Starter Guide

This guide mostly pertains to survival in the sandbox Civilizations and Nomads game mode.

Spawning in

When you spawn, you will be told the languages you know. Your appearance and language will be determined by your spawn location.
Your hunger and thirst levels will both be at 50%.
You start out with nothing but age-appropriate clothes on your person. Your first priority will be gathering flint to make a flint axe.
- Find a large rock and click it with an empty hand on Grab intent - you should be able to gather some flint.
- Click the rock repeatedly with the flint to sharpen it (you will get a message when it is sharpened).
- Now go to a tree and click it with an empty hand on Harm intent. This will pull a branch from the tree and place it on the ground.
- Click the branch with an empty hand on Grab intent to clear the leaves, then click again on Harm intent to pull out the twigs.
- Use the sharpened flint on the stick to sharpen it, then click the sharpened stick with the flint again to craft yourself a trusty flint axe, a tool and a weapon.
If it’s winter season or Ice Age map, you also spawn with a fur coat. Losing this will mean cold and miserable death in the icy outdoors.

Crafting Basics

You will need some basic things to survive. At the very start you will most likely be using wood to make them.

Hit a tree with your flint hatchet and it will be cut down after a delay.
Get the wood and use it in the active hand to open a crafting menu.

The same mechanic for opening crafting menu applies to all materials. Activate in hand to open the crafting menu.

Also, now introducting Mining 101.

Ores are valuable crafting materials which you mine out of the rock.

You’ll need wood and bone for this. Go gather them (bones are obtained by butchering animals - click the carcass with something sharp, like a flint axe or a knife),
Make a tool handle from wood (“tools” section).
Hold it in the off-hand.
Activate some bone in your active hand.
Make a bone pickaxe.
Find an underground rock tile (either on surface or underground - see the Shelter section about digging underground).
Use the pickaxe on it.

WARNING: IF MINING UNDERGROUND, BUILD MINING SUPPORTS WITH WOOD EVERY 2 TILES OR YOU WILL HAVE A CAVE-IN!

More details about mining here.

What to do with metal ores - Guide to Metallurgy.

Staying alive

To survive, you will need to keep yourself nourished and warm.

Click your Thirst and Hunger icon on the right side (stomach icon) to know how you’re doing.

Letting either hunger or thirst reach 0% will cause your body to start shutting down, leading to inevitable death!

Hunger and thirst affect your movement speed, healing rates and mood.

Being slow makes you easy prey for predators, criminals, and cannibals. Malnourishment also makes it easier to catch diseases.

Hunger

The easiest way to get food early on is by killing animals and eating the meat after cooking it. Also, you can eat bird eggs, even uncooked!

Find an animal, preferably one that doesn’t have fangs, claws, tusks, or poison. and kill it with any means (even bare fists work). Stay away from bears, alligators, wolves, snakes, and mammoths.
Use your knife (flint axe works too) on the dead animal with Harm intent to butcher it.
Raw meat causes food poisoning! You’ll want to cook it, stew it or dry it first, but if you’re starving, food poisoning is the least of your worries.
To cook meat, place it on a campfire and click the campfire.
- Campfire is made with wood logs (“kitchen” section).
  - You can also roast meat in an oven.
To dry meat, cut the raw steak into raw cutlets with a knife, then place them on a dehydrator and wait.
- Dehydrators are made of wood, but you need some research levels.
To stew meat, place the raw steak into the cooking pot after filling it with water, and wait.
- Cooking pots are made with iron ingots, but again, it requires research levels to make.

There are many ways to fill your stomach. Even an unga dunga can do it!

Thirst

The easiest way to quench your thirst early on is by drinking water or milk, though other liquids like tea can also be used.

Water

You can get water from puddles, any water tiles (except saltwater - do not drink nor boil it!), or wells.

Avoid drinking “raw” water from puddles, rivers and lakes! It needs to be boiled to be safe (see below).

