About

GETTING STARTED

How To Play

THIS GUIDE IS STILL BEING AUTHORED.

At the start screen, click Sandbox. Once the player has loaded, you will be asked to select which map you wish to play in the File Browser. If this is your first time in sandbox, choose the (Dev Map) Grasslands (Easy) map.

This guide reflects gameplay as at Patch 0.2.13 (January 31 2015).

The following acronyms are used throughout this guide:
LMB - Left Mouse Button
RMB - Right Mouse Button
Camera Controls

Moving the mouse cursor to the edges of the screen will move the camera in that direction. Once the mouse enters the scroll region around the edge of the screen, the closer the mouse cursor is to the edge, the faster the camera will move.

You can also move the camera using your keyboard.

Key Function
W or Up Arrow Move Camera Forward
S or Down Arrow Move Camera Backwards
A or Left Arrow Move Camera Left
D or Right Arrow Move Camera Right
Z Reduce Camera Altitude
X Increase Camera Altitude
Left Shift Doubles Camera Movement Rate
V Changes Camera Angle (Move Mouse While Holding V)


To zoom the camera in/out, you can also use the mouse scrollwheel.

To adjust the camera angle, while holding down V Alt you can move the mouse cursor left and right, up and down. Release V when you are happy with your selected angle. Improved performance can be achieved by pointing the camera towards the ground rather than the horizon.

Many camera actions can have their speed increased by performing the action while holding down Left Shift.
Supply Wagon

Each game begins with a handful of untrained Peasants. A supply wagon needs to be placed before you can progress. The wagon should be placed central to where you plan to build your village.

Start of game
Constructing Buildings

To place the Wagon, click the Construction Options button on the topbar, then select Supply Wagon by clicking the button below it. If you hover the mouse cursor over buttons, a tooltip will appear providing helpful information. A wagon attaches itself to the cursor, and will be surrounded by a green or red cube. Green indicates a valid construction location, while red means you cannot build there and will need to find a more suitable location. Buildings must be located on flat land (at least for now).

Placing a Supply Wagon

Rotating Buildings

While a building is attached to the cursor, it can be rotated by scrolling the mouse scroll wheel. If your mouse does not have a scroll wheel, you can use the [ and ] keyboard shortcuts.

Cancelling Placement

If you wish to cancel building placement, single-click the RMB. This will remove the cursor-attached building and return you to normal control mode.

Confirming Position

To finalize the position of your building, click with the LMB while the green cube is showing.

Unlocking Construction Options

Once you have constructed a Supply Wagon, all construction options become available, and are grouped into 3 categories: Basic Buildings, Military Buildings, and Advanced Buildings. Clicking on one of the category buttons will reveal the construction options available in that category in a new row of icon buttons directly below the category icons.

Construction Options
Selecting And Commanding Villagers

Villagers can be selected by clicking and holding down LMB, moving the mouse to drag a selection rectangle, and releasing LMB. Any units within the selection rectangle will be selected.

Selection

Holding down Left Shift while selecting units will retain previous selections and add new villagers to your selection.

Holding down Left Control can be used to deselect villagers that you already have selected.

Control Groups

Folk Tale includes RTS-style control groups for controlling multiple selections of characters. With one or more peasants selected, hold down Left Control and press 1, 2, 3 or 4 on your keyboard to define a new control group. To recall and switch between control groups, press 1, 2, 3 or 4 ( without holding Left Control ).

Moving Villagers

To tell one or villagers where to go, single-click RMB on an area of terrain.

Attacking

To tell villagers to attack a target, single-click RMB over the target.

Move-Attack

To tell villagers to move forward, and engage any enemies they meet along the way, hold down Left Control and single-click RMB anywhere on the terrain.
Villager Needs

Your first objective is to keep your villagers happy by meeting their Needs. A happy village is a successful village. Needs include Warmth, Protein, Carbohydrates, Vegetables, Basic Clothing, Entertainment, Sleep and Faith. The last 3 aren't currently enabled in game.

The first pressing need is Warmth. Villagers require shelter in the form of Cottages and Firewood. Firewood can be obtained by chopping down trees.

Peasants can complete simple tasks such as foraging and collecting resources, but aren't very good at it. It takes them a while, and the yield of resources is quite small. A Woodcutter profession however is much more efficient, working faster and producing a greater yield for each time they chop a tree. It is therefore recommended to work towards constructing a Woodcutter's Hut as quickly as possible. For that, you need more resources.

