Starting a Let's Play Series

There are a number of Let's Play Timber & Stone series out there on YouTube, and I am probably subscribed to most, if not all of them. I am always looking for new ideas on how to increase the challenges for this game. And, once you get to a certain point in the game, you start to say "what am I going to do next?" You don't really need to go to all of the effort of recording, editing, and posting a video onto YouTube for that, however, so it begs the question: why do a Let's Play series?

One of the things that I hear quite often are remarks about how the game is "buggy" and that it doesn't let you have the level of control that you want. Often people point to the beta label as proof that it is the game, and not them. Sorry, but in almost all cases you are wrong: it is you. Timber & Stone provides you excellent control over the settlers, you just need to understand what the commands and controls let you do, and how the AI works. Once you have mastered that, you have an amazing amount of control, but it is (intentionally) not perfect and total. In essence, you need to embrace the fact that those virtual people do have minds of their own sometimes.

I started this blog as a way of discussing these issues, but I quickly came to understand that this medium is insufficient; video is very appropriate for game tutorials. I have also come to realize that video by itself is insufficient. Watching a long introduction where the person is simply talking, but nothing is happening on screen is not very interesting. My experiment here will be in combining both the written and video mediums in combination. The video will contain the playing, while the blog will contain much of the lengthier explanations about why I am doing what I am. It is intended that if you want to get the most out of the experience, you would watch the video of a gaming session and read the show notes and associated blog entries.

Another reason for the Let's Play series is that it is hard to come up with, and illustrate, specific concepts when there is no context. The lessons will naturally come out as the challenges and crises arise in normal game play. One of the concepts that I want to show is how you respond to enemy threats and how that response changes over time, as you get more resources available. Specifically, this is to show how your settlement goes through phases: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and finally the Steel Age. These building materials radically change how you respond to the challenges of the game.

I have actually recorded three separate sessions as a start to this new series, however, I have discarded them all. Initially I wanted to play a new challenge: building a fortress in the middle of a lake surrounded by mountains (you have no idea how long it took to find the map with the right terrain and combination of resources) playing the settlers as dwarves. (No there are no player races ... yet.) I reckoned that dwarves would not use archery, but would use ballistas. Even though bronze is stronger than iron I was going to build my tools, weapons, and armor out of iron (and later steel) and I would largely forego bronze. (You cannot forego it completely, however, as you need bronze to mine iron, unless you are lucky enough to start with iron or steel ingots, or a pickaxe that can mine iron ore.) Essentially, I was going to completely change my normal play style.

But therein lied the rub: if I don't play the normal, "formulaic" game that is so successful, newer players might not find the series as useful. It would be a good idea for season two, but not for the first season. For that I would need to do something a little more traditional. So, here we go: Episode 1 of my new Let's Play series. I suggest you watch it first, then read the rest of this blog post.

The Terrain

My normal play style in Timber & Stone is to choose a map with water. I prefer maps that are not taken up by a large amount of water, nor do I want it to be too great an obstacle for foraging, migrants, or merchants. A map with a lake in the middle is actually pretty ideal, especially if it still grants you access land access to all four edges of the map. I don't really like, but I will play, maps where only three sides are land. I do not play maps where I cannot access two edges of the map without building bridges. This usually means choosing a River area rather than Coastline.

One note that I have not seen discussed in videos or on the forum (but it does not mean it is not there) is that River and Coastline can appear in squares that are not adjacent to Water squares. That may not seem intuitive, especially for Coastline, but what this says is that the water you see on a map might be a feeder river to the main river on the map, or a small inlet or bay just off of the main coastline. In all cases, both limit you search for "the perfect square" to just those adjacent to water. You will often find that up to three squares away from a water square is still considered River or Coastline. Give it a test!

I generally like Medium density for timber. Sparse makes it difficult to collect enough timber and sustain the demand. (I usually build in stone, so I do not have a high demand for wood, but all of my roofs are made with shingles, so I do have some demand beyond logs for tools.) I generally shy away from Dense timber as it blocks fields of fire for archers, which are my primary military unit. My preference, in order from highest to lowest is: Medium, Dense, and Sparse timber.

As I am a miner at heart (hence the game name Miner Bob), I generally do not like Flat Grasslands and prefer Hills. That gives me plenty of room to dig. That said, Mountain terrain can generate some radical maps, leading to interesting building ideas. Maybe season two ...

Resources

Given that I select a terrain square on the World Map with River, that makes Fish automatically Abundant. Given my reliance on Archers it is very important that I find a square with Abundant Chickens also. Because you cannot have every resource rated as Abundant, my preference from highest to lowest for animals would be: Fish, Chickens, Boar, and Sheep.

When it comes to ores, one key point to remember about version 1.52 is that you only need 1/2 of the Tin as you do of Copper to make Bronze. That means that Tin Ore can be less common than Copper Ore. There is one additional use of Tin Ore, however, and that is that it makes a great ore for leveling up your Blacksmith. If you fail at smelting it and lose some Tin Ore as a result, it is very likely not to affect you. You will find throughout the game that you always have a lot more Tin ingots than Copper.

Another interesting point about ores is how they spawn. In this thread on the Timber & Stone forum [insert reference to forum post from Ethrel] it describes the ore spawning mechanics. Essentially it says that when a chunk is generated it generates the rarer ores first and then randomly places the blocks. When a more common ore is generated it can randomly overwrite the rarer ore blocks. So, if you want to focus on, say, iron, it is better to have the Tin Ore and Copper Ore values be less common than the Iron value.

