Tips and Tricks

To begin, I haven’t played Stonehearth in approximately 6-8 months. I wanted to wait until significant progress had been made, so as not to exhaust myself, replaying it in its limited state. Let me re-state once more that i love this game! Last time I posted in gameplay I offered a mini-guide for people having difficulty starting out, and while I considered another guide, ultimately I decided my fellow “hearthlovers” would rather not endure another step by step outline :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.

Background:
Race: The Ascendancy
Biome: Temperate
Difficulty: Normal
Seed: 381856796
Starting point: Northern Peninsula in SE lake (terraformed it into an island)
Population: 39 Hearthlings

Tips and Tricks that I found very helpful:

  • Don’t worry about getting a hearthling on the first update, instead use day 1 (and 2 if necessary) not only exploring but moving berry bushes, and various flowers next to your initial encampment. This enables you to not only explore a fair amount of the map but also provides an excellent and easy source of goods, at least until your farmer gets that first batch of turnips & carrots going.

  • Don’t underestimate the power of the peninsula, being surrounded on three sides by water and then creating a moat on the side that connects to land will keep the bad dudes out very effectively! For those uncertain as to how, (well as of right now hearthlings can breathe underwater) I created steps (rather than use a ladder) leading into the moat from the inside and they dug it out.

  • When you see the Daily Update pop up, SAVE. This way when you receive a new hearthling but he/she doesn’t have the stats you want or need, simply re-load that save until you find one suitable to your needs.

  • Keep a constant stream of revenue. You should have plenty of trees to start with and getting your carpenter to max lvl generally happens organically. Always maintain a constant work order for 20 - 100 table for one, depending on your log supply. Once I make my second farmer, i create a single 11x11 plot for saplings (trees). Plant them in open areas you’ve already chopped down leaving a few spaces between trees and let them grow all the way to 100yr old oaks, then chop em down and re-plant. I had 1000’s of logs, and yes sometimes the entlings get angry but your army should be able to handle them no problem. The important thing is to keep your revenue flowing by constantly selling those tables and fine tables.

  • Mining, sometimes the ore you need is either far up or far away (often times both) from your encampment. When you go after some of that ore, make sure all other worker tasks are complete and when you’re done remove the lowest level ladder to avoid mountain mob spawns from raiding you until you are ready.

  • Once you have over 30 hearthlings, the game has significant difficulty processing. However, if you insist on trying for more - like me :grin: - then save and load often. I found that loading up helps things run more smoothly for a little while, and if it crashes on load just start up the game again and it should load just fine.

  • Combat can be VERY frustrating when fighting large groups or multiple groups. It drove me NUTS when multiple knight(s) ran off in various directions chasing fleeing mobs; and pausing and ordering them back to the primary fight is extremely tedious. In order to deal with this difficulty (and before summoning the goblin campaigns) I manually built combat pens. In other words, I’d erect stone/wood walls around an alcove with an opening or funnel. I’d then have my troops wait inside in defense mode and send a knight to kite the mobs allllll the way back into the pen. Another effective strategy is to build a walled pathway way leading into a pen from the bottom of a ladder, this forces the mobs to go wherever u want them to. Also keep some tonics outside on the ground next to your combat areas for easy access. PS: I found that dividing knights, clerics, & archers into separate combat parties unnecessary.

I hope everyone is enjoying the game as much as I am, and I CANNOT WAIT FOR COMPLETION and multiplayer! But mainly completion, alright I don’t want to be tooooo obnoxious :smiling_imp:. If anyone has any questions or wants more info on my setup or playthrough feel free to holler at me!

PS: what’s the community calling itself these days? Hearthlovers, Hearthies, Hearthstonies (ugh that one might not be the best choice)…

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Some solids tips here!!

Most of the tips are good, although saving and re-loading until you get the perfect hearthling isnjust plain cheating, honestly.

FYI, a sapling requires a minimum 6 block radius in all directions in order for it to fully mature. I therefore created building template that is simply a square road with four erased blocks in the center, and I place them exactly 10 blocks away from each other on every side. (the road itself accounts for 2, for a total of 12). This results in a nice, tidy tree farm with handy markers for easy replanting.

Bonus: This also increases your controlled land mass and helps improve your net worth in the early game. So you can use tree farm plots strategically to push out your boundaries and create safe zones to keep the random raiders out where you want them.

do you have a picture of it?

Sure. Would you like to see the template, or the tree farm with trees in it, or both?

You can also load up this save and take a look at one in action:
https://discourse.stonehearth.net/uploads/short-url/3dS6iFj5AWJlrABN4aXXbzLDQN9.zip

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Nice tips bud! :thumbsup: I would like to add mine for the thread. sorry for my english

for those who are not a fan of moats in the beginning of the game (maybe because of fancy building plans for walls or idk). I suggest building mazes out of fences or walls. Quite effective when you have narrow roads that lead to your town and still want to battle enemies. Just build a S type maze with 1 block passage to force enemies to attack 1 by 1. If you’re done planning your walls, just take away your fences and sell them or stock them for future uses.

:point_up: His tip are for vanilla players (no mods). For mod players, I suggest getting the Settlement Decor Mod. Great aesthetics and at the same time has a great selling value. Rush to the mountains for some stones and build sundials (20pcs are good, 70g each) from the mason. You may wanna build a trappers knife for the leather. If you have atleast 2000g, build about 5 to 10 markets stalls (1 log pile and a bolt of leather each) to prevents scarring the mountains and destroying the looks of your world. Buy stones and wood from these stalls and sell them your sundials. No need for mining ore since Rufus(stone and ore seller) comes more often than Rufus(wood seller) (Base frome my experiences that is). No need for planting trees for wood and mining for stones since you have a constant supply from stalls (build more if it’s not enough).
This tip is most effective for Rayya’s since wood are scarce in the desert.

  • Added tip: ALWAYS Keep an eye on your soldiers’ level, you may wanna constantly change their equipment to the most highest they can equip base on their current level. Since we are not sure who or what will show up on the next fight, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Until there’s a way to improve the stats of my Hearthlings, I don’t really consider this cheating, personally. I played over the weekend and after 20 successful Daily Updates, I never got a single suitable (IMO) candidate for military duty. For me, “suitable” means both Body and Spirit are 5 or higher, or one can be 4 if the other is 6.

How did you increase your hearthling cap? I’ve been at 20 forever.

Why are you stuck?

I’m currently at 27.

there is a cap in place, by default it’s set to 20. you can change the cap in the game settings, under the gameplay tab.

ah i knew it! thanks

Here’s the tree farm plot pic, as requested:

(Bonus: Note the pretty awkwardly-generated bunny ruin)

Here’s the building template:
tree farm plot.json.txt (2.8 KB [remember to remove the .txt extension])

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thanks man :slight_smile: that is pretty smart. i always mess up when i place trees, so i’ll try your way :slight_smile:

1 Like