Timberborn - Beginner's guide

Timberborn is a city builder that will consume a lot of your time. The tutorial contains tips for the game that will help you get started in the easiest way. The in-game tutorial is a foundation that is worth completing, but it only covers the basics of gameplay. If you want to avoid basic mistakes and properly prepare your settlement for the coming drought, I invite you to read on. 

The first choice that awaits you is the game's difficulty level. Normal mode is also suitable for beginners, so it's a good idea to start there. The easy level may prove monotonous at some point, due to the mild droughts. But no worries, they are not so terrible once you get to know the game mechanics.

Map selection

At the very beginning, one of the maps is marked "Recommended" = Plains. In fact, the map is ideal for starting the adventure with the game. It is one of the largest and the terrain variation is not that great.

The initial location is by the river itself, which can easily be used for upcoming droughts.

On the other side of the river is a vast relatively flat area that will allow the construction of a huge city. There are also scrap collection points fairly close by. 

There are also two valleys within reach of the first district, which can be filled with water to create an additional reservoir:

The smaller pit can be unblocked right away, which I recommend doing. Just click on the blockade and destroy it. This will increase the green/irrigated land, so you can build more farmland right from the start.

Buildings to start with and where to place them

The in-game tutorial does a great job of introducing and suggesting what to build. However, it's worth planning everything out for yourself and thinking about where to build from the very beginning.

Stop time in the game (spacebar) and look around the map. In the tutorial I assume that it is the Plains, but I will try to present the general rules.

The moment you unlock the first block on the Plains map, the green area will expand. Do this at the very beginning to see what final area has been irrigated.

The green part of the map is where you need to plant all kinds of vegetation. The most important is food, but you must also allocate a piece for trees, which are the basic raw material throughout the game.

The dry part of the map is suitable for all buildings, as they do not have to stand on the irrigated part. Even the farm itself is worth placing on the dried up area, right on the border with the green part. Nothing can be planted on this part of the map, all vegetation dies. The dry land can be irrigated, but about this in a separate guide.

An additional element of the map is the river itself. On the edge you need to set up water pumps, which are necessary at the very beginning of the game. Thanks to them, beavers extract drinking water, and it is necessary for survival. From time to time, your residents' hydration drops and if they can't find stored water, they may die.

Remember that the buildings must be connected by a path to the District Center. The path is free and builds as soon as it is laid out, without using workers.

So let's now move on to what needs to be built at the very beginning:

1. Lumberjack Flag - One or two lumberjack stands at the very beginning is the basis. Using the logs collected, beavers will be able to build more structures. Remember to mark the areas from which the lumberjacks can cut trees. You can boldly mark everything within their reach, and at a later stage you will designate places for new saplings. Close to this position also put up a Log Store. It costs nothing, and will allow you to store the felled tree.
   Lumberjacks can also cut down withered trees. On the Plains map, there are quite a few of them on an elevated area, which can be accessed via stairs that have already been built.
2. Water pump - Residents won't survive long without water, so put one up right away. It would be good to build a small water tank next to it right away, but it can wait a while because the pump alone can store 15 units.
3. Gatherer Flag - Build next to bushes with blueberries. They will start acquiring food in the first minutes of the game.
4. Inventor - The worker here produces research points. They are very important in the early stages and will unlock new structures. It is worth setting a lower priority on this building so that it is occupied by beavers only when unemployed people appear. It is more important to extract water or collect food, for example, than to work on research.
5. Small Warehouse - This is not a building that should be treated with great priority, as buildings have their limited storage. However, keep in mind that collectors and production buildings will stop working if you run out of storage space. When raw materials permit, put up the first warehouse in the central part of your city.
   It is a bad habit to build warehouses without a limit on stored materials. The default setting can bring more problems later in the game. To change this right after you put up a building, click on it (even if it hasn't been built) and click on the "None" button next to "Allowed" and "Requested." Then select materials from the list and allow the storage of Berries, Carrots, Potatoes and Grilled Potatoes.
   When the warehouse takes in all the materials, it may end up filling up with less important raw materials for a particular stage of the game, such as boards, instead of food. Because of this, farms will stop harvesting crops and beavers will not have supplies.
   Regularly supply warehouses for specific materials, so that production will end only after a certain number has been produced, and not because another raw material has filled the warehouse to capacity. You'll also unlock larger warehouses over time, making gameplay much easier.
6. Houses - At some point you will run out of manpower. In order to do so, you need to erect houses as soon as possible. One standard house provides shelter for three beavers. Make sure there are always vacancies so that the beavers will multiply and you won't run out of labor.

During the game, use the tutorial. It shows you how to mark areas for clearing or planting crops. If for some reason you missed it, there are two icons in the bottom menu, right next to the arrow: Cut Tree and Grain.

Once the above buildings are built, you move on to the second phase. You need to protect against drought and provide better food, and plant trees regularly.

"This construction site is too far from the district! Create more paths or a new neighborhood." This message immediately explains why some buildings light up yellow when they are placed. Beavers can only build within the range of the District Office. You enlarge it by building paths that are connected to the Office. Despite this message, you can place a building and add a path later.

