First of all, you'll want to decide what type of base you want to build and where to build it.

You'll generally want to find the largest flat area that you can, prefferebly cleared of trees to increase line of sight for your guards, and decrease terraforming work you'll need to do later.

As far as types of bases go, you have many options. You could go with an underground base, allowing you the entire surface area to use for defensive measures (although these are a lot of work, and require careful planning. My personal favourite.) , a typical castle for their aesthetic appeal and moderately well-rounded defense and effort required, or a sky-base, similar to an underground base in that surface area is usable for defenses, but much less aesthetically appealing in most scenarios, a tradeoff for the effort required in an underground base. Of course, there are others I haven't mentioned here, but these are the three main categories, and most others are some form of crossover.


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NO IMAGE YET,
TAKING SUBMISSIONS





NO IMAGE YET,
TAKING SUBMISSIONS

Then, map out on the ground the placement of your buildings, and dig your ditches. You can worry about finishing the buildings later, but you want to get your defenses dug immidiately (especially if someone in the server has already placed a banner, this will cause zombies to spawn).

After you've finished planning out your town, you can build as much of it as you feel is needed for the moment, I would reccomend building your most basic of battlements so that your first few guards have a place to shoot from at the minimum. You will then want to set up a minimum of two farms, I mention this because in some builds, such as underground or sky builds, this is actually a notable step.

Once you have basic defenses and two farms set up (possibly with room for more, if needed. Especially for Underground bases), you're ready to place your Banner!

Before placing your flag, ensure that your farmers will have enough to plant their entire fields in one day! As soon as you place your flag, hire two farmers, and if you have Daylight Zombies enabled, hire a guard as well-- be sure to place him where he can cover their work areas and their sleeping zones!

Ignore this step if you have daylight zombies enabled. When night falls, you'll need a guard. Be sure to place the guard so that he has long lines of sight in every direction, and can not be snuck up on by a zombie, and make sure that he guards the ONLY entrance to the area where you keep your sleeping Colonists!

Be sure to watch your guard and make sure he's okay before leaving him alone, this stands true whenever you make a major change to your defenses! Watching means not killing any zombies, as if you aid him he is NOT fit to guard alone! If you've had to help him, you CAN NOT leave him later until you know your defenses will hold!

On day Two, not much will happen. You can spend this time expanding your base, or assisting your guard if needed (assuming you have daylight zombies enabled)

On Day 3, your wheat will be ready to harvest! At this time, you should hire a Grinder and a Baker, one of each will do for now. You'll notice that you will have low food until the bread is cooked. Keep in mind that you only get food once every other day at this point in the game, so until this changed, be sure to keep at least two full days worth of food on hand!

From this point on, you should begin to increase your food production so you can sustain many more colonists, as you'll soon be expanding your successful colony rapidly!

After expanding your colony, you'll notice that more and more zombies are coming, and you'll be having fewer and fewer arrows to fend them off.

You'll quickly want to establish an Iron Miner, a Coal Miner, and a Tree Farm in order to automate produciton of Arrows. From this point, you'll want a Smelter to smelt Iron Ingots, and a Crafter to craft Logs into Planks and Iron Ingots and Planks into Arrows.

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You'll also want to increase defenses, so you can use those arrows to destroy those pesky Zombies! Remember how we dug our ditches at the start? That should slow them down long enough for just a few archers to shoot them as they pass through your path, although as the hordes increase you'll want to increase your guards as well.

It's never a bad thing to be several steps ahead, so keep increasing your defenses as time goes on! Especially online where other players' colonies also influence spawnrates.

You've done it! Your colony can sustain itself with arrows for defense, and hold out the zombie horde. Your farmers are able to sustain and grow your colony, now all you need to do is expand!

At this point, you can also consider hiring a gold miner and a establishing a mint if you want Flax later. Otherwise, just keep expanding.

Once your colony is large and thriving, you'll be able to help others. I tend to allow others to establish small FOBs inside of my base, with a few beds and miners, so they can safely gain materials. You can also station your guards at nearby bases, for mutual benefit of helping your friends, and shrinking the hordes before they reach you!
Just make sure your production is always positive! If you start using more than you make, you want to correct it ASAP or you'll run out of whatever it is you're using! (It happens faster than you think, do not delay)

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