First Orders

Timber and Stone allows the player some control over the settlers. First, you can set their profession, which dictates what tasks they can perform. Some professions, like Farmers, Foragers, and Fishers, go about their tasks automatically. Others require you specify that exactly is to be worked on, such by specifying where blocks are to be placed (for Builders) or removed (for Miners) or by indicating items to be made (Carpenters, Blacksmiths, and Stone Masons). Finally, some are semi-autonomous, where they do general actions, but specifically how they are carried out is handled by the game (guarding a point, patrolling a route, training, wood chopping, and so on).

So, to gain some of the control over the settlers, start by setting their Preferences by pressing the [F4] when a settler is selected. most of the preferences change based on the profession of the settler, but a few are common to all.

The first preference is Wait in Hall while idle. Simply put, if the settler has nothing to do, they wait in the area defined as the Hall (more on that in another blog post) until given some task, either automatically or by the player taking some action. In general, I have this option set for all professions, although there will be times when you want this turned off for military forces. I will cover that in a separate blog post, so for now, I set all settlers with this option.

The second common preference is Sleep, which can be either Sleep autonomously based on fatigue. or Scheduled sleep. I have seen Youtube "Let's Play" videos of Timber and Stone and most choose to keep most everyone awake during the daylight hours and then schedule them to sleep during darkness, keeping only a military guard awake during the night. That makes a lot of sense for video, as it is harder to see what is going on during the night, especially as Youtube videos tend to be darker than the players' screens. But for people not recording their gaming sessions scheduled sleep does not make sense for most of the settlers. Yes, you should have a military guard awake during the hours of darkness, but it is easier to let everyone work and sleep as needed (i.e. based upon their fatigue) simply because you cannot skip forward in time. (You can speed up the game to double speed though.) So, by not working during the night, you have to sit through about 10 minutes of game (at double-speed) doing nothing. That is giving up a lot of productivity and you will still have your settlers eat as much. (The truth is that settlers don't need to sleep quite as much in-game as we do in real life.)

So, I set everyone to Sleep autonomously based on fatigue. This allows you to set how tired they get before they go to sleep and how rested they have to be before the awake. I leave the Sleep when: setting at Fatigued and the Awake when: setting at Well Rested. It is important not to set the Sleep when: setting to Exhausted as it gives you no wiggle room if you need to keep a settler awake just a little bit longer to complete a critical task. I have experimented with changing the Awake when: setting to Energetic, but usually that is something better set for later in the game, as it makes for longer sleep/awake cycles.

Most of the other settings are about reporting, whether it be success or failure at crafting, breaking a tool, collecting a resource, and so on. Generally speaking, I turn them all on, except for Miners collecting resources (I only care when it is Metal Ore). The more information, the better, especially early on in the game.

Here are a few of the profession-specific preferences I look at:

Wood Chopper – Independently chop nearest trees. If you set this you do not have to designate which trees will get cut down. The Wood Chopper will chop the closest tree each time they become idle. I prefer not to set this preference as I like designating specific trees to be cut down. Also, it is very easy for a Wood Chopper to "get away from you" and end up far away from the settlement at the worst times. You usually find this out when you get a message indicating that the Wood Chopper has spotted an enemy and they are too far away for anyone to help them. If you do set this preference, be sure to arm your Wood Chopper with a Sword so they can defend themselves better.

Miner – Resources collected is unset but Metal Ore collected is set. After awhile you may turn this off, especially if you are tracking the number of Ores. (The Resource Tracker will be discussed later.)

Forager – If you have a Hunting Knife and are not yet Herding Livestock, check all the preferences under the Autonomy section. If you don't have a Hunting Knife, only checking Gather berries for food will stop the Forager from complaining about not having a knife. When you want the Forager to only collect resources from the dead (a subject for another time), do not set any of the preferences. That will force them to focus only on gathering from the dead. Also, if you are going to go for herding livestock I generally never kill the Chickens, leaving them available for herding. (Hopefully the wolves will not get to them first.)

