Tips and Tricks and Hints

[Captain Oveur]

What are some lesser known tips and tricks and stuff that can help new players or even older players? I’m looking for things like you know how expanding too fast can end your game early? Is it possible to expand too slowly? It’s possible to take too long to complete quests because the characters can and will die, but what are the consequences (if any) of rushing through the story? What is the ideal expansion rate and quest completion rate?

Other things to think about: villagers who don’t have jobs will have lowered moods, but what if they have a job and no work orders? I recently discovered that if you partially destroy a house to perform an upgrade, you have to reassign the family to the house when you’re done. That was easy enough to figure out, but it wasn’t until I needed to do it that I learned that it needed to be done.

I also learned the hard way that special NPCs can be recruited after completing quests that involve those NPCs. So far, my wife has sent me on the quests that involved such NPCs. If my wife sends me on a quest, should I go ahead and make sure I have extra housing available? Is this the only way to get these special characters or will I eventually run into more through other means?

I was researching the game before I bought it and came across a video that said you should build a resource storage next to a cave/mine so that you don’t waste time having to travel half the map carrying an inventory full of ore and then run back to get more.

Using an example to explain an entire concept of self-sustaining:
Copper knives can’t be crafted unless you have copper bars. You need copper ore to make the bars. An extraction hut can be set to bring in 30 ore and then a smith can be set to smelt 15 bars and then turn the bars into knives in the same work order. As long as you’re not trying to smelt more ore than you’re bringing in nor using more bars than you’re producing, the loop can be left to run indefinitely with no* input from you.

* you will have to reassign workers occasionally, but only under certain circumstances.

These are all kinda somewhat obvious stuff, but I don’t have enough experience with the game to know the more hidden aspects. I can say to explore the entire map towards the very end of the year because you never know if/where a half-buried chest is going to spawn.

Oh yeah, also, farming. Make a big field and a composter or two as early as you can. So much money (and rot (fertilizer)!) to be made.

[Noburu Ryubi]

Actualy what are you proposing from others to tell you will take away most fun from this game. To play and explore as you see fit. If you should make some mistake, learn form it and continue. Look for help in case you have found some bug or you are stuck at something and do not know how to advance.

[Captain Oveur]

The examples I provided are because I’m still learning. What I’m asking for is more for things you might not ever think of or things that aren’t so fun to learn the hard way. Like one thing I learned the hard way, I had to revert a save and lost only like ten minutes of “progress.” Slightly annoying but that’s it. Other things I had to learn the hard way took just a few minutes to fix. Just a little bit inconvenient. If I were to lose 100+ hours of progress, I’m likely to not play again for a few real life weeks (or months). Very discouraging.

Learning the economy is a little fun and experimenting with material cost vs produces item price (I actually do like math). I don’t really have a good example for what I’m asking because, again, I’m still new and don’t really know what the game has to offer.

[Morri]

I agree with Noburu; looking up guides and looking at too many videos, spoils the game a bit for you.

Most things are recoverable, even if you didn't know them at first.

There's only 1 important thing imo that could make you feel screwed over later on if you didn't know it:
Trees respawn from the stump (after 2 ingame years), but ONLY if you don't remove the stump. If you dig out the stump with a shovel, the tree will never regrow and since there's also no way to plant normal trees, you could be living in a desert wasteland if you don't pay attention.
So only remove the stumps if you are sure you don't want that tree back later at some point.

As for your special npc's; there's 6 of them in total, but you'll only have the opportunity to recruit each of them once per playthrough. If you decline the quest, let the quest expire or say no when they request to join; you'll never see that npc again. In that regard, it is a good idea to have a spare house in case you get a quest for one of them.
(Keep in mind, that those npc quests are random, and if you simply don't get the quest for that npc when the opportunity is there (some of them you can only get when your wife is pregnant for example), you have another chance to get them when you are playing the heir).

[UglyBird]

Originally posted by Captain Oveur:

I was researching the game before I bought it and came across a video that said you should build a resource storage next to a cave/mine so that you don’t waste time having to travel half the map carrying an inventory full of ore and then run back to get more.

This is not true, miners start producing when work starts until finish time, they are animation only and do not transport anything.
Ore collected goes straight into the resource storage where ever it is situated, if your storage is full then ore goes into the mine chest.
This applies to every production except farming which requires actual work from your farmers, this is why it is good to house them close to their work so they don't waste time in travel time which does not apply to miners for example who need to travel sometimes a long way to get to the mine.
Also providing housing for miners close to mine, have no effect on production.

[Noburu Ryubi]

Originally posted by UglyBird:

Originally posted by Captain Oveur:

I was researching the game before I bought it and came across a video that said you should build a resource storage next to a cave/mine so that you don’t waste time having to travel half the map carrying an inventory full of ore and then run back to get more.

This is not true, miners start producing when work starts until finish time, they are animation only and do not transport anything.
Ore collected goes straight into the resource storage where ever it is situated, if your storage is full then ore goes into the mine chest.
This applies to every production except farming which requires actual work from your farmers, this is why it is good to house them close to their work so they don't waste time in travel time which does not apply to miners for example who need to travel sometimes a long way to get to the mine.
Also providing housing for miners close to mine, have no effect on production.

What OP meant applies when your PC is mining.

[UglyBird]

Sorry, missed that one.

