Timber and Stone

[pbot]

After seeing Groundhog's post in the kickstarter thread about Timber and Stone, I purchased it over the weekend. Fun game, still in beta so it has a lot of possibilities, and some annoyances as well. But, I've enjoyed playing it for a good bit over the weekend. My son, a minecraft fanatic, is very interested in it as well and says it's better (that's just the novelty of a new game talking, I'm sure).

I've had a few restarts, but in my current world (day five) I've got 10 settlers and a solid foundation of supplies and farming going. Working on fortifications and training up an archer now. My lumberjack has leveled up to the point that he's pretty much clear-cut the map so I've got him learning a new skill. What I don't have is much in the way of enemies at the moment. My forager killed a skeleton that was on the other side of a river, and nothing else has spawned yet. Surely that last sentence will come back to haunt me.

[Groundhog]

My village was pretty much ruined last night, despite my fancy moats and walls. It was my own fault really - a group of 4 spiders attacked. I was down to just 1 archer after all my foragers died, so while I was chasing spiders who had broken through my door that guarded the moat (a notification on that would be handy), what I missed was the notification that a goblin had also strolled on in. While I killed the spiders, the goblin was running havoc, and by the time I put him down I was down to just 4 settlers.

Going to restart with a large zone.

[Matthean]

I'll keep a watch on it. I went and watched far too many videos of it and was even watching a playthrough series of it. I'll still wait for it to be closer to v1.0 or it is fully released.

[Groundhog]

I think this is definitely going to be a Minecraft-esque title - ie. basically a never-ending beta, with chunks of new features added each update. It's a one-man show.

[pbot]

Day 9...have two archers and an infantryman that have been training. Good thing as I'm starting to get a bunch of goblins on the map now. The primary archer took out two of them with longbow shots. Everybody's back inside our little fort for the night. Once daybreak hits, I'm thinking of sending both archers out to clean up the 4-5 goblins still wandering around.

[Groundhog]

One thing I read that may describe the sudden explosion of goblins I experienced - if you save and relaunch, apparently the goblin corpses come back to life again. I guess the work around would be to use your forragers to loot/dispose of the corpses.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by pbot

Day 9...have two archers and an infantryman that have been training. Good thing as I'm starting to get a bunch of goblins on the map now. The primary archer took out two of them with longbow shots. Everybody's back inside our little fort for the night. Once daybreak hits, I'm thinking of sending both archers out to clean up the 4-5 goblins still wandering around.

Watching the one video series gave me the feeling the best way to deal with things would be to go after them because they only build from there. If you can keep them in check it will give you a chance versus sitting back and letting things come to you.

[Blackadar]

I'm interested to hear how this compares with Gnomoria.

[pbot]

So my son tells me that trees will re-grow out of stumps(?). I guess I shouldn't have had my lumberjack clear out the close by stumps now that I've got some goblins in the vicinity. I see trees re-generating randomly, but would be nice to have a handful really close by. Will remember that on my next world.

Most of the fun comes in starting a new world, anyway.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by pbot

So my son tells me that trees will re-grow out of stumps(?). I guess I shouldn't have had my lumberjack clear out the close by stumps now that I've got some goblins in the vicinity. I see trees re-generating randomly, but would be nice to have a handful really close by. Will remember that on my next world.

Most of the fun comes in starting a new world, anyway.

Yeah I wish I'd realised that before I tore up all the stumps around my village.

Next world I'm going to fence off a parcel of forest to give me at least a safe and renewable source of wood...

[Lonnie]

You guys got me interested. I was never big into Minecraft, but I played Dwarf Fortress for a while. So this should be fun.

