If this is your first run: the game is punishing and brutal, don't be a hero, go nice vacation (for the stat boost) with save games. You will need to reload often.

Some character stats are randomly reset. Immediately reload if any of the four family members has
the stubborn trait (-25% xp). The game is hard enough without having to cope with this. Reload until you get a start that doesn't have this trait.

What to build? Depression is a killer, and if this is your first run through it will be a big threat. As well as from your own choices, game events can push this up. The only way to get it down reliably is to build the tavern. So, build the tavern.

Don’t start the fire the first night, and get an achievement for going through the night in the dark :)

Afternoon of Day 2 Big bad will come. You will win first fight against underlings but big bad will wipe you on 2nd fight. Put Eirik, Blod and Kari into first fight, they should win with zero injuries. Only put one character, best is Moira, into 2nd fight. She will be one shotted. That way, only one character gets injured in fight with big bad.

The fire will go out if you leave it untended. Make sure you have enough for the night taking into account the weather. To be sure, never have it below 50% before night.

Game events can trigger which add to fatigue and deterioration. Try to ensure that you do not go to night with either fatigue or deterioation above 65%.

If a character has fatigue, deterioration or hunger above 75% before starting night, there is a high chance they will die.

Use potions and powders to get these down before you go to night.

Churchill famously fought WWII by sleeping in til midday. Do the same.

Fatigue effects everything. This is priority to keep low. Build the rest camp early and use it. Use resources from the shipwreck to make this.

If you characters aren't going to recover their fatigue to zero over night, maybe rest them in the shelter for an afternoon or morning.

At launch, there was a hard time limit in game, that's gone now so there is no need to rush it.

Get your head around how the character systems interlock.

Hunger only affects concentration skills. Sickness only affects endurance skills. So, specialise. Have one crafter, and keep their hunger at zero. Have labour characters, and keep their sickness at zero.

This leads to key tip

Do not feed your labour characters food that could increase their sickness like raw meat.

Instead, get the harvesting camp early, and feed everyone berries.

Bad weather (rain, storms, drought) will affect characters badly during the day if they aren't resting, and then again at night. It's usually better to rest in shelter / rest camp / tavern and ride out the storm.

Other side of that, push your team harder on sunny days to make up for lost time. Use the bad weather days to rest them.

Don't get stuck in camp just crafting. You need to explore to

- start the two main story arcs.
- get key items to build critical things for your camp

The main story arcs start from exploration events. These aren't signposted well and are very easily missed.

Start the 1st main story arc by finding the blue lady with the cats and waking her.
Start the 2nd main story arc by finding the warrior woman.

All exploration events are gated behind skill checks. These can be easily failed even if you have high skill. This is incredibly frustrating when it happens.

Key tip: only do critical skill checks at the start of each morning. If you fail, you can load the save game and haven't lost much progress. Use potions to get injury, depression, sickness, hunger to zero before doing skill checks.

Skills that are tested frequently are courage, wisdom, agility, scavenging. Try to get at least one character to above 80 in each of these.

You need ancient knowledge to build your tier 1 improvements, get 2 of these early searching the blue lady and by breaking into the tomb. Use one to unlock tier 1, the other to improve your fire knowledge.

You need fire crystals to build critical tier 1 improvements, get 2 early from searching around the barrel on the shore. Do not take the wood. and 2nd from searching the campfire. Use one to improve your efficiency at producing potable water, which is a critical step, and 2nd to make the idol for getting depression down every night.

Here comes Elof, and that isn't Duffy he's riding...

Tributes can be tough, and are a key choice, do you comply, or defy?

If you don’t pay the tributes, there will be consequences.

Remember Elof comes at midday so you still have the morning session to retrieve things if you are close to the wire. Try to save key map events until you actually need them for the tribute. For instance, save the fruit for the fruit tribute etc.

Congratulations, you survived the first week without dying in an amusing way. You're heading towards day 20, recruiting your first companions, and progressing on the story quests.

Here are some more in depth tips to get you set up for the next stage.

Rope is a scarce resource. Make more by building the herbalist and the forge.

Resources in camp deteriorate if you use them often the same day, your fatigue can spike alarmingly. Try to use once a day and let them recover overnight.

Characters who like each other do more. Build double work stations and pair up people who like each other, like Eirik and Kari. This is key for progressing into middle game.

Hunger becomes an issue. Get a 2nd slot on the harvesting camp, then get the fishing camp and the cooking pot, go fishing in the morning and cook in the afternoon. You will get hunger to zero very quickly.

Depression: you don't get depression from crafting, cooking, hunting, picking berries or exploring. So you can do these on rainy days without getting the extra depression penalty.

You can recruit new characters. Some are really useful. Some are….well, you have been warned.

For character level traits, save these until first thing in the morning. If you get really bad selection you can load save game and retry. Or save scum like a boss....

You can get a lot of resources by winning battles. You get even more by using characters who are looters. You can recruit Shanaw and Eustache for this.