Evolution of a settlement: day-by-day guide to the first winter

[dissent]

It seems we still have a lot of folk failing their first winter and having to restart and try again. While there is a lot of help available, we don’t have many YouTube ‘play with me’ vids or day-by-day guides to surviving the first winter. So I think it’s difficult for new players to get a feel for the pacing and build order as the settlement evolves during those crucial first twenty days of summer and fall.

Accordingly, I decided to do a full day-by-day guide to unpack how I tackle the challenge of the first winter. I will unpack the logic behind my decisions, why I do things when I do them and how I do them, which will hopefully help beginners in developing their own game start routine. There are as many ways to tackle the first winter as there are players of the game. There is no ‘best’ or ‘right’ way to approach it. This is just my way and hopefully you can pick up something from it, even if it’s just a minor detail you never considered before.

The guide will necessarily be loooooong with lots of screenshots because there is no simple way to unpack all the different game elements and choices you will need to make. I’ll also divide it into several posts. So, without further ado...

The Preparation

Knowing what you want to achieve in the play-through is vital in creating your map seed and clan at game start. For this play-through, I had simple goals. I wanted to take a clan effortlessly through winter, setting up the settlement for future growth such that, by the spring of year 2, I had the space and amenities to marry workers in and grow the clan rapidly. I decided that I would rely on livestock (meat) and lakes (eels and fish) for food, rather than farming, hunting, or harvesting things like mushrooms or berries. I also decided that I would spend my first winter in the mountain, using the time to build my permanent living quarters.

The map creation tool is incredibly powerful and by re-rolling seeds and tweaking the attributes with the sliders, you can get an ideal map layout. This is what I came up with:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888035045

Three 100% lakes clustered around a large block-like mountain, with ample grasslands, trees and bogs nearby. Yep, that’ll work.

For the clan, I wanted to follow my 5/5 start. In this approach, I take five young unmarried adults and also five sheep – a ram and four ewes. This is the most efficient start I’ve formulated. This is the clan I rolled, after a few tries and teeny bit of re-rolling to remove negative traits:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888035182

No negative traits and two Optimists, which I like. The other positive traits are OK but not stellar. As you can see, I have 0 Coin but getting money is the least problematic thing in the game. Continued below.

[dissent]

Game start

The very first thing I do at game start is to save the game. Those first few days are critical. If I mess up something, it’s nice to know that I can go back and restart. While the game is paused after saving, I open the interface of each of the five clan members and move their happy/best skills to the top, and their red-face unhappy skills to the bottom. Only then do I un-pause and start the game.

Day 1
There is not a lot you can do on day 1, it is designed as a ‘tech unlock’ day. Nevertheless, you still need a plan and goals for the day. My day 1 goal on each play-through is to make two of every implement (sickles, hoes, axes, picks, flutes) and then also to unlock/build all the basic ‘tutorial’ amenities: food and ingredient stockpiles, production zone, thresher, cooking fire, eel traps, poop-holes, charcoal kiln. By the end of the day, I want to at least have the blueprint for the kiln laid down, even if it isn’t built yet. I set up between the mountain and the lakes and hit all these goals. I had two Eel Traps (one in the left-hand lake and one in the middle lake) with each one set up to catch 15 eels per day. That is ALL my food sorted for the whole of summer and fall, I don’t need to do any more about food and can focus on other priorities.

As I will be using the mountain to house my clan and my production facilities for the first winter, it’s vital to draw up a plan of how I will use the space. I do this on the first night while the clan is sleeping, drawing out the plan by placing mining markers. This is what I designed:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888037743

The topmost room will be the cold room. There is a horizontal passage running just below it, with two vertical passages leading off it. The five small rooms down the left-hand side are the clan bedrooms. The tall room to the right of the bedrooms is the clan gathering room which will have their kitchen and bathing facilities. Under the gathering room is the Thresher room and the small room below it will be the barn for the sheep. The two tall rooms on the right will be production rooms – the top one for clothing and the bottom one for smelting.