To drink, you need to make a mug from wood or drinking glass from glass.
Wells have disease-free freshwater (however, if there are some… excrements within 4 tiles of a well, the water becomes contaminated and unsafe to drink!). You can build them over a puddle by using with stone… if your faction has the research levels required.
“Raw” water needs to be boiled to be 100% safe. Otherwise, you have a chance of catching cholera. Though if you’re dying, raw water will be a risk you’ll have to take.
To boil water, make a simple cooking pot from clay.
- Craft a wooden handle, a bucket and a campfire with wood logs.
- Get some animal bone (bones obtained by butchering animals).
- Hold bones in the active hand, the wooden handle in the off-hand.
- Click bones and make a bone shovel.
- Take the shovel and click dirt tiles with it to dig dirt piles (any kind of dirt tiles will do). Click grass tiles to remove grass and snowdirt to shovel snow to uncover the dirt underneath.
- Find some water source and fill the bucket with water.
- Click dirt piles with the bucket to make lumps of clay (1 clay = 10 units of water per 1 dirt pile).
- Take clay and click it in the active hand, then choose unfired clay cooking pot.
- Put the unfired pot into the campfire and click the campfire.
- Wait until the pot is fired.
Fill the pot with water, place it on campfire or oven, turn it on, and wait for it to finish boiling.
Water is then safe to drink. Pour it in your mug or glass and drink.

Milk

Find a cow, sheep ewe, or goat ewe.
Make a bucket from wood.
Use the bucket on Help intent on the animal of choice to gather milk.
Pour the milk into the mug or glass and drink.
You don’t have to boil milk.

Milk is regenerated in the animals over time, so keep them alive, and you’ll never go thirsty.

Palm wine

Palm wine could save your life in the desert areas. Follow the steps in the Guide to Cooking to make it (glass is made by firing dug sand piles in the campfire).

Mood

Click this icon to see your current mood and hygiene levels. When you need to go to the toilet, it will also tell you how exactly you need to… relieve yourself.

Are you constantly feeling depressed? Getting weird audio randomly out of nowhere? Well, then you’ve got a shit mood! Here are the ways to increase your mood:

Drugs, such as cocaine and opium. Smoking tobacco as well.
Good complex foods like boiled rice, roasted meat steak, noodles, sandwiches, etc.
Alcohol, like vodka and sake.

Things that can decrease mood:

Other people’s stench (when they have a cloud of filth around them, they decrease your mood and you get a message that they smell).
Your own stench.
Your own low hygiene.
Killing others (drastically decreases mood, especially cutting someone’s head off).
Eyeing delimbed body parts and gore.
Mood also slowly decreases on its own.

Seeing too much of extreme gore will result in developing PTSD, which is incurable! After a while, you will start hallucinating and having catatonic breakdowns. Antidepressants and drugs will temporarily block these effects.

Now you know how to manage your mood with these not so effective up keeps! But did you know mood affects more than you thought? Mood can affect your max skill stats. If you’re feeling great, you can have 2.875 as a stat cap. When your mood is shit, it can only be 2.0 (it will appear as 20x, but it’s actually 2.0x) So your mood can actually affect your ability to do things and speed of doing things greatly, and thus does matter, especially in combat situations.

Temperature

Keep an eye out on your temperature icon!

If it is flashing blue with a white snowflake, you are freezing up!

If it is red and there is sun instead, you are melting from heat!

Winter seasons can bring an icy chill that can seriously hurt and slow you down, or even kill you. Blizzards are especially deadly, and just wearing a fur coat will not cut it, so make sure you have a shelter ready before it is too late.

Southern climates could be merciless in their own way, so be careful that you do not overheat to the point of a heat stroke. Resting in a roofed shelter from time to time and wearing appropriate clothing (for instance, “traditional” desert clothes) can save you from fainting and shrivelling in a sweltering heat.

Fur Clothing

Fur clothing can keep you warm in the winter, but it will not save you if you are caught in a blizzard.

