Having Trouble Figuring this Game Out

[Tochimo]

I'm getting frustrated with this game - it feels like it doesn't matter how I build and recruit, I just get overrun earlier and earlier. Enemy attacks are seemingly getting bigger and bigger on earlier days if I do well - In my most recent attempt I managed to get the boat built, then immidiately lost 4 archers to the boat which left my Portal side defenses lacking (which still had 2 fully upgraded 3-man towers on either side of a fully upgraded wall with a catapult, and they still got overrun). This is on day 16 or 17 and previous attempts didn't have any issue holding them off until almost day 25 with a far worse set up. Did I build the boat too early? Is this game so linear that you cannot make more than a couple sub-optimal choices without being severely punished for it? How do other players deal with the concept of being a King/Queen but having absolutely no information or ability to control/command anything?

Below is my Rant section, feel free to ignore it.

It is starting to feel like the game doesn't have any flexibility, as in if you don't do A then B then C at the exact right times you will ultimately fail because then D, E, F don't fall into place when they need to happen, which requires you to have a thousand little archer men because they man towers that don't even matter rather than defending where it counts, which seemingly requires you to get carpel tunnel syndrome from holding down left, then right, then left, then right....

It's also very frustrating that there's no way to undo or cancel a command/building or unassign peasants. I also feel like I'd have fewer issues if I had any kind of feedback or information from the game - stupid icons with numbers, a sundial to know what time it is, a way to relocate units from the peaceful side to a place they'd actually be helpful, anything really....

[fffffffffffffff]

It's a rogue-like, so typically, you learn by failing, and the further you get, the more powerful you become. I think, if you fail on the first island, you're doing something wrong, like maybe missing out on something important.

Here are some advices:
- Although, not necessary on island one, the fastest way to start up something, is, by immediately using up coins to create 2 archers of the hobos you find at the camp, then run to the next camp and recruit those, maybe get a deer or 2 and trick them to run into your archers. By this point, they should have gathered enough money for you to make a builder and 2 walls.

- Start with 1 builder and 2 archers. Then, make a 2nd builder and like 8 archers. As soon as you get catapults, make 4 builders in total. The rest is archers.

- The direction, the ship is looking into, is always the seaside. This is always the side you want to clear out (portal-wise), because otherwise, the ship will be attacked. This ofc is not necessary on island 1. However, if the boat is on the portal side, especially if far off, I usually try to build walls around it, so workers are protected while building.

- You can't build walls (or towers, or watermills) in the forest. If you want to expand, you need to cut down the trees surrounding the position you want to build the wall in.

- Don't waste money on the ship early on. Surviving comes first. Once you've stabilized your situation, consider construction.

- Archers make money from rabbit dents (flower field) - they only appear when there is grass (not moss, rabbits wont appear in forests). This means, you should cut enogh trees to create some hunting space. However, don't remove trees around hobo camps (1 tree on each side of the camp min. is required for it to remain active), otherwise it vanishes, which means no more recruiting.

- Only extend (building new walls) if you really need to. Fe. the left side to enclose the catapult station, to the right to enclose the farmer station. Otherwise, the further you expand, the more time you need to traverse. Same goes for your archers. They keep switching sides automatically. If they have to run a lot, you waste their potential. Also, a destroyed catapult needs to be transported again, which takes ages if the wall is far away.

- Also, don't cut the trees around the merchant camp, or he dissappears.

- Walls are more important than towers. Towers imho are pretty pointless, until you get hermits to enhance them.

- You can survive the first red moon easily with only wooden walls, however, try to find and build the shrine asap (somewhere in the forest, allows you to build stone walls). Make catapults, and always try to locate the archer temple. Later on, blood moons without an archer temple are barely survivable.

- Use the first 2 days after a blood moon to scout. You can survive the night outside the castle if you keep some coins on you, by feeding off the ~2 greed that will appear. Always do this as soon as possible, because some information is extremely important (archer temple location, shrine, etc.)

- Don't create knights until you need them (for attacking portals). Knights need tons of money (it increases their defense), and use up 6 archers. Those archers will stop hunting, once they have a knight. This means, if you don't have enough archers, you wont have any income.

- Later on (island 3+), farmers become a viable source of income. However, I highly recommend to build watermills INSIDE the walls, or they will die. Also, fully upgrade the watermill, or they take way too long to farm, and if the crop is too far away from the castle, it will rot (unless it's fully upgraded, because in this case, farmers stay at the watermill instead of running back to the castle every night).

[CrashToDesktop]

More Archers. Get all the Archers you can. The Boat isn't nessesary until you want (or are forced) to leave.

[Tochimo]

White Rabbit - thanks for all those tips, but I'm gonna be honest, I've been doing most of that since my 2nd or 3rd retry in the first hour and a half of the game. If all I'm supposed to do to win is build unrealistic numbers of archers then I guess this just isn't a very good game to me and I'm probably done with it. I really do appreciate all you've written out, it's just not anything I'm not already doing and it still doesn't seem to matter - especially because my archers just can't seem to wait to get into towers or on the boat even if it means letting the kingdom burn behind them as they get pushed to the docks on the other side of the map.

Around day 10 I'm running around with fully upgraded stone walls and my coin purse overflowing to the point of losing coins and the only bottleneck seems to be the 1-per-day-per-camp vagabond spawn rate. I think my biggest issue is the amount of time traveling between the two camps on either side of my castle while also avoiding the almost-every-night attacking and constantly wondering if I'm gonna return to the portal side to find a bunch of vagabonds and ruins because 8/10 of my archers who aren't in a tower are sitting on the non-portal side of the map twiddling their thumbs at night. I've already figured out that building walls or towers outside of a narrow area is a waste and more detrimental than beneficial, and the same goes for the knights, and more than 2 or 3 farmers.

I guess I just expected more engaging kingdom building and gameplay in such a positively reviewed game. Guess it's just not for me.

[fffffffffffffff]

If you really do what was suggested, I have no idea where you fail. The first 2 blood moons literally can be fought off by using coins. Just keep recruiting new archers, 2 vagabonds appear every day per camp, and there should be 2 of them in your first map. Ofc you need many archers eventually, but that's the point of recruiting, creating a bigger army.

Also, a few updates ago, archers learned how to spread out equally on both sides of the walls. There is no way 8/10th of them are on the wrong side, unless you keep losing them to the enemy (which shouldn't happen, they should always return behind the walls at night, only exception is if you cut too many trees and they spread out too far while hunting).

Archers also wont use towers if you don't build them. There are only 2 towers you can't prevent from being built, which are in the main camp. Same goes for the ship, as long as you wont finish it, archers wont board it. Also on a sidenote - the archers, builders and knights who board the ship are always from the seaside (which in island 1 is the portal-less side), also those will be the units who accompany you to the next island (which is why I suggest making 2 knights on seaside before leaving, and sending them out).

Btw something I forgot to mention:
- You can upgrade your horse (white/ black is better than brown, I'm not entirely sure though if this upgrade is available from the beginning). Also, eating grass (stand still on plains) refills horse stamina.

- If you're having really bad luck with the map (ship on the wrong side, far off and hard to protect / camp in front of the portal), just reroll the map, you wont lose anything if it's just island 1.

[Gerry Tierney]

You're a blubbering crybaby