It was time to start mounting some kind of defense from all the attacks we would be facing. There were also many more issues to resolve. Some of the issues would end up being bugs, and the least fun to work around in any game.
With how my first blood moon went. I decided it was worth putting the time and effort into building a fence. The fence itself is quite flimsy and easy to take out. It’s also cheap to build and rebuild.
The main reason behind it is threefold. First, it resolves the settlement issues of my villagers not feeling safe since we don’t have any kind of defenses, like a fence in place. Second, it keeps these bunnies' looking thing called Smokers out that cause mayhem by trashing things. Finally, it buys my village a short amount of time in the form of warnings that the outer premier is under attack.
I’ll admit the green fence outline is perhaps my worst job ever at making a fence in a game. There were quite a few large rocks and other things I could not destroy. I was building through a forest as well, not wanting to spend too much time clearing things out.
It also ended up becoming a bigger time investment than I was expecting. So, at one point, I just started to try to enclose most of the buildings. While also giving myself some room to build in.
I made sure to leave myself a few gates to get out of the fence area. If I did not feel like I was under some kind of time crunch between attacks and surviving whatever winter brings. I’d have spent more time laying out this village a lot better. That was, however, not a luxury I had.
By the time the next blood moon rolled around, this plan ended up working out great. As expected, the fence did not hold up long in sections that were attacked. This, however, gave me and another villager enough lead time to spring into action.
Thankfully, the village was still small enough at the time that finding where the attack was coming from was the easy part. I also managed to lose only a fraction of the health that I did from the last attack.
This was not without some consequences. Fences would need to be repaired, which would cost me both time and resources. Having a fence while restricting things from getting in so easily also restricted me in terms of movement and building room.
As it would turn out. If I want a big enough village for everything I want. I would end up needing to build a second area of fencing. For now, this at least meets my needs. It did eat up more time than I was hoping.
After not having any of their own shelter for quite some time. Along with getting tired of dealing with not having full health. I decided to build a house for myself. This place would end up providing me with some decent health recovery. While I'd later unlock better options. This was quite a little upgrade for me.
This would end up taking the village a couple of days to work on. A side benefit I had not known about yet was the ability to build containers and furniture inside. Up until now, I had been struggling with where to store things without a villager running off with them as their own.
This was also hard to put resources and time towards. The village had so many things that were needed. Between getting a cook hut up so we could at least have a better consistency in having good food. Building fields to grow crops in on a farm, and so on. It just seemed like the village always had more pressing matters to deal with.
As if I had not dealt with enough issues already. One late night in Autumn, we are under attack by a bear. I did as much damage as I could to it before needing to pull back. This thing wrecked a lot of damage on the village itself.
It also broke the fence. Funny enough, if you look at the screenshot above, you can see a Smoker (bunny) snuck in and was already causing trouble. I’d later hunt it down and get some meat for my efforts. That was, however, after dealing with a far more pressing matter.
I wish I could say we killed the bear, but that is not how it went down. Instead, I had to pull back from the fight. I ended up losing my first villager, and ever since I've left their gravestone where they got killed as a reminder of the sacrifice that villager gave.
After a lot more damage and some others almost getting killed as well. The bear just left. I suppose I could say most of us survived to fight another day, and that is all that matters. It was still quite the setback.
My first goal after killing the bunny that was running around the base was to get the broken part of the fence fixed. I then had some buildings that needed repairs as well. While I had some builders to help with repairs. It still ate up more time than I'd have hoped.
At least the fence had proven to be worth the investment. While I had lost one person that night. Who knows how many more if I had not spent the time building one in the first place? It was also clear I was going to need more guard huts as well. I had built one, and its guard needed replacing. I also increased the number of workers at it. Since it became clear, I have no idea the kind of attacks that could be coming my way, and having more defense was going to be needed.
It seems I was not short on the number of issues the village would be dealing with. Food, despite being something I thought we got a good handle on, suddenly became an issue again. It turns out the food hut required a lot more attention than I was hoping. There was an issue with eggs, and they're not producing food with the resources we already have.
It became quite clear that the person I put in charge of the cooking had no idea how to cook! We, however, did not have any better options. So, I spent some time showing them how to cook some basic stuff. I also got their tasks more in order and resolved some things that were not working as intended. Having to make food for myself and nine others each day was not going to be an option.
Moving forward, I ended up checking in on food supplies a little more often than I would have liked. I even spent some time as needed, going out and gathering food when we fell behind. While there are many things I could ignore in the short term. Food was not one of them unless I wanted to lose my village.
We will always remember Ansgar, who gave his life for the village. He was killed close to a main entry point into the village. It seemed only fitting. As the grave site would be something I'd pass by quite often.
While I wish I could say that would be the only death. I can at least say it would be a while before another. The limited defenses and some of the issues we resolved this time around would give us quite some breathing room. There would always be the next thing to resolve, the next attack to defend from, and the next shortage of supplies.
Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about ASKA.
Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.
Disclosure: This content was written during early access.