You can make fur clothing by skinning large furry animals like bears and wolves. _{Yes, you can finally skin furries with no
repercussions.}

Kill one of the following animals: bear, wolf, bison, monkey, fox, sheep.
Skin the animal by using the knife on Grab intent.
Collect enough pelts and craft fur coat, boots, headcover and gloves (you will need to hunt several animals for the whole set).

Shelter

Shelter can save you from even the toughest of conditions.

Any roofed area is considered a shelter.

Caves: There’s a reason that stone-age men were called cavemen. Look for entrances in rocks. If it has a roof, it will be darker inside. That means it will keep snow, cold, blazing sun and rain out. The easiest way of surviving inclement weather. _{Make sure that no
bears live in the cave, though…}
Tunnels / “Mines”: You can dig into the underground for shelter! All you need is to use a shovel in your active hand. To craft one, you’ll need to make a tool handle with wood logs, and have bones available. With the tool handle in the off-hand, activate bone in the active hand.
Building a Roof: Target your inner Bob the Builder and build your own roof. You’ll need wood logs.
- Build walls or roof supports to prop the ceiling up.
- Build a roof builder, hold it, and activate it in hand while facing the tile above which you want to build.
- You can also build walls with dirt or snow by using the shovel directly on the ground. Just use the dirt or snow piles in your active hand, then add additional material directly to the wall.

Fire

Crackling fires will keep you warm even without a coat.

A campfire warms you when you are right next to it, or within 1 tile.
A brazier (made with stone) provides more heat and warms you within 3 tiles.
Both campfire and brazier are refueled by adding wood, coal and charcoal. Brazier could also be refueled with paper- and cloth-based items.

Dangerous animals

The world is teeming with wildlife. Most of them are pretty tame and easy prey, but steer clear of the big game unless you’re a skilled hunter, otherwise you’ll become minced meat yourself!

You want to avoid these, unless you’re robust or need some pelts:

Bears (can provide fur)
Wolves (can provide fur)
Mammoths
Panthers & Jaguars
Snakes
Piranhas (inhabit jungle river waters. Throw some meat in the water if it looks suspicious.)
Mosquitoes
Alligators

Night time

You’ll need a light source to see in the night and in dark indoor areas.

The basic source of light is the torch.

Gather some wood.
Craft a torch and click it in hand to light it. Click it again to put it out for the time being.
An alternative to the torch is a tiki torch that is stationary and burns for longer and makes for a brighter source of light.

Torches will last for 5 minutes and then burn out.

You can also make lanterns with iron. Lanterns require fuel - any form of liquid fuel will do, like olive oil (grow olives and click buckets or barrels with them to make oil), fat oil, or petroleum.

For a more permanent light source, you can build braziers from stone. You can fuel it with any organic matter like wood or clothing - simply use items on the brazier on Help intent.

Saving your character

If you simply log off, your character will be left unconscious and helpless, lying face-down on the floor, liable to get killed or robbed or just starve to death.

To avoid that, go to sleep properly:

Stand over a bed or buckle yourself to a leather bedroll (no need to buckle to beds). Do not have anything in your hands - you will lose it permanently!
Type “sleep” in the chat (without “say”) or click “Sleep” on the IC tab.
Wait 2 minutes to be teleported to a safe zone.
Sleep tight. Now you can log off. If you go to sleep with full stomach (100% of food and water), your character will last about 3 RL days. All things you have on yourself will be safe, except that you drop whatever you have in your hands, leaving it in the sleep zone!
To wake up, type “wake-up” (again, without “say”) or click “Wake Up” on the IC tab. You will be teleported to the spot where you went to sleep.

You can also save someone else if they happened to faint in the middle of the street. Buckling to bed slows the increase of thirst and hunger, so the buckled person will live longer and even indefinitely, if cared for with food and water regularly.

Additional info

Status tab

The Status tab has some general info about the ongoing round, both OOC and IC, namely:

number of players
round duration
current map
current mode (usually states research mode)
current epoch
current wind (important if you are sailing)
time of day