Guiding a community or even an entire civilization from its infancy to its ultimate triumph (or annihilation) is a favorite video game trope for a reason. There's something special about being able to exert one's influence on so great a scale, watching monuments rise and history made one decision at a time.

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Farthest Frontier moves the action away from dense urban areas and into the forest, tasking the player with building a functional community from scratch and keeping it running in the face of starvation, the elements, and enemy raids. Though much of this territory may be familiar to fans of the genre, there are plenty of tips that can make things easier for new players. Here are some tips that every beginner should know.

7 Customize Gameplay

Farthest Frontier - Sprawl

The player's important choices begin before the game even starts. When beginning a new game, the player has a variety of customization choices to pick from. The largest and most obvious choice is Difficulty, as Pioneer, Trailblazer, and Vanquisher all lead to significantly different experiences. The player can also alter or randomize terrain, change the size of the map, and activate Pacifist Mode if they're looking for a more mellow play experience.

At the bottom of the New Settlement screen, the player can also access Advanced Settings. These allow the player to tailor a variety of other features to their liking. This includes changing the number of resources available, the amount of wildlife, the threat posed by maladies, and the frequency of raids. It's a good idea to take at least a few minutes perusing these options before jumping into a game, even if the player is a veteran of city-builder games like SimCity.

6 Place The Town Center Well

Farthest Frontier - Town Center

The biggest initial in-game decision is where to put the Town Center. There are plenty of options, but before the player just plops it down anywhere, they should take a moment to survey the surroundings. The placement of the Town Center makes a big difference because it will determine what resources the player has immediate access to and which ones will require extra effort to collect.

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The Town Center should be located next to trees, rocks, and water, and ideally animals for early-game hunting. It's also important to note that buildings cannot be constructed on uneven terrain in Farthest Frontier, so placing one's Town Center on a hilltop is asking for trouble, since further construction in the area is likely to be extremely difficult or impossible in the beginning.

5 Overcome The Fog Of War

Farthest Frontier - Winter

Farthest Frontier is similar to many top-down civilization games in that the player doesn't have perfect knowledge of the map. Once the player's Town has been placed on the map, the fog of war covers unexplored areas, preventing the player from seeing them. To see those locations, the player will have to explore them first. Caring for a city in an open world can be daunting, and the fog of war is one reason why.

There is a way to work around this at the beginning of the game, however. When the player is surveying the map to pick a spot for their Town Center, there is no fog of war. This means that if the player is able to identify animal spawn locations or other notable features, the player will know where to go back to once the fog of war descends. By simply exploring in the direction of the resources that the player already knows to exist, they will be able to circumvent the fog of war and gain an early advantage.

4 Speed Up To Reduce The Grind

Farthest Frontier - Roads

Successful towns require plenty of resources, and harvesting those resources can take a long time. For some players, it can take too long to be fun. Thankfully, the game offers a convenient solution to this in the form of a Fast-Forward button. This allows the player to accelerate in-game events by 3x speed, getting through monotonous tasks like harvesting far quicker than normal.

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On the other hand, more exciting (and dangerous) events such as raids may incline the player to slow things down, either to give them more time to think things through or just to enjoy the excitement as it unfolds. The player can always slow the game down or pause it all together, then speed things back up once the commotion has died down. Manipulating time in this way can reduce the grind by cutting out whatever parts of the game the player likes the least.

3 Prioritize Food

Farthest Frontier - Winter Fields

Villagers need to eat, and without food, the village won't be long for this world. The player has a few options for feeding their villagers, but some are better than others. The best early options, if the player has access to the appropriate animals, are hunting and fishing. If the player lacks the animals for these, they can always have their villagers gather from bushes. This is one reason why choosing the placement of the Town Center carefully is so important.

Though Farms can be built and will matter a great deal later on, building them early is a bad idea. The issue is that Farthest Frontier includes a full seasonal cycle, and by the time Farms have been constructed, it will be too late for them to produce anything meaningful before the onset of winter. As a real life sim, Farthest Frontier takes its seasons seriously when it comes to food.

2 Split Wood

Farthest Frontier - Resources

Once food production has been taken care of, it's time to turn one's attention to wood. Careful management of the game's major resources is one of the most important aspects of success in Farthest Frontier. Wood is vital for all manner of construction projects, so turning the villager from a tiny hamlet into a thriving community is going to require plenty of it.

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The player should therefore prioritize the construction of a Firewood Splitter early on. It's a good idea to keep the Firewood Splitter near the Town Center and also near the actual wood harvesting sites, to make things a bit smoother. Building a simple grid of roads in the immediate area around the Town Center can also help facilitate transporting goods and keep things clear and uncluttered for the player, making it much easier to plan future construction projects and other actions.

1 Handle Housing

Farthest Frontier - Storage

Piles of deer meat and stacks of wood aren't going to do much to keep villagers happy if the villagers have nowhere to sleep. Building Houses is a very important and basic step for turning the village into an actual, functioning community. Building 6-8 early on is a good idea, but it's important not to pack them too closely together. This city sim's unique premise can make it addicting, but before the player gets too carried away, it's important to cover the fundamentals.

Unlike some simulation games, where the player can cram buildings practically on top of one another with no negative repercussions, Houses in Farthest Frontier need a bit of breathing room, as this will allow the player to decorate them. Decorating Houses increases their value and the happiness of those that live there and will make it easier to upgrade later. With that in mind, the player should have a good foundation for success on the frontier.

Farthest Frontier is now available for PC.

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