Going Medieval is a great colony simulator worth playing if you’re a fan of games like RimWorld. It doesn’t hurt to get started with some useful tips and tricks so you have an advantage going in. That’s why I put together this guide to help both new and experienced players with a variety of tips.
Tip 1 – How to Get Food in Going Medieval
Take advantage of every method for getting food so your colony never starves.
Keeping your settlers fed is one of the most important parts of Going Medieval because they’ll starve to death, otherwise. The main methods for getting food right now are hunting animals and farming with Agriculture research. Make sure you start your farm in the spring or summer so you don’t lose it during the winter.
And if you have someone in your colony with the Cannibal perk, you can even butcher raiders for food too. Aside from having a new source of food, they’ll also get a positive mood buff. It’s possible future updates may add a trading system as well.
Tip 2 – Store Food Underground
Freeze your food and prevent it from expiring by building underground.
Once you have a good source of food, you’ll want to prevent it from expiring. This is why it’s useful to understand how to build underground in Going Medieval. As you mine deeper below the base level, you’ll get to colder temperatures. You can take advantage of the temperature change for freezing food and preventing it from spoiling.
This makes it much easier to deal with difficult weather changes during the summer like a Heat Wave. Plus, your settlers will appreciate the cold temperatures when trying to cool off.
Tip 3 – How to Keep Everyone Happy
Keep settlers happy with all sorts of ways like a nice table to eat at.
If your colony isn’t happy, you’re bound to run into all sorts of problems. This is why it’s important to manage their mood and keep an eye out for factors lowering it. You can see a settler’s mood by clicking them and then clicking the smiley face icon near the bottom right window. This will show their current mood, positive modifiers, and negative ones too.
Try to manage each one and keep them happy so they don’t leave your colony. Here are some quick useful tips and tricks to keep your colony happy.
- Keep everyone fed
- Have alcohol available to meet alcohol requirements.
- Have a Backgammon Table available for entertainment. Possibly create multiple.
- Create one of each shrine to fulfill religious activities.
- Provide a table and chairs for settlers to eat at.
- Give settlers jobs they’re passionate about. We discuss this in our research guide.
Tip 4 – Place Archers Above Enemies
Place your archers up high away from the action so they can do their work without a problem.
One of the ways you can take advantage of Going Medieval’s building system revolves around archers. If you place a settler with a bow one story above an enemy, they’ll get several buffs in combat. This helps with fighting off raiders attacking your colony. Make sure to build a few raised areas where they can fight from or even small towers.
Archer buffs from a height advantage include better accuracy, farther range, and a higher critical hit chance. I like to enclose raised areas with a door so raiders have a tougher time getting to my archers. You can use traps as well since your settlers won’t trigger them.
Tip 5 – How to Get New Settlers
Random events provide an opportunity for growing your colony.
If you want to grow your colony, you’ll need to get more people. This will help with expanding your village and doing more tasks at once. There are only two ways to get new settlers and here’s the main way. As you play Going Medieval, random events can happen where someone will decide to join your colony.
And the other more dangerous random event is a prisoner escaping from raiders. You can take them in, but you’ll have to worry about an incoming attack from those same raiders. Fortunately, most raids aren’t too difficult if you’re prepared with traps and weapons. For more settler tips, visit our guide on how to get more settlers.
As Going Medieval is currently in development on Steam Early Access, it’s possible there may be new features added later on. But I’d be surprised if they added a mechanic for settlers to have babies. Since that would likely be a complex system to implement.
Tip 6 – Research New Technology in Going Medieval
Learn new technology for stronger weapons and better food that your settlers will appreciate.
The entire game opens up as you learn new technology unlocking more content. You can’t start a farm until you unlock Agriculture. And you can’t produce beer until researching Brewing. Over time, you’ll want to keep researching new technology to prepare your colony for what’s to come. Farming aside, you’ll need to prioritize researching stronger weapons too. Here are some tips on research to get first:
- Architecture
- Agriculture
- Brewing
- Furniture
- Wooden Weaponry
- Research II
- Start to pick what you think is best
Tip 7 – Build Floors to Speed Up Settlers
Spend those extra materials on floors to increase each settler’s movement speed.
Floors aren’t just great for looks and insulating a room, they also speed up movement. Try to place floors along paths that you see your settlers frequently walking. This can increase their productivity when running between frequent jobs. Such as a path to the farm or where your forest of trees is. Make sure you check the floor type since there are a few different ones in Going Medieval with different speeds.
Tip 8 – Mine a Moat Around Your Base
Raiders will have to take each bridge loaded with spike traps to reach your base.
Another neat Going Medieval trick you may not have thought of is to mine a moat around your base. Enemies can’t cross open gaps if there isn’t a bridge or something to help them across. This is a great way to funnel enemies through traps or to specific areas for fighting. A fun trick might be to completely remove any floor bridges across the gap and see what they do. I haven’t tested this yet myself.
Tip 9 – Take Full Advantage of Farming
A good method for getting Clothing Fabric is farming Flax.
While we did mention that a good source of food is farming, there are other reasons to plant crops too. You can also plant trees as a renewable source of wood. This is especially great if you’re in a region that doesn’t have many trees at the start. Not that you can’t use other materials like limestone for many buildings too.
Other important crops to plant are Herbs for Medicine, Flax for Clothing Fabric, and Redcurrant for brewing alcohol. Having a reliable source of Clothing Fabric is a great way to prepare for each season. And you’ll always want Herbs on hand for better healing when tending to settlers.
Tip 10 – Build Unique Rooms With Buffs
While these bedrooms may look like a prison, your settlers will be much happier in them.
One Going Medieval mechanic easy to miss is a system around unique rooms with buffs. By pressing V, an overlay will appear showing each room you’ve built. This also displays a legend near the top left for every room type you can create. For example, you can build a bedroom by placing just one bed in that room and nothing else. This provides a positive mood buff for settlers using it.
Another neat room buff is a Library for producing books quickly. There are several other room types that speed up production as well. So make sure to take a look at the legend and get to improving your colony.
If you have any Going Medieval questions for us, feel free to comment below the article. Otherwise, be sure to visit our guide hub for more useful tips and tricks. Or one of the many guides listed below.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.
Bad Hombre 89
Thursday 23rd of September 2021
This game is going to be huge. I’m telling you right now.