and HOLY HECK, I am overwhelmed. I don't even know where to start. I played with RK's collection before and took me a while to get used to smelting iron ore first. So my question is, what is the best way to start up a new megamod game? What do I prioritize after food?
Just like vanilla at first. After securing food and logs, I build a School, Blacksmith and Tailor (or if I have chickens build the Dock Reed Farm and Dock Workshop so I can make Survival Coats). I build a Sawpit so I can make enough lumber to build a Stacksburner. It produces 11 charcoal out of 1 log vs the Woodcutter only producing 4 firewood from a log. I build a <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> Town Arrival so I can get stats. I like to start trading so I try to produce something for trade. Maybe add a 2nd person to the Stacksburner to produce extra Charcoal. The Reed Farm produces over 1000 Reeds a year - not bad. Maybe build a couple of <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> Abbeys to produce Ale? and a Tavern to store the ale in. Making Perfume is great too. I push to add a small Iron Smelter and Small Fuel Refinery buildings so I can make Iron Tools. My 1st trading posts are either <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr>'s Farm Supplier or kid1293's ALotOfSeeds.
Im more confuse w/ the fuel to start making tools. I know I have to smelt iron ore first but I dont really know the supply chain for fuel stuff. Idk what to prioritize then. For trade goods, what do you stock up to barter traders with?
You can make Rough Tools from Iron Ore and Logs. To make Iron Tools, you need to convert Iron Ore into Iron. Since I'm most familiar with <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> these are the buildings you need: an Iron Smelter (or Small Iron Smelter) which needs Furnace Fuel from a Fuel Refinery/Small Fuel Refinery. Furnace Fuel can be made from Firewood or Charcoal.
There's an awful lot of stuff in this game that can be used for trade. I start with trade items that don't require a chain (and several workers). Stone or wood statues from the Statue Carver are good (I eventually buy Marble or Jade for him). Then there's Furniture (later you may need it for Housewares). Selling Reeds (from a Reed Farm placed on a river or even a stream) or Duck Meat from a Hunting Blind work for me. Once you have people, Perfume is good, so is Ale and Wine. Survival Coats are great if you need to get rid of feathers. Once you find all of the Domesticated Animals and build a Stable to make more, DA make great trade items. So do Trade Livestock (raise them in a pasture, but instead of getting meat, you get an animal that can be used for trade).
The first thing you should know is that there isn't a single right way to play.
IMO if you're still getting used to megamod it's worth using the Appalachian Forest starting condition. Why? Because you get rice & eggs. You can immediately place a rice paddy and a dock chicken breeder, which will give you grain and protein right off the bat. And if you also send your laborers out to gather wild foods once or twice a year, the food situation will be sorted and you can focus on other things. Like smelting iron.
What I do is start with firewood and later on transition to charcoal. I typically make a little "neighborhood" with a log vendor, firewood producer, fuel refiner, small iron smelter, and one of the blacksmiths. I tend to prefer the RK medieval blacksmith that sits on a corner. Early on, I only staff the log vendor when I need to fill it up. Until I get some iron, I just make wooden, stone, or rough tools, but I only make what I need immediately, because I don't want to waste iron ore. And note that while some of those buildings have an unhappiness radius, I've never noticed that it's a problem as long as the residents have enough to eat, and a coat to wear. You can throw in a small cemetery too, if you like. For little local cemeteries, I'm a fan of the wooden fence one.
I also wanted to point out that there are now more ways to make cheap coats. There are two or three workshops that can make coats directly out of gathered flax. Plus there's the reed & feather survival coat.
Finally, because megamod has so many options, I strongly suggest that you create a throwaway game, in which you use Debug to free build one of every single building so you can look at them all to see what they do. You'll find that different bakeries, butchers, blacksmiths, tailors and...well, everything, have different recipes. I find this more realistic, and also way more flexible.
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12 hours ago, Jaypo11 said:
For trade goods, what do you stock up to barter traders with?
Early game, firewood is still a solid trading choice. Also wooden statues, flax, feathers, bone meal, and any other random crap you have laying around. If you have a way to get wool, it's still good to trade directly or as wool coats.
I typically transition to trading charcoal, statues, and perfume.
What I don't trade away is food. Ever. So that means I never trade ale. I've seen way too many famines over the years of playing to ever believe my food surplus is large enough. I will litter my landscape with massive barns, all stuffed with surplus food, because eventually I know I'm going to need it.
Is that what the purple circle is? Unhappiness?
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10 hours ago, Jaypo11 said:
Is that what the purple circle is? Unhappiness?
The purple circle is the happiness radius. Unhappiness is a red circle.
The hardest part for me was the production choices. As Estherhb said, you can easily make rough tools from iron ore and wood for a while but eventually you'll want to produce iron, coal and furnace fuel. You can place mines to produce coal and iron ore plus make furnace fuel from many different source materials. (As an aside note, the game now differentiates between home heating charcoal and coal to produce higher grade tools. Homes will not steal coal to heat plus charcoal produced in a stacks burner is more energy efficient than firewood.)
I now play the game with an Iron, Coal, Iron Ore and Stone shacks. These are in the resource production tab -> renewable resources. They "grow" these from the ground and I don't need more resources to produce each.
To repeat what's already been said, this game is full of choices for you and how you want to play. You may make rough tools for a while, then iron tools and eventually the higher grade tools. It's your game. I personally set a goal of doing many lower population games to get comfortable with each, but that was just me.
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