[Captain Oveur]

Originally posted by Noburu Ryubi:

Originally posted by UglyBird:

This is not true, miners start producing when work starts until finish time, they are animation only and do not transport anything.
Ore collected goes straight into the resource storage where ever it is situated, if your storage is full then ore goes into the mine chest.
This applies to every production except farming which requires actual work from your farmers, this is why it is good to house them close to their work so they don't waste time in travel time which does not apply to miners for example who need to travel sometimes a long way to get to the mine.
Also providing housing for miners close to mine, have no effect on production.

What OP meant applies when your PC is mining.

This. I noticed the animation-work thing early on when I had someone assigned to make buckets and wooden vials. They would be sweeping more often than not but the workload was still being achieved.

The tree stump thing, I think the game tells you about? I did learn about it while I was researching, at least.

I remember watching the one video and most of the tips equated to “you’re mismanaging your village/resources.” One specific example was supply chains and bottlenecking. “Instead of expanding your farm/production, look for bottlenecks in your supply line.” Like, how to manage your supply line should be one of the very first things you learn about when you recruit your first villager (or wife, whichever happens first). The part I needed help with when time came was figuring out how to actually assign a workload. I thought I had to assign a worker and call it done, but that was just me being a noob and not knowing how it actually worked.

“You need to choose a job for yourself to do” was another tip that, again, should be obvious from the get-go. But to be fair to the video, the previous thing did help a few people in the comments, but still.

I’m going to make some stuff up for examples of the tips I’m looking for:

Your villager mood levels will increase at half the normal rate if it’s rainy weather

Individual villagers will prefer one food type over others

Favorite foods and drinks vary based on season (soups for autumn, porridge and grub for winter, etc)

Fresh recruits will increase mood faster when you have a larger population with a high average mood

Oh! Here’s a decent example:
Unripe berries cannot be used for food, water or crafting and sells for an abysmal amount of money. This fact in itself is actually kinda useless. It’s not so much as a spoiler than it’s a side note. But then [the reader] considers the ungodly amount of berries in the world plus the fact you can have multiple composters, obtaining fertilizer becomes less scary early-game (which, yeah, you still need to unlock the barn, but you see what I’m trying to get at with this). You can leave that second part out. I’m looking at it like a puzzle. Give the information but leave it up to the reader to figure out what to do with it.

[Noburu Ryubi]

From what I can read in your post, you are making this game a hard labor instead of funny way of spending free time. Most thing you are writing about is much of a late-game stuff, yet as it seems you have not played this game for too long.

Just play, do your mistakes, repair them and carry on. By cherry-picking any "not perfect" thing you may have done 90 hours ago will bring you frustration and anger. There is no BAD way to play this game.

[FreeNemesis]

I place a storage house at the mine too (the northern mine in the valley) and some houses a smithy and some tables and chairs. So the animation of my workers dont walk the hole day arount and though the river. (My main town in on the sounthern side of the river)

[simeon]

MD is quite forgiving and Morri explained already the important topics.
But as you asked for “hidden” mechanics or alike, one thing I never read so far:

After assigning the Builders hut to repair a building in the management menu, you can go and instantly repair the broken modules without having the needed resources in your inventory, as these have been already added by the builders hut.

(Don’t know if it is still applicable in v2.0.)

[TheOriginalMark:-)]

While most things can be discovered as you go along from in game hints there are some game mechanics that are not obvious such as that you can upgrade a building, eg. Smithy I to Smithy II by dropping the new one on top of the old one (but not with houses).

[Kathykins]

If you're playing Oxbow: Very early game, before you start your own village, you can sleep and cook in Piastovia, in Sedowin's sick house. I didn't know about this until my 5th playthrough. Completely oblivious.

[Noburu Ryubi]

Originally posted by Kathykins:

If you're playing Oxbow: Very early game, before you start your own village, you can sleep and cook in Piastovia, in Sedowin's sick house. I didn't know about this until my 5th playthrough. Completely oblivious.

Was you not happy when you have discovered this by yourself?
OP is now deprived of such discovery. Just saing. I do not want to be rude or offend someone.

[Kathykins]

Sure I was happy about it, means I don't have to sleep outside, or run back home if I have one. I know people have been asking for a way to spend the night in other towns, I'm glad they put this in.

I'm also happy about sharing little tidbits for those who doesn't know, which is what this thread is for. If someone is afraid of spoilers, its very unlikely they will even click on the thread title.

We all have different ways of playing. Personally, I'd like to know as much as possible, that's why I always check out guides and always have the Wiki open.

[Lailantie]

There is a video on youtube where a gamer asks his non-gaming girlfriend to play a few games without any tutorial. He was totally amazed that she didn't figure out the most basic stuff and then realized that if you don't know what could possibly work or exist, you don't look for it and chances are high you don't discover it.

So because I am a quite unexperienced gamer, I also watch all kinds of letsplays before I decide to buy a game, and even then I often have trouble with the UI and other stuff. I also don't try out all keys, who knows what will happen, maybe my computer will explode ;-)

I also discovered that it is possible to sleep and use the fire in Piastovia, simply because I hovered over a bed and got an option to interact, right in the beginning. I seem to be one of the rare persons who is not happy about things I discover myself. Actually for me it doesn't matter if I discover something or someone else does for me.

There's one youtuber which I like to watch, and he insists on finding out everything on his own and he doesn't want spoilers of any kind. First of all, it is hard for me to watch, and secondly, the comments below are just "nice game, thank you". Another youtuber plays interactively with his stream followers, he doesn't mind comments and tips and spoilers, and there's a lot of vivid discussions in the chat and comments. I definitely prefer the second approach.