Tips from my playing experience so far

[VEF215]

1.) First I would start off and get an extra 4 research points to help boost your research. Mine the tiles below 1 grass, below 1 grain, below 1 flower, and destroy 1 tree stump. So choose those wisely and get those extra research points.

2.) Only choose rats with good traits. Do not choose deal breaker traits.

Deal breaker traits are:

Hypertension - die from blood pressure
Anarchist - unhappy passing near you
Monetarist - unhappy from paying taxes
Crier - cry when happiness gets low
Slob - gets dirty quickly
Extravagant - needs more necessities
Big appetite - eats a lot more
Playful - loses joy more quickly

These are negative traits that are ok to take in moderation:

Slow is an ok negative trait.
Pacifist is an ok negative trait.
Foolish is alright.
Pessimist is low happiness naturally, but it's only -3.
Clumsy is alright since they can take jobs that aren't affected by it.
Floorer is okay if you put them in a non-combat role.
Fragile is okay to take, put them in a safe role.

3.) What to research first?

I like to start by going this route in order, these are absolute essentials:

Hunter's Hut
Butchery
Rabbit Pasture
Circus
Weaving Mill
Masonry
Code Stone
Prison
Spike Trap
Training Camp
Ratizen Register
Tax Office
Water Tank
Grain Farm
Grass Field

4.) Combat tips.

Use spike traps are your primary combat method. Line up a bunch in front of the graves. Attack the grave, run away into traps, kill them, go back and rinse repeat to destroy graves. Once you tech up enough, you can have a squad of 5 armored spearmen rat from the barracks follow you around, making destroying graves effortless.

When you find a grave, make a pathable way into your base, and line this with spike traps. If they can't path, they will teleport randomly into your base. This is hard to predict and can be bad.

5.) Winter is brutal food wise. Be prepared to rely on meat a lot and your storage of food.

6.) Two taxes to get your economy going.

Wealth tax = tax wealth over 300, at 25%, applies to everyone
Income tax = tax income at 25%, applies to rats with jobs

Give a subsidy to the poor.

Welfare law = give 30 coins, to the poor bronze class everyday, this is so they can afford food everyday even if they don't have a job. I set grain to 10 coins, meat to 20, milk to 15. This seems to work well.

One or two tax offices with this going will have your economy going well. Remember to collect taxes yourself as you pass by every now and then.

7.) Put beds throughout your base, and near jobs that are dangerous. I assign hunters and soldiers to their own beds. Also assign beds very close to entertainment buildings, so your entertainers can sleep and quickly start promoting joy again.

Any other tips to share?

[Mouse Lover]

I disagree on slow. This is the worst you can have on your rats, because their productivity will be very minimum during breaks.

I do have a wonderful tip:
Mine carts, DO NOT underestimate them, they are cheap to unlock (1 tech) and you need square wood to build. They make your rats move FAST. Now I always focus on getting my mine cart railways as soon as possible so my rats become even more productive.
I even make individual rooms to force them to use the rail ways (way faster than walking).

Also unlock wood stairs, anything that increase the speed of your rats is a blessing.

Always leave rats with the speed trait to work as miners / haulers / builders. I have a huge need for speed!

[Urist McDood]

Here's one, but it's dependant on RNG. If you find a jungle biome early, skip over the basic training ground and go straight into Temples of War. A Temple of War need 12 jungle logs, 8 cut stone and 8 dirt. The temple warriors they produce absolutely floor the basic soldier, just be sure to set them to warriors instead of druids. The T2 barracks needs *12 COPPER BARS* to make one, which makes them incredibly expensive early game. You'll need a military early game as it looks like new enemy spawners are added every prosperity level and it'll minimise the damage until you can create a trap corridor to the new spawners.

Another: Lifts are a trap. Not only are they huge (3 squares long) and require metalworking, their speed bonus is not nearly the same speed as minecarts (+500% speed on carts). Wooden ladders are cheaper, faster to build, gives 6x the speed bonus of grass ladders (+30% vs +5%) and they don't need a station on every level. The need for the station on every level is due to the fact they can only use a lift from a station. Without it, they'll climb the shaft ropes at +0% speed, which is worse than a basic grass ladder.

[VEF215]

Origineel geplaatst door Mouse Lover:

I disagree on slow. This is the worst you can have on your rats, because their productivity will be very minimum during breaks.

