How to play guide for Settlements

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This page will serve as a basic **how to play guide for *Settlements***. While there is very little information available at this time, we urge you to check back often, as new information is being added all the time! Feel free to edit this guide with any tips, tricks, and suggestions.

## Basic gameplay

Step by Step guide for the first stage of gameplay.

1) There are many different build orders and ways to organize your settlements, but it is recommended to use the following steps on your first playthrough to set you up for a strong start.

2) Click the ground on an empty settlement plot and select Shack under Housing to create your first villager.

3) After the Shack has been completed a villager's portrait will appear on top of the newly finished Shack and new building options will be unlocked.

4) Next, click on an empty settlement plot and select Woodcutter under Resource Gathering.

5) Left click on the villager at the Shack to select them and then select one of the empty villager spaces on the Woodcutter site.

6) After the Woodcutter building has been completed the villager will move to the bottom of the screen into the "Unallocated Workforce" section.

7) Left click on the villager and select one of the empty villager spaces on the Woodcutter building in order to have them start gathering the wood resource.

8) Repeat these steps to create another Shack and build a Gatherer from the Resource Gathering category on another empty settlement slot in this settlement to start gathering the food resource.

9) Don't worry about building a StoneCutter yet, we will return to that in a minute.

10) Click the large arrow on the right of the screen to select the other starting settlement. You can also select it from the bottom of the screen.

11) Build a Shack and a Hermit Hut from the Research and Misc category.

12) After putting the villager in the empty space on the Hermit Hut, select the "No Research" circle and select the House Design research option.

13) Once this research has been completed, select "No Research" again and select the Log Cabin research option.

14) Next, start researching Metal Lore.

15) Return to the first settlement and select the "Upgrade Available" option on the first Shack to turn it into a Log Cabin. Move the Gatherer to this Shack in order to complete the upgrade.

16) Once completed you will receive another villager. Move the Gatherer back to the Gatherer building and use the new villager to upgrade the second Shack to a Log Cabin.

17) Check on your research in the second settlement, and start researching Tin Mine.

18) After the second Log Cabin is finished, use both of your new villagers to build a StoneCutter on an empty settlement slot in this settlement.

19) Once the StoneCutter is complete, move a villager here to start collecting the Stone resource.

20) Select the center of this settlement to access the settlement's upgrade options. Select the Storage upgrade and put the fourth villager you created here to finish the upgrade.

21) After the Tin Mine research is complete, use the researcher to upgrade the Shack into a Log Cabin.

22) Once the Log Cabin is complete, move the researcher back to the Hermit Hut and start researching Smelter. Use the new villager to build a Log Cabin on an empty settlement slot.

23) Once the Storage upgrade is completed in the first settlement, use the villager to build a Tin Mine on the final empty settlement slot and start gathering the Tin Ore resource after it's completed.

24) Once you have finished researching Smelter, start researching Smelt Tin, followed by Wicker Jacket.

25) After the second Log Cabin is finished on the second settlement, build a Crafter from the Crafting and Factories category using three of your villagers.

26) Once the Crafter is finished, put one villager here and start making 6 Stone Tools for your villagers. To equip these you will right click on the 7th icon below Menu on the left side "Character List" which will bring up all of your villagers. Select the "Production or Research" option and select the Stone Tool to equip it. Do this for the Woodcutter, Gatherer, StoneCutter, Miner, Crafter, and Smelter.

27) Use your two remaining villagers to build a Smelter.

28) Put one of your villagers at the Smelter once completed, select "No Recipe" and begin smelting Tin. You will see the two options on the Smelter for Single Run or Multi Run. Select Multi Run so they continue to smelt tin without you manually making them do so.

29) Once you're done crafting the Stone Tools, have your crafter research Wicker Basket and make 13 of them. Once they are finished you will equip your Woodcutter, Gatherer, StoneCutter, Miner, and Smelter. This will leave you with 8, 4 for each Transport settlement upgrade that you will be doing later.

30) Using the last villager, upgrade your town center in this second settlement starting with Storage, then Guard Posts and Militia, Walls, and then Transport (which requires 4 Wicker Baskets).

31) Once the upgrades are complete, move this villager to the Guard Campfire that was created when you upgraded the settlement. This will start training them to be a Warrior which you will use to Scout later.

If you've followed this guide, you will have all resources being gathered and will have a Warrior to start scouting. You will also have one empty settlement slot which you will be using for the Hunting Lodge later, which is needed to produce Meat that is needed to continue researching in the next era. Start crafting weapons and armor for first your Warrior, and then the rest of your villagers. Try to upgrade your first settlement with a villager when you notice that a resource one of them created here is full or close to full. Then you can move them back when the resource is depleted again.

## Controls

The game is designed to be usable with just the mouse if needed, although many keyboard shortcuts are available.

### PAUSING THE GAME

Many menus will automatically pause the game when they open.

The space bar will toggle on/off any pause event.

### Moving Characters

Left-Click on a character to pick them up.

Once you have a character, you can place them in buildings to begin work or in their home for faster healing.

They can also be placed on the small settlement icons at the bottom of the screen, allowing you to move them from settlement to settlement. - If you do this the new settlement will need an empty home or they will become homeless and be unable to work for fight very well.

To this end you can either swap characters between settlement or in the options you can turn off auto create when a new house is built or upgraded. This will allow you to only add new characters when you wish to, leaving homes empty to move people around easily.

### Resource Tracker

*Keyboard shortcuts: Numberpad 1-3*

At the top of the screen are 3 bars, each with 20 empty pallets.

Click on them to add any resource you know about.

The game will now update them with how many rare/common versions you have of that item.

As the game progresses, swap these out to track items of interest.

You can right click these pallets to clear them, or just click and select another item.

### Viewing Settlements

You can switch between the various settlements that you have unlocked by either

a) Clicking on their picture on the world map

b) Clicking on the small image at the bottom of the settlement screen or

c) Using the keys 1-0 to switch between them.

### Scouting

There are several ways to launch the scouting window.

a) Right-Click on a character and selecting the first bottom left icon.

b) On the settlement screen you can click on the icon on the bottom right of the circles that appear in a cluster at the top right of the screen.

c) On the world map you can click on any available empty space. The location you click is not important, what settlement the scout leaves from is the key factory when scouting.

## Tips and tricks

### Combat Threat

In front of each enemy there are 4 small bars. They will be either RED, BLUE or GREEN.

These bars represent your 4 front rank characters.

RED = You threaten me the most, I will attack you.

BLUE = I may attack you if you do something to annoy me.

GREEN = I am ignoring you.

There are many mechanics in combat that alter threat each round. However the 2 biggest are:

TAUNT - Which is a mass threat to all enemy, while at the same time giving you a defence boost to handle the incomming attack.

COMBAT HEALING - Which will heal all 4 front rank and make a huge threat increase. - It is ideal to only do this when you are GREEN.

There is a button on the top right of the combat screen that will show you the actual numbers behind these colours. This can be useful to help work out what each action is doing and how close you are to pulling agro from another character.

### Production, Research and Supply

Production is related to how quickly you gather resources, make items or build houses.

Research is how quickly you will research new recipes.

Supply is how quickly raw resource arrive at your current building.

Give resource gatherers good tools. This will keep your stockpile full.

Give your crafters good tools and supply. (especially bakers).

Increase your storage when you can to allow for a larger buffer of resources, this helps in sudden supply chain issues when your demand for an item suddenly increases. (Stone or Wood are good examples of this).

## See also

* Release date
* System requirements