I almost always try and maximize my Copper Ore value choosing a less common (but not Rare) Tin Ore value. I generally want a good Iron value and a really good Coal value. I have started re-thinking that strategy. Although Bronze is stronger than Iron, ultimately your goal is to get to Steel. That means you need very strong values in Iron and Coal. Again, as you cannot be Abundant in every ore resource, my preference from highest to lowest would be: Coal, Iron, Copper, and Tin. Why is Coal Ore on top? It requires two Coal Ore to make one Steel Ingot and it is used as a fuel source for the Forge.

The Map

Once you have a square picked out remember exactly where it is! You may not like the first map generated, and may go through generating several maps before finding the one you want, so remembering which exact square to click on is key. Here is a short YouTube video I did previously on finding the right map.

In my case I wanted to build a castle/town on a lake, so I really needed a lake towards the center of the board. After what seemed like an hour of looking, I finally found one. But would the game be playable?

For more information on selecting a map square, the terrain, and the settlement location, you can read my older blog post Picking a Settlement Location.

The Decision

After all that and the game still might not be playable? Yes. You might have a bad selection of settlers, not enough seeds, or not enough tools. Again, if you are going to make a 10+ hour investment of your time in playing this game, why settle for a game where the odds are stacked against you? Let's look at some of the problems that might arise from bad starting resources.

Settlers

Despite what I see many players do, determining whether your starting settlers are "good" or not depends primarily upon their traits, not their levels in their professions.

Note this is true of version 1.52. But testing of version 1.6 shows that this concept will no longer be true, unless the developers decide to change the game back (which seems unlikely). In the future most tasks require you to be a minimum level in a profession in order to accomplish the task, so while traits remain important, levels become more important in the starting game.

What you are looking for are "bad" traits, and primarily at the start, you are looking for the Overeater trait. Put simply, a settler with the Overeater trait eats 50% more than a settler without that trait. You really cannot afford too many of them and hope to get your settlement off of the ground. Should you reject the game out of hand if you have one? Absolutely not. If you have spent even a modicum of time finding the right square on the world map and the right terrain the last thing you want to do is start the process all over again. No, simply having one or two Overeaters becomes a factor in whether you should abandon the game.

Although other "bad" traits are important, as are many of the "good" ones, I don't feel any of the other traits come into play as to whether you should abandon the game. If anything, a good combination of "good" traits (Quick Learner, Hard Worker, Courageous, Good Vision, and Strong Back) might convince you to overlook an Overeater or two.

Being an Overeater in real life, I naturally do not follow the advice I have heard and read that say "never accept an Overeater". I say, figure out how to live with it. Just maybe not for your first game...

Seeds

Put simply, if you start with no seeds for food crops you will have a very hard time surviving. I have never had a Merchant offer to trade food crop seeds, only Flax, Cotton, and Wheat seeds. I have also not seen very many Migrants bring food crop seeds, if ever. If you start with no food crop seeds it is, to my mind, an automatic restart. Only once did I accept the challenge of starting without food crop seeds. I survived, but I struggled mightily. A fun challenge, but not for the first game (or season).

Not having Wheat, Flax, or Cotton makes it harder, but I would not restart unless I had several other negative factors. Starting with two of the three is a good start; one is still acceptable.

Tools and Resources

Next I check the tools that I start with. The three critical tools at the start are a Hammer, an Axe, and a Pickaxe. If you have no hammers you cannot build anything, including another hammer. Automatic restart.

Unlike Minecraft, you cannot punch trees to chop wood; you need an axe. If you run out of wood and have no axe (or they all broke), it is an automatic restart.

Similarly, if you run out of stone and have no pickaxe (or they all broke), you cannot get any more stone, so it is an automatic restart.

Okay, so there is a way to get timber and stone if you lose your tools: you can trade for them with the Merchant. But understand that: 1) you can do practically nothing until a Merchant arrives, certainly nothing that requires tools; and 2) the Merchant decides the trades, not you.

I generally don't worry about the other resources when it comes to determining whether to restart or not, but they will come into play with regards to my starting actions.

With that out of the way, hopefully you are not restarting.

For more information on the starting resources, read my older blog post Assessing Your Starting Resources.

First Orders

My older blog post First Orders goes over what you should focus on before you unpause the game and have your settlers start their tasks. What tasks should they do first? What options should you set? What should you build right away? A lot of that is covered in that post, plus this episode and the next in the series.

What About Walls and Moats?

One of the areas where I see comments and recommendations is regarding building moats and walls right at the start. I not only do not agree with that approach, but I think it is detrimental to the growth and thus the survival of your new settlement.

In the first day, during the daylight hours, you have to hunt and gather as much as possible. Hunting and gathering incurs the greatest danger, as the settler is typically isolated from others when an enemy suddenly appears. Worse still, they are usually encumbered by the materials they have been collecting, making escape harder. If you add to that low visibility – trying to hunt or gather in the dark – you are essentially ensuring your eventual destruction.

Although it is unlikely that an enemy mob will spawn during daylight hours on day 1, it is possible. But it is most likely to occur during the hours of darkness, between day 1 and 2. For this reason, performing hunting and gathering tasks (foraging and wood chopping, and to a lesser extent fishing) during daylight of the first day is critical. The more settlers set to building walls, the fewer that are chopping wood or gathering berries. The more settlers set to digging a moat, the more they are collecting dirt and not collecting stone.

Although Dirt is used to make Brick, you generally do not make a lot of that at the start. Stone is a critical resource in the early game as it is used to make practically everything. The game is called Timber & Stone after all.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying don't ever build a wall or moat. I am just saying that you cannot really afford to put so much labor towards such a project when there are more critical tasks to be done during daylight hours. You want to use those Wood Choppers as Builders to start a wall at night? Go ahead. Just realize that come dawn, they need to sharpen their axes again.

Next episode I will let the settlers start performing their tasks. As interesting points come up, I will stop the action and explain some of my thought process about the decisions I make. I hope you find it enjoyable and useful.

Feel free to leave comments, here and on the YouTube page.