1. Lumbermill and Power Wheel - For the next buildings you will need planks, so an important element is the construction of a sawmill. It needs to be powered and the tutorial suggests a water wheel for this purpose. You can do so, however, I recommend that such buildings be placed on dry land, and powered by windmills. Since windmills are not immediately available, you can use the Power Wheel temporarily - unfortunately, it requires an additional worker to generate power.
2. Forester's hut - As soon as you collect 60 research points and produce the first boards, this is an extremely urgent building. Foresters will make sure you don't run out of trees. On some maps, putting up the Forester's Hut too late can result in the end of the game due to the lack of trees in the area.
   After building the hut, be sure to mark areas for new saplings. There are several types of trees, and if you do a quick count, you'll find that it's most profitable to plant Maples. Unfortunately, they need as much as 30 days to grow, which you can't afford at the very beginning. Necessarily plant pine trees first, right after them immediately designate an area for planting Maples. When the first Maples start to grow, deselect the area for planting Pines and when the woodcutters cut them down, plant Maples in that place.
   If you are running out of trees in the area, and you can't build the Forester's Hut yet, mark such a cutting area so that the beavers skip a few trees. If at least a few pine trees remain, new ones will spontaneously grow next to them.
3. Farmhouse - It's so low on the list because you can survive with blueberries alone for a few days, and the Forester's Hut is much more important. However, if your wood supply allows it, build it much earlier.
   Next to the farm, in the green area, you need to plant fields. In the first phase of the game, plant 100 carrots (as the tutorial advises), and next to that the same number of potatoes. Leave the others for a later stage of the game. 
4. Dam - In the initial phase of the game, blocking the course of the river will protect you from the first droughts. The dam will raise the water level, so the river won't dry up as quickly.
   
5. Small Water tanks - Depending on your wood supply, you may want to do this earlier. When the first drought comes it's a good idea to have a supply of water, so put up 3-4 such tanks.
6. Grill - This is the last of the basic buildings you need to survive for the first few days. Now that you have fields of potatoes, you need to bake them. Beavers only eat grilled potatoes. Once built, click on the building and using the arrow next to the recipe, select "Grilled potatoes." Only when the first crop appears can the beavers start production.

In-game interface

As you go through the tutorial in Timberborn, you will use the build bar, which is located at the very bottom. In addition, three important interface elements are arranged in the corners of the screen.

Status of materials and residents - upper left corner

Starting from the very top left:

1. Prosperity - the yellow icon with the number 9, is the level of satisfaction of your beavers. When you click on it, you can see what affects it and what needs have already been met. By reaching level 15 you will unlock a new faction in the game "Iron Teeth."
2. Under Prosperity there are three lines with information on the number of beavers. The numbers indicate in the first line: The number of residents of adults, children. The second line: occupied beds, vacant beds, homeless. Third row: Employed, vacant, unemployed - here, if you hover, you can additionally see the number of beavers unable to work. These are beavers with temporary effects such as an accident at work or broken teeth.
3. In further columns, the status of currently held materials, food and water is displayed. The materials and food field can be expanded.

View, cycle, weather, time control and layers - upper right corner

The most important panel in the game, sequentially from left::

1. Global view - allows you to switch between districts. In addition to the fact that the camera will switch, the left interface with the status of materials will turn green. This means that resident and material statistics are now displayed for a specific district. When the global view is displayed, the interface shows the total for all. It is a good idea to verify the status in separate districts, as it can be easy to miss that one of them, for example, has run out of water.
2. Cycle and weather - The cycle is the date in the game, and the weather below signals when the drought begins and ends. If the weather bar is all blue, that is, the date of the next drought is still unknown.
3. Time in the game - The first buttons are used to adjust the game time. When you are idly waiting for the beavers to finish their tasks, it is a good idea to select the maximum acceleration. Next to it is a pointer and this is the clock. The blue area is the night time, and the green dot shows when the work time ends. When the work is finished, the beavers rest and this is an important moment for them, because without recovery they can become exhausted. The standard working time is 16h and is the optimal value. With the plus and minus buttons you can modify this time and in crisis conditions it is worth increasing it even to 24h for 1-2 days. The end of the working time is indicated by a green dot on the watch.
4. View and Layers - The water icon with an eye allows you to enable/disable the water view, which is useful when analyzing the site. Next to it is the layers view, which allows you to view different floors of buildings. Until you build storied structures, this switch is of no use to you.

Logbook - Lower left corner

The most important information about your residents appears here. You will learn here that:

1. A new resident is born,
2. A child grows up - that is, becomes an adult worker (children do not work).
3. The beaver died - this is very important information, because it also contains the reason. Old age is an obvious reason, although you have an influence on it - increasing satisfaction. However, a reason like dehydration or starvation will be valuable information. If you notice such logs, it's already a crisis signal that one of your districts has a big problem and you need to deal with it immediately.

Knowing these basics, you are already free to experiment with the game. However, to start building more extensive cities, I encourage you to read the other guides: Timberborn - Guides