[pbot]

Sent my level 12 and level 6 archers out on a goblin hunt. Working in tandem they were systematically clearing the map. Had them using the natural terrain features to sneak up on goblins and start shooting. After four or five kills I got a bit overconfident and had them approach one on clear terrain. Turns out it wasn't one of the ones with the axe or machete thing but was an archer. One shot later my lvl 12 archer was dead. Whoops. Chris Telles, you'll be missed. Sent the lvl 6 archer back to the fort and he's currently training up with a new migrant to go back and avenge his fallen comrade.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Picked this up a couple days ago. Thoughts:

-The pace is REALLY slow, at least to start out. I'd imagine this gets better once you have several migrants join you, but man the first bit of game play is brutal when your miners and wood choppers pass out to exhaustion and you're left watching your forager just wander around.
-I may have been unlucky, but my dudes die so fast it's incredible. In my first world, a Goblin Archer spawned practically inside my camp at around midnight of day one and killed literally everyone. Second world, in the morning of day two a Goblin Marauder one shot my forager (who put one arrow into the goblin), then proceeded to one-shot the infantryman I sent out to take care of him. In my third game a goblin has killed two foragers and a farmer by the morning of day two. Would love some tips on dealing with goblins, because I apparently suck at it.
-Not sure if I understand the design feature for a road and a hall. It may just be that I haven't lived long enough to see it, but the design stays on the ground and nothing is actively built, even with a builder hanging around the plot with building materials on hand.

I want to like this game, and I think once I figure out how to not get my ass kicked by goblins I will. It's frustrating to die so much so quickly when the pace of the game is so slow though.

[DaddyTorgo]

This game looks addicting...

[BrianD]

Anybody know if this game would be playable on a non-gaming laptop? I can't find system requirements anywhere.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

-I may have been unlucky, but my dudes die so fast it's incredible.

The designer has said it is suppose to be roguelike so expect many deaths and lots of struggling.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

Picked this up a couple days ago. Thoughts:

-The pace is REALLY slow, at least to start out. I'd imagine this gets better once you have several migrants join you, but man the first bit of game play is brutal when your miners and wood choppers pass out to exhaustion and you're left watching your forager just wander around.

Indeed it is. It will be better next update as you will start with 8 settlers, however it's a game I recommend you run windowed, set to pause any time you spot an enemy.

-I may have been unlucky, but my dudes die so fast it's incredible. In my first world, a Goblin Archer spawned practically inside my camp at around midnight of day one and killed literally everyone. Second world, in the morning of day two a Goblin Marauder one shot my forager (who put one arrow into the goblin), then proceeded to one-shot the infantryman I sent out to take care of him. In my third game a goblin has killed two foragers and a farmer by the morning of day two. Would love some tips on dealing with goblins, because I apparently suck at it.

One shot kills are being taken out of the game next update (heart shots). I would recommend that if it's a woodcutter, etc. who spots a goblin, turn him into an infantry, armour him up and arm him. If it's a forager, disable all his automation, make sure you have bows/arrows selected, and then move him to the square immediately next to himself. This will clear his actions and have him target the goblin/spider/whatever.

-Not sure if I understand the design feature for a road and a hall. It may just be that I haven't lived long enough to see it, but the design stays on the ground and nothing is actively built, even with a builder hanging around the plot with building materials on hand.

This part of the game is not exactly intuitive. A road is something that helps with pathfinding and, most importantly, if you connect it up with the edge of the map and connect it through your "hall" (at least one square deep into the hall tiles), will allow settlers and traders to visit you. Nothing will actually get built, but your men will use the roads, and the grass will be "worn" each time someone walks on it. You could of course mine+lay down stone for a path, etc. and then just trace over the top with road tiles.

The hall is also purely cosmetic. You could place it inside a room, but it's just the place that the settlers and traders will stop at when they reach you.

[Groundhog]

Day 10 of my current world.

Archers stand guard at the entrance to my settlement. You can see the issues that can arise with mass-mining - the miner left no block next to the two little islands in my moat, so he was unable to mine those blocks. Will need to build a block connecting to them, then mine from the inside out to fix. You can also see my road is well-worn by now:



A look inside. It pays to have a farmer from day 1, as they replant any seeds they harvest and you begin to get a good amount of food out of them after a few days, which is important to attract new settlers:

[pbot]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

-The pace is REALLY slow, at least to start out. I'd imagine this gets better once you have several migrants join you, but man the first bit of game play is brutal when your miners and wood choppers pass out to exhaustion and you're left watching your forager just wander around.

