Stupid question

[Xenon The Noble]

Just bought the game. Pulled out all my hair trying to pick up stuff. I figured out sticks and logs and stone, but nothing else makes any sense e.g. where do I click to pick up this "Saint John's Wart" thing? Also, why does it tell me to gather up more than can be carried? Is there a place where I'm supposed to be storing the gathered objects?

[freakin_nerdygirl]

Your best bet is the wiki page and youtube videos that show game play.
You press "E" or hold "E" to pick up objects (on pc) and just follow the main story line and it will walk you through the basics. You can ignore the Uniegost and Alwin story lines until you're ready.

[pdoan8]

For herb, berry and mushroom, you can only pick them up during a certain season (from Spring to Autumn).

For storage: you can advance in tech and unlock storage building as well as chest, barrel,... You will need some money to buy the blue print for some items.

For carrying capacity: you can use backpack to increase carrying capacity. Either buy them, found them in some abandoned camp, or craft them later when you have the tech.

You can also turn on unlimited carrying in Customise Game menu.

[rhwilson1953]

A quick press of "E" will pick up items you would call loose such as sticks, stones, tools and such.

A long press of "E" will pick up items you would consider attached to the ground, such as berries, dandelions, St. John's Wart, mushrooms, reeds and saplings.

When you pick up sticks lying on the ground you will pick up one at a time, when you pick saplings you can get several sticks at once depending on how tall the sapling is.

[Morri]

The game shows you clearly what to press and how to press it when you mouse over an object:
https://imgur.com/a/TzaXg8v

If it's just picking up a loose thing on the floor, like the first screenshot in the link, you just press E once. (like you see in the screenshot, it shows you just the letter E)
If it needs more work, like pulling out a herb or pulling the branches of a little bush for sticks like in the second screenshot in the link, you need to not just press E, but hold it til the circle that'll appear over your cursor goes full circle. (like you see in the screenshot, it shows you the letter E with a little circle below)

So to pull out your hair like you said you did, that would be holding E, not just pressing it.

Where you want to store the things you gathered, is up to you. Why are you gathering them? If it is to build a house, you might take them all to the spot where you want to build it and drop it there on the ground temporarily til you have all you need to build it.
Don't worry, items dropped on the ground stay there forever (unless it food, then it rots on season change), so it's safe to drop stuff. If you easily want to see where the things are that you dropped, just keep alt pressed (inspector mode) and you see an orange text hovering above all items nearby that you dropped. (Careful, this drains your stamina)

Later in the game, you'll be having a resource storage building, where you can put most of the materials in the chest. Your villagers will be able to access them there. (They can't pick up things you dropped on the floor).

[Dutchgamer1982]

when you first start the game.. picking up stuff and maybe dying from hunger, thirst or your first wolf battle... it can be frustrating.

-> firstly you can in game settings alter things
**you can turn on/off your characters need to eat
**you can turn on/off your characters need to drink
**you can turn on/off your ability to get poisoned
**you can turn on/off your ability to get drunk
**you can turn on/off limited stamina
**you can turn on/off limited carry capacity
**you can turn on/off your ability to take damage
**you can increase/decrease the damage annimals do to you
**you can increase/decrease how much HP annimals have (so how many of your hits it takes to kill them)
**you can increase/decrease how much xp you gain with each action.
**you can increase/decrease how much technology points you gain with each action
**you can increase/decrease how much reputation you gain with each action
----
and for later
**you can alter how much tax you need to pay
**you can alter how much your villagerts consume

this allows you to learn certain elements of the game without having it all at once tossed at you.