Obviously digging all this out will be hundreds of tasks, far more than the clan (with just two picks) can tackle immediately. So I selectively delete some mining tiles, meaning that the clan can’t get to them. If they can’t get to the tile, they won’t mine it. Which is exactly what I want. If you look closely, you will see that the only tiles the miners can get to (i.e. tiles that connect to the outside) are the five bedrooms and the passage that connects them. Once they have dug those tiles out, they’ll stop mining. Then I can incrementally connect further sections, so they do the mining/building in phases.

Day 2

The goal for the day is simple: get my people sleeping indoors asap! They will each get a Private Room, while losing the Disturbed Sleep and Sleeping Outside debuffs. This MASSIVELY improves their mood and sleep recovery. I do it immediately. Secondary goal for the day is to collect as much Straw as possible. I will need lots of it, and Rats start to spawn on day 3. So I must collect as much as I can today, and end up with over 600 Straw. Tertiary goal is to pump out 100 Bricks at the Kiln to enable building my Bloomery and Smithy for Iron. Those are the three areas I allocate tasks for, anything more will distract and slow down the clan so I avoid it.

By evening, I had accomplished my goals. All five bedrooms were built with straw Sleeping Mats. Three of the rooms are dark (windows not built) but that is still way better than sleeping outside. Only the bottom bedroom is still ‘outside’ as the door hasn’t been finished. But four of the five clan members are now much happier and in Private Rooms.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888038102

Day 3

It will only take a bit of work to finish the bedrooms today, so my focus now switches to Iron. I have the Bricks to make the Bloomery and Smithy but unfortunately my initial digging into the mountain didn’t reveal any Iron. That is a setback but not a calamity. There is a large oval-shaped mountain to the east of my settlement mountain. I am very confident it will have Iron. It’s much further to walk but, well, that’s the game. You don’t always get everything you want. So on day 3 I send miners out to dig an exploratory tunnel and, within a few tiles, paydirt!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888049287

In the late afternoon of day 3, things are looking rosy. My first 5 Iron ingots have gone into making the Timbery, which enables Planks, which enables the Smithy. So everything is bang on schedule. If I can get the blueprint for the Smithy laid down on day 3, I’m happy.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888049730

Day 4

With Iron up and running, the settlement can now take off. But rain is an ever-present threat (even in summer) that can bring everything to a grinding halt. I can live with iron production being delayed by a storm – but stopping cooking could be catastrophic. So I want my cooking and food indoors asap. My goal for the day is to resume mining in the mountain, and to hollow out the gathering room. I will move my food into this space as soon as it’s cleared. As the miners hollow it out – what do you know – there is actually Iron in this mountain. So that’s a plus, no more trekking to the mountain in the east.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888049869

My other huge priority for the day is to get all three Signs built. I want traders and day workers from day 5 on, travellers a few days later once I have facilities for them. My first 10 Iron at the Smithy goes into the Iron Pick which enables the Masonry. With that up and running, I can convert all the Large Rocks I have been digging out of the mountain into Stone Blocks. These are great for building but, equally importantly, they enable the Well. By evening on day 4, I have the Signposts, the Masonry and the Well blueprint is laid down. Perfect.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888054939

Day 5

I’ve been pushing hard, Hauling jobs are piling up and the place is an absolute mess. So I let workers clean up the whole day, hauling stuff to storage. The only production I do is to craft the Iron Hoe and the Clay Pit from it, and then the Shears. I haven’t talked about the sheep yet because I don’t even think about them for the first half of summer. I leave them to roam and graze, they can look after themselves. All four Ewes were pregnant on day two and will give birth early in the fall. But the more immediate consideration is that they will be ready to shear on day 9 of summer. When keeping sheep, the key is to shear them as soon as they’re ready. Their wool only starts to regrow when they are sheared and, as it is, the second shearing will take place in late fall, perilously close to winter. I need that wool for warm clothes so I cannot afford any delays. Crafting the Shears well in advance is prudent.

