Hacks for Super Easy Play and or the Power Gamer (spoiler alert)

[Dirk382]

Hi everyone,

Here are some of my hacks for making play super easy and or for the power gamer type (get the best toon with all the best things). I run the standard game with no mods.



***SPOILER ALERT*** The below might make the game "not fun anymore" for you.




Super quick survival tips/hacks:

-Make the best fighter you can, only fight weak opponents that have knives or weaker weapons, and only fight 1v1 if possible.
-Keep your town safe from random Njerp/etc. visitors by setting up your base on a small island (2-30 ish tiles in size on the zoomed out map) that can't be accessed by walking on ice in winter. This will also make it safe to leave you stuff lying around your town with out fear of an NPC stealing them; I've seen Njerps steal my weapons/tools before.
-Take a screenshot of the map when you start a new character. You can refer back to it to know where everything is.
-Never "encounter" random non-trader, non-njerp npcs on the overview screen. Often they're robbers and will effectively end your game, especially if you're in the Islander territory.
-Fishing makes getting a steady food supply super easy, use a decent fishing pole in deep water or get a super-supply of fish with multiple nets.
-Shooting arrows from a boat from deep water makes killing opponents trivial and they can't fight back, but maker sure to trade away all their bows and have 30+ arrows yourself before you attack. If you find a village with open water within bow range of the village, you can slaughter all of them easily.
-Kill island-tribe villages to get a free pre-built house and lots of quick "cash"/food. De-construct nearby buildings to get materials to expand your house if you want.
-Avoid wolves and robbers like the plague. They will outflank you and you will die, period. If I get caught by a robber accidentally I quickly drop as much weight as I can and run like hell dodging behind pine trees to avoid getting hit by arrows. OR I surrender my stuff and suck it up. Possibly I sneak up on them later and assassinate them one by one to take my stuff back, see next tip:
-It's risky but if you see a big group of enemies on the overview map you can enter the zoomed in map one tile away from them and sneak up on them with stealth. If you're very careful and get really luck they'll be separated from eachother enough that you can kill them quickly 1v1 before you get double/triple teamed, once that happens it's usually all over. Also if you can kill one of the pack of enemies quickly and run like hell sometimes you can escape before you get ganged up on. Do this one at a time till the'yre all dead.
-Battleaxe with light/fur armor is my wep/armor of choice, see below for my rationale.
-I only use longbow because it's more accurate at distance.
-"Lonely settler" startup scenario give you the most "cash" and what you get is not random like some of the others.
-Don't put points into timbercraft, it raises incredibly fast and you can get from 0 - 70 skill in less than an in-game year.


Specific Tips and General Strategy:

1) My Overall Strategy: Make the best fighter I can, get a battleaxe and punt, kill Island tribe villagers, use pillaged goods to buy whatever I want from the best merchants (Dirkii) right next door. Then go do whatever I want.

2) Character creation: I always go Kaumo using "too easy" and roll stats to max out the following skills:

Essential: bow, axe, phyisican (50-60% is fine)
Ease of living: fishing, herblore
For fun: Hideworking, cooking, tracking, stealth

Note 1: I like to do active hunting, fishing for salmon and collecting items, but my build is also geared for general survivabiliity.
Note 2: I minimize all other skills. Sometimes I put some points in knife and club in the hopes they help with hideworking somehow.
Note 3: Kaumo is tied with Remi for the highest stats on average of the races that have 3+ bonus to bow and axe. Kaumo has slightly better bonuses in the fun skills I like to run like hideworking, tracking and fishing.
Note 4: I use the table at the very bottom of the character creation page of the wiki to max my stats for the skills I want.

3) Best weapons in the game ranked IMO: 1) Battlexe + light armor 2) Battlesword + light armor (though it's tough to max out sword with Kaumo) 3) Bastard sword + shield 4) all else are crap IMO especially spears, they just don't deal the massive damage that the battleaxe/battlesword does and they don't have the skill bonus. I think this is partly because a lot of npcs have decent pierce armor (hide/fur) but almost never slash armor (chain etc).
Using a good spear, with max stats/skill I've gotten slaughtered so many times trying to take islander villages VS using a battleaxe which I nearly always win.

4) Choose Starting Location: I always start in Dirkii territory cuz they have the best items. Seems like the more towns connected by roads the better items they have. I also roll a map that has a few Islander towns on isolated smaller islands (maybe 2-30ish tiles max) that can't be walked to in winter (no ice forms connecting to other islands). I generally use the "Lonely Settler" backstory because it gives you the most "cash" to start with 3 axes: carving, splitting and broad. With that you can buy a punt and battleaxe and have "cash" to spare.

5) Getting Rich: Once I have a battleaxe and punt, I head over to an islander village and kill everyone (see #6 for my battle tips). Take the loot and trade with Dirkii near by to get whatever you want.

