Things you wish you'd known sooner

[Errapel]

So I'm loving the game, but of course there's a learning curve and I know I felt a tad silly after learning things that could have made my life easier.

- Get quilting as soon as you can. Haulers were a game changer for me. No more stuff got left to be destroyed in the rain. No more staff/students wasting their time carrying stuff around. I need to pause sweepers when a student wants to clean, and that's the only micromanaging I needed to do.

- Check the room requirements BEFORE you start building. Particularly if you're playing relentless as the requirements change. It's possible to demolish/rebuild, but that's a pain and life is so much easier if you planned ahead (if the devs give us a 'plan build' option I would be happy!)

-Even when you unlock higher tier wands, do routinely summon lower level students. You need adept scrolls for hiring new staff, so if you stop summoning tier one students, you stop being able to get new staff.

-Medals are great, but don't sweat it. If you're not hiring a student it kinda doesn't matter if they're missing a difficult medal. You'll miss out on a scroll or two, but you'll easily make that back with the next student.

- Slower learning (lower level classroom, lower level teacher etc...) can be an advantage. It means students have time to get their medals before maxing their magic skills. (Particularly important on relentless).

-Don't hang onto your staff/students. Retire/graduate/hire them regularly. Once you get staff good enough to retire emeritus then it's worth waiting a bit longer. But otherwise once you get a better candidate, replace the old one.

-Croa corpses spawn spectral croa. So use or destroy them AT ONCE.

-Staggered schedules are your friend. Having multiple staff schedules means you always have someone on hand to deal with emergencies.

-Plant your sporeshrooms (and any plant that has negative effects) in a different room to the rest, and set that room to only be accessed by people who won't be affected (the ghost headmaster, quilted servants and I think shattered).

-Prioritise getting decent sleeping, eating and recreation rooms. It can be worth having multiples so that staff and students get their own (as they get separate bonuses). Maintaining conviction, particularly for staff (raven cult members, I'm looking at you...) can be a pain, so this really helps.

-Prioritise getting a decent kitchen. Anything that speeds up cooking is a bonus. Higher tier foods give conviction bonuses instead of taking conviction away, and that's SO HELPFUL in keeping staff happy.

-Workshops then later mages study/tower are so useful for speeding up research (the specialised workshops are also helpful, but aside from the kitchen I haven't found the speed bonus super useful yet). This makes life a lot easier for higher tier research.

-Certain rare ingredients can either only be got via combat or combat is the most reliable means to obtain them. Once you've got some decent staff/students, progressively clear the underschool. One area will regress if not warded so you can farm it for battles. There is also a repeatable battle with the burrower larva which is farmable. This means you don't need to worry about running out of fights.

-Get familiar with the schedule and priority systems. They're the best way to ensure that tasks get done, and medal criteria is reached. The consume system can be essential if your student needs to eat a rare foodstuff, just set it as not allowed for everyone else so that it's available to them.



Those were my 'I wish I'd realised that sooner' moments. Please do add your own!

[Dirichlet]

Give your rooms plenty of height. Four is not enough - you want at least six. It's fairly easy to alter room layout horizontally, but very difficult vertically, e.g. if you want to add one extra height to your ground floor when you're already three stories high, it means you have to deconstruct literally everything. You can fit most Lofted room requirements into a 5x6 - Great Hall, Kitchens, Dining Rooms etc. and you can easily chop up spare corridor into Workshops. Six is also the minimum if you need a support bracket on the same wall as a doorway. Seven height has some further advantages - Arboretum won't fit in a 5x6, but I believe it will in a 6x7. Also you can make Skewed rooms with a door either side (using the double wall trick), whereas with six height and the same method a Skewed room has to be quasi-Private.

Make use of regular stairs. First playthrough I thought spiral stairs were the be-all-and-end-all, and they definitely have their place, but they can leave you with a lot of wasted space when overused. Normal stairs use up space at the back of a room, giving you usable space in front, whereas spiral stairs take up space in the middle of a room, making it very hard to use that space for anything else. You can have stairs running behind/through multiple rooms, but this does remove the Private tag.

With really tall rooms, you can get additional floor space by putting ledges part way up the wall - so long as the extra floor doesn't reach wall to wall then it all still counts as one room. You can use ladders to make the extra floor accessible. I use this to add extra beds in to a Common Room. This may disturb certain room tags - Grounded for example.

