Medieval Dynasty Beginner Tips: Your First Year

Based on the tutorial text in the game files (version 2.5.0.2); Steam's build is newer, so a number may have changed.

Everything basic can be picked up in the wild: point the cursor at an item until its name shows, then collect it. Sticks are the easiest to find; stones and herbs are much harder to spot. The tutorial's resource list names what you will want first: Sticks and Logs for wood, Stone from rocks, Straw from reeds (67 patches on the Valley map). Foraged food is on the map too: Berry bushes and Mushrooms.

The tutorial lists three tools for extracting materials: the Axe for trees, the Pickaxe for minerals and the Shovel for Clay. It says an Axe "can be bought or crafted in Creation Menu in the Handcrafting section" and that you should put it in a Quick Slot, take it out and cut. The Plank guide and the Straw guide cover the first two materials in detail. Deposits are on the map: iron, clay and the rest.

Health is the red bar, Stamina refills at rest, and Food (orange) and Water (blue) fall over time. When Food or Water is empty you lose Health, and when it is too cold you lose Health too, so dress for the weather, stay by a fire or use a torch. Food rots over time and can poison you, so the tutorial suggests drying, salting or cooking. Carry too much and you slow down until you cannot move; a Backpack or Pouch raises the limit.

Sleeping needs a house or a campfire, and the tutorial puts the sleeping window between 7:00 PM and 6:00 AM. Sleep restores health in proportion to the time you slept, and a sleep that starts during a season change always ends in your own house. The Simple Small House is the first house in the list; it has 3 cost variants; the first is 66 Stick, 25 Log, 10 Stone, 32 Straw.

Chapters are a series of missions at the start that teach the mechanics and help with the first buildings. The tutorial says completing them unlocks the next Development Stage, which sets how many buildings you may have. To build you need a Hammer equipped, a flat spot and some distance from other villages. The stages, from the game's data and its tutorial text:

Taxes are due every spring and are collected by the Castellan in the village of Gostovia. Each new building and field raises them, and the multiplier rises with the development stage (see the table above). Miss the date and you owe the King, lose 1000 Dynasty Reputation, and the debt grows every year; below -10,000 Reputation you are banished. Keep coins back for spring. Dynasty Reputation is also what lets you invite villagers; it is earned by Quests, Chapters and Challenges and lost by failed Challenges, unpaid taxes and stealing.

Technologies unlock new buildings and recipes. The tutorial says you earn them by doing the activity: Building (cutting trees, mining, digging clay, building), Survival (hunting, traps, fishing), Farming (ploughing and fertilising, sowing and harvesting, milking, shearing) and Production (crafting and cooking). New buildings unlock at Technology Point gaps, and crafting schemes are bought one by one with coins. You can see each recipe's technology cost on the recipes page and each building's requirement on the buildings page.

A field is at most 16x16 tiles, one plant per tile, and a bigger field raises your tax. The order the tutorial gives: grub up with a Hoe (once per field), sprinkle Fertiliser from a Bag, plough with the Hoe, sow from the Select Seed menu, harvest (cereals need a Sickle or Scythe, vegetables can be picked by hand). Fertiliser is two Manure or ten Rot at the Barn: how to make it. Crops can only be sown and harvested in certain seasons, so check the farming page.

Each season lasts 3 days by default. That makes a year 12 days. Seasons change which crops you can sow and harvest, which berries and mushrooms grow in the woods, and the temperature. Sleeping during a season change always wakes you up in your own house.

Travellers usually sit by campfires in villages (the village layer has 10 on the Valley map). With enough Dynasty Reputation you can invite them. They then need Food, Water and Firewood in the house chests, plus a Resource Storage and a Food Storage so they can collect it themselves. Give them a house of their own, because homeless travellers lose Mood fast; Mood runs from -100 to 100 and a villager at the bottom leaves. Matching a job to the worker's ability gives better results, and employed workers collect resources, develop Technologies and raise their own skills.