This game is...hard

[Jaggid Edje]

I bought the game and both expansions a little over a week ago and so far have had two games end with absolute colony death, and that's playing with the "builder" Storyteller and difficulty set to the second from lowest...

My first game ended really quickly, wiped out from a plague illness, probably because the only doctor was the first to get sick.

My second game ended when a bunch of robots dropped right into my base and killed everyone. I could hardly scratch them because I was still only at long bow tech level.

Any tips for my next playthrough to at least avoid the second scenerio?

It seems number of pawns you have effects event difficulty that the game throws at y ou. Is that correct? And if so, is my mistake in that second game basically that I grew my numbers quicker than my tech level?

[Pizzarugi]

Phoebe, I assume, is the storyteller you used? She's deceitful. Sure she'll give you plenty of time to build, but she'll hit you with several bad events all at once. I think Cassandra is probably a better option for new players, since her threats are small and steady rather than one big bomb.

The difficulty of the game is affected by a number of factors. Wealth and time are the biggest factors. The longer the game goes on and the wealthier your colony is, the harder the threats become. I recommend trying to recruit more pawns into your colony as often as possible. The simplest way to do that is build a prison and capture any enemy raiders, you can then attempt to recruit them, though I recommend doing so after you convert them to your ideology. Another way to get more colonists is to have an ideology with a ritual that, if successful, gives you a chance of a person with a matching ideology wanting to join the colony.

The next strategy is cheesy, but on higher difficulties, is practically necessary: Killboxes. Essentially it's a zigzagging tunnel you create that's dotted with sandbags to slow enemies down, all funneling into a single area where your pawns are waiting in a defensive position to kill them one at a time. This is incredibly useful when dealing with the mechanoids since they're a lot tougher to kill.

Take a look at this video to learn more about killboxes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8fsjNjbz8Y

[Hans]

The game determines the raid difficulty based on your wealth level. A key strategy is to not hoard materials and items as this will artificially inflate how "strong" your colony is.

[dot]

^ This is the best tip for new players imo, don't hoard, as he said the difficulty of the events is made mostly all by your wealth. Just have whatever you know you are gonna use, the rest? if you are close to a friendly colony make a caravan and sell/trade it and maybe to get some implants, schematics, artifacts, maybe a weapon that catch your eye and dont have, maybe psycast trainers if you are gonna go that way. If you don't have friendly colonies..., ie you have a bunch of extra leather for nothing? dump into a zone outside to go to waste, if you want to it go to waste even faster and you have a river or sea put it in there.

Other than that, really, no shame in save an reload as much as you can, want... For much tutorial you may have done, it doesn't tell you everything, and you cannot learn as much if you don't allow yourself to retry.

And the buttom i, of the info window that appears when you select many things, I wish I would have use it and read thoughfully the contents of it more before the first 200 hrs xD

[ᖇIᑎ]

When you say you were on the second-lowest difficulty, do you mean 'community builder'? How far along was your colony? Because on community builder, it takes a while for the threat to ramp up enough for a drop pod mech raid. Unless your colony was really far along in years in which case you had a lot of time to prepare in advance. Of course, I haven't played community builder difficulty in a while, so I could be completely wrong.

[Jaggid Edje]

Yes, it was Pheobe I was using and .... I am a hoarder. I had a ton of resources horded and a pretty high wealth level so I'll try to do better in my next game based on these tips.

Thanks for the tips all of you.

Maybe part of my mistake was playing with a game start that starts you at very low tech too. I didn't realize that if you start at neolithic tech then you get research speed penalties for all the higher level techs....for the entire game.

Anyway, I'll start again, and use Cassandra instead of Phoebe as well as recommended. We'll see how it goes!

[wlfsen]

Alright, so my advice for you is to not play before you get the basics down. Watch some guys playthrough on yt not completly but lets say from when he starts his colony all the way to day 4-5 where he has shown how to build a freezer, what to focus on in your tech etc.

Once you have watched him i would keep on watching someone elses play through. This is to get the general idea of what to do in your first few days. Once you feel ready play on Adventure story cassandra classic. (dont play on a lower difficulty as this will make you feel that the game is easy, wont make you struggle, and also make you progress without a challenge witch will make you not want to play later, make it hard and learn from your mistakes, dont go easy)

About your question with pawns, no challanges do not change from the size of your colony, challanges only change if you change your story teller so in short:

1. Cassandra Classic - Sends animals to eat your last food reserves for the winter, and yea other than animals shes pretty lame, good for starting with RimWorld, after a bunch of games she wont be so cool as shes quite repetitive. But never the less shes ok IMO

2. Phoebe Chillax - She's just a real pain in the ass, she just makes you think the game is broken, youll wait for 3 months with no challange, no raid, no rouge animals, no nothing. and then in December she send a disease, radioactive winter and a pack of 50 beevers with a raid following in the next 2 days, tbh i never play with her.

