How quickly do you pop your first dangerous glade?

[CyberDown]

So my current strategy is to clear build space and maximize wood clearing early.

Usually im capped via settlers as to what I can do. If i do a balanced build start this can have me sitting around for 3-5 impatience ticks while my wood cutters clear and maybe i have enough workers to do a scavanger hut. I feel like this is a lot of dead time waiting.

Usually i dont like to pop dangerous glades until i can actually produce something that might be used on the event.

Ive gotten to thinking, why not just pop a glade asap, and if it needs incense or whatever just abandon and start over.

Is there any real strategy to this? It best to clear a decent chunk of woods first, set up my settlement, and then start glade events? Most the time i dont even want to select my starting recipes until ive cleared a large enough space to say "ok no farms on this map, or i should take trapper hut theres enough nodes to warrant it, ect"

[Starseed]

I open the safe skull glades as soon as I can but I avoid the dangerous ones. Ive usually been able to complete a game opening all the safe ones with the plain skulls not the red ones) and havent needed to even open the dangerous ones yet. I did once by mistake not realizing what it was and had half my workers wiped out! I find the small plain glades only useful for gathering, they dont have the rewards in them that push up your reputation and I shuffle my camps around the larger unlocked glades and gather those items. I hardly ever open the smaller ones unless its a path to a bigger safe one.

[CyberDown]

yeah so i just noticed the color difference.....

Guess i dont need to be afraid of the non-red ones, those seem to require luxury items then?

[MagnusGrey]

If your going to open them super early, i advise waiting until the trader is there. Your chances of being able to beat the event will be a lot better.

In general though, this game can be reliably beaten without gambling like that.

[Olleus]

I used to delay dangerous glades until I felt like I had the settlement "working", but now I get them in the 1st drizzle. Generally after the first batch of orders. It's very common to get orders telling you to open X glades, or do a glade event, or open a dangerous glade, and those don't count retroactively. But then, I quickly open a dangerous glade. They're really not that hard to solve, and massively help in getting an economy going.

A large number of dangerous glade events can be solved without any resources - they're the best. For the others, between the caravan and the embarkation bonus you can have some combination tool/oil/coal/resin/plank/fabric/brick. The last 3 you can boost their amount with a primitive workshop. Between those that you'll have you'll be able to cover most events. For those that you can't, rush a trader and sell parts to buy the resource you need. If it's the wrong trader, rush another one or just take the event hit. They're bad, but not so bad as to be game ending; and it's super unlikely that you'll end up here anyway. In all cases the resolve/hostility hit while working can be handled by having houses and a hub encampment.

After that, it's even easier. I find that on average 1 dangerous glade a year keeps me going with resources, event rewards, ruined buildings, space to build new hubs, etc... Safe glades aren't worth the hostility cost unless you need it for an order or have a very unique set of perks. Forbidden glades aren't much harder to solve than dangerous ones but have even sweeter rewards - especially on coral forest. They also gives LOTS of points for the faction competition.

In short, 1 dangerous glade per drizzle, from the very start of the game is typical but not a hard rule for me. If that feels risky or awkward, try playing a few games with the modifier that hides the glade type, or makes them all dangerous. That's what helped me overcome my fear and I play much better for it now.

[CyberDown]

Originally posted by Olleus:

I used to delay dangerous glades until I felt like I had the settlement "working", but now I get them in the 1st drizzle. Generally after the first batch of orders. It's very common to get orders telling you to open X glades, or do a glade event, or open a dangerous glade, and those don't count retroactively. But then, I quickly open a dangerous glade. They're really not that hard to solve, and massively help in getting an economy going.

A large number of dangerous glade events can be solved without any resources - they're the best. For the others, between the caravan and the embarkation bonus you can have some combination tool/oil/coal/resin/plank/fabric/brick. The last 3 you can boost their amount with a primitive workshop. Between those that you'll have you'll be able to cover most events. For those that you can't, rush a trader and sell parts to buy the resource you need. If it's the wrong trader, rush another one or just take the event hit. They're bad, but not so bad as to be game ending; and it's super unlikely that you'll end up here anyway. In all cases the resolve/hostility hit while working can be handled by having houses and a hub encampment.