I do have a wonderful tip:
Mine carts, DO NOT underestimate them, they are cheap to unlock (1 tech) and you need square wood to build. They make your rats move FAST. Now I always focus on getting my mine cart railways as soon as possible so my rats become even more productive.
I even make individual rooms to force them to use the rail ways (way faster than walking).

Also unlock wood stairs, anything that increase the speed of your rats is a blessing.

Always leave rats with the speed trait to work as miners / haulers / builders. I have a huge need for speed! :summer2019flag: :rat_happy: :rat_love:

I’ll experiment with those next time I play. The school will increase your characters speed, the teacher will come up to you with an event, pick the green leaf speed option

[VEF215]

Origineel geplaatst door Urist McDood:

Here's one, but it's dependant on RNG. If you find a jungle biome early, skip over the basic training ground and go straight into Temples of War. A Temple of War need 12 jungle logs, 8 cut stone and 8 dirt. The temple warriors they produce absolutely floor the basic soldier, just be sure to set them to warriors instead of druids. The T2 barracks needs *12 COPPER BARS* to make one, which makes them incredibly expensive early game. You'll need a military early game as it looks like new enemy spawners are added every prosperity level and it'll minimise the damage until you can create a trap corridor to the new spawners.

Another: Lifts are a trap. Not only are they huge (3 squares long) and require metalworking, their speed bonus is not nearly the same speed as minecarts (+500% speed on carts). Wooden ladders are cheaper, faster to build, gives 6x the speed bonus of grass ladders (+30% vs +5%) and they don't need a station on every level. The need for the station on every level is due to the fact they can only use a lift from a station. Without it, they'll climb the shaft ropes at +0% speed, which is worse than a basic grass ladder.

The lift was a big disappointment, also very awkward to build. I can usually survive by myself with traps just fine until tier 2 soldiers come along

[Vellys]

I wouldn't bother dumping time and resources into lots of traps for zombie tombstones. They're super easy to kill with just your basic starter leader rat and a royal bed, even on Hard. Just stand on the stone and hold attack until you get below half health, back off to kill any remaining monsters without accidentally hitting the stone again, then go back to heal in the bed. Come back and finish the job. This is also why the Weaver should be one of your first researches to get the cloth to make the Royal Bed.

Zombie Stones spawn one new stone on every Invasion Day, so it's important to keep up with killing them so you're not getting invaded by lots of stones at once.

Traps and other defenses come into play more once you get to the more advanced enemies but early on you have much better things to do with your rats' labor and resources building up your city instead of trapping the weak zombie tombstones.


Lifts are amazing, once you have the economy to support building a bunch of them and if you built your city with lifts in mind in the first place when you spaced things out. Make a grid of lifts and mine cart rails and your rats can zoom around getting more work done.

[Eldar Farseer]

Origineel geplaatst door xardian42:

I wouldn't bother dumping time and resources into lots of traps for zombie tombstones. They're super easy to kill with just your basic starter leader rat and a royal bed, even on Hard. Just stand on the stone and hold attack until you get below half health, back off to kill any remaining monsters without accidentally hitting the stone again, then go back to heal in the bed. Come back and finish the job. This is also why the Weaver should be one of your first researches to get the cloth to make the Royal Bed.

Zombie Stones spawn one new stone on every Invasion Day, so it's important to keep up with killing them so you're not getting invaded by lots of stones at once.

Traps and other defenses come into play more once you get to the more advanced enemies but early on you have much better things to do with your rats' labor and resources building up your city instead of trapping the weak zombie tombstones.


Lifts are amazing, once you have the economy to support building a bunch of them and if you built your city with lifts in mind in the first place when you spaced things out. Make a grid of lifts and mine cart rails and your rats can zoom around getting more work done.

i would disagree traps are probably the best tool to dont get overwhelmed mid game by a sudden spike in difficulty especially on the highest difficulty. so it makes sense to lay traps for even the first tombstone so when you later have six of them they dont overwhelm you. only at level 5 prosperity the game get easier again when they throw these wannabe rats at you.

[EdhyRa]

You should get Bank and Trading next, good for planning ahead.

