Village Forever

Work manually, bank idle timeClick a tree, rock, building site or machine and your villager works it manually: faster, and the work you get done banks idle time: each log, stone or step of building pays, more with better tools and skill. Carrying things where they're needed pays a little per item. Walking and waiting bank nothing. Activities you set run on that bank, and keep going while you're offline.

Your packClick the ground to walk there. What you gather manually goes in your pack (24 things); click a pile or crate to put it away, and take things out in a store's panel. Building and crafting by hand use your pack first.

A primitive startNew villages begin with nothing: craft a campfire, a lean-to and a wooden spear or club by hand (place a chopping block and click it to make them yourself), forage berries at the edges of the woods, and hunt for meat and bones. Set someone to Research by the campfire to work out Knapping (stone tools), Woodworking (log walls, the workbench) and Hearthcraft (hearths, fireplaces).

PlanksA sawmill turns each log into 2 planks. Bare plank walls are light but drafty; a straw or hide lining fits snug against flat planks and counts nearly twice as much as on logs, so a lined plank house is warmer than a lined log one. A room with mostly plank walls (and plank doors and windows) under a plank floor or roof is finished: sleeping there is more restful, worth extra study points. Planks also make furniture, stairs, carts, mills and the big village projects.

Food is fuelWork burns food, on top of the slow hunger everyone has: heavy jobs like mining, quarrying, chopping and building burn the most, carrying things a little, and research, cooking and crafting the least. Work by hand gets more done, so it burns food faster too. Villagers go and eat when they get hungry, but with nothing to eat a starving villager works at half pace and walks slower. Big meals go further: a stew fills you as much as eight handfuls of berries, so a good cook keeps everyone else working.

Keeping and baking foodIn new villages food goes off: meat and berries in a few days, bread and cooked food a little slower, grain hardly at all. A larder halves the loss, and a root cellar (dug into the ground) keeps food about seven times longer; haulers put food there first. Research Milling for a water mill (it must stand beside a river or lake, and is fast) or a windmill (anywhere, faster on high ground) to grind grain into flour. Then Baking gives a bread oven, inside a room: 2 loaves from each flour, pies from flour, meat and berries, and feasts (a master cook) from pies, stew and bread. Pies and feasts are worth the most study points.

Village projectsBig things the whole village builds together, in stages: a town hall (each stage gives everyone +0.5 study points a day) and the great road, a milestone that grows as you lay roads and build a stone bridge (each stage makes everyone walk 5% faster). Each stage needs a big pile of goods and a lot of work; haulers and builders get on with it, and anyone can help manually. In villages founded now, everything else costs three times as much to build and make, too.

Little thingsGrass wears thin where people keep walking, and a well-trodden line turns into a dirt road on its own (paths nobody uses grow back). Now and then a ring of mushrooms comes up overnight, or a star falls somewhere out in the wilds: click it to go and pick the mushrooms or dig out a lump of star iron, before it's gone. Some days bring a passing shower; anyone outdoors when the rainbow comes out gets a study point for looking at it.

Gather and craftChop logs and build a free wood pile. Craft a workbench and stone tools by hand: an axe, a pick, a saw.

Eat wellHungry villagers top out at 40 energy. Hunt game, farm grain, and have a chef cook stew at a hearth: food raises max energy up to 100.

Build for the weatherWinters freeze. Rooms lose heat through every wall, window and roof; insulate, roof over, and keep a fire. Weight flows down through floors, walls and posts: overload them and they crack and fall.

Replant the forestFelled trees leave stumps that never grow back by themselves. Plant saplings; they take days to become trees.

Build your own roomsDraw walls and a door. Whatever you place inside decides the room: beds make a Home, a sawmill makes a Sawmill. Everyone in the village is a real player: share the code to grow it.

Machines beat hand toolsA stone saw makes planks slowly anywhere. A sawmill in a room is about ten times faster. Furnaces and research desks also need a room.

Explore a big landThe world is 1024 cells across: a good quarter hour's walk. Hills, mountains, rivers and lakes are on the map (M), but what grows and lies in them is unknown until someone goes to look. Set someone to Explore.

Know your woods and stonesPine, birch, oak, ash and cedar; sandstone, limestone, granite, slate, basalt and flint. Each is stronger or weaker, heavier, warmer, longer-lasting, quicker to work. Choose what to build with; you learn what each is like by working it.

Tools wear outEvery tool is a head and a handle: flint cuts well, granite lasts, bronze, iron and steel are better still; ash handles drive hardest, oak is tiring. Edges dull with use. A toolsmith at a grindstone sharpens them, but metal needs skill.

Trades: you need each otherIn a new village, your job is your first trade. Basic work is open to everyone; skilled work (stone walls, the sawmill, bread, bronze...) needs someone with the trade, and master work needs it at level 10. Earn study points from varied cooked food and a warm bed at home, and learn up to three trades.

Guards and defencesGuards stand watch, up a watchtower if there's one free, and drill as they go. Arm them with spears, bows (best from a tower) or metal swords from the tool rack, and ring the village with a palisade and gates. The Village tab shows your defences.

DungeonsExplore to find cave mouths and ruins; the deeper ones are further out. Guards click an entrance to go down, where they fight on their own and you click to move or pick a target. Chests hold silver, star iron and gems. A guard who falls is carried home, leaving their weapon below for someone to fetch.

Gear from belowSilver (bane of barrow wights) and star iron (better than steel) make the finest tools and weapons; a skilled Smith can set up to two gems in one (Craft tab). Guards wear the best armour that's free: leather, bronze scale, iron mail, or star iron plate.

RaidsOnce a week (real time) a war band comes, bigger each time; the top bar counts down, and scouts warn an hour ahead. Guards fight, everyone else shelters indoors. Raiders hack through walls and gates (palisades hold them longest) to rob the stores, and run off with what they carry. Bows up watchtowers near the stores do the most.

Copper to steelA kiln makes charcoal and bricks. A furnace smelts copper and tin, and casts bronze in a crucible. A brick bloomery makes iron, then steel. Dig clay from riverbanks.

Level, ford and bridgeWalls must stand level with each other: level slopes first, digging out earth, clay or stone. Wade the shallows slowly, or bridge the river out from its bank.

OutpostsA wood or stone pile far from home is an outpost: workers out there drop their loads at it, and haulers bring them home. Roads make it quicker.