Post by Lorenor on Dec 31, 2015 8:05:15 GMT -8
Kobold Tribes is a very difficult game for beginners. There are lots of things in the Forest that can kill you, starting with your own needs like warmth and hunger to dangerous creatures such as wolves and bears through to the enemy tribe who will get you eventually if you aren´t preparing for their attack. So don´t be frustrated if you die a lot in the first few games, it´s not unusual that you die 20 or 30 times before you can make your first own kill... Even though I hope this guide will speed up the process a little bit.
The first thing I would recommend to every completely new player is to play the tutorial. It will show you the very basics of the game, how you make a campfire, how to cook a raw lamb and how to craft basic equipment. But there is a lot of stuff the tutorial doesn´t tell you either, so here are my tips on how to survive the Forest:
1. Build a campfire at night
One of the most common deaths for new players is "eaten by wolves". Day wolves are harmless and even if you attack them, it´s very unlikely to die to them. But direwolves are much more dangerous. They hunt in packs, they attack everything that leaves the safety of the campfire during night, and they are stronger than day wolves as well.
Also, the night is cold! Within 20 seconds away from your campfire you will start freezing, which means you loose health and aren´t able to run anymore. This - combined with the dire wolves - is a death sentence.
Also, plan ahead. Make sure you are either close to a campfire or have stone and lumber in your inventory before the night falls. It´s hard to mine for stone if you are getting attacked by dire wolves.
2. Torch or lantern
Good thing there is a wonderous item that can prevent both freezing and getting attacked by dire wolves: The torch! You can grab a torch at the campfire that will decrease the warmth loss by 50% and, even more important, keeps dire wolves away. You will still freeze at the end of the night if you only have a torch, but you won´t die to it. With the torch, you can leave your campfire even during night, but in general I would recommend to rather use the night for mining near your campfire, crafting some equipment, cooking etc.
The lantern is a craftable item at the working bench, it requires a radiant gem and an iron ore, and it acts as permanent torch. You should always try to get a lantern at some point in the game (the earlier the better), because if you don´t you are depending on campfires every night.
3. Watch your health
I don´t know why I have to say this, but apparently many new players don´t know what a health bar is. If you see that your health bar is decreasing faster than the enemy´s health bar, and you have no way to quickly restore your own health, then RUN! No matter if it´s a bear (two bears at once for example will kill you) or an enemy kobold. Don´t fight a fight you can´t win.
4. Always have some food in your inventory
With the time it will become a routine to cook and eat some basic food, but beginners oftentimes forget about it. So make sure you always keep your hunger up and have some roasted lamb and wolf steak in your inventory.
5. Don´t walk too far
Even though you shouldn´t build your base right at the spawn point, because it´s better to first gather some resources and then base somewhere closer to the middle of the map... DON´T walk over the middle of the map if you aren´t prepared for a fight. The further you walk in the direction of your enemies, the more likely it is that you will meet one of them. If it still comes to a fight, keep point 3 in mind.
So there we go, these are the basics for simple survival in the forest. If you want to train them, you can make a custom game in which you either play alone or with a friend and simply try to survive as long as possible.
Now the second step would be to prepare yourself for battle. The most important thing you need is equipment, but also spells, better food and pets can decide the outcome of a fight.
6. Get gear you can afford
Many new players think that the most expensive equipment automatically is the best. That´s not quite right. One piece of 25 artisanship equipment might be better than one piece of 5 or 10 artianship equipment, but 3 pieces of 5 artisanship equipment are way better than one piece of 25 artisanship - and all three are still less expensive.
So if you have a Venomous Arbalest at 15 minutes into the game, don´t be surprised that someone with a Sturdy Wooden Stick, Huntsman Jacket and Leather Shield still defeats you... he probably also has some 5 or 10 cooking food, spells and maybe even a pet at this point in the game, while you only have your weapon and almost nothing else. On top of this, once your enemy kills you he will have the Venomous Arbalest, which makes it even harder for the rest of your team.
So my tip or, you could almost say, plea to all new players: Make some low artisanship gear. A Rough Blunderbuss, huntsman jacket and a Lantern or Leather Shield at minute 10 are far better than Arbalest, Dreadplate and Heartpiercer at minute 50, when the rest of your team is probably already dead. If you get more experienced, you will learn how to get better gear faster.
