Starting off big tips needed (help)

[AnthraX]

Restarted a few times, i'm running out of food or just cant generate money. or i'm advancing to slow/fast I cant tell, AI seems to have almost all regions while im still stuck with one. ???

[Alpha [Fenris]]

nah the dev tried to mess with the economy before the launch and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it. getting food in low fertillity is almost impossible as the normal way as too few and need time to recover while wheat cant grow. and the ai is too strong you need to raise an army as soon as possible and take down all bandits popping up. only then you can get one or two regions before he does but even if the regional system is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ aswell making specializing them useless as they cant properly trade

[Scaristotle]

1) A few large backyards for T1 gardens, plus berries is a good start to keeping food around. Berries being so plentiful, one can afford to sell a few for some starting silver to unlock another ox and an initial major trade route (or more gardens, of course). Consider the Trade Logistics development early on to make this cheaper. Ignore full-fledged farming until you have enough workers to pile them in on the farm house. A proper field will often require multiple families to be efficient.

2) There is always the option to negotiate Peace with the Lord, hopefully avoiding his wrath in the process. There is a good chance it will work, even if you are broke, so give it a shot in order to stop him from claiming the whole map. Right now, that's the best way of dealing with the Lord's armies. (Wage War when he contests a zone, then negotiate for peace, offering terms. Even if it's zero silver you offer, the negotiation may work anyways. If it does, score he leaves the region alone and his armies make their way from the map, hopefully not through you)

3) the 20 spears and shields you get early on is more than enough to take it to the bandit camps. But i recommend gunning it for crafting Pikes asap early game. The spearmen should be a solid speed bump allowing you to flank and charge with the Pikes. Can easily take down the bandit attack doing this. After that, its a matter of hiding from the Lord's armies until he either stops sending them in, or you feel ready to take them on.

[AnthraX]

I tried mass farming berries its just not enough later. I got about 6 hrs in the game and feel like I dont know how half the stuff works.

not many thing explain much. then tried to farm but in my area I started just feels like it takes ages to fix the ground. I also had to rich deposits for mining.

hunting had 40 but once that gets down to 10 you also struggle to feed people with just hunting alone. maybe I need to invest in chickens or something for eggs, or just try get a good region to start in

[Ninjafroggie]

Every family requires 1 food per month. Gathering alone is not going to meet this demand for long, as there's only so much hunting and gathering the region will support, even with rich resources of berries and animals. You need to make burgage plots with large backyards for veggie gardens, as they yield dependant on yard size (to a point, too large a yard and it becomes less efficient), and small yards for chickens and goats. Chickens give some food directly, while the hides from goats can be sold or turned into leather for even more value. I find a yard about 2x the size of the house plot works well for gardens. Only veggie gardens and apple orchards need big yards, everything else only needs a yard to exist to get full output.

Use gathering to get your initial town set up, use the veggie plots and chickens to grow to mid size, then as you have enough people move into farming to support large populations. Remember that the trade post exsists, so USE IT. Export excess goods you dont need, planks make a good early export, and if need be you can put a bread cart in the market which gives unlimited food on a 1 per unit cost for as long as you have wealth in the region, or buy other foods driectly from the trade post though this is more expensive.

[Seyton]

1. Berries, upgrade herb garden, 1 family
2. Meat, traps + double meat perks, 1 family
3. Burgage food, make sure each plot 2x the size of the house at least, but longer is better.

[AnthraX]

Thanks ill try these later just started in a region where everything is so spaced out, bottom left takes ages to move and build stuff

[Szenderman]

