So, you want to play The Black Death, but you're tired of the terrible developers and lack of bug fixes? You're tired of your Homestead constantly resetting? Tired of other players stealing your land? Tired of having to waste your time walking all the way across the map to get back to your Homestead? Well, this is exactly the guide for you.

In this guide I'm going to teach you everything about the game, and the many things players take advantage of to improve their game play experience in The Black Death.

The most common complaint players give about The Black Death is that they're losing their Homestead. If this has happened to you, don't worry, you're not alone! Even I have lost my Homestead in the past, but there's an easy way to fix this.

The first step is going to be going into your Black Death files so you can make a backup of your Homestead. You can do this by first right clicking the game in your Steam Library and choosing "Properties".


After you have done this, go over to the tab that says "LOCAL FILES" and select, "BROWSE LOCAL FILES..."


From here you'll want to double click and enter the "Plague" folder.


The folder where your save files are are located in the "Saved" folder. Make a copy of this entire folder and call it whatever you wish. I named mine, "Saved_Backup".


Anytime you make a change to your Homestead that you don't wish to lose, simply copy all of the files from your Saved folder into your Saved_Backup folder.

If your Homestead ever resets, simply close the game all the way (Important) and copy the files from your Saved_Backup folder into your Saved folder.

Now that you aren't losing your Homestead, you likely have some nice real estate with pretty much everything right? I'm going to teach you a secret so that you'll never lose it again after you decide it's finished! Before doing this, make sure that you really don't want to modify your Homestead again because you won't be able to after you make this change.

Make sure your game is not running and then head back into the game files once more, check the first section again if you don't remember how. You'll want to be in the Saved folder. Select the file called "Homestead_Chunk01MainData.Sav". Right click the file and choose "Properties".


From here you'll want to check the box that says "Read-Only". Then you can press "OK" and close the file. After you open the game back up, the game client will no longer be able to make changes to your Homestead and it will remain the same forever, and never be wiped again!

So you've got the perfect Homestead of your dreams, and now you want to move to 'Merica to continue your voyage? Let's teach you everything you need to know about building and protecting your land from other players!



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The first thing you'll need to know if you're new, is that there is limited building space in 'Merica. There are three different types of land you can claim, and land claims will not appear on the map until after a player has captured them.

The three types of land claims are as follows:

• Land Claim - This is the smallest and most common plot of land. It cannot fit very many buildings, but it's good enough if you just need a basic base to live out of and don't care about making a nice base to live in.
  
  
  
  
• Town Land Claim - This is a medium sized plot of land. Some of these plots of land are different in size, but generally all are big enough to build a nice sized base. You can fit just about all of the buildings and structures in the game on a Town Land Claim.
  
  
  
• Kingdom Land Claim - This is the largest of the plots of land. There are only three of these Land Claims in all of 'Merica. One is on the far left side of the map, one closer towards the middle, and the last is closer towards the right side of 'Merica. These plots of land are for building enthusiasts or larger groups of players who need a huge base. A Kingdom Land Claim can fit every building and structure inside of it many times over.
  
  
  
  All of these plots of land will have a Flag in the middle, which can be purchased to give a player ownership of that land claim. If you wish to steal a plot of land from another player, you'll first have to reach the flag in the center of the land claim and break it before you can purchase it for yourself.

In The Black Death, there are 5 Tiers of protection for your land and buildings.

• Tier 1: Waddle Door, Waddle Gate, Waddle Wall
  
• Tier 2: Palisade Gate House, Palisade Wall
  
• Tier 3: Wooden Door, Stone Gate House, Stone Wall
  
• Tier 4: Reinforced Wooden Door, Castle Gate House, Castle Wall
  
• Tier 5: Iron Door, Kingdom Gate House, Kingdom Wall

An Iron Maul is the most commonly used weapon for breaking walls and doors. Each tier requires the following amount of Iron Mauls in order to break the Wall or Door (without any skill modifiers, all values are rough estimates).

• Tier 1 - 0.50 Mauls
  
• Tier 2 - 0.75 Mauls
  
• Tier 3 - 1.00 Mauls
  
• Tier 4 - 3.50 Mauls
  
• Tier 5 - 4.75 Mauls

Some structures can only be damaged by arrows, using a Bow. A Recurve Bow is the most powerful Bow. The amount of arrows required to destroy each structure using a Recurve Bow is listed below (approximate values). Right now I only have a few here, but I'll continue to add more as I test each building and structure.