For rooms needing Luxury, particularly Kitchens, give them a bit more than they actually need. Mess, clutter, dead Quilts etc. will reduce luxury until they're cleaned up, so you want a little buffer to stop the room losing its bonuses temporarily. Incense Burners (the ones you need for the Infirmary) are a cheap source of Luxury early on and they can usually be fit so they don't interfere with floor plans. Rugs are ideal but expensive to make; you can get free ones from crystals and some dungeon encounters.

You can create an outer wall (on the far end of your garden) to stop the birds eating your crops. A single piece of foundation will do. This will also make the rats bunch up against the wall making them really easy to farm.

Aesthetics aside, if you put crafting stations, ritual sigils etc. at the front of a room, it makes them easier to click on. Likewise, stuff that's static and doesn't do anything special (e.g. lights) can get in the way of your mouse if too far forward, so put them further back if possible.

Edit: Skewed not Lofted

[thelefthorse]

These are great, folks. Thanks for the tips.

[Lachlyn]

Great list.

[Elaron]

if you build animals and kitchen in the basement near the mana crystal even if they make a lot of mess goblins and ooze never spawn so you dont even need to clean anything

[ulzgoroth]

To slow down learning, you can also give students a schedule with very little class time. AFAICT they don't mind!

[Errapel]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

To slow down learning, you can also give students a schedule with very little class time. AFAICT they don't mind!

There appears to be a 'learning' meter in their conviction tab. But provided they are learning each day (I couldn't tell you how many hours, but 2 or more seems to be fine), there never seems to be an issue.

[swiftdoll]

Spread mana crystal in high work rooms, and make recharging them high priority for your students, so your staff can concentrate on work instead of running around filling mana

Higher level mages push fog further away

Arcane Secretaries are cumulative. Feel free to add more to speed up your research.

Restrict what can be put into the chests, or you will have 10 chests with same few items and rest is left out. Each chest can have 10 stacks of different types of items, so seeing status of 10/10 doesn't necessarily mean it's full, but no more item types can be added

Air skill affects how far the mage reaches! Got some pesky roof deco or high wall windows to do? Get your best air mages on it

Fog crystal battles give you the most amount of scrolls, be sure to fight them especially early on before they start to turn into 4 skull battles

Having empty hallway created with pillars instead of walls gives elevated effect to rooms above it.

Multiple stairways are your friend for faster movement and giving you easier time with private room requirements.

Centralized storage location can cut back walking time since the game has an annoying habit to take dropped items aaaall the way back to the storage, than use it on the construction right next to it - and then bring another same exact item from the storage back to the construction site

Vivified prefer to eat Gutberries, add some in your dining room storage to stop them from roaming to other side of the school to get them sweet berries

You will need all the Iceflowers in the world, trust me, harvest all you see and make planters for them early

If stone or iron is scarce go raid the dungeon. Piggy (Lavalina Sty) also ends your mining needs

Before you can actually hatch your refining beasts, they have ritual requirements with high skill students! Be sure to check those first and plan summoning students accordingly

Group tools are incredibly handy as the tutorial tip says, be sure to scout over what kind of different rules you can create to automate things. For example you can get your fully skilled students auto switched to work schedule instead of staying useless in the school room

Ladders take the least amount of space, just one tile on the back. Add them to rooms with no luxury needs to increase staff movement, or build between 2 walls

While Raven Cultist are silly hard to keep content early game, they are extremely powerful fighters, you will want your dps to be Ravens and tank either Vivified or Raven (more power means stronger Earth Armor), and if you want to use a support class to buff your dps/tank go for Wolves since their speed will most likely make them attack first. Keep Shattered on the back row or they will die first.

Though pesky, Croa corpse spectrals are a great source of Ectoplasm, and you will need lot of that to make all your higher level wands, just have your Founder hunt few every once and a while

You will also need a supply of Voidcaps, leave some small closet dark and empty, restricted from staff&students and have your Founder harvest those regularly

..Whelp, was only gonna write couple things, but here we are :D

[robbie.price]

Use the doors 'access' feature to restrict where mages can work to keep them working efficiently: The task planner loves to maximize the distance everybody walks to get anything done. giving a person a room with a lockable exit means they actually do all the tasks in the room, just be sure to watch for the 'idle' tag and let them out when stuff is done.

