JayKay's Getting Started Guide - Humans

Welcome to Odd Realm! In this guide, I plan to tackle every element of building your Human settlement based on an Easy (5 settlers) start:

* Location selection,
* Before you Unpause,
* Early game (first several days) development,
* More friends arrived! Now what do I do?
* Mid game (your first summer/autumn) development,
* Surviving your first winter,
* Late Game challenges.

Disclosure: I am not a programmer or a data miner, I'm simply a gamer who enjoys Odd Realm and wanted to share my experiences and knowledge with someone who is new to the game. Assume everything I say is "In My Opinion," and not categorically correct. I welcome feedback in the comments of the Wiki, and will revise the Guide based on my own knowledge and what others share. For the purposes of this Getting Started Guide, I'm assuming you've selected the Easy (5 settlers) start. Some of my advice will be applicable regardless of the mode you select for Humans, but when I make profession recommendations, know this would change depending on the number of adult humans you have. I think that's enough fine print - now let's play!

Location Selection

What's most important about your new settlement? To quote my realtor, its Location, Location, Location! What tile you select on the Overworld map for your new home will determine the terrain, resources, and challenges you'll face. Some elements to consider are the difficulty setting, biome, and layout.

Currently in Odd Realm, there are three "difficulty settings" for both the home tile and the neighboring encounters. These difficulty settings are:

* Peaceful
* Untamed
* Ferocious

Home Tile: this will impact the level of challenge on the playable map. Do you want a tranquil, shire-like province? Select peaceful. Would you rather be kept on edge by wild animals or surprising underground adventures? Select Untamed or Ferocious.

Neighboring encounters: do you want to be visited by tame wild life and friendly traders, or are you hoping for cutthroat bandits and hungry predators? Choose your difficulty accordingly!

The next element to consider is the Biome. The Biomes available to you are:

* Taiga - lush forests and beautiful greenery, the Taiga is bustling with life. Spring, Summer, and Autumn see natural growth of plants here, but be wary - the winter is brutal and will not allow the growth of native or cultivated plants. Taiga is the easiest Biome to weather, due to the native growth of edibles and trees.
* Desert - seemingly devoid of life, but look carefully and you will find hardy dwellers here. The Desert sees native plant growth in the Spring and Fall, and allows cultivation in the Spring, Summer, and Fall.
* Tropical - Aloha! The tropical biome is either an island or has a lot of water coverage on the map. Spring, Summer, Fall, (and winter? need to playtest) cultivation is possible here. I consider tropical to be nearly as easy to survive in as the Taiga.
* Voidlands
* Tundra

The final element for selecting your starting location is the Layout. Do you want a mostly flat area, or very hilly? Do you want lots of water on the map, or some to little? How many trees would you like? These are some of the things to consider on the Layout of your staring location.

Before You Unpause

So you've selected a starting location. Now what? I like to operate on a "no idle settlers" policy. So I prefer to have jobs assigned and work to do at all times for all settlers. Here are a few things I recommend you do Before you Unpause to encourage no idle settlers.

First, take a look around the map for natural resources. How many trees are there? What sorts of edible plans are growing? You can take a quick look at edibles already on the map by selecting the "Harvest" job, this will highlight edible plans that are ready to be harvested. How many fish are swimming in the natural water sources? Do you see any copper, tin, or iron on the map? Are their boulders or readily accessible stone formations you can quarry? Before you Unpause, I would prioritize what resources you will need and begin jobs to harvest them.

Second, find a place to settle. If there is a naturally occurring cave somewhere visible to you, use it to your advantage, building bedrooms and zones of storage nearby. The closer you can build your job sites to your bedrooms, the less movement your settlers will have to go to work. Some players prefer to build wooden or stone homes on the surface - I find this inefficient. Using your cavern networks to build bedrooms is sufficient for your hardy settlers. Build zones for everything - resources, raw food, cooked food, beverages, trash, anything. Build them near your future bedrooms.

Third, give your settlers some work to do! Harvest some edibles. Mine some rock and ore. I recommend digging out several 2x2 spaces underground (either in a natural cave or in the side of a hill) to become bedrooms. Chop down some trees. Cut some weeds for plant fiber. Start farming. You should have started with some seeds. Find a nice space with lots of sunlight near your settlement and, using the "Plant" order, have your farmer start, well, farming. These tasks are difficult to automate, so you'll need to micromanage them going forward. Setting

Fourth, set some rooms. You will need at least one of every type of room (except farms, which I prefer to micromanage, and taverns, which are currently broken). Don't worry about having the materials to build the requirements for each room - just designate the rooms on the map, and you can build the necessary furniture later. I prefer to make each room a 2x2 square - 4 squares total. Place them near where your settlers will bed down, and near where you plan to store your resources. I also like to coordinate rooms that work well together - so set the Distillery Room near the Well Room, set the Blacksmith near the Furnace, etc. You'll also need plenty of bedrooms. I suggest building out at least 10-15 bedrooms as a starting point so you won't have to worry about expansion too soon.

Finally, unpause your game! You've give your settlers plenty to do. Now watch them get to work!