A beginners guide to Craft the World

No doubt you are finding that Craft the World is everything you hoped it would be. You are building, micromanaging dwarves and fighting off the forces of evil while enjoying visuals that you sure didn't expect from this indy title. Or are you?

If your Craft the World experience went anything like mine, you've spent the majority of time in your world being overrun by goblins, skeletons and those mean fat zombies... about the only thing I've been able to handle has been the ticks, ghosts and small zombies that come. Oh and snails. I can crush snails with the best of 'em. However, during my time in this game I have learned a few tricks that have made survival infinitely easier. Hopefully some of these tips are things others are missing as well and can help us all to begin flourishing in this world that we are crafting.

Tip 1:

Forget the stockpile. When you begin your journey, you need to move downward. Do not try to gather resources to begin surrounding your stockpile so that it can't be hit, you can get the items back in the morning that are taken from it easily enough. Living underground provides the benefit of not having to create your own walls and such, also giving the the opportunity to continue building at night when you don't want to be running around outside.

Tip 2:

A dead dwarf isn't the end of the world. When starting out, I would restart my game if I lost a dwarf. No way was I going to push forward with less builders than I should have. However after a dwarf dies, a new one will replace him in 5 minutes. I'm assuming if ALL of your dwarves die that it's game over, but you might even be able to get started again after just waiting 5 minutes.

Death in this game is not exactly what it seems, you will need to gather the gear from where the dead dwarf dropped, but when you have brand new dwarves, they are very expendable.

Tip 3:

As soon as possible, take advantage of the natural trenches around your home. Make it harder for enemies to walk to you, while goblins will create vines, you can make lips and ledges for them to have to deal with, as well as deeper and wider chasms to traverse making the time it takes for them to get to you much shorter.

Tip 4:

You only have to SURVIVE the night. This one is important because if you can sit in a hole and last through the night, even goblins will go back to their camp so you can deal with them on your own terms.

Tip 5:
In a pinch, changing the 'direction' of a tile (i.e. making wood a platform then back to wood) will replace the integrity of the tile. So if monsters are smashing down your wooden wall, take a wooden wall and cycle the wall, if the monsters walk into the wall they will poof when you change it back to a block, if they do not, the block will remain in tact as long as you are there to keep repairing it.

This seems to be a glitch though because it doesn't take a wooden wall to repair the wooden wall. This would be a great feature if it did though as you are supposed to be the god watching over the dwarves, it is a nice way to help protect them a bit.

Tip 6:

This one is my godsend and I saved it for last so hopefully you read the whole thing ;) When having trouble building, take control of a dwarf. Taking control of a dwarf allows him to build without having to return to the stockpile to gather materials. It ALSO allows him to reach a full block higher than an AI controlled dwarf can.

This means you do NOT have to build platforms to climb up constantly just to reach the 2nd block over your head. This is also EXTREMELY useful when building your roof as I had major pathing issues with the dwarves not building it in order.

I hope that this helps you to start making some headway in the game. I know that since I have learned these things, I have been having a LOT more fun crafting my world!


Honorable Mention Tips (these seem more common sense but I still managed to take awhile to pick up on them)

Use your Teleport Spell liberally. It will save you a GREAT deal of time and headache
1 bed per dwarf. You don't want to sleep in some nasty dwarfs bed do you? Neither do your other dwarves.
Happy dwarves tend to take orders better. We are in early access here, however it is obvious when your dwarves get hungry that they just do NOT want to do what you want them to do. Even if they are sick to death of green salads, it's better than grumbling bellies.
CLOSE THE HATCH! Dwarves cannot open the hatch themselves, if you close them in, they stay IN! and safe.
OPEN THE HATCH! They also can't get out to get back to the stockpile, this one took me much longer to learn :p

Tips

[christine]

jsbarry, customize your task priorities (upper left hand), reducing gathering and increasing building.

[EvilRose]

having a nightmare repairing roof after attack. any suggestions?

[Joker]

@HetNe$$ - My best advice is to plant a lot more trees, and let them grow tall before you cut them.

[RainyHearts]

Is there a way to resolve the timber problem completely? I'm always finding myself in a need for more and more wood, even if i'm collecting it as soon as it grow up

[Joker]

Get a bucket, and when it rains, you can collect all the rainwater by simply clicking on it, or you can go to a pond and drain it by telling dwarves to use the buckets inside the water

[CaramelPaws]

How do you collect water for the forge?

[Alan]

@chipmunks'n'shit Chests are decoration, contributing to comfort
@SonicDragon01 you build it, place it, and then your dwarfs can use it to build things

[GibbsyBoy]

How the heck do you even use the workbench?!?!?!?!?!?

[The_Unsilenced]

how do i use the chest ive made/found a few and im 5 hours into a map and ive pressed every button on my key board trying to open them plz help.
btw thx for the tips

[Gavener]

Thank you the first 2-4 hours was learning, but now i am at 10 hours on the first map, those Guardians !!!!!!!