6) Tactics for Village Battles 1 (and general fighting tactics): Land Attack with 2H Weapons:

General goal: #1 by far: kill fast. Keep your penalties/damage low. Don't get surrounded, only fight weak enemies like Islander tribe that have shit weapons. Also "prep work" is key, see below.

a. I only fight standing inside a small building, ideally a 2x2 or 1x2 so no one can get behind me. If they do, they can "1-hit-kill" you. Stand inside the building directly infront of the door (not in the doorway) so only 1 opponent can attack you at a time and more opponents can't sneak in and get behind you. Note on rare occasions they'll "flee" and run inside the building allowing a new full-health enemy to step into the doorway and attack you. Then your 1v2. If this happens, I try to kill the wounded enemy insided the house first and block the "full health" enemie's attacks till you can focus on the "fresh" enemy in the doorway 1v1.
b. I always wait till the middle of the night to start the attack. Villagers will be asleep and won't all be alerted to your initial attack, as a result, the enemies will slowly come to your position rather than all at once. This in theory gives you a chance to recover your stamina after killing each enemy, keeping your weapon skill as high as possible.
c. Before I attack I always make sure I'm fully rested, and have full food/water bars.
d. I generally like to only attack Islander villages as they're one of the weakest fighters/lowest stats and worst weaons.
e. I always drop all equipment, excluding my primary weapons and armor, behind me in the building so my opponents can't grab my stuff and try to kill me with it. This reduces your weight penalty and keeps you able to kill fast which keeps you alive.
d. I always check every adult in the village for what weapons they have and I'm especially careful if they're carrying an Ango, trident, swords battleaxe or bows. I never under any circumstance attack anyone with a sword or battleaxe unless I can one hit kill them.
e. If villagers have a trident, ango, bow or other good weps, I try either kill that npc first by trapping them in the building I'm going to fight in (you can 1-hit-kill them by aming at the head for the first person you attack), OR if there are multiple people with good weps I trade those weapons away from them giving them items they can't use in combat. Note if you trap 2 or 3 people in a building, sometimes with stealth on you can 1-hit-kill all of them one by one because they don't wakeup right away, but you have to be really lucky otherwise you're dead.
 
Note1: Don't trade away their arrows if they have a bow because if you shoot them with your bow, they can shoot back at you.
Note 2: trident weilders are unexpectedly dangerous because they get a massive block bonus. This will tire you out as they block 95% of your blows and they eventually kill you. I've tried weilding a trident myself, but you eventually die because of low damage output.

f. When you're fighting, try to aim for head on your first 1 or two attacks or if your opponent is badly hurt. A quick headshot can 1-hit-kill 10-20% of the time, and give them solid hit farily often as your first strike (when your skill penalties are minimized). This will make the rest of the battle much easier.
I aim for body most of the time to get dmg in to keep their to-hit % low. I also use block and counter attack often, never use dodge. You block nearly 100% of the time even when you have a moderate skill penalty, whereas dodge is more inconsistent even if your skill/stats are high.
g. Counter attack/headshot against: badly hurt, weaker and or unarmed enemies/animals. Block against/bodyshot: stronger, well armed and or uninjured enemies.
h. I always wait for a bit after I think all the villagers are dead and press enter to go to the zoomed out screen to make sure everyone is dead. If you can't go to that screen it means an NPC is nearby. I can't tell you how many times I've died when I went to loot and the last villager killed me from behind.
i. If an opponent drops a weapon while I'm figting them, I always try to grab it unless it's a stone. If I have a moment, I drop that item behind me to reduce my weight penalty.

7) Tactics for Village Battles 2: Land Attack with 1H sword + shield:
Generally: Use bastard or battlesword (yes battle) to with sheild blocking mostly and attack when you can. Youget a to-hit penalty with battlesword but it deals so much damage and has a great attack bonus it still works if you have 90+ sword and shield skill.
a. I like this method because you can block arrows but with a village attack, I get into trouble slightly more often than when Im using battleaxe or battlesword.

8 Tactics for Village Battles 2: Water Attack with Bow:

If you can find a village that has deep water right near by, you can slaughter even the most well armed, most highly populated village easily, without them fighting back.

a. Buy up the villagers bows (so they can't shoot you), and bring lots of arrow 30-60 or more.
b. Dump all your stuff in your punt except your paddle, bow and a few arrows.
c. Wait villagers to not be close your boat.
d. Shoot one villager with an arrow, jump in your boat, equip the paddle, row into the deep water so they can't hand-to-hand fight you (like 5-ish tiles from shore).
e. Pick off the villagers one by one with your bow. Lead them off if needed to then paddle back to collect arrows and keep shooting.
d. Finish off the last one or two injured villagers with your sword/axe 1v1 if you're feeling dangeous.

9) Metal armor seems bad....: I've spent many hours collecting and testing metal armor (chainmail etc). I could be coincidence but every time I've used it in a fight, I seem to perform a bit worse than with hide/fur armor. The weight penalty is part of it but there seems to be a "hidden" penalty to "to-hit" and agility that's not reflected in the weight penalty alone. This isn't full tested but it's a lot of work to find and buy chainmail etc. IMO and experience it's just easier and more effective to go with light armor and kill fast.

Thanks for reading leave comments or suggestions =)