Some Tips for getting started (actually a lot of tips...)

[Robotoast]

I've seen a lot of people having problem getting up and rolling with this game, and I think that's a shame, because I've found a lot of satisfaction in having a thriving, bustling little town and a lot of people never make it to that point. So here are some of my thoughts for early and midgame.

1. I like to start on medium, but only because i don't have to worrk about buying my first set of seeds early on. As you've probably read already, you don't want to start with agriculture, but having those seeds ready for when you want to kick it off is nice. Hard doesn't really change this, you just have to drop the resources for those seeds later on.

2. Get two to three "outposts" going as soon as possible. Build these a decent distance away from your starting location and include a foresters lodge, hunting cabin, gather's hut, and a couple of houses. One should include an herbalist. Let me emphasise that you should build two at least to begin with, and as your population increases, fill them up until all positions in each outpost are full, at which point, add a third. This should keep you sustainable for a while.

2.a.Your foresters lodge radius should be almost entirely within forest, or as much forest as you can get, and your two foresters lodges should not overlap each other. Make sure that they're far enough away from your start location that you have room to grow and not encroach on the working radius. Let them plant and cut. They will be your primary source of wood throughout the game.

2.b. Drop your hunter's lodge and gatherer's hut within the forester's radius, and for one outpost, a herbalist (I was running a single herbalist until I had a little over 75 pop, I think, so don't stress about building a second, or even having a second worker).

2.c. Make sure you have houses with these outposts as well. If you have houses near yout town center, but none near your outposts, your citizens will be running back and forth, spending most of their time traveling, rather than working.

2.d. Finally, when you have sufficient resources, drop storage barns and stockpiles just on the edge of the radius of your outposts. Your outpost workers will toss their goods there, and they can be picked up by vendors to go into your market. Remember that storage should go closer to the workers. The faster they can drop off food, leather, herbs, etc. the faster they can get back to work.

3. Once you have your two outposts up and running, priority is getting a market. The market will end up being your hub for your residential area. Vendors will travel to your storage barns and stockpiles (even if they are outside of the market radius) and bring a variety of food and goods back here. Then all your citizens have to do is make the relatively short walk to the market to get their goods and be on their way. Generally, I only rarely biuld houses outside of the radius of my market, and when I do, I make sure that they're built near storage barns that tend to have a strong variety of food. This is why those houses in your outposts will be A-OK, they have access to all the food from the hunters and gatherers.

4. The next thing you'll need to prioritize is a woodcutter. Firewood will be an issue as soon as your second winter, and possibly even your first. A single woodcutter, generally near the center of town, however, can keep you going for a long time before you need a second. Later in the game, I tend to drop these near my storage barns and stockpiles on the edge of my outposts so the logs don't have to travel as far before they get cut. Let your vendors from the market do the heavy lifting so your woodcutters can cut wood rather than run around looking for logs. (Also, firewood is my primary export. It's renewable and easy to produce).

5. Now, a word about housing. I haven't sorted out a rule of thumb about when to build houses, usually I just go on instinct. If I haven't seen any new births in the event log (you do have that open, right?) in a while, or if my average number of children is decreasing, I'll plop down a new house. Also, make sure you have a little cushion of food. Your food store will drop when you build a house, and if you've overextended, it will then steadily decline. This is a good signal that you've built too early, and to not build another house until things level off. Nonetheless, what I find more important is not so much when you drop down houses, but the rate at which you build them. That is, you should build one at a time.

I see this alot, people drop down three or four houses in a shot. Don't do this. You'll get population spikes that you might not be ready for. If you want to plan out a little community, drop the foundations and pause the building of those houses, and let one build. Then, when you've given that first house a couple of seasons (or even a year) to fill up, unpause another one. This lets you carefully gauge how much food you'll need and make adjustments if you don't have enough. Later in the game, when your food stockpile is massive, this isn't as crucial, but early on, you need slow steady growth or you'll run into serious food issues, and starvation will be your punishment for growing too fast.

Speaking of which, don't flip out when you have starvation issues. If you've got your outposts up and running properly, and your market is consistantly being stocked, starvation will not end your game, merely bring you back down to sustainable levels. Dial back workers where you don't need them, focus back on food, (maybe you need to drop that third outpost about now?) and slow down on your house building. It'll be ok, your game isn't over.

Finally, remember, keep your houses near your market, this will ensure that no one gets a disproportionate amount of food, and that they aren't having to walk to the next zipcode to get it. Also, I stick to wood houses at first. Stone is a precious resource early on and I never seem to have issues having enough firewood. Your milage may vary.

6. By the middle of year two, you're going to want to start thinking about clothes and tools. A tailor is an easy add, as you'll have a bit of leather lying around from your hunting cabins, and it only takes a single citizen to work it. Drop one in there at your leisure and having them start churning out leather coats. You might not be running a surplus any time soon, but you also shouldn't see people running around naked.

