, short way, no need to drop the stones >> enough stones for stone-houses, stone knife (easy money) etc. and you can ride with your donkey/horse into the mine for extra carry weight.

Nope, drop 'em. If/when you actually need them, like when you are building stone walls, go back into your cave and pick them up. There will be stacks upon stacks of them. Hit alt and you'll see a bunch. This way, your resource storage isn't filled to overload with rocks.

to 14: didn´t know why you should have 5 in every skill before recruiting npc? early workers => early (tech-point) farming support"

There isn't a need. The game is a lot easier for me being able to focus on the personal character skills in my opinion, before adding in AI/NPCs that you end up having to help support. As for farming support, aren't you farming? The sooner you get the extra items from harvesting, the more extra coin you're earning from it. If the AI is farming for you, they don't get that bonus.

[subwaybananas]

i harvest, they plant/fertilized and there are many other jobs for them. I have usually 2-4 workers in the first spring. 10-20 in the first winter, if i don´t play a hard game (1000% food, wood, taxes)

[William Bonney]

Your month setting must be custom then. No way to do the story line and be building more than 5 buildings to the ten in the first 3 days of the game.

Am running on default personally. Most of my tips/thoughts are for it though most do apply to all I'd think.

[William Bonney]

Basically I suggest before managing the AI, learn the ropes of the game for the character. Farmers will grow food yes, but they then need firewood/log not to mention also needing tools to hoe and bags to fertilize/plant with so either a tailor or the player, so there's woodchoppers that then need more food, than need a blacksmith which consumes more wood and food because choppers use tools, and sure the blacksmith can make his own but they can't. It's a never ending cycle which there is a balance for, but until you've actually learned your player and leveled it some, he's not really capable of supporting a lot.