[Vellys]

Origineel geplaatst door Eldar Farseer:

i would disagree traps are probably the best tool to dont get overwhelmed mid game by a sudden spike in difficulty especially on the highest difficulty. so it makes sense to lay traps for even the first tombstone so when you later have six of them they dont overwhelm you. only at level 5 prosperity the game get easier again when they throw these wannabe rats at you.

Eh, I find it easiest to just kill the stones so I don't ever worry about being overwhelmed by 5 or 6 stones. And I'd much rather put the Labor and resources into a bigger stronger city than trapping stones I can kill simple enough. And since the stones stop spawning when the enemy type switches st Prosperity 5, those traps would then need to be recycled, eating up even more rat labor.

[Urist McDood]

Origineel geplaatst door xardian42:

After all, the plague stones stop spawning once you get to the new enemy type, so all the traps you left on them are promptly useless and need more Labor spent then to recycle them.

OK that's news to me. Every time I destroyed a grave it kept respawning them up to a minimum of roughly 2+prosperity level graves, at least on normal. The game doesn't convey this well when the weasels come into play. When I got the message that I hit cap I assumed that there will always be 5 graves and 2 huts but no more than that and they'd respawn if I bothered to destroy any of them. There's no reason to assume that'd change up till that point, especially for 20+ hours.

[Archetype of Greg]

Hypertension is such a non-trait. If your rats are reaching 20 happiness you are doing something wrong. Crier can be an issue but if you are meeting the rats needs it does not matter. neither of those should be deal breakers. Also bunk beds & lifts are two of the most important techs for a functional city. Bunk beds save a lot of space and lifts make vertical distance in your base way shorter making everything else more efficient. For me foolish is a deal breaker because it makes rats way worse in the long run. For me personally rat shrine is core because it allows for the efficient collection of taxes, making it essential once you hit 40+ rats.

[Eldar Farseer]

Origineel geplaatst door Urist McDood:

Origineel geplaatst door xardian42:

After all, the plague stones stop spawning once you get to the new enemy type, so all the traps you left on them are promptly useless and need more Labor spent then to recycle them.

OK that's news to me. Every time I destroyed a grave it kept respawning them up to a minimum of roughly 2+prosperity level graves, at least on normal. The game doesn't convey this well when the weasels come into play. When I got the message that I hit cap I assumed that there will always be 5 graves and 2 huts but no more than that and they'd respawn if I bothered to destroy any of them. There's no reason to assume that'd change up till that point, especially for 20+ hours.

when the weasels come the gravestones no longer respawn so its best to destroy them and destroy the weasel dens till you have both on the same side so you only need one trap location.

[Senka]

Saving then reloading gives you a new pool of migrants to pick from. Just make sure you save before you check it the first time.

[akos44]

Thanks for the tips.
With the above, the money situation was stable.
Also, if you do early water, grain farm and rabbit farm + grass farm and rabbit hunter + butcher, the food becomes very stable. (Water and farming is crutial from the start of the game. And also, the heavy rabbit hunting + butcher - no leather, only meat. That way, the lot of rats getting immigrated can have stable food supply. Which I couldn't keep up with before.)

Also, clearing the path and making it towards the tombs (enemy spawn points) is a really good tactic. Great tip. Now, I was actively looking for the spawn point and made spike traps along the way. This way, It was much more calculable and enjoyable to fight. Compared to always having enemies randomly spawning inside my base.

Having beds near the workstations is also very benefitial.


After having the food stable, and with the above tips, I managed to have a stable game, finally. And reach to a point, when with hospitals and maintenance stations, things get somewhat stable and automated.

[foza]

ty for the tips

[VEF215]

You're welcome my fellow Ratizens. Let's keep our Rat Kingdoms thriving.

I have also enjoyed reading other's tips as well.

Keep em coming

A tip for Joy

Circus will be your main Joy powerhouse at start. Build circus with bed next to it, assign the rat. So he can rest quickly and keep doing Joy. As you need more circuses to keep Joy under control, you can space them apart, so a Rat can always find Joy as he moves around the colony, or have them right next to each other, but unfortunately this can require a bunk bed, which is expensive tech.

Also if you Joy needs keep going up and up. Stop ordering harvesting/mining and building tasks. Let the rats do their own thing for a time, and they will seek out Joy and it will come down. I think they prioritize construction and harvesting tasks over replacing Joy.