• Barracks -
  
• Deep Well - 100 arrows
  
• Kingdom Keep - 1500 arrows
  
• Large House -
  
• Manor House -
  
• Town Hall -

Currently siege weapons are only able to be placed on your own land, so they cannot be used to attack another player's land claim unless you are on a land claim that's very close to another one.

Placing a structure over the flag in the center of your land claim is the best way to deter another player from stealing your land. There is no fool proof method to stop a player from being able to take a land claim flag, but there are some ways that can be very effective at deterring another player from trying.


1. Build walls around your land. This is likely the most obvious one, and least likely to keep another player out. Pairing this with other options however, will make another player have to do much more work to steal your precious land.



2. Use buildings as walls for your territory. Buildings cannot be targeted by melee weapons, and require a massive amount of arrows to destroy. This naturally makes them better walls than real walls, since real walls are fairly easy to destroy with a Maul.



3. Place a Town Hall over your Flag. Town Halls are the only building which you can place a Deep Well inside. This makes it the most ideal and viable structure to place over your Flag.


4. Place a Deep Well over your Flag. By using a Town Hall, you can have both a building and a Deep Well over your land claim flag for added protection. Deep Wells are only able to be targeted with Bows, which makes them a pain to break since players will need both Mauls and Bows to capture your land claim.



5. Block the doorway with a Wattle or a Palisade Gate House. You can also use multiple Wattle or Palisade gates directly in front of the doorway. Wattle and Palisade Gatehouses are currently bugged and cannot be destroyed by any player except the one who placed it. If another player attempts to break or destroy it, the server will crash. This makes it the most ideal structure for protecting your territory's land claim flag (version 0.38).

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If you do not need to go into the building, just block it with one gate house, but if you would like to enter you can simply place multiple gate houses with an Iron Door on each. Since the gate houses are indestructible, the only way for a player to enter will be to break all of the doors which can be a pain and deter them from trying altogether.

One of the first things you should do after acquiring a Land Claim in 'Merica is place either a Sleeping Bag or a Bed down. This will enable you to respawn at your Land Claim as opposed to spawning at a Ferry Port each time you play. This will save you a great deal of time traveling from the Ferry to your Land Claim!


Once you have your Bed or Sleeping Bag down, there's a very easy way to travel without having to go all the way back down to a Ferry Port from your Land Claim each time. This can be accomplished by using the Command Prompt while in game and the command "open". You can press ` to open the in-game command prompt.

Here's a list of commands to travel to each map:

• open Arena_Deathmatch
  This command takes you to "The Arena" map.
  
  
• open Crusade
  This command takes you to "The Crusade" map.
  
  
• open Homestead_Chunk01
  This command takes you to your Homestead.
  
  
• open Siege
  This command takes you to the "Attack The North!" map.

These commands can be used to bring things out of your Homestead to quickly build up your Land Claim, or to travel to the special maps to raid items.

• Medical - Level 12
  
• Artistry - Level 25
  
• Cooking - Level 14
  
• Farming - Level 17
  
• Smithing - Level 28
  
• Building - Level 21
  
• Survival - Level 16
  
• Banditry - Level 14

You can acquire double, sometimes even triple the amount of items in The Black Death when playing on a server outside the Homestead and Raid maps.

• Gatherable Items - By spamming the pickup button (E) you can grab 2 or 3 of the material as opposed to only getting a single item.
  
  
• NPC Vendors - Right clicking an item at a vendor after purchasing it will allow you to purchase the item again. If you do it fast enough you can even acquire the same item 3 times when the vendor only has one of them in stock.

Cotton Swabs and Bandages heal for the entire duration of poison.

Eating a Wild Berry or Raw Meat right before using a Cotton Swab or Bandage will enable you to cancel the damage from the toxic food and instead extend the duration of your healing for much longer than you normally would.

This is very useful, especially in the beginning stages, for fighting Bandits, and is also very helpful when fighting against other players.

That's all I have for now.

Hopefully you enjoyed the information I have provided and it helps you have more fun playing The Black Death!

Be sure to upvote my guide and be sure to recommend the game to your friends so the developers can continue working on the game and improving it. :)