[dissent]

Day 6

No rest for the wicked. With the place cleaned up, I resume hollowing out the mountain. I start with the Thresher room, the barn and the Iron smelting production room.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888055330

Note the line of blueprinted Rat Traps in the corridor. That passage leads to my food, and the bottom tile of the passage will be removed to create an opening for the sheep to get out and graze. I want that passage trapped before I create that opening.

Day 7

Goal for today is to hollow out the cold room, and finish the Thresher, barn and Iron rooms.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888056006

Again, note the line of Rat Traps along the corridor. This horizontal corridor and the vertical corridor in the previous screenshot are the only two access points to my mountain quarters. I want them both heavily trapped. Three or four traps is not enough as each trap only stops one rat. Try and get at least six traps between access points and food stores.

Day 8

Hauling jobs were again piling up so I have another ‘clean-up day’. I move my Thresher, Bloomery and Smithy into their new production rooms. With this, all of my wet-vulnerable facilities are now indoors. The only crafting stations left outside are the Timbery, Masonry and the clay cluster, none of which stop during rain.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888056277

My sheep will be ready for shearing tomorrow so I need to tackle the final production room, the clothing room.

Day 9

My goal is to get the clothing room up and running, and to take in my first traveller. By nightfall, I’ve got the clothing room hollowed out and the Wool Processing at blueprint stage. You can see the traveller in the corner of the cold room at the top of the screen. It may seem weird to put a guest in the cold room but it’s not cold yet and it’s a Huge Room so they get the 3/s Satisfaction bonus.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888066400

Day 10

I start processing my wool into cloth and have a general clean-up day. I also replant the Reeds I’ve cut around the lakes, so that I can get another harvest from them in fall. You can’t plant anything in fall so make sure you don’t miss the seasonal deadline. We’re halfway to winter and I’m right on schedule. I haven’t had any delays or resource shortages, my people are happy (average mood 8k+ when they’re in bed) and it hasn’t been necessary at any stage to put them in Overwork mode. I have avoided processing poop (Toilets and Chamber Pots), compost/fertilizer, farming and hunting as these are all very time- and labour-intensive activities. Instead, I am only focusing on what I need to do for the winter.

[dissent]

Fall

Day 1
My goal for the day is to craft 5 Wool Hats and 5 Wool Shirts from my first shearing of 250 (5x50) wool. It’s starting to get nippy in the evenings so I start with the lighter items (hats and shirts) and reserve the second shearing in late fall for the Wool Tunics. I will also add Fur Cloaks. Where will I get the Hides, considering I am doing zero hunting? Don’t worry, all will be revealed...

I have also been pumping out Jugs and by evening of day 1, my cold room is now finished. Obviously I still need to put in more Pantry Shelves but the jug pallets are all full and sealed behind stone walls. The workers cannot tamper with the pallets, which will stay in place for the rest of the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888065675

I have also moved my traveller beds into the Huge production rooms – one in the Iron room, the other (still blueprint) in the clothing room. The travellers don’t care if they’re tucked in among machinery. As long as they have a nice Straw Bed and it’s a Huge Room, you’ll get great Reputation and Rent from them.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888065786


Day 2

My first batch of lambs are born, five in total. I was expecting six from the four Ewes (1.5 each or alternating singles with twins) but five is fine. They will be an important source of winter food and hides for Fur Cloaks. They will be juveniles by day 10 of fall. Slaughtering them will provide ~23 Meat and 3 Hides per lamb. So that will be ~115 Meat and 15 Hides, nearly enough for two Fur Cloaks. I only need five in total. The sheep are now all in the barn. It’s not necessary this early, they will be fine outside until early winter. But I got it done and crossed off the list.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888073637

Day 3

It’s now getting chilly in the mountain, even with the Wool Hats and Shirts. So my plan for the day is to re-roof all the bedrooms with Hay, which will raise the interior temps by around 5C.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888074240

I will also need to transition from eels to fish once the lakes freeze on day 2 of winter. So I place a Fishing Spot in each of the three lakes. Although I don’t use them yet, I continue with eels. The sheep are starting to poop in their barn, so I also make a Composter and Manure Basket. I will only need Fertilizer for a small tree plantation that I have planned. I won’t grow any crops at all. I can use the left-over Fertilizer to seed new grasslands as natural grazing in the area south of the barn. My final goal for the day is to collect Peat from the huge bog to the south-east of my mountain base. I will need a Peat Stove before the end of fall so I collect my fuel now.

