DO NOT OVEREXPAND/PLAN
If you build ANY building and do not employ it for a certain amount of days, it will gain the "Rusty tools" debuff. This makes the building 20% less productive for 5 days. this applies to EVERY BUILDING, ESPECIALLY EMPTY HOUSING (please fix this devs) BUILD EVERYTHING AS YOU NEED IT AND HAVE WORKERS FOR IT!

Wells produce 12 water no matter how many nodes they are near, each node only increases the overall amount it can withdraw. If you need a lot of water, build one well per node to maximize how much water you produce each season.

For the 1st game I recommend the campaign and basic start date, I typically play the Meadow because it is the most effective for keeping a high pop count.
When you first start you can put your main hall wherever you want, to my knowledge it only matters if you have builders that need to carry the supplies to the worksite, otherwise just build A stockpile later on near your main production/expansion points
You do not need free population to build buildings, Evie (NPC) will do it on her own, but she walks slower and works slower than builders do.



Start by building your gathering post, well, work camp, and 2 lumber mills all in this radius for ease of supply, and then connecting them all to your main camp by road (needs a lot of stone and lumber to make roads, and eventually you can change your lumber camp to paper production)

Development is your tech tree, its based off of Population and Knowledge.
Every worker gives you 1 knowledge point per day, so you start with 35K/d
Every development needs Knowledge and typically need a resource also. Always research when available because you will need the improvements in the early game.
Basic construction costs 50 knowledge and some timber, and allows you to build a stockpile and a soup kitchen that makes meals. Some permanent mission choices will change your knowledge income, but at this early release version of the game that wont matter too much because of the limited research tree thus far.

Food is not automatically distributed to your people at a regular ration rate, which means everyone will get sick and you will lose. in this stage losing even ONE person could collapse everything if you aren't careful. Every type of meal option (basic meals) makes 8 every 2 hours. the only difference is the resource.


Distribution of supplies
To change distribution levels, click the worker icon that tells you how many you have (top middle) and it will open a class menu.
From here you can click what supply is available and distribution level of each supply, if you have enough then put it on double rations to boost morale and insure no one gets sick. I always put multiple wells across the map and roads that lead to them and connect my settlement (to ensure everything connects to main hall I build my road around it in a square so that every side is connected just in case) Wells do not need workers and only need to be traveled to to be built.

I also recommend that you build 2 soup kitchens to produce mushroom meals and fully staff EVERY building. you will have no extra workers but you wont need them or any more production until metal is unlocked.

Unlock metal ASAP and immediately build a forge, and a tool workshop. (note that you wont have the metal bars to build the workshop yet, but as they get produced the bars will be moved into the building instead of stockpiled. After this research Wind turbines and make sure housing is powered. (refer to housing part of guide.) Place a turbine in range of all 5 power nodes near the lighthouse and connect a road to it, any new turbines need to be built directly next to the starting one so that they all share ONE road into and out of the power field.

At the beginning you need 4 houses to hold everyone. Accept ALL new people and build more accordingly.
Each house requires power, and will eventually require a pub, hospital, and more. Build small neighborhoods and leave room for further development. Make sure you adjust distribution of everything they need to the highest level you can produce to.

Weather will impact your camp heavily. storms increase wind turbine production but lowers all other production types

Each season gives buffs also, but winter gives a massive debuff to overall health, and doesnt allow you to farm or to pick mushrooms.

Trade is based off of how much of the item you give the trader. the best trade item at first is meat, worth roughly 2 trade a unit
The more units you add the lower the value for the next batch will be for example if 10 meat is worth 2 trade, the 11th piece will be worth 1.5 trade, the 14th will be worth 1, so on so on. Once clothing is unlocked it becomes a better trade item.
so far though, the most profitable trades you can make are

• Meat ---> iron ore
  
• Cloth ---> Iron ore
  
• Cloth ---> Food

Ore is a finite resource until you get mines, but metal and stone are the 2 most important resources from here on out. Buy ore and refine it yourself to get the most value out of your trades.

Craftsman are important for later game buildings, as they give workforce to the building. When training them they will not ALL become craftsman (there is a % chance for all of them)

Scouts can be sent to explore the surrounding areas, but do not bring back any resources. These locations can be expanded to and give certain bonuses based off of their supply.

Keep your supply chains steady, and keep expanding food and water production. Keep up with development and focus on Population growth.

Neat side features of the game
Day/night cycle can be paused/unpaused, and can also be set to specific times of day.
Each person has a tracker on them
Can see population, how many workers, kids, and sick.
Stockpiles can be set manually, and to my knowledge have no limit and no workforce requirement




With some good luck, and a little bit of skill, your settlement might just make it until the next cycle. (see what I did there)