This guide is here to explain certain mechanics that aren't talked about very well in game, and will be presented in order that you may encounter them.


Game Difficulty Settings:

Bandits migration frequency:
This controls how often new bandit spawn camps pop up in each individual zone. I recommend setting it to high, due to how clearing bandit camps provides bonuses to villages later on in the game.

Multiple Threats at Once
This controls whether or not it's possible for an individual bandit raid can spawn along with a village reclamation party (late game village assault). This will also impact, to a lesser extent, raids on outposts (outpost raids are extremely infrequent from my experience. I saw 2 in 125 days/an entire playthrough on my singular, 2 man outpost, although it's possible that villager population in the outpost influences frequency).

Hit Boxes
Each character model appears to have roughly 3 hitboxes from my experience: Head, limbs and below the stomach, and torso. Headshots grant heavily increased damage. Torso is normal, limbs get reduced damage. I'm not sure about the % increases. Headshots are only available through ranged attacks.

Damage Types
Blunt, Pierce, and Slashing resistances haven't been put into the game yet. Certain traits, fierce for example, will increase one damage type. Anyone claiming damage resistances have been implemented and cite the sword stabbing motion as evidence of piercing doing lower damage per hit are accidentally hitting the low limb hitbox which has a damage reduction multiplier put on it. I've tested this extensively as of August 2025.

Stat Influencers

Combat Attribute Bonuses
When something influences Combat attributes, it increases the total percentage bonus of the original attribute. I realize that doesn't explain much, so I'll give you an example to clarify.

Each level of strength grants 5% damage. Each level of weaponry grants 2% damage.

My character has 10/10 Strength, 10/10 Two handed weaponry, and 8/10 One-handed weaponry.

Increased levels of strength, and weaponry levels will influence attack speed and damage (as well as other things, but the same principle applies).

At 10/10 strength with no additional influence, your character will gain a bonus of 50% damage to their attacks.

If your character eats three combat attribute influencing foods, (there are two separate fine meat stews which grant +60% and +40% combat attributes, and one fine stew that grants 20% ), this is how you'd calculate your new bonus damage.

New Bonus % Damage == Original Bonus Damage x %of combat attribute influencers + Original Bonus Combat damage

New Bonus % damage == (50% x 120%) + 50%
New Bonus % damage == 60% + 50 %
New Bonus % damage == 110%.

In order to find your true melee damage, you'd add in the bonus damage from your one handed or two handed weapons, and those would be calculated the same way.

What does this mean for combat attributes
Combat attribute bonuses are not that important at low skill levels, and scale out of control when you near the cap. This means someone with the stalwart trait (+50% combat attributes) isn't necessarily that much stronger than someone without the stalwart trait, until stats are near gameplay cap. Don't stress if you can't find an early stalwart, and don't stress if you can't find a late game stalwart. The game isn't hard enough to want to break your back in search of the perfect companion fighter, not by a long shot.

As you near the cap for skills, you'll find that stacking combat attribute food make you into a God as your agility increases your move speed and swing speed. I found myself struggling using a bow and kiting every raid to death to chopping down entire reclamation parties on Hard difficulty levels solo using my 2h tier 2 sword without much difficulty due to how agility and combat attribute bonuses influence acceleration/deceleration/movespeed.

Productivity

This appears to influence speed of certain tasks. It is not a flat % increase, I will explain using my character with 7/10 crafting on a thresher producing wheats.

7/10 crafting yields 35% faster craft times. I'm crafting wheat (default 12 seconds). Because of my crafting skill, it gets done in 7 seconds (12 x (1-0.35)) = 7.8 seconds, this gets rounded down for some reason.

If I were to eat a grilled fish fillet, I'd gain a 20% productivity bonus. This brings my crafting time down to 6 seconds.

0.35 x 0.20 = .07

Add that % onto your original crafting bonus, and your new crafting speed is 42% faster, rather than the original 35%.

So, with that 20% productivity bonus, your wheat crafting time goes from 7.8 seconds to 6.96 seconds.

What does this mean
Same as with combat attributes. It's not that important at low skill levels, and they scale completely out of control when you're near the cap. Don't bother hunting for characters with the neurotic trait unless you see them with crafting max levels above 7.

How does productivity apply to farming?
It really doesn't. It appears that crop growth time is independent of productivity. It does appear to influence the speed of weeding the crops though, albeit in such a small manner that it is functionally useless.

Morale
Influences max hp/stamina/productivity/damage bonus.
Villagers gain morale for a number of reasons:
Being well fed
Being in a house that matches the current tier
Having full health
Having recruits from the same settlement (+) // Having too many recruits (3+) from the same settlement (-)
Being in a fight
Being injured
Defeating a raid
Having optimistic trait/negative trait

Don't worry too much about this stat. Your villagers are, more likely than not, going to be stoked all the time.

Prosperity
When you liberate a village, you'll find each one has a prosperity bar. There doesn't seem to be a huge benefit to increasing the amount of prosperity tiers in each village, as the main benefit to liberating them in the first place is getting access to daily trading with them. This might change with full release, as the game implies villages might actually buy things from you at a later stage.

Food Priorities
Villagers wake up and immediately seek out the closest source of food. In order to guide your villagers to eating beneficial food, place camp chests next to houses of villagers with the desired food to encourage them to make healthier food decisions. In your food storages, villagers will prioritize eating whatever is in the first two slots.

Housing
If your house matches the current tech tier, you get +10 morale. I'm of the opinion that the tier 2 houses are the most efficient in terms of space and how they fit into your village.
The tier 3 houses can be completely skipped until you get the final tier of inn, which fits 10 people.