Optimal Progression

[Jaunt]

So, I've been screwing around for about a week or two, spent about seven minutes doing useful things, and compulsively reading the wiki, and would just like to check my vision against reality before I start down a long road that doesn't go where I think it goes.

First, it seems to me that foraging and hunting are basically just things you do until you have the skills and solitude to build a megafarm/mine complex. Once able, you can simultaneously expand a farm and build a mine, and set up some kind of lime infrastructure (being near a quarry or just having an alt near one). The ultimate point of the farm is to be able to gluttony on high purity cabbage and pumpkins. The mine, on the other hand, is mostly purity irrelevant. You just need a large source of iron for braziers and nails for walls. Then beyond that you need a decent amount of space for wood/coal constructs, so you can reload braziers and build your walls. At this point, foraging, hunting, fishing, cooking, and all other activities than mining and farming are recreational only. Once you have decent humours on the desired number of characters and adequate infrastructure/defense, there's little to do besides go to war, chase increasingly diminishing returns on Stocks and Cultivars, or try to create the God of Blood and Yellow Bile.

Is that about the shape of things to come?

Edit: Let me throw in a few easy, specific questions too.

Is there anything worth potting? And does high purity humus still increase it?

Does it ever make sense to have a vclaim as a hermit? I don't care about the whole waste claim warning, but I don't want my humble hermitage to someday get vclaimed and blown up. But 40s a day is...not a lot, but enough to marry a guy to Salem.

Is there anything else I should know to save myself effort?

[Cawalox]

More or less. First your god needs all biles high, black bile since thats what criminal acts (braziers) drain and phlem that is used to destroy buildings. Base defence is there to protect your gluttony project and to safe house your criminal god character (preferably diferent base). Mine purity comes in handy for faster proficiencies upgrade.
Trees are worth of potting once you run out of them around your claim.
If you dont whant to have a warning before raid you dont need the bell, no one will invest in it unless you pissed of someone and theres no other way to brake your defence other than declaiming your PC.

[Jaunt]

Thanks much for the confirmation.

As followup, this means that my only valuable possessions are my character and my seeds, is that about right? And is it better to have a mine on my claim, or a high purity mine some distance away? Or is having both the de facto strategy?

Also, is it better to gun for speed in order to expand a farm faster, or plenty in order to expand more and get greater seed efficiency? That is, after the first harvest is 10 choppings for upkeep. Assume that my S&C is adequate but insignificant.

[Cawalox]

De facto characters even high purity seeds you can buy.
Theres enough ore in mine to support you for a long, long time. Some even say mines are infinite. So you need only one. Ist more convinient to have it on your main claim but theres no problem if its near by (just a longer walk).

[Jaunt]

Thanks again.

[marduc]

Is there anything worth potting? And does high purity humus still increase it?

First off, yes high purity humus increases potted plants (with the exception of trees). There are also some good foods that can be attained with decent purity through gardening that you cannot get farming - especially to help raise yellow bile and blood.

At first my gardening started out mostly to provide stuff that was not right at my doorstep since I live in a forest and it is a bit of a hike to get to the nearest plains, not too bad, but more than I want to make regularly. From there things just started expanding as it got harder and harder to find decent foods to raise the aforementioned blood and yellow bile.

Things that I have potted for food and what these foods are good for:

yellow and red peppers - I use this for papricharred charcuterie - good blood food.
sugar caps (a lot of them) - mushroom pies a balance between blood and yellow bile - so I augment mainly with papricharred when I am raising blood, and wortbaked wartbites for yellow
oakworth and Devils wort (plus higher purity grass) - for the aforementioned wortbaked wortbites
blackberries and huckleberries (relatively few compared to other things I garden) - for wildberry pies, good to also augment and add variety when pushing yellow bile.
garlic - various recipes, for a while I was just raising purity until I got higher tier crops going - which there are a few recipes that then require garlic (not wild).

I also have a rather large amount of potted grass that does not get purity humus for hay and just to have some on hand for various other things if needs be.

So yes I think gardening a good thing to get into, it makes raising yellow bile and blood much easier than farming alone would cover, there are not many standout foods from farming for either of these until you get higher tiers of crops IMO. It takes a lot of pots and a lot of humus to get you anywhere, so start with a smallish operation and expand as your time vs. needs situation unfolds.

[Jaunt]

Thanks for the insights. 2 grass per pot per cycle? You're surely in it for the long haul.

[marduc]

Thanks for the insights. 2 grass per pot per cycle? You're surely in it for the long haul.

3 grass per pot with whatever skill it is that gives you one extra with gardening (cannot think of what it was offhand). But yeah, I have a lot of stuff growing, 15 pots of grass for hay provides me with 6 hays every harvest. I am approaching the point where I have to decide for myself if it is worth expanding this or not.

[Jaunt]

I meant 2 net, not 2 gross. We meant the same thing. Thanks again, the food list is quite helpful. I can only stare at the wiki tables for so long before I start to decide eating my own eyes would probably give me a good amount of black bile.

[MagicManICT]

Character and claim are sort of co-dependant. If you save one, it makes it easier to recreate the other. Neither functions very well without the other, too. Just foraging and skills only gets you so far in humors. If your goal is to get to where you're big and tough enough to actively defend a claim (or attack one for that matter), you will definitely need a homestead.

Yes, the village claim is worth it, but a significantly large enough personal claim makes taking over by "belling" extremely expensive. The downside to a large personal claim is that someone can more easily spot it and that it eats more silver per month.

edit: on the future of things: more "darkness" creatures have been promised, an expansion of mining may be in our future (no word on exactly what), and I'm sure more changes to the raid system. I've heard other musings from the devs, but I'm never sure what is more wishful thinking and what is concrete going to come before release. You might not want to get to set on any one way of playing. Things can sometimes change drastically.