While winter was not that kind. We somehow managed to get through it. In some ways, we are in better shape than when we entered. It looks like I had planned just enough to survive it this time around.

It should not be any shock that I spent the remaining days of winter in the mine itself. I first went in there to take out the piles of eggs I noticed in the cavern. Thankfully, it seemed they were not going to hatch. I had already taken out the spawner that was the last of them for the time being. Until I broke into another cavern.

While some materials dropped. I had no use for them. One of them ended up being used to make a horn that I could use to call my villeinage troops for a short amount of time. That would end up being massive later. For the time being, such items were just left on the ground to rot, as I was rather clueless about their use.

What was shocking was that I made it through winter without losing anyone to the cold. We also had enough food or were able to gather enough during it that it was not an issue either. Funny enough, food would end up being a bigger issue during the spring than the winter.

There was also an insane amount of mess over surviving winter. As you can see, the ground is just littered with sticks, bark, and firewood, among other things. We lacked the space to put it anywhere. I was also not heavily into building much since I spent my days down in the mine and dealing with other issues.

Now that winter was no longer looming over me, something else was. One evening, I got a warning about an invasion coming. It would be here in 25 days, which is around when I'd be dealing with winter again. I have no idea what it means other than something bad. It looks like I'll need to start planning for some kind of war-like attack.

Now that winter was over. It was time to get back on track with being able to make metal items. For that, I was going to need a second workshop. This workshop would have a metalsmith and a carpenter area. I'd need more advanced wood items for buildings. Along with a place to forge metal.

My first workshop was still providing so many of the basics. I felt I could not just remove it. Perhaps one day we will have enough metal to replace it fully. I would also need a leatherworker. So even then, you kind of need two of these buildings anyway.

For the new workshop and other buildings, I had been working on. I was also going to need more villages to work them. While the early spring nights were still a bit chilly. I could at least survive it without freezing.

I ended up going on a few trips looking for further blood shards. While I could sometimes find a spot I missed that was not that far away. It was starting to get to a point where I could sometimes end up spending the night away from my village. A risk I had to take for now.

While also on these further away trips, I was looking for food and anything else of interest. To my shock, early spring is quite limited in what you can gather. The village would even go a night or so occasionally without enough food.

It seems I'll have to expand my food-gathering options at some point. Add it to my ever-increasing list of tasks I never get around to doing. As that would require more buildings and more villagers. I can only hope there are other ways I don’t quite know about yet to get lots of blood shards. It seems long-term getting them is going to be a bit of an issue.

I also wandered into a skeleton camp and took out the spawner. These things no longer give me the issues they did in the early days. I even gained a combat level for my troubles. This one was close enough to one of my gathering markers. I thought I'd be proactive about it.

I have to say I am impressed that there are little mini games for the higher-level crafting. You don’t just put ores in and get slag out to refine. As you can see, one of my workers is using the bellows to manage the correct temperature. Other crafting required even more dedication to paying attention to what was going on. It’s a nice added touch. Not too complex, it’s hard to understand. You, however, don’t just get to process higher-tier resources either without thinking about it a little bit.

I wish I had a worker who had a specialty for doing this. As they would gain levels a lot faster. At the very least, I have such a massive stockpile of ore that they will be getting a lot of experience by the time they get through it all.

At one point, I was a bit puzzled. As my ore slag kept going missing. I found out one of the workers in the workshop was hoarding a bunch of it. They had also made some tools for themselves first. You would think, being the ruler of this village, I'd get first dibs on anything new. They are lucky I decided to let this pass. A lesser leader would have kicked them out and taken the items right off them.

Once metal production was up and going. I first went for a better axe. This would allow me to cut down the birch, which I had an area close to my village to farm some. It was also another reason I picked the location I did. I knew at some point I'd want some birch nearby.

It’s just a shame I did not build the workshop that would be processing the hardwood from the birch trees closer to my main source of birch. While there was a small section next to my base on one side that was a lot closer to where it would get processed. It was fewer trees than I thought. We ended up going through it quite quickly.

I even gave my hand one late night after the village went to bed, using the carpentry horse. I just had to strip off the bark to turn the birch log into a beam. We needed so many beams that I felt the least I could do was help a little.

I did discover that as my skill level increased, so did the amount of damage I'd do per swipe. Thus, I could strip the bark off the tree faster. I, however, was not going to be an expert like some of my workers would become. So, during the daylight, I left it in their more than capable hands to do this task. I usually just hauled in the wood to help speed things up.

Final Thoughts

While my villages still have quite a lot of wants. I now feel like I've made a decent chunk of progress with upgrading to some metal tools. A sword is next on my list, but I needed to make sure some needed tools were in the hands of the village before getting something I wanted for the up-and-coming invasion.

Information

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.