We named it Graveburg, which was poetic because the third thing that needed to be build was a graveyard following the constant wolf incursions from every direction.
The town’s biggest export was rocks, almost like squeezing blood from a stone since trade was the only means by which the town could acquire enough herbs to prosper. But nevertheless…
Ah… but as well as no herbs I’m assuming that there was no clay nor any willow (and probably only one sinkhole for water, if that). The joy of the arid… where all town’s share the motto: We trade to live!
Omg! I just started a map using that seed, Vanquisher, medium random Pacifist and I’ve got so many hills and so much in the way of gold, iron, coal and sand I can hardly find anywhere to actually build a town.
Low level map with lots of minerals and effall fertile land, I have a small graveyard at every settlement due to large numbers of settler dying of old age every turn. Seriously if it weren’t for the migrants my population would still be less than 150.
After years of speculation and living in the unknown, word finally got back to us. All previous attempts to colonize this barren and infertile land had failed. Yet the riches of this forsaken and ungodly place still piqued our interest.
The lucky few who had not only gotten out, not before the sickness had consumed them as well but also had survived the bleak trek home, had told us there were still salvage sites filled with the remnants of previous attempts which could be our last hope of survival in this hellscape.
With this, a brave handful wanted to make one last attempt to not only survive, but actually thrive in this Hellish place they would now call home.
Because the difference between “this is miserable” and “losing is fun” is whether one signed up for it, I decided to give settling Graveburg a go. (As it turns out, we’ve done surprisingly little losing, because the wolves are far away.)
It has been nine years. Graveburg is where civilization goes to die, but there is so much gold in these hills that people continue to travel to this forsaken land in search of riches. Last year, we managed to finally actually feed our little village of 71 souls without importing foodstuffs after we purchased enough clay to build an arborist in one of the few places where anything at all will grow. Aside from orchards, the land is hardly worth farming, aside, perhaps from a few beans, but crop disease has limited how aggressively we can farm the land. This little fish pond and some incomprehensibly fecund deer to the southeast have been saving graces until this point, but malnutrition is a constant specter every winter. On the bright side, there is some reasonably defensible land, and we have since shifted our market place farther into the cozy glacial bowl north of the temple.
… but then again, arguably so have we. All the clothing we have we brought on our backs or we looted from previous settlements. Our swords are salvaged as well.
Anyway, I’m having fun an interesting challenge, but also I wouldn’t be surprised if the combat changes have actually made predators a lot less frightening, along with the salvage sites being a huge boost in the early game.
