I would like to share my experience and create a thread for all the people that, like me, had a very hard time with the new release and thought of quitting playing BTW entirely. Hopefully this early game strategy guide can give some leverage to your early game play. Be careful that below are some mega spoilers. Ok, let's play:
WARNING: The following is actually terrible advice. I'd strongly recommend not following it. -Flower
Spoiler
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Strategy:
1. Bricks are priority no.1 !! Brick oven is is the only thing that you can leave in the world after you die. So, after spawn, find the closest pool that contains clay blocks and get at least 16 clay. Do not jump, use dirt/sand slabs. You might want to write down your seed, and get to know your neighbourhood before starting the real game, so you can go immediately for the clay in the first game run.
2. Choose a nice spot that can be easily found later, place your 16 clay in 4x4 pattern and dig a 2-deep moat around, so no monster or animal can trample on your clay bricks during next 2 days. You can also forget about this moat and just get far enough that this chunk is unloaded, so again no animal trample your bricks.
3. You should have used only 2 food energy till now, and the first day is maybe over. You should still have time to hit some tree until you get your first stick.
4. Build 2-block high pillows around you and hide in this 1x1 hole for the night. Hopefully you found a place with some chicken around, that will attract spiders to attack them with web.
5. Now, you have an option to stay in your hidey hole for two nights and do nothing, conserving energy. On third day, you still have a chance to exit the hole with 3-4 energy, get your first two stones with the pointy stick (hit stone block once empty hand, than stick, than empty hand, than stick). Create sharp stone, and go for another stick (hit tree trunk once empty handed, then sharp stone). Go for spider web, and get string with sharp stone. Create stone axe. Get at least 2 wood, turn one of them into 2 sticks and create bow drill if you have one more string. If not, you will have to use fire plough.
5a. Now, you have to kill some animal for food. Prefered food are chicken, because they are one hit kill with the axe. Sheep are slower than pigs, you can kill them empty handed. Eat zombie flesh immediately before the kill if you must to survive. You need 3 food. Push animal into water pool, they are easier to kill in the water, but this is not necessary.
6. Now, you are probably dying, but you must still make it to your bricks that are now ready to create brick oven. Create oven, place 2-high pillars around you, put second wood inside oven and light oven with bow drill or fire plough.
Congratulations, you survived till your brick oven! Ideally, on fourth day, you will have 4-5 energy, a brick oven, stone axe and bow drill. Now you can go for some serious animal killing, and get back to the oven with at least 5 food for cooking, more wood and 2 stones. You found more clay and again placed at least 16 clay somewhere further. If not, and you are dead now, you at least left brick oven in the world, so this spawn was not wasted, and maybe after x HC spawns, you will have a number of brick ovens in the world, which will make further progress possible. Remember that brick oven fed with one tree is enough to keep your hidey hole alight through the first moonless night. After this point in the game, your goal is looking for iron veins.
I deliberately left creating of campfire off above guide, I find it to unintuitive and rage-quit reaction creating when you try cooking anything on campfire. Maybe I just don't know how to use it, but it looks like it needs 16 saw dust/tree bark to cook one item, with constant threat that the fire will go out if you try doing something else in the meantime. This fire also has a nasty habit of creating massive fires and destroying whole forests around you. Maybe in future updates campfire will be easier to use, but with all these drawbacks, I just came to conclusion that it's not worth it.
I hope someone will find this guide usefull. The start of the game is very hard this time, I find it harder even than MITE minecraft. If you just can not get through the beginning, than backup your world often, remember where key resources are, load backed up save if you must, and you will survive eventually.
If you got till the end of this guide, you are a really patient reader :) If someone has better starting strategy, I look forward reading about your experience.
Best regards and I wish you luck while playing! :)
1. Bricks are priority no.1 !! Brick oven is is the only thing that you can leave in the world after you die. So, after spawn, find the closest pool that contains clay blocks and get at least 16 clay. Do not jump, use dirt/sand slabs. You might want to write down your seed, and get to know your neighbourhood before starting the real game, so you can go immediately for the clay in the first game run.
2. Choose a nice spot that can be easily found later, place your 16 clay in 4x4 pattern and dig a 2-deep moat around, so no monster or animal can trample on your clay bricks during next 2 days. You can also forget about this moat and just get far enough that this chunk is unloaded, so again no animal trample your bricks.
3. You should have used only 2 food energy till now, and the first day is maybe over. You should still have time to hit some tree until you get your first stick.
4. Build 2-block high pillows around you and hide in this 1x1 hole for the night. Hopefully you found a place with some chicken around, that will attract spiders to attack them with web.
5. Now, you have an option to stay in your hidey hole for two nights and do nothing, conserving energy. On third day, you still have a chance to exit the hole with 3-4 energy, get your first two stones with the pointy stick (hit stone block once empty hand, than stick, than empty hand, than stick). Create sharp stone, and go for another stick (hit tree trunk once empty handed, then sharp stone). Go for spider web, and get string with sharp stone. Create stone axe. Get at least 2 wood, turn one of them into 2 sticks and create bow drill if you have one more string. If not, you will have to use fire plough.
5a. Now, you have to kill some animal for food. Prefered food are chicken, because they are one hit kill with the axe. Sheep are slower than pigs, you can kill them empty handed. Eat zombie flesh immediately before the kill if you must to survive. You need 3 food. Push animal into water pool, they are easier to kill in the water, but this is not necessary.
6. Now, you are probably dying, but you must still make it to your bricks that are now ready to create brick oven. Create oven, place 2-high pillars around you, put second wood inside oven and light oven with bow drill or fire plough.
Congratulations, you survived till your brick oven! Ideally, on fourth day, you will have 4-5 energy, a brick oven, stone axe and bow drill. Now you can go for some serious animal killing, and get back to the oven with at least 5 food for cooking, more wood and 2 stones. You found more clay and again placed at least 16 clay somewhere further. If not, and you are dead now, you at least left brick oven in the world, so this spawn was not wasted, and maybe after x HC spawns, you will have a number of brick ovens in the world, which will make further progress possible. Remember that brick oven fed with one tree is enough to keep your hidey hole alight through the first moonless night. After this point in the game, your goal is looking for iron veins.
I deliberately left creating of campfire off above guide, I find it to unintuitive and rage-quit reaction creating when you try cooking anything on campfire. Maybe I just don't know how to use it, but it looks like it needs 16 saw dust/tree bark to cook one item, with constant threat that the fire will go out if you try doing something else in the meantime. This fire also has a nasty habit of creating massive fires and destroying whole forests around you. Maybe in future updates campfire will be easier to use, but with all these drawbacks, I just came to conclusion that it's not worth it.
I hope someone will find this guide usefull. The start of the game is very hard this time, I find it harder even than MITE minecraft. If you just can not get through the beginning, than backup your world often, remember where key resources are, load backed up save if you must, and you will survive eventually.
If you got till the end of this guide, you are a really patient reader :) If someone has better starting strategy, I look forward reading about your experience.
Best regards and I wish you luck while playing! :)