7. Buy spells
Many new players underestimate the importance of spells. They can make a huge difference in a fight, and they only cost around 50-70 gold, so you should always try to get them as fast as possible. To buy a spell, you need a wizard first. Wizards will visit your (or your allies´) taverns every night with increasing chance the more gold you have. Most of the experienced players also have a perk that guarantees you a wizard if you have more than 30 gold, so they will most likely have a wizard the first or seconds night. It can be seen if a tavern has a wizard from the lantern on the tavern that only glows if a wizard is present.
I would recommend you to buy affliction, it´s easy to use (point and click) and deals a good amount of damage. But it doesn´t really matter which one of the spells you get, as long as you use them in a fight (except for the first three spells, they don´t deal damage).
Don´t forget to buy a spellbook for 10 gold, otherwise you won´t be able to use any spells.
8. Make better food
While it is enough to have some roasted lamb to keep your hunger up, you want to have some better food in a fight to quickly restore your health. The easiest food to get is the berry pheasent. It requires 5 cooking, a berry and a raw pheasent and restores almost 200 health, which is massive, especially in the beginning of the game.
If you want to invest 5 more skill points into cooking, you can make beer braised pheasents. They heal you slightly less, but therefore give you 5 strength, which means 5 more attack damage. That is also very helpful in a fight.
Please make sure to NEVER, EVER eat such food just to regain some hunger. I know they refill about 80 hunger, but they are much more valuable in a fight. Just cook some raw lamb or wolf meat or, if it´s really necessary, buy some roasted lamb at the tavern.
9. Tame pets
This is usually the last step when preparing for a battle, but if you already have equipment, spells and food and your team still isn´t in combat with the enemy, you should build a hunter´s lodge and make an obedience rod. Hitting wolves or bears with it will tame them (15% chance per hit, so don´t expect it to work instantly). You can also buy perks for your pets, but they are really expensive, so I think as a new player you will rarely have enough resources and time to get them.
10. Help with quests
From time to time, a quest message will appear in the upper left corner of the screen. Quests usually reward the whole team if you win them, so you should always see if you can do your part. If it´s for example the forestry quest, plant as many trees as you can and maybe even buy the spell "nature´s grace" to grow trees faster.
If it´s a boss monster, don´t run in alone. Ask if someone will help you, and be prepared to meet not only the boss, but also the enemy team if you go there.
There are some quests that you should know about because you can actually hurt your team by doing them wrong:
- First, there is the arena quest. Don´t walk into the circle unless you are convinced to have a chance to defeat your enemy. Sometimes it´s better to skip this quest.
- Second, we have the treasure chest quest. Each treasure contains some resources and equipment, but only the last openend chest has a piece of quest equipment in it, the Spiked Shadow Scutum. So both teams will try to secure one chest (without opening it) and try to open all other chests, so they get the shield. What that means is: DON´T open the second last chest if your team hasn´t secured the last one.
- Third, the darkness quest. In this quest, you have no vision on your allies, which makes it even more confusing. The goal is to go to the shrines of darkness, activate them and step on the tiles around the middle post in the order the lightning strikes them. As if this wasn´t difficult enough, there are ghoul mages around the shrines, shooting fire balls at all kobolds near them. If you see an ally doing this quest, stay away from the tiles. If you step on them in the wrong order, all nearby allies will get hurt and the shrine has to be activated again. Let your ally do his thing and just focus on killing all the mage ghouls around.
11. Revive your teammates
It is possible to revive your fallen teammates. To do that, you need some resources (they are shown in the ally ui at the left screen, if you can´t see it press TAB) and have to bring them to one of the two shrines. The shrines can be found at the top right or bottom left of the map, you can ask more experienced players to ping their exact position. Be sure though that the enemy isn´t warding the shrines. Don´t suicide trying to resurrect your teammates.
12. Watch your stamina
In a chasing scenario, it´s usually the stamina that decides if you can kill or escape the enemy or not. You can see the enemy´s stamina by hovering the cursor over his kobold. If you see he has more stamina and you don´t have a way to get stamina back, then don´t chase him. Once you run out of stamina, you are easy prey. Maybe he´s just trying to bait you to his allies that are just waiting for you to run out of stamina.