7. Tools are trickier. I wish I could remember when my citizen's tools started breaking, because it's crucial information. Not having tools will slow you down everywhere, you'll have less food, less wood, houses will go up slower, and early in the game, this will kill you. Unfortunately, I just can't remember when my tools start breaking, but you'll want to be ready for when they do. Be very decisive about when you spend iron on buildings, and ask if you really need them. Collecting iron on the surface is the easiest and fastest way to build up a stockpile, but quickly you're going to find that your workers are wandering way too far away to get it. At that point you should consider dropping down a mine or two.

7.a. I like mines. Mines take up hill and mountain space that nothing else can, and while I labor over where I drop my quarries, I drop mines without a second thought. Remember a few things though. Iron trickles in from mines, and you need a lot of workers to make them churn the stuff out. Also, remember that they're finite. That said, I only just burnt out of my first mine after like, 30 years. If you have multiple, they'll all be balanced out nicely. Early in the game, I was running two mines, and maybe ten to fifteen miners, as I could add them. Iron is a lower priority than food, so if you find yourself low on food workers, shift them around and off your mine, as long as you can keep a few still working in there.

7.b. Again, make sure you have a stockpile near your mine exit. Make those vendors pick up that stuff, keep your miners mining. Also, if you can build your mines near your market, that means that you can build houses near the mines and your miners will live near their workplace, while still having food variety.

7.c. To begin with, stick to Iron. You'll want a quick glut of tools to handle when your citizens first start to break. Once you've handled the initial run on them, and built up a nice cushion, you can move to steel tools, and I do recommend them. To accomodate the steel, I tend to switch one of my two early mines between iron and coal. If you see yourself sitting at zero coal, and boatloads of iron, make sure to switch one over and build up that coal reserve. Also remember that your citizens will burn coal if they can't find firewood. This is very very bad. Firewood is easy and widely renewable, coal is precious and slow to mine out. Keep an eye on your firewood storage.

7.d. I don't know if this is because I planned poorly those first few years, or if it's just because of how the game works, but I had the hardest time keeping a sufficient supply of tools with one blacksmith. I had to build two early on, but I now have over 350 citizens, and I haven't needed a third. I recommend building a second early on when you can, but your mileage may vary.


By this point, you should be somewhat stable. Keep your growth slow, make sure you have a cushion in all your crucial supplies before dropping new houses and you should be ready to stop thinking about survival, and start thinking about thriving. Here's a couple of other bits of advice that i've discovered more toward the midgame.

- I know people rag on fishmen, but man, they have saved my butt so many times. I had three fishing docks, stategically placed along the big river early on in my game. Usually I only had them about half staffed, but man, when it's the middle of winter and people are eating like pigs, I could move miners or builders, or whoever, over to my fishing docks and just scrape by. I still use them a lot and routinely have a plesant stockpile of fish. I build them here and there when I can. I don't find them to be a priority, but they're nice to have around.

- Quarries are the enemy. You need them, but they're slow, they're big, and when they run out, you can't do anything with the space they were in. What's worse is that more likely than not, you'll drop them near the outskirts of your community early on in the game, and you'll want to expand into their spot ten years later. Think carefully about where you put them, and make sure it's not somewhere you'll want houses to be sitting later on. Late in the game, I dial back my quarries hard, and start trading firewood for stone. Despite switching over to stone houses, and all the expensive mid and late game stone buildings, I don’t generally have a deficit. When I do, I dial up my quarries a bit, and then just be patient (after all, do you really need that new chapel RIGHT now?).

- When and where you start planting seeds is a bit of a nebulous dilemma. I can tell you that you're going to want agriculture up and running before you need it, but I don't know if i can recommend when. Your outposts and fish should meet your food needs for some time, but having that surplus is never bad. Generally, I drop a 15x15 field as soon as my other needs are covered, and I have enough idle laborers to fully staff my farming (five I think, maybe four?). I drop a second patch when I have enough idle labor, and I can afford new seeds. Then, every couple of winters, when my farms are empty, I'll swap seeds, just to be proactive. Early on, my farms are near my residential centers, later on, I move them out of the center of town, and use that land for houses, additional services, etc.

Eventually, farms are going to be your major source of food, so keep an eye out for where you want those farms to go. Don't feel bad about demolishing one of your outposts to drop farms. Generally that's wide open land, and four or five farms will serve you better than a hunter and gatherer's hut. Just keep in mind that you need to keep logs rolling in. Consider dropping another outpost elsewhere, father away from your growing town.

Furthermore, make sure you have housing, and storage barns near your farms, and by near, I mean, right next to. Storage barns don't need workers, and aren't that expensive. Losing half your crop to frost because your famers are walking for miles to drop it off before picking up more, is in fact incredibly expensive. Again, let your vendors do the running around!

-When you build your school is also a bit of a fluid rule. Remember that when that school goes up, you basically won’t have much in the way of new laborers for the next 3 or so years, and even then, they’ll trickle in. That said, having an educated workforce is huge! You delay your children’s entry into the work force for a little over a year (6 years of age is about a year as far as the seasons are concerned. Someone correct me if I’m wrong with that number) and in exchange, they work twice as efficiently. TWICE! You are gaining like, and extra 15 years (45 age years) worth of labor per educated individual, for an investment of one year.