3. Ur Boi RaNdY RaNdOm - Randy is the guy who will keep you playing this game for hours, he pretty much doesn't give a flying ♥♥♥♥ about you, you could be starting your colony and on the first day have some extra terrestrial being land and take all your colonists lifes with some kind of minigun. Basically like his name says he is quite random, meaning he teaches you to be preaperd for anything from day one all the way until the day you end your game, either by winning, or just quitting for the 100th time because your colony got malaria 5th time in a row in 2 months time.

In short, Play Cassandra until you feel Randy is calling your name and then enjoy the grind and death :)

[Supahz]

Definitely fool around in the custom game options. I never waste my time watching YT videos of others... I recommend you getting over the hump yourself.

Consider editing a scenario and eliminating some of the events you don't like, maybe adding in interesting conditions (like "permanent aurora" or periodic animal migrations). You could definitely focus on pawns with traits that enhance your story experience (for example, I enjoy mountain maps and farming, so the plants and mining traits mean more to me). You can literally construct the scenario to whatever you desire, whichever story, whatever parameters... and with a few mods, the possibilities are endless. I've been playing for years and I don't even use the DLC (not interested) but there are millions of untold variations I could enjoy.

If you stick with it, you'll find what game style works best for you and/or provides you with the most enjoyment.

Also, your wealth level is what determines the way that the game throws events and difficulty at you. So keep that in mind. Focus on getting a food source, a nice living space, defenses first.

[ACS36]

It's a complex game in a lot of ways, but I wouldn't say it's hard. Once you figure out some basic strategies it'll seem really simple to you. It really comes down to how you want to play the game.

[FatalCharm]

You're not doing anything wrong -- you're learning. It's pretty normal to lose your first several colonies.

[Honey Badger]

Originally posted by PolishPope:

Alright, so my advice for you is to not play before you get the basics down. Watch some guys playthrough on yt not completly but lets say from when he starts his colony all the way to day 4-5 where he has shown how to build a freezer, what to focus on in your tech etc.

I personally disagree with this method here for new starters, now if you're REALLY, absolutely struggling even after several attempts and can't possibly hope to see where your going wrong, then go for it, but suggesting this is the first thing people do sorta takes the first-time experience away from the game, and plus it just makes no sense, why buy a game to then look up how people play it on youtube straight away?

[wlfsen]

Originally posted by Honey Badger:

Originally posted by PolishPope:

Alright, so my advice for you is to not play before you get the basics down. Watch some guys playthrough on yt not completly but lets say from when he starts his colony all the way to day 4-5 where he has shown how to build a freezer, what to focus on in your tech etc.

I personally disagree with this method here for new starters, now if you're REALLY, absolutely struggling even after several attempts and can't possibly hope to see where your going wrong, then go for it, but suggesting this is the first thing people do sorta takes the first-time experience away from the game, and plus it just makes no sense, why buy a game to then look up how people play it on youtube straight away?

Thats the way i learend the basics and to survive the Rim, it worked for me so maybe it would work for him, so if it doesn't work for you im sorry to tell you but no one cares, if you don't like my idea then thats fine, i was suggesting this idea to him, not forcing him to it, so chill out, and like i said no one cares what you think.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

I'd probably play the game without ideology as a new player. IMO, it is advanced Rimworld, or at the minimum it is "themed Rimworld."

Royalty is probably fine to start with as a new player.

[Pizzarugi]

Originally posted by BlackSmokeDMax:

I'd probably play the game without ideology as a new player. IMO, it is advanced Rimworld, or at the minimum it is "themed Rimworld."

Royalty is probably fine to start with as a new player.

Not entirely true, you can just pick an extremely simplistic ideology that has minimal impact on gameplay. Collectivist, in my opinion, is the best for this as it affects very few things.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

Originally posted by BlackSmokeDMax:

I'd probably play the game without ideology as a new player. IMO, it is advanced Rimworld, or at the minimum it is "themed Rimworld."

Royalty is probably fine to start with as a new player.

Not entirely true, you can just pick an extremely simplistic ideology that has minimal impact on gameplay. Collectivist, in my opinion, is the best for this as it affects very few things.

But a new person wouldn't know what to pick, or why.

[Pizzarugi]

Originally posted by BlackSmokeDMax:

Originally posted by Pizzarugi:

Not entirely true, you can just pick an extremely simplistic ideology that has minimal impact on gameplay. Collectivist, in my opinion, is the best for this as it affects very few things.

But a new person wouldn't know what to pick, or why.

Which is something the devs can fix by making a preset ideology that gives something as close to classic Rimworld as possible.