This guide will show you how to easily and consistently acquire a full set of iron equipment, starting with nothing more than your initial gear. It also offers various tips for more streamlined play, and lists how to reach every milestone.
Strategy
All credit goes to Maugrift!
This guide assumes a basic understanding of the game, its mechanics, and its interface. You may benefit from reading the Tips section below before attempting this strategy, so as to maximize your efficiency.
Tools
First, find an area with trees and rocks to gather. Use a branch or other pole to gather resources and make the following set of tools:
- Stone Axe
- Stone Pickaxe
- Stone Shovel
- Stone Hoe
- Stone Hammer
- Stone Spear
- Hand Drill
If you have enough bark by this point, make some bark armor.
Start exploring your island. Gather as many coconuts as possible to use as a long-term food source. Any plant that gives both food and water will work, such as apples and pineapples, but coconuts give the most water out of any of these.
Base
Once you’ve secured a sizable number of coconuts, start searching for a base location. This should be near trees, rocks, and a cave entrance. The easiest base to make is simply a walled off tunnel with doors on each end. The larger it is, the greater the chance of monsters spawning in it is. However, you’ll also want enough space for chests and a coconut farm.
Once your base is built, use any leaves you’ve acquired to craft fertile soil. Set down some in your base and plant your coconuts in it. 10 trees should be enough to sustain you. Use cobblestone flooring to build walkways wherever necessary, so that the growth of coconut trees won’t impede your movement.
Now that you have a stable food and water source, focus on raising your benignity to lower the difficulty to Easy or Medium. This can be done by tilling several tiles and planting grass or maple/spruce seeds. Rubbing orbs of influence counterclockwise also increases your benignity. Do this whenever your reputation gets too low.
Build a furnace, anvil, chests, and optionally a kiln in your base. Start crafting a set of leather armor, including a backpack. Wearing the backpack is not actually necessary to gain its weight reduction benefits. Store all tools that won’t be used for crafting or repair in the backpack.
Iron
Search first aboveground and later underground for iron, talc, limestone, and coal. Turn applicable resources into powders with a mortar and pestle. Build a sand cast flask and tongs, then start crafting your iron equipment. Start with a sword, as it is the best general-purpose weapon. Proceed to craft armor, starting with whichever pieces offer the highest increase in defense. Optionally, replace other stone tools with iron tools. I’d recommend a hammer, as it can help defeat monsters that are resistant to slashing and piercing, such as abberant skeletons.
Now you can basically ignore malignity and focus all of your efforts on treasure hunting or milestone achieving!
Tips
Interface
- Disable Auto Pickup and Auto Gather. You won’t want to damage your weapon walking around or be bothered by junk items that you walk over.
- Play with no turn delay and get used to pressing shift to face in different directions. This will make walking around faster and reduce your risk of making mistakes when trying to reorient yourself. If you do this, remove the mouse bindings for movement so you don’t accidentally move by misclicking.
- I recommend mapping Drop All to Ctrl+Shift+Right Click for consistency with Move All (Ctrl+Shift+Left Click).
- Always leave the inventory tab open, and leave crafting open, at least early on. Equipment only needs to be open when dealing with slither suckers or deciding which pieces of armor to make. You can also leave your backpack open too if you have enough screen space, though opening and closing it are free actions.
- Sort your inventory by weight (descending) and keep sort active. Most important items will be fairly heavy, and it will also be easier to see what heavy items you can drop to free up space.
Gameplay
- Quickslot tools instead of equipping them. This way, you can store many tools in a backpack and reduce their weight. You can also leave your weapon and shield equipped at all times.
- Don’t bother with bows or slings, as equipping them takes up valuable time in combat. If you still want a ranged option, practice throwing rocks and carry some around in your backpack. Spears are heavier and more expensive, but also a more damaging option.
- Store heavier items like logs and large rocks in piles on the ground rather than in chests.
- Always carry some medical items, including bandages or tourniquets to stop bleeding and medicinal water to cure poison or burning.
- Never underestimate abberant creatures. Even with full iron armor, abberant pirate ghosts and skeletons can still deal 10 or more damage at a time.
- Get to know the layout of your island so that you can recognize locations on tattered maps.
- Leave boglings alive when possible. They can create swamp tiles that contain peat, which can be used to craft better bandages.
- Instead of building a raft to navigate the ocean, train swimming. Higher levels can cause dexerity increases (more stamina capacity) and will drain it more slowly.
Milestones
- Abnormalizer: Killed 25 aberrant creatures.
