Embarkation Bonuses

[bethnichols14]

Curious as to what folks like to take as embarkation bonuses and why. I'm locked into a pretty select few and would love some fresh ideas.

Ones I like to take:
- Small farm (because it kills me to have fertile soil without a building)
- Regular training gear ... This one feels almost like an exploit. They are great for trading early on and when I have a biome without stone I really like them for opening caches
- Amber (when it costs 2 points ... then I rush a trader and am rich in resources!)
- Extra cloth (very helpful if my caravan has lots of harpies)
- Planks (to help start housing)
- Extra villagers (if the point cost is low ... especially if my caravan has only 8)
- Extra food (species dependent) ... this is for the odds and ends points after the bigger stuff

How about you?

[koboldlord]

At P20, I've pretty much settled into a stock embark setup for my points, so I'm looking forward to the rework currently in experimental to shake things up.

I get 8 points. 5 of them are spent on a luxury line that happens to randomly be 5 points this game. Which one doesn't matter enough to consider paying 6 points, and the income is good enough to cover every dangerous glade event that wants that luxury for the whole game. Incense/scrolls/tea glade events are extremely common, and training gear can be exchanged at caches for those other glade event inputs even though training gear events themselves are a little less common. Either way, there's no urgent need to spend blueprints and worker time making one-star luxuries in the early game, or dump large amounts of cash into one of the specific traders that carries them.

The other 3 points get spent handling the P19 penalty. Whichever is cheaper of amber or provisions is good enough to get me started, and if neither of those is 3 points or less it is technically possible to get meat or eggs and manually make provisions out of them. Trying to sell things to a trader to be allowed to open glades is absolutely excruciating, particularly since you're on your starting glade and you might not even have anything your first trader wants to buy.

That leaves nothing left over, or maybe a single point for an extra stack of food. A lot of those other embark options are nice, but these two options solve major problems that need to be handled.

I took a lot more varied embark goods before P19.

[Dervish19]

Curious as to what folks like to take as embarkation bonuses and why.

This question makes no sense without mentioning the difficulty level you are playing on. On P20 I take Small Farm/Trapper Camp + Provisioner Packs/Amber + whatever cheap food.

[DG]

On P20 I'm taking amber, provision packs, a basic food, plus some materials for a faster start (wood, planks, or bricks maybe).

[Samseng Yik]

ALWAYS PICK
- Check the race combo of expedition group 1st
- Check what luxury resource they like
- Pick a luxury delivery line that cost 5 point

Then maybe
- provision
- extra food
- building material that cost at most 2 point.

[Kyresti]

Midway up the tree so I don't have everything, and only 5 points under non-beta rules.

2 settlers (more labor never hurts early on), coal if I don't have it (glade events), building materials if I don't have them (basic or processed depends on points left), and some basic food with the excess.

[Hauw2x]

In order of importance :
- Oil
- Amber or Provisions
- More people or more food

[Narandia]

Since I usually play on at least P5 I often pick extra wood when I can spare the point. Sure wood is plentiful but you can barely build anything outside of woodcutter camps at the start with a mere 14 wood.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

I'll give stone and reeds a shoutout, cheaper than building materials if you have the manpower to convert them, and makes it easier to open fewer/no glades in year 1