When to go to next island?

[Olórin]

Brand new player here... I expanded a while on the first island until I found a ship, and then went to the next island. But I'm getting nowhere on that island, did I go too soon? Should I expand completely on the first island before switching?

[Ozzey_Lee]

You should attempt to go to all islands very soon, staying on one island too long is a great way to doom yourself to put it simple.

The greed waves follow the overall day count and an island day count. If you go to a new island they take a few days to scale up to the current day count. so it's not an instant game over if you go to a new island a bit later than usual. However while on any island, the greed on the other islands are still growing, just not attacking.

So when you go back you will have every wave you missed attacking at once. This means it's not too bad to go to your second island late but it means you should try to bounce between islands frequently to avoid that problem.

I noticed that you can avoid that completely if you only leave your island on fullmoon(Blue) days. The built up greed waves seem to disappear for whatever island you switch to just as they would for any island you happen to be on so if you accidentally spend too long on an island wait until a fullmoon to go back to your longer running islands so you don't get overrun and instead have an extra free day before greed waves return to normal sizes.

The as long as you've brought as many coins as you can to your new island I would say you are expanding well.

[Olórin]

My issue now is on the second island I went to, I built things up pretty quickly but the monsters just bash through the walls and I'm constantly having to rebuild everything. I can't upgrade anything because I need stone? And I haven't been able to find any.

[Ozzey_Lee]

Stone should be there. You have to explore the whole island, sometimes it can be placed very far away.

If you've arrived and the normal wooden defenses aren't standing up to the greed, you've either taken too long or haven't recruited enough defenders to hold them off. Often times both are true while either or can solve your problem.

Once you arrive to an island explore to find your chests, get your upgrades, and then plan to be leaving soon after hopefully building up your camp before you depart.

In your position I would explore as far to both sides as I can while staying ahead of the night cycle. Find the upgrades I need and decide on if I want to go to the first island to absorb that greed wave before then going to island 3. All the boat parts on island 1 are free, so as long as you bring builders with you it's more or less a free trip.

Once you find stone things may get easier depending on the day count.

[Olórin]

Thank you, I did find the mine and things are going much better now. :)