Tips for 10+ Prestige settlements?

[Hariman]

^Just as the title says, I'm looking for tips to make higher prestige games go easier.

I'm asking because I recently || reforged the purple seal ||, and it was the first time it took 9 to 10 years to complete a settlement... possible for the first time.

But it was a major struggle early on due to some unlucky options on Camps and no way to use a lot of the larger nodes until around year 5 or 6. (A greenhouse pick and the "see inside glades" perk I picked up was a saving grace, combined with a mushroom boosting cornerstone I was eventually feeding everyone mushrooms even through multiple blood flowers. )

What priorities work better for high prestige?

And separately, what strategy works best for Sealed Forest?

Are there specific embarkation items to prioritize? (I usually go for extra people, provisions and maybe Amber, and wood/stone. Training Gear is a more recent pick though, and has been REALLY good in some runs.)

[AlexGK]

Depends on biome, caravan races and ressources value. I personally never pick extra villagers anymore. Try to pick combos, like human + cheapest farm, foxes + gears, beavers + food packs/gears, cheap relevant camps to race and map.
The other ressources you can produce if needed. From the first blueprints you will get services item recipies, I never start with those.

[Clawyer]

One way to make the game easier is to max out the meta progression.

If you have already done that or if you are struggling with a map you can build the prestige-only altar building where you can buy stormforged cornerstones, these are really strong versions of otherwise already strong cornerstones by either removing downsides (e.g. see what's inside glades without paying for it) or by having higher numbers or even adding upsides to the cornerstones.

Since you already started playing prestige levels you may have learned by now to not lean into only one way to generate renown but to use them all (resolve, orders, glade events, caches, cornerstones).

Plan according to the resources you can expect in the biome you are in. With the villagers eating more food generating complex food can become very important. If you are able to micromanage, you can forbid the consumption of food during drizzle up until mid clearance or until someone is close to starvation, saving resolve buffing food for the storm.

There are some very strong (some would say imbalanced) buildings and cornerstones in the game right now and most of them involve trading, buffed by having beavers with their starting bonus unlocked. A guild hall, the cornerstone that lowers hostility per amount of traded goods as well as the one giving renown per traded goods are all very strong.

Learn to finish your games. If you have only 5 or 6 points left until you win, open two or three dangerous glades after a storm, summon a trader and buy all their complex food and tools in order to open caches and solve glade events, noone cares if your village is unable to live through another storm if you win before that storm comes.

[KD.AltQQ]

On scarlet orchard, take the plantation. This map is ridiculously food poor with its resource spread. Else, it has everything else one needs.

On marshlands, take trapper's camp (the quest you get with it gives you +1 meat)--marshlands are the best for taking on acidic soil maps without fertile soil. Planks are a great option.

On coral forest, take planks (trapper's camp is an option)--this is the easiest map by far. Packs of provisions and food that can be packed into provisions (meat, eggs) are great here for trading. Planks are useful too.

On non-haunted royal woodlands, take stone and maybe bricks. This is also an easy map.

On haunted royal woodlands--I hate this map for its unpredictability... take your caravan somewhere else that isn't this biome.

On sealed forest, you should have saved up plenty of embarkation points.
Take plantation if there are humans.
If not, take trappers and herbalist camps, planks, and anything else you can fit (bricks, amber, people, all the food you can fit) in but those 3 are quite essential to not fail.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by KD.AltQQ:

On sealed forest, you should have saved up plenty of embarkation points.

If you do not use all of your embarkation points, they are saved and can be used later...?

[kory]

Originally posted by cswiger:

Originally posted by KD.AltQQ:

On sealed forest, you should have saved up plenty of embarkation points.

If you do not use all of your embarkation points, they are saved and can be used later...?

Only the one-use ones. When you are using embarkation points there are fixed ones that you can only use on that settlement, and "extra" ones that you can use on any settlement this cycle. When the storm comes, they all clear.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by kory:

Originally posted by cswiger:

If you do not use all of your embarkation points, they are saved and can be used later...?

Only the one-use ones. When you are using embarkation points there are fixed ones that you can only use on that settlement, and "extra" ones that you can use on any settlement this cycle. When the storm comes, they all clear.