For any skilled labor, I always set both Crafting Success and Crafting Failure as I usually want to know about the former because I need the item and I want to know about the latter to tell me to try again (assuming the settler did not lose the resource in the failed attempt).

So, with all of the preferences set, it is time to identify the tasks.

Wood Chopping

If you chose to let the Wood Chopper chop trees autonomously you will not need to designate the trees to be cut. Note, however, that you should set the Encumbrance (on the Inventory screen by pressing [F3]) of the settler to very low in the beginning. I choose a Mass of 4 by moving the Encumbrance slider to the left. This will force the Wood Chopper to empty their inventory as soon as the weight they are carry exceeds that amount. This will cause them to chop only a few trees, unload, then chop some more. If you wait until they are at full encumbrance the Carpenter will not be able to make any tools, so it is critical that you reset this at the start and only reset it back (to 12) when you have a comfortable reserve of tools.

Foraging

As I do not want the Foragers roaming around all day collecting berries before they come back and unload – if they are caught by a wolf you lose an awful lot of food because each food unit has very little weight – I tend to reset their Encumbrance to 6 if they are collecting only berries or 8 if they are killing animals too.

Mining

Miners will not mine autonomously; you must designate all of the blocks to be removed. It is important not to designate too many blocks all at once. You often do not have control over which block they choose to mine first. It is important to mine Raw Stone as close to the Wagon as possible, so they do not have to go far in order to provide the Carpenter with material for making tools. You also have to balance when you switch from providing Raw Stone for tools and when you use them for a Mining Stockpile. You will quickly overwhelm your storage capacity on the Wagon (Miner mine faster than Wood Choppers chop wood), so after you have enough Raw Stone to get you over the hump for tools, collect eight Raw Stone and build a Mining Stockpile. Put it near where you think you are going to mine. Once you have the Mining Stockpile done, start looking for Copper Ore near to you and designate that your Miners mine it. You must get sufficient Copper Ingots to make Food Barrels and Copper Pickaxes. (The Copper Pickaxe will allow you to mine Tin Ore and Coal. A Tin Ingot mixed with a Copper Ingot makes a Bronze Ingot. A Bronze Pickaxe will allow you to mine Iron Ore. At that point you can mine the majority of the block on the map.) So the priority is:

1. Mine enough Raw Stone to get about two of every tool (12 Raw Stone).
2. Build a Mining Stockpile (8 Raw Stone).
3. Mine as many Copper Ore that are close by as possible.

In Step 1 you should have an Encumbrance of 4. For Step 2 you will need to raise your Encumbrance to 9. By Step 3 you can go back to your normal Encumbrance (12). Note that the Trait: Strong Back does not raise your Encumbrance, but rather determines what level will start to slow your movement.

Carpentry

How you started with tools will determine the order that you must make additional ones. The important thing is to have a replacement Axe or Pickaxe first, if you only started with one. The Hunting Knife does not require any wood, only Raw Stone, so it can be made second. You should not worry about Stone Tongs until after everything else is made, as they are only used by a Blacksmith, and you will not have one in the very early game.

It is important that in the beginning you do not build tools in groups. Build one tool of each type individually before moving on to the second copy. You will have to manage the queue actively in the first 10 minutes or so.

Farming

Farming is probably the one area where you will hear a lot of different theories on how to do it. First off, farming takes some time to get going. Things have to grow, so don't expect to get food from it the first day. But, you want to be in a good position by the end of that first day, otherwise your second and third day will see some lean times.

Why is farming important? Well, it will feed and clothe your settlement of course. But it is also a strong factor in determining whether your settlement is worthy of attracting Migrants. The more food, and food production, the more attractive your settlement will be to Migrants. Farming is only one means to getting food production, and it is a pretty poor one for the first few days.

The main thing to understand about farming is that the Farmers will grow crops to produce primarily seeds until they have "enough", at which point they will primarily produce food. That tipping point is apparently when they reach 20 seeds in reserve for each seed type. (That is why it is better to have eight seeds of one type than four seeds each of two types. The former requires collecting 20 seeds in reserve while the latter requires 40.)