but in short :
-your character needs to drink.. you can sip from any open body of water (rivers, lakes)
to drink press E
-your character needs to eat, open your inventory (press I) select any food item and either doubleclick it or press F
-> ofcourse these supplies won't last forever.. so to get more food :
1 buy :
in the village you can buy food from vendors (if you press the space bar while in a village, you will see some villagers have a bag over their head.. those are the vendors)
->
to afford that, you need to sell something, something easy to sell early game are stone knifes, you need to pick up from the ground 5 sticks and 2 stones per knife.. than press Q and you get your building screen.. select toolmaking, than stone knifes... each stone knife sells for 20 coin..
2 gather : gathering is done with E just as you picked up stones and sticks, only sometimes you need to HOLD E a little longer instead of just tapping it.
-this game has seasons, there are herbs (like that hemsworth you talked off) and food items.
**in spring where the game starts : there are morels and unripe berries
(each morel gives 1 nutricion, each berry 0.5) but the berries also give you 1% poisoning.. poisoning will slowly reduce over time but if it gets to high you will loose health or die.. to instantly reduce poisoning by 20% you can eat the herb St. John's Wort... -> st johns worth grows in spring, summer and autymn.
**in summer there are ripe berries, they give 0.5 nutricion, but no ill effects
**in autumn there are 6 variants of mushroom, 3 are utterly unedable (fly agaric gives 100% poisoning from eating just one, wooly milkcap and bitter bolete 50% poisoning from eating just one).. but bolete mushroom, red pine musroom and parasol musroom only give 0.5% poison and 1% nutricion and are fine to eat.
**in winter there is nothing to harvest
3 : hunt.. you can kill annimals than pressing E when you have a knife in your inventory (if not you can craft one), annimals will be available all year round and give meat.. raw meat is unwise to eat.. press Q, and select decorations, than campfires.. place a simple campfire.. and press E with a torch in inventory to light it on fire, than tapping E allows you to roast your meat on the campfire. each roasted meat gives 6 nutricion.. (holding E longer will give you the option to sleep at the campfire)
4 : farm.. (while farming requires a lot of steps and resources I will explain it)
-you can build farms, press Q, than building, than farming, that fields.
drag the size field you want and press ok.
-> use a hoe to roughen each field (have one in your hands).. now I explain you how to fast equip.. if you pressed I you see your character.. below him are 8 fast buttons, drag a tool from your inventory to there.. will allow you to press that number and instantly equip that too.. pressing that number again will unequip it.)
-> use a bag, (a simple one you can craft from 3 leather pressing Q) and have fertiliser in inventory, you spread manure over each field, as long you have enough fertiliser in your inventory
-> than you plow the field, again with a hoe
-> that you seed the field, again equip the bag, but now you need to select seeds
right mouse button, than you can select seed type you wish to plant
-> than you can seed each field, provided it is the right season to seed the crop you want to harvest.
-> this should help : https://medieval-dynasty.fandom.com/wiki/Field?file=PlantingChart.png
**to aquire seeds, you just have to buy them from an npc, but once you harvest your first crop, it gives more seeds than you put in + the crop, so you only have to buy seeds once
**to aquire fertiliser if you not want to buy it all the time : you will need a barn building in it you can turn either 2 manure (can be bought) or 10 rot (you can obtain yourself) into 1 fertiliser.
ALL food will slowly rot at the end of each season.
-food in your own inventory will rot the most
-food in any storage crate will rot a little less
-food in a dedicated food storage building will rot the least
if a food item gets under 50% it will poison you when eaten, if a food item gets 0% it will turn into rot
**you can build a compost bin (Q -> decorations -> other) food placed in a compost bin will give more rot per food item and will rot 100% in one season.. faster than anything else.

[Dutchgamer1982]

next thing I should mention is dirty.. if you press I you see a brown bar with a % thats how dirty you currently are.. if you are dirty even healthy food can poison you... the more dirty the more it does.. and if you are more than 50% dirty npc will refuse to talk to you.
-> to clean dirt you must jump into deep water (most lakes are deep enough to get you to 0% dirt) OR use a bathtub
-> you must aquire 3 wooden buckets, than fill them by having one equipped and near a stream or lake press E to fill them.
-> you can press Q -> decorations -> other and build a bathtub, to fill the bathtub, 3 buckets of water are needed.. a bathtub will last forever.. you can just hold E near it and be washed fully.

-> than your other needs... poisoning can be fixed with hemsworth as already told
-> alcholism has no long time effects, it will wear off eventually and exept for a few quests.. you can just avoid having it..

Healthpoints however :
if your HP drops to 0.. you die, game over.
at the start of each season you get full HP..
to restore some HP in between there are 3 methods
-sleep in a house (if you have a house build, and sleep in it, you will regain a little HP)
-consume broadleaf plantain (it grows spring - summer - autumn and each heals 2 HP)
-consume health potions (expensive to buy, hard to craft, but sometimes you find some)
to comsume items, like told before, press I select the item, than press F

Final thing that could kill you is COLD.
-> in winter the temperature drops to low.. this low temperature will give you hibernation and hibernation will hurt your hp.
-> without any broadleaf plantains growing in winter, it will be hard to heal back that hp.
**to stay warm there are 3 methods
1 build a campfire, multiple if have to, never leave it
2 have a well isolated house, and stay indoors with the fire lit
3 hold a burning torch in your hand (you can press F when ingame, and your character will hold a torch from your offhand.. this is handy when it is to dark to see.. or in winter to stay warm.. but torches will slowly burn through.. you can craft more froms sticks and straw (straw grows near the waterside in some locations, near the first town you are send to grows a lot)
4 have warm clothes -> crafting clothes is late game, but you sometimes find lost crates and camps and those sometimes have clothes items.. you could also buy clothes from a vendor..
each piece of clothing has as a % protection against cold, and a % protection against heat
-> if you have a higher % protection against cold.. you get hibernating slower.. if it's 100% you are immune for it.. however there are negative percentages too.. if you have negative heat resistance in summer.. than you will take damage too. (but you can always just take off clothing.
-> to equip clothing.. press I to go to inventory than drag the item to it's apropiate slot
***
the "perfect" set of clothes =
Straw hat (180 coins to buy)
thick leather gloves (270 coins to buy)
Trousers (300 coins to buy)
fur boots (375 coins to buy)
Linen shirt (405 coins to buy)
Long fur hod (780 coins to buy)
-> combined that gives +100% cold protection and 0% heat protection (so no need to pull it out in summer)
**vendors selling these items are in 3 of the 10 towns : denica, branica and hornica.

