>>2186048
I'm at 800 people on Normal difficulty.
Top 2 things are food and research.
- Food is the most important thing, which means you need fields. Start by making a few 6x6 fields (spaced out far enough to be later expanded to 12x12+fencing around each). I go 4-5 farmers per 12x12 field; as long as you aren't losing crops to frost or rot, you needn't add more workers than that. Try to make your farmer population and housing explode early on so that you have excess food to attract big immigrant waves.
- As soon as you can, buy some chickens so that they can fertilize your fields. (Request them so you can buy ~5 of them ASAP) You can set the grazing area on one field that grows only clover, then once you've fully fertilized, weeded, and de-rocked it, grow crops on it and move the chickens to the next field.
- Get an academy. Even without paper, it greatly accelerates your research.
- Keep enough tools in reserve; a death spiral because of no tools sucks.
After that, just keep slightly overproducing your needs so that you can sell them. Pottery, candles, soap, and anything wearable can be sold. Planks too. Just keep enough in reserve and don't sell for bad prices.
- Until you hit tier 4, you only need one barracks. You can use your townsfolk to distract raiders while your army destroys them. When not being raided, clean up raider camps on the map because they generate knowledge when destroyed. (Lure the defenders out with your soldiers and kill them with your archers. When there are no more defenders, you can attack the towers with your soldiers while your archers run around in the back, attracting tower fire.)
Traps
1. Guard towers. #1 waste of money and manpower until you've hit tier 4. (And even then they suck but at least by then you can afford them).
2. Beer. It can cause more problems than it solves. It can wait until tier 4.
3. Cooper. You can buy a few barrels once the barrel seller shows up. Wouldn't build this until late tier 3