At the end, some general tips and behavior rules:
13. Fight together, base alone
I know it´s called Kobold TRIBES, so many people expect that everyone stays together in one base, but it´s usually much more effective if everybody makes his own base (or at least campfire). The reason for this is that each place only has a limited amount of resources, and if 3 or 4 players all use them, they will soon have to walk further and further to get more resources. It´s ok to use the buildings of an ally, but please ask him before you mine at a mineral deposit in range of his campfire.
Of course, if you get attacked, it´s important to stay together. If the enemy rushes you and you aren´t prepeared for a battle, just abandon your base and flee to your allies. See point 3 again: Don´t fight if you can´t win.
14. Don´t take your allies´ resources
You can´t simply take any resource you find lying around in the base of an ally. "This is a team game" is no excuse for such a behavior. If you need something, you can ask if somebody would share it, that´s no problem. But don´t simply take it.
This also applies to infused lumber or bear pelts. You can of course help allies to chop down an elder tree or kill a bear, but if they started chopping or attacking it, you shouldn´t take any of the resources unless you ask them and they agree.
15. Don´t spend all your time reading item descriptions
In Kobold Tribes, time is an important factor. If you want to know what each item does, you should start a solo game and read them there.
16. Spend your skill points wisely
The most important thing to note when it comes to skill points is that you should always spend all 5 points into the same skill. Every crafting requirement, every skill perk etc is unlocked at a multiple of 5 skillpoints (so items unlock at 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 artisanship, perks unlock at 15, 20 or 25 in each skill). Things like 1 in each skill are absolutely useless, always try to avoid that.
Since you only get perks for 15, 20 and 25 skill points, you also shouldn´t spend more than 25 points into one skill.
My suggestion for beginners is: start with 5 points into artisanship, then 5 points into cooking and then choose max out (so 25 skill points) forestry, mining or foraging and the last 15 skill points into another one of these skills, or make it 20 20.
17. Sell spare resources
Selling resources at the storage outpost is the easiest way to get gold. If you have any spare resources (so resources you don´t need for your equipment) you can sell them there. Try to get enough gold to buy a spell at night 2 or 3 that way.
18. Don´t start by gathering berries
Many new players start the game by gathering berries, oftentimes depleteing a berry bush completely. That´s a waste of time. Berries don´t restore that much hunger, they don´t give as much experience as killing sheep or pheasents, and they are also a waste of inventory space. Unless you need them for your build, you should ignore berries up to the point where you want to cook berry pheasents.
I hope this post will help, if you think something is missing, feel free to add it
The first thing I would recommend to every completely new player is to play the tutorial. It will show you the very basics of the game, how you make a campfire, how to cook a raw lamb and how to craft basic equipment. But there is a lot of stuff the tutorial doesn´t tell you either, so here are my tips on how to survive the Forest:
1. Build a campfire at night
One of the most common deaths for new players is "eaten by wolves". Day wolves are harmless and even if you attack them, it´s very unlikely to die to them. But direwolves are much more dangerous. They hunt in packs, they attack everything that leaves the safety of the campfire during night, and they are stronger than day wolves as well.
Also, the night is cold! Within 20 seconds away from your campfire you will start freezing, which means you loose health and aren´t able to run anymore. This - combined with the dire wolves - is a death sentence.
Also, plan ahead. Make sure you are either close to a campfire or have stone and lumber in your inventory before the night falls. It´s hard to mine for stone if you are getting attacked by dire wolves.
2. Torch or lantern
Good thing there is a wonderous item that can prevent both freezing and getting attacked by dire wolves: The torch! You can grab a torch at the campfire that will decrease the warmth loss by 50% and, even more important, keeps dire wolves away. You will still freeze at the end of the night if you only have a torch, but you won´t die to it. With the torch, you can leave your campfire even during night, but in general I would recommend to rather use the night for mining near your campfire, crafting some equipment, cooking etc.
The lantern is a craftable item at the working bench, it requires a radiant gem and an iron ore, and it acts as permanent torch. You should always try to get a lantern at some point in the game (the earlier the better), because if you don´t you are depending on campfires every night.
3. Watch your health
I don´t know why I have to say this, but apparently many new players don´t know what a health bar is. If you see that your health bar is decreasing faster than the enemy´s health bar, and you have no way to quickly restore your own health, then RUN! No matter if it´s a bear (two bears at once for example will kill you) or an enemy kobold. Don´t fight a fight you can´t win.
