One of the most important and central strategic components of The Flame in the Flood is Aesop's Bag. Items you place on Aesop (or Daisy) will carry over to your next life. You can use this to make various achievements like Vegetarian or Paleo Diet much easier.

For River God, I found these items to be the most useful:

• 10 Penicillin
  
• 10 Jerky
  
• 10 Jars of Water
  
• 10 Stitching Kits
  
• 10 Raft Schematics
  
• 1 White/Elder Wolf Jacket

- Go to every tile you can early on. Generally prioritize tiles as such:

• Hardware Store
  
• Liquor Store
  
• Filling Station
  
• Bait Shack
  
• Clinic
  
• Farmstead
  
• Church
  
• Camp
  
• Wilderness

- Obviously change where you go depending on your current needs. For example, if you need stitching kits right now, prioritize bait shacks instead.

- Prioritize raft upgrades as such:

• Rudder
  
• Storage
  
• Shelter
  
• Stove
  
• Frame/Purifier/Motor in any order

- Some prefer getting the frame earlier. In my opinion you shouldn't be crashing enough to need it before essentials like shelter and food.

- It is worth it to kill every rabbit you see early game. Their hides are used in everything early on. Box traps are best, but don't be afraid to use gas bombs. 3-5 rabbits for one jar and one sumac is a great tradeoff.
- Use your hides for pouches first, then rabbit clothing, then leather kits
- With a White/Elder Wolf Jacket and full rabbit clothing, you'll be protected from most early game cold. After rabbit go straight for bear clothing. Don't bother with boar or wolf gear! You should only need 5 total leather kits if you do so. Bears will die with any combination of 4 hits. I like doing three spike traps and one arrow, but any combo will do.
- Once you have all the pouches and full bear gear (+ white/elder wolf jacket) you do not need to keep any leather kits or hides except boar hides (for making steel knives).

- In comparison to early game, late game resources are scarce, so there will not be much to forage and gather. It is less worth it to stop at every tile, but generally still worth it to check for wolf & bear fights at the very least.

- As such, your best and easiest source of food is making bears and wolves fight each other (sometimes you'll get lucky and a boar will fight a bear too, but that's mostly out of your control). It's free raw meat and usually free bear cave loot like valuable repair patches. This is sometimes your only source of fresh food at this point. Just be careful to not be near the bear when he is fighting. Sometimes he will aggro onto you. Let him rest at his cave before gathering the spoils.

- Keep things like jerky, ash cakes, grubs, and cooked yucca in your storage. Do not eat them! Reliable food past mile 100 is very scarce. Make jerky as soon as you get salt, and cook corn and yucca as soon as you can. Tainted meat is also effectively non-perishable, because it doesn't go bad and you can throw it to get raw meat out of any wolf. Have a good reserve of non-perishables by late game. By mile 100 I had 30 jerky, 10 ash cakes, 10 cooked yucca, and 10 grubs, plus all my cattails and teas.

- If you have a good food store you can gun it down the river, especially near the end. Take the rapids and use your motor. I barely stopped past mile 150 besides to refuel/eat/sleep/etc.

- Past mile 120 or so it is 90% wilderness, regardless of location. Plan accordingly and rebuild any tools that need a workbench before then.

- 10 jars of water is plenty. Start filling up gas or making tea. Trust me, you'll want the gas when you get excruciatingly slow wasteland rivers, which are fairly common past mile 100. Gas is a literal lifesaver during those.

- The most useful upgrades to get are the four pouches, the raft storage, and the rudder (as well as the White/Elder Wolf jacket you should be starting with). With these the game goes from difficult to manageable. Having more inventory means throwing away less valuables and wasting time with inventory management, and the rudder lets you actually control your boat and choose where to land.

- Clean water can be collected from rain. Anytime its raining top off your thirst meter and fill all your jars. Try to keep 10 or so clean waters at a time. I wouldn't bother with filters. It rains enough if you keep moving. However, there is a little trick: filters can be "reset" if you drop them on the ground. Use it twice, and then drop it at 1/3 uses remaining. It will have 3/3 uses again when you loot it back. (This can also be used to reset your bow!)

- Raw materials are better than crafted items. Keep as many raw materials on hand as you can and only craft when you need something specific (e.g. Don't turn your cattails into cords early). Having said that, some items, like stitching kits and penicillin, as well as teas, bandages, and similar can be pre-crafted for convenience, or if there is no other item you'll need the raw material for.

- Tainted bait can sometimes be picked back up as a wolf is eating it, giving you effectively a free wolf kill and raw meat.

- Quests can be useful. Sometimes it's worth it to get cut and apply a bandage for a free jerky. At the very least be sure to pick up a quest from every mailbox in case you complete it accidentally. If you don't press "collect" on the mailbox all of your quest items are effectively in free storage. But do note: when you do press collect, any item left behind will disappear.

- Always be looking ahead when you are running (using the right stick on controller). Use this to "scout" ahead while you're moving. This will prevent a lot of surprise boar rams, wolf alerts, and snake bites.

- Very rarely you might encounter a bug where the river just ends. Try to find the smallest piece of land in the way of the "next" river and hop over the land. You will take some damage so keep your raft at full at all times. But this should let you hop into a properly generated river.

- You can quit the game from the pause menu and it will reload you at the beginning of the tile you just landed on. Don't save scum if you don't want to, but if you're being attacked by a bear with no way out, or your character gets bugged into not moving, it's okay to quit out and not lose all your progress.

- If you aren't above exploits, the infinite torch glitch can come in handy. Just pull out a torch and put it away when it reaches 0%. It will make a tsss sound when it goes out. Hover over the unequip button and stow it right as that sounds starts. Now when you take it out, it will be unlit, but animals like wolves will still avoid you.

- I finished the raft by mile 45
- I had full bear clothing by mile 35 or so.
- I saw marinas all the way up to 200 (my last one was at 199.1). I never had trouble with durability or gas. I had many repair patches left.
- I didn't start using my reserve food until 130, and never ate a jerky the entire run. So this leads to me to believe if you have at least 30ish jerky by mile 100, you'll probably be okay making it to 200 food-wise.
- I barely stopped for anything past about 150. I knew I had the resources to make it and I had been stockpiling gas. I only stopped at marinas to refuel and fix my raft, and the very occasional wilderness to restock cooked meat.
- This guide was insanely useful for information during my run. I would say it's probably the best guide for The Flame in the Flood out there.

200 mile mark:

Inventory at the end of the run:

Clothing: