How do you handle conviction in the early game?

[Astri]

It seems like EVERYTHING (even basic foods) drain conviction, and almost nothing replenishes it. How do you manage conviction in the first week of the game?

[Fx3.髭男]

the dancy thing and basic meals.

I can't manage to get tree farms up before running out of wood and being taken by the fog though. Anyone got advice for that? Focus on it exclusively?

[Mikeal]

Having wolfkin or vivified early on helps, if dancing doesn't help I try to make better bedrooms.

Originally posted by Fx3.髭男:

I can't manage to get tree farms up before running out of wood and being taken by the fog though. Anyone got advice for that? Focus on it exclusively?

I normally just focus on pushing the fog back, trees will grow back as long as there is space.

[Ilthe]

I don't go in battle untill I have at least one medical bed built, so pain debuff in't robbing me of whole 10 points.

The music thing - students need at least 5 hours, adults 4. Debuff is -10, buff is +10, so in the beginning is pretty significant.

At least austere bedrooms for everyone - even tho wolfkin can sleep on the ground without penalty, sleeping under the rain can be bad. Converting the austere bedroom to dorms and building a couple of bedrooms for staff is my next step.

People don't like to eat outside, even more if under the rain, so build at least one table inside, it doesn't have to be in a specialised room - but I usually have at least student dining room very soon, with staff dining coming at the same time I research bookcase to get classroom and better research room.

Even basic foods available on cauldron at skill 1 are significantly better than eating gutberries (-10 for starter foods in place of -20 for raw berries) for everyone who isn't vivified. Wolfkin can eat rats and croas instead of meals with no debuffs.

I usually start with wolfkin and vivified to get easier time in the beginning, since they don't need any cooking, and giving wolfkin beds can be delayed for some time - there isn't usually a rain everyday, they can sleep under the stars for a night or two.
And I delay actually hiring any students untill I have access to bitterrice (-5) food and basic living built - at least cots in the underschool - sleeping there gives debuff of only -2,5 points, if everything else is in order couple of rough nights shouldn't be a big trouble, if the food is sorted out.

I don't usually build tree planters unless I am starting crearing the ground - trees grow for free, just don't demolish the sapplings.

[n3mes1s]

Early game??? i dont lol. If you are having conviction problems in early game you are doing something very very very very wrong lol. I mean, i suposse you are playing in the hardest difficulty then?

[Jay]

Originally posted by Astri:

It seems like EVERYTHING (even basic foods) drain conviction, and almost nothing replenishes it. How do you manage conviction in the first week of the game?

Depends on what level you're playing on.

If you're trying to learn the game on the hardest difficulty - I'd suggest not doing that. Learn on normal, and make it harder once you learn. Unless you enjoy your school dying and restarting until you learn, of course. You do you.

If you're playing on normal, then the starting +40 from "no weight of malice" will cover your conviction for long enough to get other conviction sources running.

[Ghevd]

The beginning is a slow burn. Without chests or moving resources inside the fog will happily eat them.

Here's some tips others have helped me with:

You don't need 9 beds when you only have 3 teachers.

Try to only mine/harvest/chop only what you need at the moment.

Stone is a huge bottleneck. See which rooms are lofted. These are the only rooms that should be taller than 4 walls so you can squeeze in a hallway. Save that extra stone for the tallboy lofted or crooked skewed rooms.

Hallways separate rooms too so no need to waste wood on interior doors.

You want to slowly expand. Hit F1 and check the book of rooms.

Even though the food sucks eating gutberry soup is better than raw gutberries and eating raw gutberries is better than starvation.

Don't be afraid to rip rooms down and rebuild them.

While items do get a bonus for being in the correct room they still function even when they're not. Get things up and running and worry about the particulars later.

[Kahri]

Tip to add to Ghevd's list;

* you can build items (including beds) in the room that houses the mana font, codex, etcetera. Won't count as any sort of bedroom, but it does help deal with the sleeping outside debuff.

[Giant Space Hamster]

More generally, it also helps to understand how the Repel Fog ritual works. The regular ritual repels the fog a base distance of 10 per wand level. For example, if you send three mages who each have a level 1 wand, that's 3 total wand levels, or 30 repel total. The superior ritual costs a little over twice as much but repels three times as much, or 30 per wand level, so it's always worth it to do the superior ritual if you can save for it.

At the beginning of the game you will only have mages with wand level 1, so each staff or student you assign to the ritual will only provide +10 or +30 repel to each ritual respectively. Once you get access to level 2 wands it's very much worth it to get one or two made quickly because they increase the repel bonus to +20/+60 respectively for the rituals. This is a big difference and results in cost savings, even allowing you to skip days of doing the ritual altogether. If you get a lucky new recruit that already has a level 2 wand, make sure you use them for your repel ritual.

This means it's important to explore the underschool to find the Wand Transfigurator. It's a device that allows you to equip a level 2 wand to a student or staff. You'll also need access to alchemy to upgrade wands.

Lastly, the type of resources required for the repel rituals changes the farther out the fog is. At times it's better to let the fog close in a bit to do a ritual the next day with a more common resource type. Other times it will be better to alternate so you can use different resource types rather than blowing through one resource type.