Foraging

Producing Planks and Firewood

Select all but one of your Peasants by dragging a selection marquee around them, then single-click the RMB on a nearby Tree. Each worker selects their own tree to chop, including the tree you clicked on, and starts walking towards it. After several swings, Peasants will start to return to the Supply Wagon carrying logs on their shoulder. When they arrive, each Peasant delivers 5 Logs that are split equally into Planks and Firewood.

Planks Firewood

Chopping Trees
Resource Gathering

Basic Resources that can be gathered by Peasants include:

Cursor Resource Purpose
Forage Berries Provides a small amount of carbohydrate and staves off hunger
Iron Ingots Iron Ore Smelted into Iron Ingots by Blacksmiths for use in construction and crafting
Quarry Stone Used in the construction of Basic Buildings, and chiseled by Stonecutters into Stone Blocks for use in Advanced Buildings
Chop Trees Chopped down to produce Planks for use in construction, and Firewood to keep peasants warm


Checking The Stockpile

To construct a Woodcutter Hut, you need 25 Planks. To view how many resources you currently have, you can either click on the Inventory bag on the top bar (keyboard shortcut I), or click the down arrow to the far right of the topbar to view the Stockpile.

Topbar

Inventory

The Inventory dialog shows all items you possess, including resources. Along the bottom of the inventory dialog are filters that you can use to only show the category of items that you are interested in.

Inventory Dialog

Filter Description
All All Items
Weapons Filter: Weapons
Armor Filter: Armor
Crafting Ingredients Filter: Crafting Ingredients
Gems and Jewellery Filter: Gems and Jewellery
Miscellanous Filter: Miscellanous

Salvaging is not yet implemented.

Stockpile

The Stockpile dialog exclusively shows resources, and is used for quick visual checks.

Stockpile Dialog

You usually start each game with no Planks or Firewood, and need to gather them using the steps above. Once you have 25 Planks in your Stockpile, you can construct a Woodcutter's Hut. Open the construction options by clicking on the topbar, open Basic Buildings (the first icon), and click the Woodcutter Hut button (looks like an axe). To find out how many resources each building requires, hover the mouse cursor over each construction option. Red numbers indicate you don't have enough of that resource.

Buildings

Shortly after placing the Woodcutter Hut, Peasants will run over and start construction once they complete any outstanding tasks. Once construction is complete, hovering the mouse cursor over the building will reveal it's current status.

Empty Building Status

The black portrait containing a ? indicates that there are currently no workers (in this case Woodcuctters) at the building. A building cannot produce anything without workers, and so it's average worker productivity is 0% (the hammer icon to the left). As a Tier 1 building, it can support 4 workers, and shows 0/4 next to the human figure icon. There are multiple ways to assign workers to a building.

Assigning Workers: Direct Assignment

With one or more Peasants selected, single-click the building with the LMB, causing the building options icons to appear. Then click the green circular icon with the Axe:

Building Options

The selected peasants will run over to the Woodcutter Hut, and on arrival change into the correct clothing for the profession. Your newly trained Woodcutters will then proceed to go about their normal duties. This can include chopping wood, working at Lumber Mills (not yet implemented), delivering Firewood, and eating.

Assigning Workers: Building Dialog Workers Tab

The second way to train Peasants is by opening the Building Dialog indicated by the magnifying glass icon (see image above) and clicking on the first tab on the left hand side of the dialog.

Worker Dialog

In the left hand column are current workers and available vacancies, with the image above showing 1 of 4 vacancies filled. Tier 1 buildings can support 4 workers.

In the right hand column are a list of Peasants, including their worker efficiency rates. The higher the rate, the better the worker will be at performing the profession. To assign a Peasant to become a worker, click on the + icon to the left of the Peasant portrait. The Peasant will then run to the building and take up the profession, filling one of the available vacancy slots in the left hand column shortly thereafter. It's important to note that there must always be 1 Peasant in your village, and the Advisor will enforce this for you.

Auto Recruit

As your village gets bigger, managing workers in this manner can involve too much micro-managing for some players. The Auto-Recruit toggle in the top right of the dialog can be used to tell the building to automatically recruit new Peasants into any available vacancies as they become available. In a future patch we'll be adding the ability under each vacancy to determine whether or not it should be filled via Auto-Recruit (not yet implemented).

Demoting Workers

In times of need, it may be necessary to reallocate a worker to another building. To do so, first single-click the workers portrait in the left hand column, and click Demote, releasing them to the pool of available Peasants.

