Removing the derpy moments from my first few playthroughs. Wall of text ;) This game was a struggle, both fun and frustrating - but most of the frustration was from things like “why is my villager sitting” and trying to get enough stuff done before invasions. These would be my tips. You will struggle if you do everything that your peasants should be doing. You will also struggle if you have been slow - because the invasions will undermine your work, kill you and your peasants and set you back if you aren’t prepared. Build a sledge/cart (Hit the build key, go to the Storage section) as soon as possible. A sledge will let you carry 6 large things, plus a range of smaller things (look at it, press “t” to open up it’s storage) . Don’t cut down a tree and carry 1xPiece at a time back to the building you are constructing - bring all the tree, have a stack of sticks in the cart storage. Build roads. You and the peasants move faster on them, importantly, when you run you don’t lose stamina on the road. Secondly, just for planning out a grid, you’re paths/roads can align and squeeze in your buildings better - otherwise, a building that’s slightly askew blocks the spot that you wanted to squeeze in building #2. Locate certain buildings together. So, a warehouse with food ingredients next to your cooking hut, cooking (and farming) also needs water - so have a nearby well. When people wake up, they make a beeline to the food, water and tools (if needed), so keep these convenient to your accommodation. Can’t stress it enough, as soon as possible, upgrade all natural water collectors into Wells if they’re in an area you are levelling to preserve them, only destroy them at need. Warehouses. Firstly, they are key to making some other buildings/workers work - and need workers. Secondly, for efficiency, it saves you from running to all of your farm, your gatherer, your hunter, your fishing dock to get cooking ingredients. Or to your logging, stone, mine etc all the time. Just go to the (conveniently placed) warehouse and the stuff that you - or you’re workers - need is all there. Address peasant needs to keep them able to work, rather than doing nothing - press the TAB button and look in the General section rather than opening dialog with them individually. Note, some things that stop them won’t be there, for example the cook needing the warehouse. Your workshop pit - make spare knives, bows, arrows axes, picks fishing rods etc. Put them into the toolrack, when you face the crafting table turn around it’s against the wall. Do this manually for the first long while, the building doesn’t need a worker at the beginning/middle game and make sure there is always at least one of each of the basics. If (ie if you are planning ahead…) you will use this first workshop for leather/weaver extensions, it will let you make warm clothes for the winter which will come sooner than you are otherwise ready for. Make note of where the full building with addons starts/stops and don’t build in that area. It can be helpful to start their construction to preserve their space (look at workshop, press “t”, select the building and manually place them - you will have to rotate them in position) - you don’t necessarily have to add the materials yet. After first buildings, ie gatherer hut/wood/stone/workshop are built, the next worker building targets are a farm for flax - flax will solve your rope requirements (a big bottleneck) and a cooking hut, plus warehouse for food. Then something for meat, such as a fishermans hut or a hunter. Moving onwards to warehouses for other materials (logs etc). From here you are sorta in mid game and need to do building upgrades and new unlocked buildings (make a rush to mining/metalwork/carpenter and military, plus walls). The key to get the cook working isn’t obvious from looking at their needs, they need warehouse (with racks for meat, vegetables, cooked goods) - and water access. Plus, you need to look at the cookhouse , press "q" and add tasks (e.g. manage fire, cook mushroom soup, cook meat soup etc.) Water is required for both farm/cooking, so place them close to/build a well. Aside from the obvious needs that the farmer tells you (e.g. a rake), look at the farm and press “T”. In the upgrades section, select “Farm Crop”, drag out and place out a 4x4 grid. After it’s built (and you’ve added the rope etc), look at the crop squares and press “Q” - to “view tasks”. The gatherer will have collected some flax seeds by now. So, in the task, change the seeds to flax. In the grid underneath, press on each square to add the flax crop to each square. Then change the season, repeat until all squares for all season have flax in them - and press the save button underneath. Move around and place markers (b for build, markers) for the gatherer, stone collector etc to where they should go looking for their core ingredients. Ultimately, once you’re past the beginning, you’re farms and hunters/fishers give you all the food ingredients plus flax and maybe reeds, the end use for the gatherer is to keep getting you feathers and eggs. The medium/end game runs on the same principals. Automate getting ore, firewood, coal to make iron bloom and hardwood for your metalworkers and carpenters via warehouses, plus setting tasks at the building. Next concept is to remove annoyances. If you have a sled with timber on it, don’t let anyone - or maybe just builders, grab timber from it, a timber dude should cut a tree to get logs - not grab it from your sled. So, this is where white/black lists come into play. For your sled/cart (works with buildings etc), there are 2 different context menus, so 1st menu is looking at the storage, which gives “E” Take and “T” Open Storage, 2nd menu when you look at the handles is “Q” Mount and “T” Open Sled. So, open the Sled menu and go to the 3rd tab for whitelisting. Personally, I disable all villagers from it. Though, I’ve toyed with the notion of having a sled so I position stuff for builders and a cart just for me. Village layout. When you know from which direction attacks come from, make disposable (ie cheap) buildings as the first buildings that an attack from that direction will first encounter. Stuff like torches, shelters etc. Also, that’s obviously the side of your village to have your barracks and watchtowers - make sure that you have your best watchman in the tower set for night time, so one with a night time perk and winter/wet weather bonuses - and upgrade that tower to make sure it has a horn to sound an alarm. Anyway, enough of my ramblings. You get the concept, let the cobbers do the cobbling, if you have to assist them with some cobbling do it efficiently (such as a cart with the whole tree instead of fetching one bit of log at a time) while you design the layout and tend to the ruling of your realm.