4. Always have some food in your inventory
With the time it will become a routine to cook and eat some basic food, but beginners oftentimes forget about it. So make sure you always keep your hunger up and have some roasted lamb and wolf steak in your inventory.
5. Don´t walk too far
Even though you shouldn´t build your base right at the spawn point, because it´s better to first gather some resources and then base somewhere closer to the middle of the map... DON´T walk over the middle of the map if you aren´t prepared for a fight. The further you walk in the direction of your enemies, the more likely it is that you will meet one of them. If it still comes to a fight, keep point 3 in mind.
So there we go, these are the basics for simple survival in the forest. If you want to train them, you can make a custom game in which you either play alone or with a friend and simply try to survive as long as possible.
Now the second step would be to prepare yourself for battle. The most important thing you need is equipment, but also spells, better food and pets can decide the outcome of a fight.
6. Get gear you can afford
Many new players think that the most expensive equipment automatically is the best. That´s not quite right. One piece of 25 artisanship equipment might be better than one piece of 5 or 10 artianship equipment, but 3 pieces of 5 artisanship equipment are way better than one piece of 25 artisanship - and all three are still less expensive.
So if you have a Venomous Arbalest at 15 minutes into the game, don´t be surprised that someone with a Sturdy Wooden Stick, Huntsman Jacket and Leather Shield still defeats you... he probably also has some 5 or 10 cooking food, spells and maybe even a pet at this point in the game, while you only have your weapon and almost nothing else. On top of this, once your enemy kills you he will have the Venomous Arbalest, which makes it even harder for the rest of your team.
So my tip or, you could almost say, plea to all new players: Make some low artisanship gear. A Rough Blunderbuss, huntsman jacket and a Lantern or Leather Shield at minute 10 are far better than Arbalest, Dreadplate and Heartpiercer at minute 50, when the rest of your team is probably already dead. If you get more experienced, you will learn how to get better gear faster.
7. Buy spells
Many new players underestimate the importance of spells. They can make a huge difference in a fight, and they only cost around 50-70 gold, so you should always try to get them as fast as possible. To buy a spell, you need a wizard first. Wizards will visit your (or your allies´) taverns every night with increasing chance the more gold you have. Most of the experienced players also have a perk that guarantees you a wizard if you have more than 30 gold, so they will most likely have a wizard the first or seconds night. It can be seen if a tavern has a wizard from the lantern on the tavern that only glows if a wizard is present.
I would recommend you to buy affliction, it´s easy to use (point and click) and deals a good amount of damage. But it doesn´t really matter which one of the spells you get, as long as you use them in a fight (except for the first three spells, they don´t deal damage).
Don´t forget to buy a spellbook for 10 gold, otherwise you won´t be able to use any spells.
8. Make better food
While it is enough to have some roasted lamb to keep your hunger up, you want to have some better food in a fight to quickly restore your health. The easiest food to get is the berry pheasent. It requires 5 cooking, a berry and a raw pheasent and restores almost 200 health, which is massive, especially in the beginning of the game.
If you want to invest 5 more skill points into cooking, you can make beer braised pheasents. They heal you slightly less, but therefore give you 5 strength, which means 5 more attack damage. That is also very helpful in a fight.
Please make sure to NEVER, EVER eat such food just to regain some hunger. I know they refill about 80 hunger, but they are much more valuable in a fight. Just cook some raw lamb or wolf meat or, if it´s really necessary, buy some roasted lamb at the tavern.
9. Tame pets
This is usually the last step when preparing for a battle, but if you already have equipment, spells and food and your team still isn´t in combat with the enemy, you should build a hunter´s lodge and make an obedience rod. Hitting wolves or bears with it will tame them (15% chance per hit, so don´t expect it to work instantly). You can also buy perks for your pets, but they are really expensive, so I think as a new player you will rarely have enough resources and time to get them.
10. Help with quests
From time to time, a quest message will appear in the upper left corner of the screen. Quests usually reward the whole team if you win them, so you should always see if you can do your part. If it´s for example the forestry quest, plant as many trees as you can and maybe even buy the spell "nature´s grace" to grow trees faster.
If it´s a boss monster, don´t run in alone. Ask if someone will help you, and be prepared to meet not only the boss, but also the enemy team if you go there.