Finding Workers

Sometimes you can lose the odd worker in woodland. Select the worker portrait, and click Find to move the camera to their current location.
Firewood

With your flow of Firewood established either from gathering or Woodcutters, Villagers need to keep warm, especially in colder climates. Firewood is consumed at buildings, including Cottages. Building a Cottage will expand your population capacity from 0 to 5. If your population is lower than the population capacity, and if they are generally happy, more settlers will arrive.

Firewood

Workers and Peasants will carry Firewood from the Wagon or Woodcutter's Hut to any building that is running low on Firewood.

Firewood

Pro Tip: Build Cottages close to Woodcutter Huts to reduce travel time for delivering Firewood.
Food: Protein

Villagers need a balanced diet that includes Protein from Fish and Meat.

Fishing Huts

Fishing Huts can be built near Fishing Points in rivers and lakes, and Fishermen will catch Fish and fillet them into Salmon Steaks to serve to villagers from the Hut. Fishing Points can be found along riverbanks and coastline, identifiable as a small shoal of fish causing splashes in the water.

Fish Salmon Steaks

Hunting Lodges

Hunting Lodges can train the ranged Hunter profession who explore the area around your village in search of Deer. Once they kill one, they carry the Deer back to the Hunting Lodge for skinning and converting into Leather Hides and Carcasses, the latter of which which can then be used by the Butchery to make into Meat Pies.

Leather Hide
Food: Carbohydrates

Villagers need a balanced diet that includes Carbohydrates.

Berries

Berries are useful in early gameplay by providing a small source of Carbohydrates.

Berries

Windmills and Bakeries

Building a Windmill, Farmer's Field, and training the Farmer profession can grow Wheat that is milled into Flour. Flour is then collected by the Baker profession for baking into Bread at the Bakery building. It is recommended to build several Fields around each Windmill.

Sack Of Flour Loaf Of Bread
Food: Vegetables

Villagers need a balanced diet that includes Vegetables from Carrot Fields. They are managed by the Farmer profession from the Windmill. To grow Carrots, construct a Farmer's Field, single-click it with the LMB, and click the Carrots button to set the crop to be grown.

Carrots
Basic Clothing

Villagers need Basic Clothing, otherwise there'd be a whole bunch of nakedness going on.

Weavers and Tailors

The process of manufacturing Basic Clothing starts with a Weaver's Hut, training one or more Peasants in the Weaver profession, and planting a Farmer's Field with Cotton. Weavers will tend the cotton fields and pick Cotton once it has grown, carrying it to the Weaver's Hut where it is woven into Bolts Of Cotton.

Tailors can be trained at a Tailors' Emporium, and collect Bolts Of Cotton from the Weaver's Hut or Storehouse (if it has stock), returning to their Emporium to sew Basic Clothing, and selling it direct to villagers from their doorstep.

Bolt Of Cotton Basic Clothing
Entertainment

Villagers need Entertaining, which for now involves drinking copious amounts of Mead.

Bee Yards, Monasteries, and Monks

The process of brewing Mead begins with a Monastery, training one or more Peasants in the Monk profession, and building Bee Yards within the proximity of the Monastery. Monks will harvest Bee Yards for Honeycomb, carrying it to the Monastery where it is brewed into Barrels Of Mead.

Innkeepers can be trained at a Tavern, and collect Barrels Of Mead from the Monastery or Storehouse (if it has stock), returning to their Tavern to sell Jugs of Mead.

Honeycomb Barrel Of Mead Jug Of Mead
Taxes

Taxing villagers is a guaranteed way of swelling your coffers, but doing so can come at the cost of happiness.

You can set the rate of taxation in the Civics dialog, accessible via the topbar. Lower rates of taxation will lead to an increase in villager happiness, while higher rates of taxation can be oppression leading to a decline in overall happiness.

Taxes are levied on all residents of cottages every 30 seconds.
Monster Dens

Folk Tale includes a living ecology that evolves over time. During early gameplay, there is unlikely to be much of a threat from wildlife. However, just as you are expanding, they are reproducing and their dens and nests are getting larger. After dens and nests reach a certain size, they may spawn a 'settler', for example a Spider Queen, who will seek out a new home to establish a new nest.

Once your settlement passes a culture score of 200, dens and nests may send attack ways to test your village. While groups of villagers can defend themselves (Hunters make very good early stage fighters), you may want to construct a Barracks and train heavily armored City Watch.

Monster Dens

You can destroy monster nests by hovering the mouse pointer over them and right clicking. Any selected villagers will then attack the nest. It's very likely that the den or nest settler will emerge to defend against your attacks, so be prepared.

Worker Productivity

Monitoring and importance of.

Rewarding and Lashing.