-as told you can earn that coin by picking up sticks and stones crafting them into stone knifes and selling them to vendors, with 3 days in a season, you have 9 days before winter to stock up.
the full set as suggested would mean selling 116 stone knifes, so picking up 232 stones and 580 sticks.. thats a lot.. but certainly doable..
extra tips : grabbing saplings (hold E) instead of sticks from ground.. will yield multiple sticks per grab.. and you also get sticks cutting trees, and that you be doing anyway to get logs for your house

-> that be your basic needs covered...
now your buildings.
-buildings are needed to craft more complex things (not all can be made pressing q), as well as to house and employ villagers to do the stuff FOR you... so you get it more easy.
-you will have a building limit, but as you progress the main quest, it will be expanded
(you can in game setting double it if you want. but thats all you can do about this)
building is always done, press Q, select the building you want and place it anywhere in the world.. than you need to hold a hammer in hand, and start clicking to build it.. consuming resources from your inventory)
**when you are building walls or the roof of a house standing before one and before starting a segment you can press E, you can than select another variant.. not only gives this you freedom where you want the door and windows, but you also can build better quality walls and roof (default roofs are made of straw, but they can be made of wood, or even wood tiling instead, default walls are made of wattle, but they can be made of wood or stone instead)
better walls and roofs give better isolation against the cold
-> if you want to break down a building or wall segment, while holding a hammer press right mouse button, than you can select demolish)
-> you can also isolate a wall while holding a hammer, press right mouse button and select isolate, you now can isolate walls.. isolated walls give even more protection against the cold

To gather the building materials for all this :
-sticks you know
-straw you know
-stones you know
-logs : you need to cut down trees, to cut down a tree, craft an axe, like you crafted a knife, equip it, and walk to any tree and press left mouse to start chopping. you see a percentage dropping down.. when it hits 0% the tree will fall (carefull it does not fall on you!) and when it dropped.. give it 2 more hits with your axe, one to defoliate it (you will recieve some sticks and feathers for that automaticly placed in your inventory).. and one to turn the tree into 2, 3 or 4 logs.. pick up the logs from the ground pressing E.
-planks : you need to build a woodshed, in a woodshed you can craft 1 log into 2 planks
-clay : clay can be dug from clay pits, rare locations, with a shovel (again craft a shovel and equip one..) clay pits respawn each season.. so once you found one you can return to it each season.
-limestone : limestone can be gained by mining stone out in the wilderniss with a pickaxe (many cityies have inside them a bunch of stones that can be mined for limestone).. this will give stones as well as a chance for 1-3 limestone per stone mined, like clay deposits, they respawn each season.

-> I figure you will want hiring villagers.. well than to do that you need
**a house for them, each house will have place for 1 female and 1 villager (and 1 house is yours (and your wife when you get one).. so you need to have build at least 2 houses before you start hiring villagers
**a food storage (villagers too will eat food, but they need a food storage to take it from, you will also need to place buckets of water in this food storage to provide them with water)
**a goods storage, in here you need to place sticks, logs, firewood or planks, to provide them with firewood
-> villagers in better isolated houses will have better mood (increasing their production) and will need less firewood.
**to not have to carry in tons of food and wood yourself, you be wise to have your first 2 villagers be a hunter & a lumberjack.
->for a lumberjack you will need a woodshed, you need that anyway to craft planks.
villagers be a lumberjack (you will need a woodshed for that), you will be needing a woodshed anyway, to be able to craft planks.. so likely you already got one.. have him gather logs (do not process the logs, burning logs is more efficient than have him waste labour on making firewood)
(he will need axes to be able to do this, place some axes you crafted in your goods storage)
-> for a hunter, you will need a hunting lodge, put your worker 34% on meat and 66% on dried meat
he will need knifes to be able to do this, so place knifes in your toolshed.

