Was I just unlucky? (Cursed royal woodlands)

[llama747]

Played Cursed Royal Woodlands for the first time this afternoon (pioneer difficulty). I had a really hard time finding anything that could either send or open a cache (no stone and it was like 5 or 6 glades in before I found sea marrow, and nothing to make either of the ingots required for tools or training equipment), and on top of that I found 5 ghosts, all of them red. The first one even required things that I never got the ability to do until in the last 5-10 minutes of the run, by which time he'd long since left and given me a 75 debuff to hostility.

Is CRW usually this punishing, or did I just get unlucky on this run? Trying to decide how hard to avoid it in the future ...

[IamMokume]

I've done a few CRW without running into the kind of difficulty you describe, so I think you just had very bad luck.

Every map lacks some resources, which is a good incentive to gear up for trading asap so you can buy whatever you can't find. And in theory, Crystallized Dew should always be craftable with things you can farm or harvest, even if it's an inefficient recipe.

[Samseng Yik]

Well true luck is what we have to adapt in this game.
So during embark you have to consider what matter to you the most.

CRW is nothing about bad luck or danger.
In ghost will actually make each glade more rewarding even if managed done 3 out of year 6

[el Darkness]

CRW is more rng dependand in my eyes, you are more likely to be haunted by bad luck there.

[llama747]

Originally posted by IamMokume:

I've done a few CRW without running into the kind of difficulty you describe, so I think you just had very bad luck.

Every map lacks some resources, which is a good incentive to gear up for trading asap so you can buy whatever you can't find. And in theory, Crystallized Dew should always be craftable with things you can farm or harvest, even if it's an inefficient recipe.

Recipes didn't show me anything for crystallized dew, so I'm not sure if I just made poor choices with blueprints or what. Glad to know it's not always like this, I'll probably try it again in the future.

The couple of ghosts I managed to fulfill, later, were pretty rewarding, but the first one giving me an unavoidable 75 hostility debuff made the whole map much more difficult than it would have otherwise been.

[HouseOfTheRat]

It is always possible that the first dangerous glade you open has something you are not prepared to deal with. You take the penalty and roll with the punches.

[IamMokume]

Originally posted by llama747:

Recipes didn't show me anything for crystallized dew, so I'm not sure if I just made poor choices with blueprints or what. Glad to know it's not always like this, I'll probably try it again in the future.

On checking, it's actually only crafted in three buildings. Thought it was more common, but I guess I tend to have access to it because I keep picking the Beanery. I've also become fond of grabbing the Forester's Hut to grow it, even if just temporarily. Dew works as well as copper for crafting, and there are often good trade routes for extra resin.
Best of luck!

[Thorene]

All Royal Woodlands type maps (Cursed royal woodlands, royal woodlands, sealed forest) have a low amount of stone. The primary issue you run into here is that it is hard to open caches in these maps.

You can offset it by taking stone at embark.

Alternatively, your options are to find sea marrow, which as you noted, it's one of the rarer resources on the maps. Second option is to make training weapons. Finally, trade is an option.

For training weapons, the easiest path is copper. Stamping mill, Grill and Furnace are all good buildings. Stamping mill makes flour, which you will need for at least 1 race. Grill makes skewers if you have lizards or foxes. Furnace makes pie, which you will always need for at least 1 race.

So you will basically always need a flour and a pie recipe to maximize resolve, and you will almost always need a skewer recipe unless you have Humans, Harpies, Beavers. So each of those all share an option with copper bars.

In the royal woodlands maps, clay is common, and copper is a common drop from clay. So you can turn just a few copper ore into enough copper bars to make 10 training weapons. The training weapon blueprint is a bit harder to find. I say smelter is not a bad choice, since it makes training weapons, copper and biscuits, biscuits being another recipe that at least one of your guys will need, but it's not as important because you have it on the field kitchen.

Otherwise, you can do crystallized dew. It's a bit easier if you get the blueprint, because it uses clay straight up, and there's good availability on insects or resin from the trees in small quantities. Especially if you have foxes, where a beanery is a good pick, Alchemist's hut is not bad for lategame because it creates tea, and the brickyard is not a bad pick if it's not up against something else, because good brick production is handy.

But the royal woodlands type maps all have the biggest challenge with stone and metal.

But my suggestion is probably to consider embarking with stone. Opening caches is most effective early. An alternative option could be to embark with a training gear supply line if you have majority foxes or lizards, but this is a later unlock. This would both solve the early game problem of opening caches, and the later game problem of having the luxury.

[llama747]

Lol, that's a lot of extra information that is not at all relevant to my current situation on my third time having the storm wipe the map, but maybe it will be useful in the future. :) I don't even have many of the blueprints you mentioned unlocked yet, nor foxes.

Anyway, I did another CRW run yesterday, and got two green ghosts and no red ones, and it was a bit less predictable but no more difficult than other maps, so it does really seem I just got a very nasty streak of bad luck the first time.