After that, it's even easier. I find that on average 1 dangerous glade a year keeps me going with resources, event rewards, ruined buildings, space to build new hubs, etc... Safe glades aren't worth the hostility cost unless you need it for an order or have a very unique set of perks. Forbidden glades aren't much harder to solve than dangerous ones but have even sweeter rewards - especially on coral forest. They also gives LOTS of points for the faction competition.

In short, 1 dangerous glade per drizzle, from the very start of the game is typical but not a hard rule for me. If that feels risky or awkward, try playing a few games with the modifier that hides the glade type, or makes them all dangerous. That's what helped me overcome my fear and I play much better for it now.

Yeah I had the same thought process and am now moving towards a fast open.

I do have slight issue with SOME of the event working debuffs early on however. Losing anyone hurts, and all seem to make harpys leave at a higher rate. There should be an option to roast leaving harpys for lizard food. Anyway.

I started with my goal to unlock all mini glades asap, but have found those largely worthless. It can provide insight as to what kind of map you have, if i see a lot of herbs or trapper nodes ill know what to choose for food.

I feel avoiding opening the events are not worth the pain it is to manage woodcutters. Ill buy a $20 DLC that extends woodcutter range to cover the map and i can just use tree marker to guide them...

good insight all. TY

[opie]

i pick extra coal and fabric and i open one as soon as possible.
i also delay picking my blue prints until i see what's inside the glade because there might be an abandoned building inside

[Mringasa]

I try to open at least one by the first Storm. That way it's waiting if I don't have the resources I need for it. Trader coming soon, so there's backup.

I only ever pop the safe ones if I have to complete an Order quickly. Most of the game is managing your Hostility while waiting for RNG to give you something useful. Lot of different outcomes, and gameplay to it, but if your Hostility ramps up too fast, you'll start losing people and then your economy is shot.

I generally clear cut and set them up first (try to expand the cleared area around my first Hearth as much as possible), so sometimes I don't pop that first one until the 2nd year's Drizzle, and then pop a 2nd one asap once that one is dealt with or under control for the most part. Trying to get 2 Dangerous Glades per year is comfortable, to me at least, unless RNG bends me over with building choices.

[HeathenSW]

I usually opened on the second or third year, but lately I open one in the first year after the first set of orders. With some embark bonuses you can be sure that you will be safe at least in the first dangerous event.

[Lee]

I open one right away and if I can't solve it I don't start over. You can eat the consequences of one or even multiple triggers of many events and live, and I play on prestige 1. Sometimes I'll even let them trigger on purpose like letting living matter clone a few times if I'm already low on food or just ignore the money draining one if I'm broke for a while.

(edit) Just finished a game where my first glade had the "kill 5 random villagers" as my first and I didn't have the resources to solve it. I had pulled Provisioner as one of my starting buildings and you can do it with 9 provisions so I tried to race it but was about 10 seconds short and ended up losing half my population. That was a slow starter for sure, but still quite winnable.

[frank327]

I want to add that having Oil as an embark bonus makes the early dangerous grove a lot easier. So much so that you can even open it in year 1 without worrying too much. If you save your coal and oil for that first opening, the majority of dangerous groves are covered for.

[Gundies]

I ignore the color and just open the nearest big glade. Typically one per year. First builds are 2 wood cutters set to cut a path into it but checked with not opening glades until the first orders pop. I'll typically prep a path to the next so I can pop the next as soon as the next storm ends. Gives me tons of time to deal with stuff. I always bring oil.

Worst case it's a kill x population one that you wont have the resources for. build trader asap and rush it's visiting. Sell whatever you have to to get tools or something to beat it. Rush the trader again if the first one was useless. I've only had the -5 population hit once at the start doing this, and I still pulled a win out of it.

Small glades are a trap and I avoid them unless they're in the way of my original hub. I haven't bothered with building additional hubs, can fit everyone and everything at the first, and warehouses are enough to farm all the plots at distant fields so meh.

[Olleus]

Originally posted by Gundies:

I haven't bothered with building additional hubs, can fit everyone and everything at the first, and warehouses are enough to farm all the plots at distant fields so meh.

Other hearths and hubs are pretty powerful. It reduces how far people have to walk to rest every 2 minutes. And the hearth upgrades stack. So for the 8 wood it takes to build some decorations, you can just plop houses down elsewhere to upgrade a default hub to an encampment for a free +2 resolve and +150 corruption resistance for the rest of the game. That's just about the best investment the game offers.