Lost Tribe Guide

In the Lost Tribe scenario, you start off with 5 people, but less material resources, and research slower.

Choosing tribals (Optional) Since you have 5 people, each tribesperson doesn't have as much of an impact as colonists from other scenarios. You can spread skills across the whole party. You will need these skills to survive: Violence: Hunting for food and self-defense. Construction: Building a shelter for your tribe. Dumb labor: Hauling, cleaning and cutting plants. Mining: Obtaining metallic resources such as steel for building better equipment. Cooking: Cooking food. Growing: Growing food crops. Starting a stable food supply is high priority as you start off with very little food. Aim to have 2 growers which can grow food crops. Crafting: Crafting better weapons to replace the poor starting weapon choice. You can't craft good weapons until you research Smithing, however, so research is also important. Medicine: Treating the sick and injured. Since herbal medicine has a low medical potency, the doctor needs to be skilled. Try to have a redundant doctor if possible, who will take over if the first is downed. Social: Convincing captured prisoners to join forces with you, as well as bartering for resources. Research: Researching new projects. Since your tribe is slow to research many projects, you may want to start soon.

Beginning

You appear with supplies scattered around, hungry and malnourished, the pemmican (400 units) will only last for the first day and the second morning and before everything starts off a lot of it would've been eaten.

Weapons

Your tribe starts off with a low-tech selection of weapons.

Short bow (x2)	Pila	Wooden club	Steel Ikwa	Jade knife

The pila can be given to moderately skilled shooters, as they can deal heavy damage if they hit but don't have much range, and the long time between shots means that you'll regret missing with it.

One short bow should be equipped by the most skilled shooter, and the other by a less skilled shooter.

The steel ikwa should be given to your best melee pawn, followed by the wooden club. The jade knife is best left alone as it's the lowest damaging melee weapon; even wooden clubs, easily made, beat it in damage output.

You can place a crafting spot to make extra wooden clubs or Recurve bows, which are the next bow upgrade and it's research is already finished by default (to address the differing weapon skills of your tribespeople).

Shelter

All built in barrack, early start.

You will need to find shelter for your tribespeople. The easiest solution is to look for ancient structures in the proximities which are already standing and require a wall patch or two. If there isn't any nearby, then a simple wood hut will do. Note that tribespeople need to research stonecutting. If you can't obtain a massive amount of steel due to lacking skillful miners, you will need to stick to wood for some time. However it's still very likely that stonecutting tech will be finished before you need to build any other room, as at early start you can just handle with an all-built in barrack.

Food

Obtaining food should be one of your priority tasks so your tribe won't starve.

Growing crops

Crops differ one from another and your decisions will differ based on the "Growing period" of your map, be it 10/60, 20/60, 30/60 or year-round. Besides the crop of choice it is very important to analyze ground fertility, as this will have significance over plants development speed. Your growers skill points will affect the sowing speed as well.

• Rice grows fast and can be harvested soon.
• Strawberries are second fast, can be eaten raw without any negative mood debuffs.
• Potatoes take a while to grow but provide more food. It is useful if there is a lack of fertile land as it has low fertility sensitivity.
• Corn has the longest growing period but it provides large quantities once it matures, this crop choice is better made once you have secured a large food storage.

While food should be your main concern, there are two other plants you would do well to work on as well:

• Cotton can be harvested for cloth, while this material allows tailoring of apparel, you should store these to make Flak armor sets in order to prepare yourself against mechanoid attacks which shall start triggering once you have spent at least one year on your map. These enemies can easily blow off limbs and you will regret not preparing yourself well if you cant make protective gear for your colonists.
• Healroot can be harvested for herbal medicine but requires a minimum skill level of eight, if your growers are not ready yet, keep planting the other crops until they reach this level.

Gathering and Hunting

Raspberries can be found across the map , which can be harvested for decent early-game food supply. They grow fast, can be harvested multiple times and can be eaten raw without giving mood debuffs.

Hunting is the classic feeding way of pre-agricultural tribes since there is a gap between running out of your starter food and a successful harvest (min: 60% plant growth). You should mark some animals for hunting, your hunters equipped with ranged weapons will automatically shoot the animals from a distance. Try to go after large animals, they yield generous amounts of leather which your colonists can use to build bedrolls.

Food preservation

Unlike the other starts, lack of cooler technology means it's impossible to build a sub-zero freezer to prevent food spoilage.

Since you start with pemmican researched already, as long as you have meat, you can start making pemmican. They last a long time without spoiling.

Don't cook too many simple meals otherwise they may spoil, wasting food.

Apparel

Your tribe members start wearing tribalwear and some may also have a parka. After you settle down and have spare time, chop trees for wood or hunt animals to obtain raw materials to make war veils or war masks. These give slight protection, increase pain threshold allowing your tribespeople to hold out in battle longer before falling.

The next step

Once you have built an all-in barrack shelter and harvested your first crops, you should look making small step over all improvements.

Research

Research is a high priority and should be set up as soon as food supplies are stable, because tribes research slowly due to their low tech level.

• After Stonecutting and Complex clothing, you should prioritise upgrading your weaponry. Research Smithing to make better melee weapons and great bows, the Fueled smithy also allows making Simple helmet for only 40 steel, an upgrade from war masks.
• Then Plate armor for better protection.

Construction

Once you’ve build a basic hut to keep your tribals safe, and you’ve got some basic infrastructure up, you’ll want to start building individual rooms for your colonists. As you can’t build beds until you’ve researched them, you’ll want to use bedrolls or sleeping spots in these rooms.

Other structures that could be useful include a stockpile room, a research room, or a production room.

Defense

As you won’t have gun turrets for a long time, you may need to use deadfall traps to your advantage. Building a wall around your base could be useful to guide raiders into an entrance covered in deadfall traps, and building mazes filled with traps could be useful too. Just remember that colonists have a low chance of activating the traps and severely wounding themselves, so either put them in a checkerboard pattern or include shortcuts with doors for colonist access.

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Guides

Progression

Quickstart Guides • Basics • Intermediate Midgame Guide • Advanced Endgame Guide • Ending the game

Scenarios

Lost Tribe Guide • Rich Explorer Guide • Naked Brutality Guide • The Mechanitor Guide

Survival

Extreme Heat Guide • Extreme Cold Guide • Extreme Desert Guide • Ice Sheet Guide • Sea Ice Guide • Events Guide

Combat

Defense tactics • Offense tactics • Weapon Guide

Construction

Colony Building Guide • Defense structures

Production

Food production • Money making guide

Other

Skill Training • Permadeath save conversion guide •
Ideology Min-Maxing