Quick tips based on my first 20-30 hours that allow me to easily beat the AI:
1. When starting the first building you need to place in this order are: hunting tent, logging station, granary & storage, forager, 2nd hitching pole. The order matters because villagers will carry stuff over to them in the order you place them and not in the order of priority, that only affects which they actually build after materials are available. So why the order? Hunting camp has no cost, so villagers will immediately build it. Logging station is the most important production for the first 10-30 mins of the game. Storehouse and granary need to be complete before the 2nd rainfall or your exposed stocks will spoil. Once the exposed goods are transported to storage remove the families from them and reassign them to more important places. Order a 2nd ox to help transport stuff.
2. Next step is to get 6 houses and a firewood camp. Have 2 families in the logging station to speed getting materials for these. Why 6 houses? Because you need to house your homeless and make space for a new familiy.
3. Now you need a church. That needs 20 planks so get a sawpit and assign a family until 20-25 lumber are made. Once you have the church built, your approval will be above 50 and new families start moving in. This should ideally happen from august-october. If at any point before this bandits steal your stone (happened to me only once), that's a major L and you should probably restart or savescum.
4. Keep adding extra houses so you have 10-15 spaces. backyards are awesome, so leave room for them, you don't have the money to add chicken coops yet, you will soon. If you have extra lumber you can consider building a tanner to make use of your hides from the hunter.
5. By Jan/Feb of the second year you should have around 10 families so you can create a full unit of Spearmen (20). Go out and start clearing bandit camps before the baron does! This is free money. Send the first to the town so you can start building chicken coops. Send the rest to you treasury. You can savescum battles with bandits not to lose units, but this isn't necessary, you only need to win 2 fights after that you can use mercs to clear out the camps. Make sure you rush at them when they spawn so that the baron doesn't deny you the free infuence and money!
6. After this you should work on your town keep adding families, and get a Joiner and Blacksmith to produce large shields and spears (obviously I skipped a few steps here, make sure your supply chain is set up iron mine, bloomery, etc). If the baron claims territory just use your treasure to hire 2 merc companies and contest him, that plus your spearmen can handle him easily.
Hot tips:
A) Don't rush for the manor. It is high cost and low return.
B) Don't rush to claim territory. Owned territory doesn't spawn bandits, which denies you free money and influence. If the barons tries to take it, contest it, but don't grab any on your own.
C) If you are struggling for food, get the Trapping dev point and the Apiary one. They aren't super good for an optimal play, but your first town doesn't need to be super optimal, it's a learning curve.

[cachmandrake]

I've started over and over, refining and learning a little more each time.
The first year in-game is always the toughest.

My first moves are always:
1. Set a granary and a store house ASAP, you don't want your starting supplies to rot. I usually set these near the center of the map. Also build a small Marketplace area close to them.
2. Then build the logging thing, hopefully in the middle of a bunch of trees, you don't want to worry about deforestation until later.
3. Then build 2 big (0.8 - 1 Morgen) house plots (remember when you draw the square you can use the minus symbol to have a single house in a big square), once they are built spend your money into creating a vegetable field for them. These fields work kinda like farming, except they don't suck. It's gonna take a while for them to pay off.
4. Use the remainder of your money to make another Hitching post and buying a second ox.
5. The big vegetable houses can be expanded to hold a extra family, do so.
6. If you haven't already, set up the hunters and the berry gatherers.
7. Then focus on population growth, always have at least one living space every month. At some point the game will gift you weapons/shields, the idea is that you get close to 20 militia soldiers as soon as possible.
8. Why? because every time you see a bandit camp, you gather your militia and you race to it. Even if its far. If you have 16 -20 men, you can beat the bandits easily. Maybe you'll lose one, if very unlucky.
9. Then loot the camp and choose to send to nearest village option. This will give you more money. set a third vegetable house, or buy more oxen, etc. Up to you. This will also give you "influence" that you can use to reclaim a new zone as your own later.
10. Then focus on get the manor and the church built. you need the retinue soldiers and receive taxes.

The rest depends on too many factors, but this is usually my initial plan when playing, lol.

[diji]

Originally posted by cachmandrake:

3. Then build 2 big (0.8 - 1 Morgen) house plots (remember when you draw the square you can use the minus symbol to have a single house in a big square), once they are built spend your money into creating a vegetable field for them. These fields work kinda like farming, except they don't suck. It's gonna take a while for them to pay off.

Who is Morgen?

[AnthraX]

how do you turn influence into money? or how do I buy mercs?