Basics, tips, and tricks for Settlement Survival
 
 

Introduction

Welcome to my guide for Settlement Survival. This is currently a work in progress. It will detail the things I’ve learned while on my road to 100%’ing the game, as well as information from the official discord.
 
 
 

Achievements

 
 
This is actually “simple food”, not “rough food”
 
 
Infrastructure actually requires the Chop House, not the Sawmill.
 
 
Luxury Gowns achievement appear to be currently broken still.
 
 
 

Basic Setup

Here’s how I like to set up a starting hub. You can vary this based on aesthetics and how many houses you want to cram in to one market radius:
 
 
Step 1: Have everyone clear out your immediate area and build a loop of dirt road around your market. This will give you some visual space to plan, stockpile a lot of necessary resources, and give your market great access.
 
 

 
 
Step 2: I used to alternate which way I drew my roads, but I realized after a couple times that if you make the lanes go left to right, a lot of your city service buildings will fit in better with less wasted space. I also place an open warehouse and some more builder huts to reserve the spaces for later (after I’ve unlocked them), but to still provide utility to the space for now.
 
 

 
 
Step 3: From there, you’ll want to confirm the radius of your market and draw your roads out to there. Also keep in mind that you will eventually get a +20% radius tech upgrade, but whether you account for that right now is optional. You’ll also want to start dropping your basic buildings (this will also get you the Infrastructure achievement, even if you turn the Tailor and Blacksmith off for now to free up laborers).
 
 

 
 
Step 4: I do prefer using the full-sized 15×15 crop fields just because it’s easier to fit them with upgrades, but for now I just placed a few Standard ones down. You’ll have to rebuild them and lose any upgrades when you unlock the Eco fields, anyway.
 
 

 
 
Step 5: Continue following the ebb and flow of your supply and demand. I’d suggest building houses slowly if this is your first time and make manual saves often. If you give them a lot of spare houses, they will reproduce quickly, and your food supply can plummet if you aren’t ready. If this is your first time playing, you can get away with building just one house for a while and people will rotate through it to warm up, to help you get through the first winter. The boarding house is also a good way to provide housing while limiting growth, as people will not reproduce while living in it. Just make sure you’re providing enough new growth to be ready for when old citizens start dying off. I generally like to follow a roughly 1/5 rule (100 adults would have 20 children) when starting new city builder games. After you get used to it, you can expand as fast as you can keep up with various demands.
 
 
Step 6: You should have your Blacksmith and Tailor back on by now, before your initial stock runs out. The higher the difficulty, the sooner you’ll need to get a jump on this. If your Hunters aren’t providing enough textile resources for your Tailor, you should definitely build a pasture. Do not research iron or stone mines yet, as you’ll get a lot of injuries in them until you have Oil Lanterns unlocked. There should be plenty of overworld resources to gather to keep you going for several years (depending on map size).
 
 
Step 7: You’ll want to secure health and happiness options as soon as possible. Agave and Spirits are usually the easiest starting route for Happiness. You’ll want at least one Clinic, possibly two if you see it isn’t keeping up with the Injury demand. If you don’t want to go down the Nursery>Herb research route, you can grab the Soap and Bathhouse techs pretty easily. Even just one Pasture/Butcher should be enough to make plenty of Soap for a while.
 
 
Once you’re confident that you won’t starve everyone out, get your Town Hall built. This will allow you to recruit mayors and accept Immigrants, both of which can be invaluable (immigrants provide immediate adults/laborers to your city, usually starting around 12 people per year).
 
 
 

Mayors

Mayors give various boosts to your settlement. They come with a wide variety of buffs, ranging from permanent Proficiency levels, to temporary bonuses to warmth, production, happiness, or many other things.
 
 
As a general rule, you’ll want to accept the Proficiency +1 mayors first, as they provide permanent increases to your skill levels for the Tech Tree.
 
 
Auto Renewal should generally be saved for very late game, when you’ve amassed a large amount of silver coins. Otherwise, just reappoint as they expire. (Proficiency Mayors are not able to be renewed, as their bonuses are permanent, and one time only).
 
 
 

Discord Questions

A collection of Q&A’s from discord:
 
 
Q: How do I change pasture animals?
 
A: Drag the bar to zero to slaughter them all, wait for it to hit 0, then you can change.
 
 
Q: Does the Repair Shop have unlimited range?
 
A: Yes, you just need enough staff to make the rounds
 
 
Q: How do I make fertility rate high?
 
A: Fertility has an inverse relationship with the “Stress” meter. If you mouse over it, you’ll see a breakdown. The lower the overall stress (generally by increasing Happiness and Health), the higher your fertility rate will be. You can also use Immigrants to pad your reproduction cycles.
 
 
Q: How are new animals/livestock discovered so there’s more options on the pastures?
 
A: Livestock are “discovered” from your Hunter’s Cabin (rate can be increased with Traps upgrade) or, more reliably, through the trading ports. You’ll more than likely have to “Order” specific animals that you want, which will usually run you between $12,000-$23,000.
 
 
Q: What are the green icons are around the map, please? e.g the one that looks like plants
 
A: The plants/leaves, fish, and cow heads are increased gathering rates for those respective resources. There’s also an icon for Increased Fertility in Crops and Pastures, but those are a little more obvious, as they actually highlight the affected area in green when selecting their respective building.
 
 
Q: What would you say the top 10 things are to research first to keep people happy?
 
A: You have to balance stability and happiness. There’s not really any clear answers and kind of just depends where you are in the game at the time. Make sure your food supply chains are solid, then start working on health. I’ll usually rush either Soap and/or Herb Gathering (to unlock the herb seeds in the Nursery). But otherwise there’s a lot of handy things in the Quality of Life tree.
 
 
Q: I placed two pastures next to each other with the same animal and it didn’t activate the second one.
 
A: Your “animal stock” is a little wonky compared to crops. It’s almost like they only give you 1 animal specifically and then they somehow reproduce asexually over time. So you’ll want to let that first pasture grow a bit, then “divide” it with the second pasture. “The reproduction mechanism in the game functions via mitosis and mating is not required” – Thanks Victor#7277 for pointing this out
 
 
Q: Wood seems to be my biggest issue, there’s never enough in these games lol.
 
A: Use the manual collection tool to just level your entire map like once a year. Leave a couple of very spread out loggers to repopulate it, but it’ll largely repopulate itself. Research the boiler room after that if you’re still having issues
 
 
 

AMA

Please feel free to ask me anything or make requests for things you’d like to see in this guide!
 
 

 
 
I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Settlement Survival – General Guide – Basic Setup – FAQS; if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!