Agreed, the night takes forever and it is so dark at first I found it frustrating. Watching the forager or farmers gets old quickly. Groundhog has covered your other points quite well, I don't have much to add.

My typical setup at the moment is to start with one forager, one miner, one woodcutter, two farmers, and one carpenter/blacksmith/stone mason (whichever skill is the highest). I get the farmers cranking out the food and hopefully flax if the game gives flax seeds to start. If no flax seeds, I hope that the forager gathers enough material to craft a loom and rope. Meanwhile the carpenter/blacksmith/stone mason establishes a nice supply of stone tools/weapons. Once you have the loom, you can start crafting torches which I give to all six guys. That helps during the night.

Once that base level is established, I'll often convert the miner to a wood cutter and vice versa depending upon whether I'm lower on stone or logs. So I'll either have two miners or two woodcutters for a period of time to stockpile raw materials. I've been fortunate to not have any goblins, skeletons or spiders spawn too close to my settlements in the early days of the worlds I've played so far.

My longest running world made it to somewhere around day 10 or so before the save file corrupted. Once you have 10+ characters there is always something to keep occupied with.

[pbot]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

A look inside. It pays to have a farmer from day 1, as they replant any seeds they harvest and you begin to get a good amount of food out of them after a few days, which is important to attract new settlers:

Yep. Farmer is essential from day one, and I typically like to throw an extra body at farming for the first couple of days to get food/flax production moving.

[Lonnie]

Already enough hints to help out. I was wondering why nobody was building a road.

[pbot]

New world, moving along nicely. Up to day five. Three wide moat around my homestead area which backed up to a river bank. No goblins on this side of the river so I was feeling pretty confident.

I'm assuming the skeleton must have spawned inside the perimeter of my fence as he proceeded to wipe out all but two guys before I was able to kill him. Converted one of the survivors to an archer to clean up the goons roaming outside the fence. He eventually died. Now have just a farmer, with lots of supplies. Hoping for a migrant soon as I had the makings of a nice setup going, but this world is probably doomed now.

[Vince, Pt. II]

I've also got a nice world moving along. Night 6, have a four wide by two deep moat around most of the perimeter, and a three cobblestone high wall surrounding the place. I've lost three foragers to goblins, but have managed to kill 10 in return. I've got 500-ish food and 10 villagers. My current setup:

1 Archer
1 Fisherman
3 Farmers (Flax, Carrots, Turnips and something else. Wheat maybe? Not sure, just got some seeds off a new migrant)
2 Stone Masons
1 Builder
2 Miners

One of the Stone Masons is usually a tailor/carpenter, I just wanted to pump out a good bit of stone recently to finish off the wall.

[pbot]

Worked back up to four settlers before a goblin marauder came through the door and killed all of them in about 30 seconds. Back to the drawing board.

[Groundhog]

One thing to keep in mind is that golbins/skeletons spawn near the borders, so if you build a camp too close to any of the 4 borders there is a chance that it will happen inside your camp regardless of your moats or walls.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

One thing to keep in mind is that golbins/skeletons spawn near the borders, so if you build a camp too close to any of the 4 borders there is a chance that it will happen inside your camp regardless of your moats or walls.

Yeah, I have realized this to my chagrin. My base is very near a corner...coast on one side, border on the other. Goblins like to spawn right on my gates. I've got a nice little bailey surrounding my drawbridge, so it hasn't been a big deal yet. Trying to find a way to set my guards up on sleeping shifts so I can not monitor them so much. Not sure how the sleep times functionality works yet, so we'll see how I can do.

[pbot]

1.1 update is now out. I like having 8 guys to start. Not sure about the adventurer mode.