There are some quests that you should know about because you can actually hurt your team by doing them wrong:
- First, there is the arena quest. Don´t walk into the circle unless you are convinced to have a chance to defeat your enemy. Sometimes it´s better to skip this quest.
- Second, we have the treasure chest quest. Each treasure contains some resources and equipment, but only the last openend chest has a piece of quest equipment in it, the Spiked Shadow Scutum. So both teams will try to secure one chest (without opening it) and try to open all other chests, so they get the shield. What that means is: DON´T open the second last chest if your team hasn´t secured the last one.
- Third, the darkness quest. In this quest, you have no vision on your allies, which makes it even more confusing. The goal is to go to the shrines of darkness, activate them and step on the tiles around the middle post in the order the lightning strikes them. As if this wasn´t difficult enough, there are ghoul mages around the shrines, shooting fire balls at all kobolds near them. If you see an ally doing this quest, stay away from the tiles. If you step on them in the wrong order, all nearby allies will get hurt and the shrine has to be activated again. Let your ally do his thing and just focus on killing all the mage ghouls around.
11. Revive your teammates
It is possible to revive your fallen teammates. To do that, you need some resources (they are shown in the ally ui at the left screen, if you can´t see it press TAB) and have to bring them to one of the two shrines. The shrines can be found at the top right or bottom left of the map, you can ask more experienced players to ping their exact position. Be sure though that the enemy isn´t warding the shrines. Don´t suicide trying to resurrect your teammates.
12. Watch your stamina
In a chasing scenario, it´s usually the stamina that decides if you can kill or escape the enemy or not. You can see the enemy´s stamina by hovering the cursor over his kobold. If you see he has more stamina and you don´t have a way to get stamina back, then don´t chase him. Once you run out of stamina, you are easy prey. Maybe he´s just trying to bait you to his allies that are just waiting for you to run out of stamina.
At the end, some general tips and behavior rules:
13. Fight together, base alone
I know it´s called Kobold TRIBES, so many people expect that everyone stays together in one base, but it´s usually much more effective if everybody makes his own base (or at least campfire). The reason for this is that each place only has a limited amount of resources, and if 3 or 4 players all use them, they will soon have to walk further and further to get more resources. It´s ok to use the buildings of an ally, but please ask him before you mine at a mineral deposit in range of his campfire.
Of course, if you get attacked, it´s important to stay together. If the enemy rushes you and you aren´t prepeared for a battle, just abandon your base and flee to your allies. See point 3 again: Don´t fight if you can´t win.
14. Don´t take your allies´ resources
You can´t simply take any resource you find lying around in the base of an ally. "This is a team game" is no excuse for such a behavior. If you need something, you can ask if somebody would share it, that´s no problem. But don´t simply take it.
This also applies to infused lumber or bear pelts. You can of course help allies to chop down an elder tree or kill a bear, but if they started chopping or attacking it, you shouldn´t take any of the resources unless you ask them and they agree.
15. Don´t spend all your time reading item descriptions
In Kobold Tribes, time is an important factor. If you want to know what each item does, you should start a solo game and read them there.
16. Spend your skill points wisely
The most important thing to note when it comes to skill points is that you should always spend all 5 points into the same skill. Every crafting requirement, every skill perk etc is unlocked at a multiple of 5 skillpoints (so items unlock at 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 artisanship, perks unlock at 15, 20 or 25 in each skill). Things like 1 in each skill are absolutely useless, always try to avoid that.
Since you only get perks for 15, 20 and 25 skill points, you also shouldn´t spend more than 25 points into one skill.
My suggestion for beginners is: start with 5 points into artisanship, then 5 points into cooking and then choose max out (so 25 skill points) forestry, mining or foraging and the last 15 skill points into another one of these skills, or make it 20 20.
17. Sell spare resources
Selling resources at the storage outpost is the easiest way to get gold. If you have any spare resources (so resources you don´t need for your equipment) you can sell them there. Try to get enough gold to buy a spell at night 2 or 3 that way.
18. Don´t start by gathering berries
Many new players start the game by gathering berries, oftentimes depleteing a berry bush completely. That´s a waste of time. Berries don´t restore that much hunger, they don´t give as much experience as killing sheep or pheasents, and they are also a waste of inventory space. Unless you need them for your build, you should ignore berries up to the point where you want to cook berry pheasents.
I hope this post will help, if you think something is missing, feel free to add it