Sleep in a cave and wait to be interrupted. Abberant creatures are more common at higher malignities, but it will take some time to find and kill 25 of them. - Artificer: Transmogrified an item.
Craft magical essence (ectoplasm, offal, ash) and apply it to an item. - Benevolent: Reached 64,000 benignity.
Till every open tile without grass and optionally plant grass or trees on them. Rub orbs of influence counterclockwise. - Boundless: Reach 125% in a single skill.
Transmogrify or craft legendary items until they add up to at least +25% in a single skill. Train that skill to the necessary level to reach 125%. - Chef: Cooked 25 food items.
Hunt animals and cook their meat and offal. - Collector: Collected one of every item.
I have yet to find a list of every item in the game. - Crafter: Crafted 250 items.
Chop down trees and craft various things out of their components (string, compost, tannin, etc.). - Doctor: Cured each status effect.
Use a bandage or tourniquet to cure bleeding (caused by large rats, wolves, bears, and sharks, among others). Drink medicinal water to cure poison (caused by spiders, boglings, tainted or raw meat, and unpurified fresh water). Pour water on yourself to cure burning (caused by stepping into a campfire, lava, or being attacked by a fire elemental). - Dragon Slayer: Slayed a drake.
I have never seen a drake, though I can guess they would be found in mountains or underground. - Explorer: Stepped on or gathered from every type of tile.
- Extincteur: Killed 1000 creatures.
Sleep in a cave and wait to be interrupted by monsters. - Friendly: Tamed 25 creatures.
Use maple or apple seeds to tame herbivores, meat to tame carnivores, and items to tame some monsters. The more hostile the creature, the faster the taming will wear off. - Gardener: Planted 50 plants or mushrooms.
Till open tiles and plant maple and spruce seeds. - Gatherer: Gathered 1000 times.
Use tools or your hands (with gloves) to gather from trees and rocks. - Grandmaster: Raised a skill to 100%.
Choose a skill that can be repeated easily; uses few, if any, resources; and has a reasonable chance of increasing each time practiced. I’ve reached 100% in gardening, which is also a good way to raise reputation. Throwing could be another potential candidate. Swimming has a lower chance of skill increase, making it more of a gamble when shooting for 100%. - Hunter: Killed 100 creatures.
Sleep in a cave and wait to be interrupted by monsters. - Locksmith: Lock picked 10 locks.
Comb open areas of caves for chests, or use tattered maps. - Malevolent: Reached 64,000 malignity.
Kill monsters, chop down trees, and craft items. Rub orbs of influence clockwise. - Navigator: Traversed the seas in search of new lands.
Craft a sailboat or bull boat and use it. - Prepared: Equipped something in each equipment slot.
There is a piece of leather armor that fits into each equipment slot. Skullcaps, bark armor, and animal pelts can also be worn as cheaper substitutes for leather. Of course, better armor can also be substituted. - Pulchritudinous: Equipped a legendary item in each equipment slot.
Craft one magical essence for every equipped item from Prepared. - Reaper of Souls: Killed 50 pirate ghosts and harvested their corpses.
Sleep in a cave and wait to be interrupted by monsters. Carve the corpses of any pirate ghosts. - Seafarer: Sailed to civilization and completed the game.
Gather enough treasure, build a sailboat, and use it. - Seasoned: Survived for 1,000,000 turns.
Sleep in your base and eat coconuts when necessary. If monsters bashing at your doors become a problem, just replace them with walls. - Survivor: Survived for 10,000 turns.
Sleep in your base and eat coconuts when necessary. If monsters bashing at your doors become a problem, just replace them with walls. - Talented: Reached 1000% in skill percentages across all skills.
Train whichever skills are low and can be easily trained. - Thrower: Thrown 500 items.
Quickslot stones and throw them into cave walls, replacing them when necessary by mining and dismantling any other rocks into stones. - Trapper: Injured 10 creatures with traps.
Craft a snare or deadfall, or repurpose a hobgoblin snare. Find a monster, set the trap, and kite the monster into the trap. Repeat until the monster dies or you’ve injured it 10 times. - Treasure Hunter: Dug or fished up 10 treasure chests.
Search in underground chests and kill monsters to find tattered maps. Familiarize yourself with your island and use the distance clues given by the maps to locate treasure. - Treasurer: Collected every one of the five types of treasure.
Search in underground chests and kill monsters to find tattered maps. Familiarize yourself with your island and use the distance clues given by the maps to locate treasure. Pirate ghosts can also occassionally yield treasure. - Weathered: Survived for 100,000 turns.
Sleep in your base and eat coconuts when necessary. If monsters bashing at your doors become a problem, just replace them with walls.
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