[Fatherwow]

Originally posted by Dirichlet:

Give your rooms plenty of height. Four is not enough - you want at least six. It's fairly easy to alter room layout horizontally, but very difficult vertically, e.g. if you want to add one extra height to your ground floor when you're already three stories high, it means you have to deconstruct literally everything. You can fit most Lofted room requirements into a 5x6 - Great Hall, Kitchens, Dining Rooms etc. and you can easily chop up spare corridor into Workshops. Six is also the minimum if you need a support bracket on the same wall as a doorway. Seven height has some further advantages - Arboretum won't fit in a 5x6, but I believe it will in a 6x7. Also you can make Skewed rooms with a door either side (using the double wall trick), whereas with six height and the same method a Skewed room has to be quasi-Private.

Edit: Skewed not Lofted

can u explain this better or show a screenshot of your dbl wall door trick?

[gearhed502]

Originally posted by Fatherwow:

Originally posted by Dirichlet:

Give your rooms plenty of height. Four is not enough - you want at least six. It's fairly easy to alter room layout horizontally, but very difficult vertically, e.g. if you want to add one extra height to your ground floor when you're already three stories high, it means you have to deconstruct literally everything. You can fit most Lofted room requirements into a 5x6 - Great Hall, Kitchens, Dining Rooms etc. and you can easily chop up spare corridor into Workshops. Six is also the minimum if you need a support bracket on the same wall as a doorway. Seven height has some further advantages - Arboretum won't fit in a 5x6, but I believe it will in a 6x7. Also you can make Skewed rooms with a door either side (using the double wall trick), whereas with six height and the same method a Skewed room has to be quasi-Private.

Edit: Skewed not Lofted

can u explain this better or show a screenshot of your dbl wall door trick?

If you want a room to have the skewed tag, you can simply add a short wall next to one of the walls, essentially a double wall. You can also get a skewed room by adding a roof inside it as long as the roof starts and ends 3 or more blocks different in height
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198082753783/screenshot/2312100041553083162/

[Dirichlet]

Originally posted by Fatherwow:

can u explain this better or show a screenshot of your dbl wall door trick?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3127514367

See the right hand wall of the pyromancy classroom.

However, the point I made above is actually incorrect - you can put a door on that side and it'll still be passable, just looks a bit weird (the door needs four height, but a gap of three is passable).

[Judaspriester]

I started a list with stuff like thy myself. On the first look, it covers some different stuff than your list.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3125257161

[ShadowTani]

Originally posted by Dirichlet:

Give your rooms plenty of height. Four is not enough - you want at least six. It's fairly easy to alter room layout horizontally, but very difficult vertically, e.g. if you want to add one extra height to your ground floor when you're already three stories high, it means you have to deconstruct literally everything. You can fit most Lofted room requirements into a 5x6 - Great Hall, Kitchens, Dining Rooms etc. and you can easily chop up spare corridor into Workshops. Six is also the minimum if you need a support bracket on the same wall as a doorway. Seven height has some further advantages - Arboretum won't fit in a 5x6, but I believe it will in a 6x7. Also you can make Skewed rooms with a door either side (using the double wall trick), whereas with six height and the same method a Skewed room has to be quasi-Private.

I always make the ground floor seven high to take into account the Woodcuttery.

[exteel.golem]

Originally posted by Dirichlet:

Make use of regular stairs. First playthrough I thought spiral stairs were the be-all-and-end-all, and they definitely have their place, but they can leave you with a lot of wasted space when overused. Normal stairs use up space at the back of a room, giving you usable space in front, whereas spiral stairs take up space in the middle of a room, making it very hard to use that space for anything else. You can have stairs running behind/through multiple rooms, but this does remove the Private tag.

I am in the same boat you were in during your first playthrough: I currently only have a single, centralized, spiral staircase in my school and have failed to imagine a way to successfully use regular stairs.

I understand the point you're making about the space that the spiral stairs take up, but I'm still struggling to think of use cases or design patterns with the regular stairs. If your room is not wide enough but is tall (like most lofted rooms), the stairs don't even reach the next floor and instead come out of the wall 2-4 blocks below the next floor which is really awkward to try and work with.

Do you have any successful design patterns or examples where stairs have made your life easier?

[Soul4hdwn]

what are these "emergencies" people speak of? if it is stuff like chest smashers, they always seemed to have spawned when my guys are waking up on default schedule.