Day 4

Major, major development. The Plains trader arrives with an adult Cow. And, with that one fell swoop, my food and clothing requirements are solved. The cow will provide 20 Hides when slaughtered. As stated earlier, I’ll get 15 from the lambs. I already have 10 which I bought from the Forest trader, who is now at one star due to me accommodating travellers from that clan. So that gives me 45 Hides, I only need 40 (5 Fur Cloaks @ 8 Hides each)l. The cow will also provide 100 Meat. By the time I slaughter it on day 10 of fall, my cold room will be operational. So the meat will stay fresh throughout winter. With another 115 Meat from the lambs, food is about done.

My main goal for the day was to get the Peat Stove installed in the gathering room. I Stopped the stove 0.02 seconds after it was finished building. Which was 0.01 seconds after the worker who finished the stove grabbed some peat from the adjoining storage and lit the fire. So it was scorching hot inside for the rest of the day – 24C. It is what it is, clanfolk do like their fires. I made the builder stand in the poop-hole for an hour as punishment. And with peat so dear and all. Scandalous.

Day 5

Time for another winter upgrade – tossing out the old Sleeping Mats and replacing them with plush Straw Beds! Let it never be said that I don’t spoil my people.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888073910

You’ll note that the Peat Stove in the gathering room is now Stopped. If it’s under 40C, the first thing they do in the morning is light it. Then it burns the whole day. I’m not having that. It’s at least 8C outside. In my day, that was sunbathing weather. Kids are too spoilt now.

[dissent]

Day 6

Another rest day to remove the Hauling backlog and neaten the place up. All 4 Ewes are now pregnant again. The Timbery is now in the Iron production room.

Day 7

Time to add the final production room, the Stone Block room. This small area contains the Masonry and Stone Quarry, with storage in between them. The Quarry is set to auto-supply 6 Large Rocks (enough to fill one Rock Heap), the Masonry auto-supplies 100 Stone Blocks. I sell these en masse to the Coastal trader at 25 Coin for 5 Stone Blocks. It’s the only item I need to sell and I make hundreds of Coin per visit. It’s a one-item economy that has infinite free resources, doesn’t build up over time, requires little storage, has no delay due to growth, isn’t seasonal and can be done indoors in all weather. Oh, and it doesn't require any hauling either. All products pop out straight into their storage containers, and can be reached by the workers operating the stations.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888086871

My second sheep shearing happens on day 7 as well.

Day 8

My goal for the day is to re-roof the gathering room and passages with Hay, to remove the last of the cold mountain interior temps.

Finally – finally! - a suitable day worker arrives, with both Optimist and Jolly as traits. So I snag him, keep him in the gathering room all day gaining 3/s Satisfaction from Huge Room and, by Sunset, he’s ready to marry in. That very same night, Marrion is pregnant. Whoop!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888089245

Day 9
Bang on schedule, the jug pallets in the cold room freeze on the morning of day 9.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888089483

I slaughter the cow, store the 100 Meat in the now -6C cold room, and dry the Hides to turn into Fur Cloaks. I also start making the Wool Tunics from the second wool shearing.

Day 10

The final day of fall serves to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. I slaughter the five lambs to round out my meat and hides, finish the five Fur Cloaks and five Wool Tunics, and do a whip around the vicinity of the settlement to collect some final Branches and Straw to tide me through.