Also, make sure that your teacher doesn’t die off without a replacement. Actually, it’s generally a good rule of them to always have at least one person assigned as a laborer, but particularly when we’re talking with school. If your teacher dies with no replacement, all of your students immediately enter the workforce, and any investment of time towards getting them schooled is wasted entirely. Furthermore, if you see your number of students approaching 20, get another school up and running pronto.

These are my thoughts. I can’t remember what else I’ve found important while playing, but hey, 2.5k words ought to help you get somewhere. Let me know if I’m wrong on something here, and feel free to add your own ideas and wisdom.

[Raak]

Good read, lots of information. Thanks for this!

[chonhode]

Very good tips, and yes educated people do work twice as efficiently!

[MightyDog]

Great tips for a deceptively difficult game. I learned quite a few good tips here but I wanted to add one thing for new players: raise your "maximum capacity" for your core resources. For a little while I couldn't figure out why I was always running out of food and firewood mid-winter no matter how many people I had working on it- they stopped producing because the maximum capacity for their respective products had been reached even though there was tons of storage space available. If you have a market and barns/stockpiles sprinkled around you should have PLENTY of storage space to accommodate a large cache of supplies.

[Goblitsz]

This is soo good! Never knew the more house you build the faster you loss food :/ No wonder my people keeps on dying from starvation.

[inf3kted]

whats an 'outpost'?

[Cackleberry]

Great tips and info...thanks a lot....starting a new map and putting your method into practice as I always seem to have disaster when I reach about 200 pop

[Freedom]

Originally posted by inf3kted:

whats an 'outpost'?

Outpost or Hub, same I think. It means what he said about the Forrester-Gatherer's Hut-Hunter's Hut-Barn-Stock Pile. A lot people also put house's near this Hub.

[AppleNut]

Hey Aaron, if it's ok with you I'd like to add my Tutorial Video to your post :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDx2NnrPxWU

[Merlin69]

Great advice for us novices-I'll give your advice a go. I've been playing for a week and getting nowhere!

[x_soldierOG]

Wow thanks for the tips!

[Robotoast]

Originally posted by inf3kted:

whats an 'outpost'?

As someone else mentioned, outposts are just my name for the little clusters of foresters lodges, gathers huts, hunting lodges, etc. And yes, I do usually build a handful of houses along with them.

[Lausanna]

I didn't realize you could pause building. I'll have to try that, because I'm definitely a planner when it comes to layouts.

Agreed with the starvation issue - I was over 400 people once and lost half to starvation, but was able to recover pretty quicky simply by managing my workers carefully while I got the food supply back under control.

[dubstepdeejay]

If anyone can help me with two things:

- Is there some benefit to having 6 people working at a trading route as oppose to 1?

- It's not alt or ctrl or shift, but there just has to be a button I can hold for when I want to say, raise how much food to store from 1000 to about 50,000 without having to click the arrow for every single increment. Same thing with trading merchants when grabbing 2000 of whatever. What's the secret here? Didn't see a button in options.

[Moosemedford]

Originally posted by dubstepdeejay:

If anyone can help me with two things:

- Is there some benefit to having 6 people working at a trading route as oppose to 1?

- It's not alt or ctrl or shift, but there just has to be a button I can hold for when I want to say, raise how much food to store from 1000 to about 50,000 without having to click the arrow for every single increment. Same thing with trading merchants when grabbing 2000 of whatever. What's the secret here? Didn't see a button in options.

(1) Yes there definitely is. Remember it's the marketplace workers (not your laborers) that need to pull goods from all over the map to your marketplace. Having them understaffed early in the game (population < 100) won't hurt you too badly. But by the time you get to 150+ you are going to want the markets nicely staffed so that they are running efficiently;

(2) Not that I've found. But you can put your mouse curser on the number in the trade window and using your backspace key remove the zero and use numbers to fill out what you want. It may not be ideal, but it's a lot faster than clicking to set the numbers for a big trade...

[dubstepdeejay]

Originally posted by Moosealbany:

Originally posted by dubstepdeejay:

If anyone can help me with two things:

- Is there some benefit to having 6 people working at a trading route as oppose to 1?

- It's not alt or ctrl or shift, but there just has to be a button I can hold for when I want to say, raise how much food to store from 1000 to about 50,000 without having to click the arrow for every single increment. Same thing with trading merchants when grabbing 2000 of whatever. What's the secret here? Didn't see a button in options.

(1) Yes there definitely is. Remember it's the marketplace workers (not your laborers) that need to pull goods from all over the map to your marketplace. Having them understaffed early in the game (population < 100) won't hurt you too badly. But by the time you get to 150+ you are going to want the markets nicely staffed so that they are running efficiently;

(2) Not that I've found. But you can put your mouse curser on the number in the trade window and using your backspace key remove the zero and use numbers to fill out what you want. It may not be ideal, but it's a lot faster than clicking to set the numbers for a big trade...

That will actually help a lot, so thank you. Yet, I don't understand what you are talking about markets for. I'm talking about the trading docks. There's a total of 6 jobs available. Why have six when 1 can do it? Maybe I'm not seeing the benefit of having them maxed out worker-wise.