Thanks for the reply. I just completed a town where I got some "Reserve Embarkation Points", so I see how the game introduces them via "Royal Resupply".

[Lantantan]

On P20 careless exploration of dangerous glade will eventually kill you. Here are the resources I prioritise, weighted by how easy they are to obtain:

30 Oil(/30 Coal) cheap on embarkation points, very versatile for events. Always have ready!
50 Water (any colour), not often used but trivial to obtain early.
== With these two resources prepared I can risk dangerous glades, if pressured for time ==

30 Incense, more expensive on embark points, but very versatile and cheap to buy.
40 Rocks, very versatile low tech and cheap, but not always available.
20 Planks, low tech but not often used and takes a while to make.
== With another of these two resources I feel safe taking dangerous glades ==

15 Tools, Expensive to buy and needed for chests, I prefer not to use these
30 Fighty sticks, Cheaper than tools, but highly needed for chests.
20 Burn bones, Used for sacrifice to speed up exploration time before storm hits.
30 Amber, it's very rarely used in a glade, it's main use is buying the above items.
== With another two of these resources dangerous glades are completely safe ==

[Lantantan]

Forbidden glades can have fiddly requirements and absolutely deadly penalties for just working them, on P20 I never open them unless I have significant scout speed bonuses in addition to all the above resource prep.

Dangerous glades are the sweet spot for resources/hostility increase. With 30 Oil, 30 Incense and 50 water, when opened at the end of the storm, these glades are practically safe. I typically open 2 but sometimes up to 4 of these per game.

Tiny glades I find not worth the permanent hostility cost for the tiny amount of resource gain, I wont open them unless I have a special reason to do so, like glade exploration missions, stags, or desperate for fertile soil.

[Hariman]

Good advice thus far! I've been really busy, so not a lot of time to reply in depth.

I haven't forgotten this topic though. (Currently checking advice for Coral Forest, and trying to make my way to the Red Seal/Get to Prestige 15... from Prestige 11.)

[Hariman]

...Learning to loathe high Prestige.

EDIT: I'm learning that negative modifiers hit a LOT harder at higher prestige, and that all the stacking prestige modifiers make it border on an entirely different game.

[Lantantan]

Originally posted by Hariman:

...Learning to loathe high Prestige.

EDIT: I'm learning that negative modifiers hit a LOT harder at higher prestige, and that all the stacking prestige modifiers make it border on an entirely different game.

Yeah things get rough. Food's gone quicker, Storms are longer, Blightrot is suddenly a threat. It sounds like you're struggling with hostility? Building 2 extra hearths helps, and only accept more villagers when you'e sure you can handle the hostility. Or is there something else giving you a hard time?

[AlexGK]

Wait one day after patch release :)

[Hariman]

Originally posted by Lantantan:

Originally posted by Hariman:

...Learning to loathe high Prestige.

EDIT: I'm learning that negative modifiers hit a LOT harder at higher prestige, and that all the stacking prestige modifiers make it border on an entirely different game.

Yeah things get rough. Food's gone quicker, Storms are longer, Blightrot is suddenly a threat. It sounds like you're struggling with hostility? Building 2 extra hearths helps, and only accept more villagers when you'e sure you can handle the hostility. Or is there something else giving you a hard time?

Hostility is a factor, but it also seems like it's just harder to get everything going properly.

Especially with the forced Blightrot and increased cost of buildings, combined with the more limited building/cornerstone selection.

EDIT: The settlement I lost ended up in a death spiral of recovering from the storm/getting hammered by the next storm, and not quite getting to the point of being able to build resolve/complete orders.

The orders I get seem to be a little more "F.U.", with things I'm nowhere near able to complete, or something I can only complete if I get multiple building blueprints and one very specific resource node in the next glade.

The extended glade event times are also a trial, as they make if very tricky to not get hammered by glades during the storm, but also not having glade events shaft your resolve because they last so long now.

[Hariman]

...I haven't even gotten to the point of the Storm being longer yet.

[Lantantan]

Oh quick tip, don't pick any of your starter blueprints until after you get your first orders. You can even wait with picking your blueprints until the second batch of orders arrives during the second year. Though maps without food from trees kinda put you on too much of a timer.

And yeah, game gets hard, but you'll find if you go back down prestige ranks, they'll be way too easy now!