As winter falls, I have the following resources for my clan of 6:
6 Wool Hats and Tunics
5 Wool Shirts
5 Fur Cloaks and 1 Wool Cloak (which the in-law brought with him)
1400 Straw for animal beds
650 Hay Seed for the sheep
725 Oats Grain for Brose
500 Hay and 300 Oats sheafs still to be threshed
1100 Branches and 123 Logs
40 Eels, 10 Fish (bought), 218 Meat and 42 Smoked Meat. I’ll also be getting 9 Fish per day, 3 from each of the three lakes. That alone will satisfy about 50% of my clan’s nutritional needs.

I’m not seeing any problems surviving this winter. This screenshot indicates how I have used vents and Straw Curtains to restrict the Peat Stove warmth to only those areas where I want it:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888089973

That is for the milder days. In mid-winter, I’ll shut off the vent to the Thresher room.

[dissent]

Winter

Day 1

Ah, winter. That time of the year when all your hard work earlier pays off, and you can goof off in the gathering room eating hot meals and telling ghost stories, right? Well, not really. They wake up to find out that someone has been a busy boy while they were sleeping, and there’s just one leeetle job I want the clan to do first:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888151906

They work a bit slower than in other seasons now, and have to take breaks to go inside and warm up. Nevertheless, by the afternoon of winter day 3, the structure is finished and the floor has been cleared.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888152256

The coldest time in winter is between midnight on night 5 and dawn on day 6. During this period, the temp in the gathering room drops to 0.6C. Nevertheless, the clan wake up to bathtubs and water dippers that are still liquid and usable.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888153042

Unfortunately I didn’t have enough Straw to roof and complete the new quarters entirely. So the clan focused on floor coverings instead, both in the mountain settlement and the new quarters. They did get the gathering room and half the bedrooms roofed, with doors and windows, and the amenities like Well and Peat Stove in the gathering room. They even finished the room for the baby who will arrive in late spring, with mom and dad in the room just across the hall. It will be a simple matter, once the lakeside reeds regrow in spring, to finish the roof and complete the new quarters. I will then have 15 bedrooms, enough for a clan of 20-25, even though I still only have a starter clan of 6. This is the settlement on day 1 of spring:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888153880

From here, I can take the settlement in any direction I choose. So, in three seasons, I’m basically done and dusted. It’s easy street from here on.

You don’t need to shiver through winter in a little cabin of sticks and straw, eating cold mushrooms, trekking miles to get firewood, having to melt ice jugs on a fire to drink, unable to bathe because the lake is frozen. Organise your available time and labour efficiently and you will breeze through winter.

The keys are:
* Don’t dawdle along, reacting to things as you go. Start each day with a plan and goal for that day, and stick to it.
* Don’t overburden your clan. Just give them the tasks to reach that day’s goal. If your taskload climbs much above 100, beware – they are becoming too busy and things will get left undone.
* Hauling jobs build up over time. Keep an eye on it. When Hauling is more than 70 or 80 tasks, give them the day off and let them clean up the place.
* Be judicious in how much you gather/harvest. If you need 500 Straw to get a goal accomplished, don’t gather 3000.
* Tasks like hauling Chamber Pots, making Fertilizer, tending crops, hunting animals take a lot of time and labour – and they don’t help you through winter. Avoid these tasks until the clan is bigger and the winter crisis is over.
* Keep your clan comfortable. Anticipate dropping temps and give them warmer rooms, better clothes, better food before it becomes a problem.
* Trade wisely. Don’t produce what you can buy. A bought cow will provide 20 Hides and 100 Meat. That’s the same Hides as ten Rabbits, and Meat from 20 Rabbits. It will take a hunter two full days to hunt 10 Rabbits. So that’s two days labour you’ve saved in one purchase. Yes, cows are expensive to buy. But get Stone Blocks early, as I did, and you will have more Coin that you know what to do with.

Anyway, that’s how I tackle the first winter. Hopefully there may be something in there that you didn’t know or didn’t consider before. As I said, it’s not the only way and maybe not even a good way. But it works for me. The key is to find an approach and plan that works for you. Experiment, see what you like and find easy to do, and develop your plan around that.

[miauukisu]

Great work :)
Will you copypaste it to guides too?

