The Forest
The Forest
All Settlements are constructed in The Forest. The Forest consists of multiple Glades separated by a dense carpet of Trees.
Seasons
- Main article: Seasons
Each Settlement must brave the three seasons of The Forest:
- Drizzle lasts 4:00 minutes.
- Clearance lasts 4:00 minutes.
- Storm lasts 2:00 or 4:00 minutes depending on Difficulty.
Hostility
- Main article: Hostility
With every fallen tree, with every ancient site sacked - the Forest grows angrier.
Hostility is a measure of how wary the forest is of the settlement. It always starts at 0. Each Hostility level above 0 will decrease Global Resolve by 2 (6 during storms) and may activate a negative Forest Mystery. All modifiers that raise Hostility scale with Difficulty.
Trees
Trees can be harvested by Woodcutters' Camps to provide Wood. Each tree has 2 charges, and may also grant additional Resources depending on the Biome. You can always click to select an individual tree to see what Resources it provides.
You can set what chopping behavior you want each Woodcutters' Camp to use. You can also set a Default Woodcutters' Camp Mode from the Gameplay Settings.
Woodcutters' Camp Modes
- Fell All Trees - All trees will be felled
- Avoid Glades - All trees will be felled EXCEPT trees that open glades.
- Avoid Glades (except marked) - All trees will be felled EXCEPT trees that open glades, UNLESS you have marked glade-opening trees.
- Only Marked Trees - Only marked trees will be felled.
- Only Marked Trees & Avoid Glades - Only marked trees will be felled, and glade-opening trees will be avoided.
Usually (unless you are using Fell All Trees or Avoid Glades) you must mark which trees you would like to Woodcutters' camps to fell. You can click the green axe icon with the plus sign to the right of the building menus at the bottom of the screen - or use the hotkey (defaults to [F]) - to begin marking trees with a 3-tree width painting tool. Marked trees which are in range of a Woodcutters' Camp are highlighted in yellow, marked trees which are out of range are highlighted in grey.
If you need to unmark trees, you can click the green axe icon with the minus sign - or use the hotkey (defaults to [G]) - to begin unmarking trees with a similar 3-tree width painting tool.
If you hold the [Shift] key while using the marking or unmarking paint tool, the width of the tool decreases to a single tree - allowing you to be very precise. If you hold the [Ctrl] key while using the marking tool, you cannot mark trees which would open Glades. You can use both [Shift] and [Ctrl] at the same time.
Resource Deposits
Resource deposits are spots that allow villagers to gather resources. Each deposit can have its own priority set, when it is preferred to be harvested more or less often than other deposits.
Resource deposits come in two sizes. With the exception of the tutorial, big resource deposits can only be found inside Dangerous Glades and Forbidden Glades.
Each deposit has a number of Charges, representing the amount of times it can be harvested. Small resource deposits can be harvested 15 times if they provide raw food and 20 times if they provide raw crafting materials. Large resource deposits can be harvested 60 times and only by not-small camps. The number can be increased by certain Smoldering City upgrades.
Glades
Rich glades are full of resources - yours for the taking.
Glades are empty areas of the Forest that are shrouded until they are first reached by clearing trees. They may contain resources, treasures, fertile soil, ruined buildings, and more.
To reach a Glade faster, trees can be marked and unmarked for harvest via the axe icon on the bottom bar, ensuring they will be cut before other trees. Marked trees will glow golden if inside the area of a Woodcutters' Camp and white if outside one.
The best rewards come from Dangerous Glades and especially Forbidden Glades (both marked with a skull icon), but they always contain at least one dangerous Glade Event, which requires delivering certain goods or completing a challenge.
Glade Events
Main article: Glade Events
Glade Events are objects found in the forest, like abandoned caches, survivor camps, ruins, wild beasts, etc. Some of them are positive, offering goods or new villagers for small resource investments. Others are dangerous, forcing you to act quickly to avoid negative consequences (but also giving you generous rewards for solving them).
Once you select a Glade Event, the Event Panel will show up. There, you will find a few different sections: effects, worker slots, requirements, and rewards. The effect section shows you the possible negative consequences of the Event, and how much time you have before they occur. To solve an Event, you need to assign workers to it, select one of two reward options, and select "investigate".
Some events simply require you to deliver goods, others have something called a Working Effect. Working Effects are special conditions that activate once you give the order to investigate an Event (like a Resolve penalty, a slow debuff, etc.). Your goal is to survive these conditions for a set amount of time. After an Event is solved, the workers will bring back the rewards to your Storage, and no negative consequence will trigger.
Ruins
Ruins are ruined versions of non-essential buildings that may sometimes be encountered in Glades. For a certain amount of resources they can be either rebuilt, giving a fully functional building, or salvaged, giving a random reward of resources.