Don't give them the most fancy and expensive gear, that's for infantry. Have your Carpenter make Wooden Clubs for every settler you have and then go to each settler's "Maintain in Inventory" and click the + sign for Club.

This is essential for the early game attacks, as you usually won't have a standing army until the mid game. A mob of settlers can easily kill a few goblins/skeletons in the early game.

Do this so you can get the best weapons and armor quicker, as well as tools, so you can survive a few shots and kill quicker. Produce ingots with caution, they increase your wealth considerably making enemies spawn in larger numbers, with better gear. You can do this by making minecarts and deconstructing them over and over and over and over again. It's tedious but you need those Broadswords and Tower Shields quick.

When building a settlement, put it on the water. Water will slow down enemies and makes them less likely to path over when wandering. Enemies are almost defenseless in water, except for skeletons as they kinda just walk at the bottom of the ocean. Also build walls like this:


Like this:


And if you find a place like this, you're golden:


When you build walls along the coast like I showed you, you're golden. They're gonna search for new places to get in and these walls will prevent all attacks from Wolves, Skeletons, and Goblins. Spiders are harmless for now anyways, so it's cool.

You absolutely need something of a standing army by the mid game. When I say this I mean dedicated Infantry and Archers. Place plenty of guard positions, spacing them out for maximum vision around your settlement.

Your composition should be 80%-90% Infantry and 10%-20% Archers just about. Why? Because Infantry > Archers. They don't miss, they're stronger, they can take hits, and are overall much more reliable and less complicated to use. Am I saying Archers are completely useless? Actually, they're almost completely useless unless they are high leveled. They are super inaccurate at early levels and can friendly fire. Don't even think of using Flaming Arrows near your settlement.

Make sure all your Soldiers are at least level 11 before they're put on duty to increase their survivability. Make plenty of training dummies and archery targets (away from the people).

Equip you Infantry with the most protective/Heaviest Armors you can find and I'm even thinking of giving Archers Heavy Armor for stationary guard positions. Why? So they don't die in 3 shots from a Skeleton/Goblin Archer. Also get shields, preferably Tower Shields. 20% Block Chance is a big number.

Lastly, make sure your recruiting the best of the best. If a settler comes in with traits like Athletic, Strong Back, Courageous, I make him an Infantry unit on the spot. This improves their carrying capacity and speed tremendously, allowing them to deal with threats further away and faster. If I see Good Vision, I make them an Archer because it improves sight (duh) and accuracy when shooting.

DO NOT HAVE MILITARY UNITS WITH TRAITS LIKE:
Cowardly, Bad Vision, Weak Back, Sluggish etc. as they will not be as good as a normal no trait unit.

If you get a migrant and you have absolutely no idea what to do with them you have 2 options.
1. Farming
2. Military

You can't go wrong. At the mid game you should have quite a bit of Farmers and a large Farm like this:


Don't expect migrants if you don't produce food.

Like a certain Republican says, build walls to keep the invaders out. (Not trying to offend anyone don't kill me). Walls are useful for keeping things out, and your settlers in. Your settlement should really only have 4 or less ways in, many will say 1 way but I've been able to do 3 gates on my settlement without difficulty.

Put your archers on top of these walls and an infantry or 2 infront of the gate and you're good. Given that your infantry have good armor, level, and weapons.

If you really want to protect your wall/settlement, make a moat or trench infront of it. This will give you resources as you're digging and it will prevent enemies from getting infront of your wall to break it down if there's no other way to get in. Make sure the trench is at least 2 blocks down from the surface.

Extra Warning: Spiders can climb over walls but they're nothing. Until they add that Spider Matriarch. Better put some Ballistas on those walls.

Do this to funnel enemies and create chokepoints. This is a simple and easy thing to do, but a lot of people don't.

Example:

You see this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥? He's nothing. Now if he has an army of skeletons? That's a little bit of a problem.

Your priority is the Necromancer, save the skeletons for last as they will be respawned by the Necromancer.

The Necromancer has the ability to spawn skeletons out of thin air with a limit, spawn skeletons from humanoid corpses with no limit, and shoot fire balls at trees. It's spooky scary I know but you can do it. You shoulda seen this baddy when he actively shot fire balls like a machine gun.

If the Necromancer is surrounded by skeletons, get another unit to kite the skeletons away. It would be very dangerous to charge them straight on, and probably won't work due to Courage issues making your soldiers retreat. once the skeletons are far enough from the Necromancer, run up to it and slap it in the face with your choice of sword or polearm. You can also use an Archer for longer ranged target practice.

After kiting the skeletons away, kite them more and split them up into small groups to deal with them. They shouldn't be equipped with any real weapons besides the occassional bow but that's not too bad.

I've also noticed that the Necromancer will run away and actively try to escape his demise sometimes, which is what's happening in the above picture. It's hilarious and isn't harmful at all. As long as you kill it of course.

You see this? Happens to me every time. Do you know what I'm talking about?

When you see this message appear, most players are ecstatic to finally get another settler in their game. Usually I am too. But then I see the traits. I absolutely hate it when the settler is an "OverEater". Why you may ask? Well they eat more food of course.

This usually becomes a problem in the later part of the game or when you don't have high enough food production. Over Eaters eat around 1.6 times more food than the average settler which can be devastating to your supplies if you get too many of them. I usually try to deny them as taking in an Over Eater will decrease your food surplus, making it even less likely to get a new settler again. By far this is probably the worst trait to have.

You may also want to deny settlers with Lazy, Bad Vision, Sluggish and Weak Back as well

I hope you learned something maggots, and can play the game without being completely rekt. You will lose people, but they can be replaced. Except for that Blacksmith, that's gonna be a ♥♥♥♥♥ to replace.

ANYWAYS I will continue adding stuff to this guide, like and comment with questions if you need help. I'm always willing to shell out advice and tactics for those who need.