And to be honest, most appreciation from someone who loves to test different playstyles and approaches: biggest plus was the thing that you reminded people that there is not a "one right way" ;) There are just essential details to think about no matter which type of start you decide to go for ;)
(Yes, start of "Let's dabble around for first playthrough with just testing stuff without much googling or optimization and see how far I get before folk die and why" is definitely an acceptable playstyle too - and can lead to your getting more ideas and remembering more of what you learned from the game, than copying someone else's ideas. Just don't blame the game being stupid and wrong then ;) )

[dissent]

Originally posted by miauukisu:

Great work :)
Will you copypaste it to guides too?

Thank you. I'm not sure what you mean by guides? Is there a guides section on the forum, or is it some other guides section elsewhere?

[miauukisu]

There's guides section here in community hub; top bar just before reviews. (If you're logged in via Steam/browser, at least; don't know about mobile interface etc.) Not directly in discussions, but same level header.

[dissent]

Ah, I see it now, thanks. I'll try to post it there as well.

[erandomone]

The tutorial suggests keeping the eel harvesting low to not overfish, and I see that your strat is to fish about 7x what they suggest. Is overfishing even a thing that needs to be worried about?

[TechRabbit]

Originally posted by erandomone:

The tutorial suggests keeping the eel harvesting low to not overfish, and I see that your strat is to fish about 7x what they suggest. Is overfishing even a thing that needs to be worried about?

It is. Over fishing a lake slows down the gathering of fish and eel by quite a bit. What dissent is doing in this guide is having one eel trap per lake around their base. I personally recommend disabling eel traps when they are 10% (20% if they are above 80% max population) below the max population and keep a max of 2 days food until you enter autumn. This is a LITTLE more micro-management but you save on work efforts and you have far less food rotting.

[Philtre]

Originally posted by erandomone:

The tutorial suggests keeping the eel harvesting low to not overfish, and I see that your strat is to fish about 7x what they suggest. Is overfishing even a thing that needs to be worried about?

The guide starts by explaining at length how to re-roll until you find a map that has multiple 100% lakes in a close area; that is, multiple lakes that have the maximum possible productivity. The point of picking a map with multiple large lakes is to easily automate food production through summer and fall.

A 100% lake regenerates about 12 eels/fish per day, so two-and-a-half catches per lake per day (5 eels per catch). An easy way of managing this is to put 3 traps in each lake, and set 2 of them to do one catch per day, and the third to do one catch every other day. If you have lakes whose maximum productivity is below 100%, scale down appropriately (so a 50% lake might support one trap set to one catch per day).

Ideally, if you place the traps in each lake next to each other, the traps will all get set at the same time, meaning they will all produce at the same time, so you only need to make two trips per lake per day: one to set the traps and one to retrieve the eels.

Eels rot quickly, so keep in mind that if you have a smaller colony it's a waste of time to catch more eels than your people can eat until you have a freezer set up to preserve them.

[dissent]

Originally posted by erandomone:

The tutorial suggests keeping the eel harvesting low to not overfish, and I see that your strat is to fish about 7x what they suggest. Is overfishing even a thing that needs to be worried about?

I take 15 eels a day (3 batches of 5). It's been a while since I played the tutorial but it surely can't suggest that you can only take 2-3 eels per day from a 100% lake?? That would be one trap full of 5 eels every second day, and would render eels almost useless as a food source.

My testing of lake replenishment suggested that a 100% lake can recover by 30% per day. Each eel caught depletes the lake by 2% (10% for a trap full of 5 eels) and 2.5% for each fish. So 15 eels or 12 fish max as a daily limit. It should be noted that you can mix and match any combination of these, such as 5 eels and 8 fish or 10 eels and 4 fish. As long as your daily catch doesn't go above 30%, the lake will recover and be sustainable.

[Dkonen]

Thanks for posting this! I had to figure stuff out as I went and posts like this go a long way to keeping more players in the game <3

[Finjachan]

Reading and seeing this big build left me wanting to abandon my individual houses style ^^ it's a good Guide ^^