1 hunter and 1 lumberjack like this will take care of all your villagers wood and food needs provided you keep them supplied with tools.. you however do need to keep refilling the water buckets yourself..
-> thats why you build a well, as your next building so you can apoint your third villager as water carrier, he will refill buckets as they empty (they will slowly loose durability but they will last years, so not an imediate issue)

now to apoint villagers.. once you build these buildings.... you go to a village and invide villagers to come to your village (if you press space, while in a down.. the villagers that can be invided have a little puppet symbol over their heads)
if your reputation is high enough they will accept.
-> you than press M or I to open your menu, and select the tab managment.
in there you go to buildings -> houses, select a house and than select a spot in that house click it and you can than select a villager to have live in that house..
***same thing when you want to employ them.. managment, selct the labour building, select a build spot click it than select the villager from the list to do that job
-> for labour buildings you also manage their production.. to do that..
select the building.. and than go to their 2d tab.. there you see sliders with %.. you can alocate % of all labour done in this building to diffferent tasks (upto 100%)..
for your lumberjack set it on 97% logs 1% planks 2% sticks, for your hunter on 34% meat 66% dried meat, for your water carrier 100% waterbuckets

later on when your building limit expands : you likely want to further automate things :
**build an excavation hut, and yet another house, and employ a worker as miner.. to automaticly gather stone, he will need pixaxes in your storage to work.
50% stone, 50% limestone can be done, if you so want, to gather limestone for isolating easely, but 100% stone is fine too.
**change
**build a smithy, and employ a worker as blacksmith, he will need some wood hammers to get started (put some in your storage) than have him craft 10% wood hammers, 30% stone knifes 30% stone pickaxe, 30% stone axe

-> your village is now almost self sufficient, all you need is a workshop, employ 1 worker in it as craftsman, and have him craft buckets... this will produce more buckets than you ever can wear down..

->
in very late game, when you unlocked the mine.. you may want to move your miner from an excavation shed, to a mine, and upgrade your smithy to a smithy II, buy the iron tool recepies, and start making iron tools (but still wooden hammers, as iron hammers are not worth it).. those last a little longer.. and thus need less labour to make.

money : build a second hunting lodge, hure 4 workers in it and set it 100% on gathering feathers
build 3 marketstalls, hire 1 worker in each of them and set it 100% of selling feathers...
-> this will gain you at start a couple hundred, eventually a couple thousant coins per day.. you won't have to sell stone tools anymore..

if you want your villagers to supply YOU with food (sure you could always buy it) (so you can just do your thing without worrying about it).. you have a limited carry capacity.. so you want whats light..
**flatbread is the most energy dense food for you to carry... you need to grow wheat (can do yourself, but if you build a farming shed, you can have your villagers do it for you)
-> than trash that into grain and straw. -> can be done in a barn yourself or by hiring a villager there
-> than mill the grain into flour -> can be done in a barn or in a mill, the mill produces twice as much flour per amount of grain, but it's a very late game building, and it's another villager needed, while you can use the same barnworker to trash and mill the grain.
-> than bake the flour into flatbread -> need a kitchen II, and do yourself or hire a cook.

If thats all to much for you? just sell some produce made by your villagers... and buy the flatbread with it.

[Aegyssus]

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

when you first start the game.. picking up stuff and maybe dying from hunger, thirst or your first wolf battle... it can be frustrating.

(...)

You should make a Guide and put it there, with all this great info from both of your posts !
And so it will be for everyone easy to access !

Otherwise it will get lost in the discussion's-history ... and that will be a pity !

[Dutchgamer1982]

Originally posted by krixpop:

Originally posted by Dutchgamer1982:

when you first start the game.. picking up stuff and maybe dying from hunger, thirst or your first wolf battle... it can be frustrating.

(...)

You should make a Guide and put it there, with all this great info from both of your posts !
And so it will be for everyone easy to access !

Otherwise it will get lost in the discussion's-history ... and that will be a pity !

i might do that.
later.. still learning.
like did you know in map screen.. (when m) you can vieuw more types of map?? press in map screen near that button reading standard and you can select a dosin othermaps.. I found the annimal locations map that will gray out a symbol if you hunted all of that spiecies in one location very helpfull;)
I only discovered that one yesterday..

[🎮AliveSince1961🎮]

And if you don't want to explore the whole map to find all the places where the animals are, you can buy maps from the vendors. Ask any npc where to find...

Animal traps are also visible through the map filter. I use them as markers, 6 traps of 3 different types, making 18 markers available.

[Kwalyz]

Originally posted by Xenon The Noble:

Just bought the game. Pulled out all my hair trying to pick up stuff. I figured out sticks and logs and stone, but nothing else makes any sense e.g. where do I click to pick up this "Saint John's Wart" thing? Also, why does it tell me to gather up more than can be carried? Is there a place where I'm supposed to be storing the gathered objects?

There is an in-game Knowledge tab that has a variety of helpful topics, some with pictures or short videos.

Many of the Knowledge topics will pop up on your screen when you get to particular stages of the chapter progress or stages in the game - Eg when your thirst drops the first time the Knowledge topic on thirst pops onto the screen.

If you close them without reading/ watching them you can find them again within the Knowledge tab.
(Not sure if it’s possible to disable the pop-ups,)