I grow my crops in "patches" of four blocks (a 2 by 2 arrangement or rows, but it does not really matter). When I have four seeds I plant another patch of that type and keep adding patches. When I have a few patches of each type I then plant a patch when the seeds get up to 8-12 seeds. After that I will only plant patches once they get to 24 seeds or more. By using smaller patches it seems like the Farmers spend less time tilling soil that is not ready to be used. (But I could be wrong about that.) If anything, it keep me more focused on the issue, so I manage it better.

By the way, your first Food Barrel should be near the farming area, to ensure the Farmers do not have to go far to gather and drop of seeds and food.

In the image to the above right you can see my example world's crop patches. Each row is a different crop and I have arranged it to look like terraced farming (just for looks). The Food Barrel is on the left and the crops are on the back-side of the hill, towards the river. As most of the enemies will be coming from the other three directions, this gives the crops some protection. I'll be making walls for better fire protection later.

End of Daylight on Day 1

Following these basic guidelines I was able to accomplish the following by Evening of Day 1:

1. I collected about 175 food that day, mostly from foraging. Although I did manage to build a Fishing Pole, the Fisher quickly broke it. I did manage to build a second Fishing Pole before the end of the day. As the settlement is close to the water, it is relatively safe to fish during the hours of darkness.
2. With always one, and sometimes two Wood Choppers, I was able to collect almost 100 Wood Logs. Given the number of tools and storage containers made during the day, having 79 remaining is pretty good. Also, there is still a tremendous amount of wood very close to the settlement, so continuing to chop during the hours of darkness is relatively safe.
3. Although I have only seven Tin Ore at the end of the day, I was able to smelt three Copper Ingots, making two Food Barrels and a Copper Pickaxe during the day. Fortunately that Pickaxe is still intact, so I can continue to mine Coal and Tin Ore.
4. Not counting the tools in the hands of the settlers, my tool reserves are:
1. 6 Hunting Knives
2. 5 Stone Hammers
3. 6 Stone Tongs
4. 3 Stone Axes
5. 4 Stone Pickaxes
6. 2 Stone Hoes and 1 Copper Hoe (which I started with)
7. 1 Fishing Pole
8. 1 Shepard's Crook
9. 1 Longbow
10. 3 Rope
5. My Raw Stone reserves are low (47), but mostly because I am using them to build Fieldstone. I also have 125 Dirt available to terraform the land for the terraced farms.
6. I have two of every seed except for Turnip Seeds, which for some reason I now have 9 of, 3 for Corn Seeds, and only 1 for Wheat Seeds. (Remember, you have to get above 20 seeds before they crops start producing primarily for food.)

The figure below shows the start of my first building, on top of the hill. I have one Straw Bed and a little bit of a Fieldstone floor started. My Archer will stand guard at night, but with only 7 Stone Arrows, he cannot hold off an invasion.

The next figure shows my "industrial" area, where I have the Blacksmith's Stone Forge and Stone Anvil, along with a Masonry Bench. Notice that the Mining Stockpile is close at hand, as is a Tool Chest and a Food Barrel. All of this is right next to the entrance to the mine shaft, which are stair down to the last mineable level.

As shown in the figure to the right, the mine consists of a two-block wide passageway with branches off to the sides (the stairs up are at the bottom of the figure). By making a branch every third block you can see all of the blocks in between each branch. Once you clear out a branch you simply go back and pick out all of the Metal Ores. This is a much more efficient method than simply clearing out a large hollow space, removing every block.

Note that you may want to clear out large spaces underground, however. When you start needing large numbers of Mining Stockpiles, Resource Crates, Builder's Carts, and Woodpiles, they are much safer underground, away from fires, which in my opinion is the single biggest threat in the game. The underground also provides you with a safe haven should a Spider Matriarch or Necromancer show up before you can effectively deal with it.

Well, I hope that has helped a little. As I continue to play this and other Timber and Stone maps I will continue to post more tips and strategies. For now, if you have any questions, please post a comment.