Towns is a nice game with graphics that are a bit dated but some great gameplay more than makes up for that.

Although the concept is simple, the gameplay has many hidden aspects and potential snares that can be frustrating at the start.

Preventative Medicine

Before selecting your very first map, set autosaves to be infrequent (a day is a fairly short period of gameplay). You will probably make the odd mistake and you dont want the game to save your error.

First Map

Dont accept your first map just to play with the game and see what its like. Most likely you will get into the game and then get frustrated when you find out that your first map was a poor choice.

Start a game with a Normal map then press the Pause button on the minimap (or the Space key) as soon as the map loads up.

Imagine the map is made of big tiles, each one the size of your screen view. Your general starting position is one screen in each direction from where your people start. So an area the size of 3x3 screens.

You dont want to travel more than one screen to get to your starting position.

You want ..

• Plenty of wood nearby. I prefer pine trees since they seem to spawn fewer Ent style Tree Keepers that attack your people.
  
• At least 40x40 tiles of stone easily accesible stone in your starting area is good.
  
• Not essential, but an initial clear space of around 30x10 tiles is helpful.
  
• Some fruit trees. Four or five is fine. (Dont chop them down)
  
• The general area should not be too hilly. If you can see about two adjacent screens worth of flat space in the 3x3 screen pan area around your start position then thats fine.
  
• Some water such as a small lake or a river nearby is a little helpful but not essential.
  
• If you can see exposed iron then thats very good for later but is not critical at the start.
  
• You do not want to see too many little blue spear wielding Froggies nearby. Two to four is fine but a little tribe or clan of them is bad.

If your first map does not meet these criteria, Quit the game (Cog icon at the top of the minimap) and go through this checklist again with the next map you get.

You have a map you are happy with, your autosaves are set to happen very rarely or never.
Save the game manually using the Cog icon on the minimap.

Wood Is Essential

Hopefully you got that 30x10 area of clear tiles (mostly just grass).
Destroy any flowers, small bushes or isolated trees in that area (though not fruit trees if you have few fo them around). Just right click the offending flora and destroy it.
Do not destroy any Wild Wheat you see.

Unpause the game.

If you did not get a fairly clear space initially, then create a clear space about 6x6 tiles in the most clear spot available by selecting Chop (bottom of screen) and dragging out an area to suit.

Till (the rake at the bottom) the cleared ground to get 3 strips of tilled ground, each 6 tiles long and one tile apart. Save the game.

On the right of the screen (Blue Arrow), click the wheat sheaf, and then select the icon for sow pine seedling.
Starting at one end of one furrow, highlight all the furrows and then click again to let your people you want them to plant pine there. You may have to do that two or three time to cover all your ploughed furrows.

Wait till your people have planted trees in all the bare earth you tilled for your tree farm. Then pause the game again.

If you managed to get all the furrows planted without more than 1 of your people dying, then save the game. Otherwise reload your last save and try again.

You may have to try planting another seed type to get all your furrows planted with trees without too many of your people dying. It depends on the number and types of trees you have nearby and how close any dangers might be.

When all your furrows are planted and you have lost no more than one person, save the game.


NOTE: It takes a while to create a basic starting scenario and each person you lose at the start is about 10% of your manpower (ie eventually lots of time). You can afford to lose 1 person during the course of this without it being too much of a nuisance, but if you lose 2 or more, you are talking lots of lost time. Its faster, if one of your people dies, to just reload and try again.

Your tree farm will be a safe place to harvest wood without any Tree Keepers turning up, but you will need to be able to store the wood.

Select Chop and then highlight a 10x10 area right beside your tree farm to clear the trees from it.
While your people are chopping the wood, destroy any flowers or bushes in that area.

You can actually clear huge areas at once but that would separate all your people. Clearing small 10x10 areas means that if any Tree Keepers appear then you will probably have 2 or more of your people trying to kill it at the same time and much less likelihood of deaths.

When the area is clear (you dont want to lose any people doing that so reload if you do), select the green Stockpile Icon at the bottom and create a 5x5 Raw Materials stockpile as far from your tree farm as possible.

Give your people a minute or two to collect the lumber from any trees they just cut down and put it in your just created stockpile.

Save the game.

Create another 10x10 cleared space beside the first one and make a roughly 10x5 Raw Materials stockpile in the cleared area. Leave a tile of free space between the two stockpiles.

Right click each stockpile and Manage Stockpile. On the management window, select Misc (its the one that lists all the corpse types) and click the big red X. Close the window.

By now, your tree farm is probably beginning to sprout. Let it mature so that all the little bushes are grown trees and then either extend the existing furrows or create more so that you have space for 30 trees.

You will want around 40 farmed trees at the end of this so bear that in mind as you build the things we are about to deal with.

Save game.

Click the plant tree seedling icon (blue arrow on the right then wheat sheaf then appropriate tree seedling) and set those furrows to be more tree farm.

Carpentry

While your people are off hunting tree seedlings find a clear space beside your tree farm with at least two tiles between it and your treefarm and stockpiles, then find Zones on the icon bar at the bottom.

Click that, select Carpentry Zone, then create a 5x5 area for carpentry that is two tiles away from your tree farm.

Wait for your people to finish planting the new tree farm tiles.
If they do that safely then save game.

Right click each nearby fruit tree and Harvest it.

On the right, click the blue arrow, Click the back arrow so that you are not on the planting options.

Click the Tongs (top right) then click Carpenters Bench. Place three Carpenters Benches, one after the other, along one side of the Carpentry Zone.

Find some nearby Stone, click Mine (Pickaxe at the bottom of the screen) and mine about 10 tiles worth of stone. Note, the stone should be highlighted top and bottom in yellow and its best to start at the top of the hill and mine down.

If you safely mined the stone and created the Carpentry Benches, then save game.

Again blue menu and Tongs, place three Wood Detailers on the opposite side of the Carpentry area from the carpentry benches.

Send your remaining people to chop down the trees in an adjoining 10x10 area.

If that works out safely, save game.

On the blue menu, click the Barrel on the bottom left, then select Raw Materials Barrel and put 5 of them on the edge of your tree farm and between it and the carpentry area.

Meanwhile, set your people to Chop another cleared 10x10 area of trees and wait for the barrels to be made. You may have to chop down the mature trees in your tree farm at this point and it wont hurt if you have time to do it anyway while waiting for the barrels to be made.

When they are made, right click and then Manage each Raw Materials Barrel and, after you select each subtype of material, click the big red X. On the page where Wood is listed, click the wood so it becomes active. Its the only one you want to see active on any page.