Going Medieval is a popular colony simulator that takes big inspiration from games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld. In the same fashion as the games that inspired it, Going Medieval can be very unforgiving, with harsh winters, regular attacks from angry neighbors, and a resource management system that requires a fair bit of forethought.

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Set in Medieval England, the world your new villagers have set foot into does not promise an easy life. It's your job to help them settle and succeed. You will need to build defenses, manage resources, and create a drafted army to protect your new lands. Here's everything a beginner needs to know about Going Medieval.

Getting Started

small building in going medieval

For the purposes of this guide, we'll be talking about playing the game in its Standard scenario on Normal difficulty. Difficulty can scale pretty fast in this game, whether you opt for a more challenging difficulty or set the scenario up so that you are attacked regularly.

In a Standard scenario, you begin with three villagers and a stockpile of resources that should get you through the first few days. Your priorities as a new colony manager are to set your citizens up with somewhere to sleep, pray, and work.

Build Your First House

Don't worry, your new villagers aren't expecting anything glamorous. Build a simple wood structure with walls, a roof, and a door. Cover the floor with wood and set up three simple haystack beds. This will pop up as a "Shared Room," but you can think more about your villager's privacy when they've got food to eat.

Early Priorities

main building farms and wooden walkways

Now your villagers have somewhere to live, your earliest priorities are:

  • Food - Without access to the Agriculture tech, you will need to send your villagers out to collect Redcurrant bushes or mushrooms and hunt for wild deer or rabbits.
  • Hunter - You will start with at least one usable Short Bow, or a more powerful Longbow if one of your citizens has a marksman ability over 10. Equip your highest-rated marksman or animal handler with the bow. This should be your hunter.
  • Leisure - Medieval England is a tough old place. Your villagers will need some time to relax. You can set up your citizen's schedule with a couple of hours of leisure time. They will play Backgammon or pray at their respective shrines. This provides a good mood boost and shouldn't be ignored.
  • Research - You should build a research table as soon as possible. Assign your highest-rated Intellectual citizen to prioritize research. Research works in a pretty unique way in Going Medieval — you will collect "Books" that are stored in a stockpile. If these books are lost or destroyed, you will also lose the tech. Look after them.

General Tips For Your First Days In Going Medieval

  • Build a small room for your settlers to live in fairly quickly. You won't need to deal with the winter for a while yet, but setting up a covered area with hay bedrolls will give you an early boost.
  • Build a covered stockpile for materials that degrade over time, primarily food. You will need a cellar at a later date.
  • Create a small roof area to place your archer on for your first raid. You won't need walls or anything for a while, but a small raised platform gives your lone archer a huge boost.
  • Always accept your first villager events. These are far and few between, and extra villagers make a huge difference.

Keeping Your Villagers Happy

settlers and graves in going medieval

Building up an impressive fortress and stockpiling resources means little if your settlers are upset. There are loads of different factors that affect the well-being of your minions, from spotting a dead body to not having enough beer to drink.

  • Thirsty Debuff - You might have noticed this debuff annoying your citizens without knowing what to do about it. Because this is Medieval England, people don't just drink water. They can't. They can only drink beer. This means you need to start brewing something for your citizens to drink.
  • Hideous Clothing and Apparel - This is another annoying debuff that can be tricky to figure out. All clothes have a quality rating, ranging from shoddy to good. Early on it can be a bit tricky to get your hands on decent clothes as they'll mostly be pillaged off dead raiders. Later in the game, you can set up a Tailoring station for your villagers to start producing better quality clothes. Check out our guide to apparel in Going Medieval here.
  • Religious Activities - To keep your villagers happy you need to build Shrines. There are two options in the game, and each settler will worship their own specific religion. You might as well build both because they're pretty cheap. Settlers will worship at the shrines during their leisure hours.

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Best Research To Pick First In Going Medieval

room requirements menu in going medieval

Research is crucial to progress in Going Medieval. Here's a rough guide on what order you should pick your research in.

Agriculture

You will be able to pick Architecture immediately and should choose Agriculture next. This will let you set up some farms for various resources. Cabbages are a good bet. They grow quickly and can be harvested fairly regularly.

Brewing

It also turns out that most of your citizens are alcoholics. Well, sort of. Beer was a common drink of choice in Medieval England because the water was largely undrinkable. This beer isn't the sort of beer that dumps you on your back after a couple of drinks, but it's pretty much the only thing your citizens can drink. They will get thirsty. Grab Brewing as your next tech.

Tailoring

As you prepare for winter, your villagers will need winter clothing. While you should be able to gather quite a lot from the first few waves of enemies you kill, eventually you will need winter clothes for all of your citizens.

Military Tech

Being able to produce your own weapons is also a good idea. The first waves of enemies are not very challenging, but having a couple of your citizens with bows is very useful. They can be set up on walls. This provides them with an accuracy boost and damage boost, so it's definitely worth doing.

What Is The Region Screen?

At the moment, the Region Screen has limited functionality in the game, really only telling you about nearby settlements and your overall influence in the region. It's expected that future updates to Going Medieval will introduce trading mechanics and other ways to interact with the Region.

For now, all you need to focus on is your Region influence. This determines the frequency and violence of attacks on your new settlement. Influence is generated by building structures and gathering resources. More influence will mean more attacks, but will also increase the number of random events that spawn new villagers. This appears to cap out at 100 percent influence in the Region. You can find out more in our population cap guide.

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Defending Your Settlement

villagers defending a gate with traps

The first attack will arrive within the first couple of days in Going Medieval. It will likely only be two or three relatively weak enemies, but you should still be prepared. Sophisticated defenses aren't required for your first attack, especially because of the amount of wood required to build an entire perimeter wall.

However, you can build a small archer tower. This is just a small 5x5 stack of walls with a wooden floor on top and a staircase leading up to it. You can position your archer on this tower and give them that extra boost.

A full perimeter wall works well with traps eventually. Just like you might in Rimworld, you can funnel the enemies through a small entrance. It seems like attackers have a real penchant for attacking the campfire first (for some reason) so that should give an idea of what they target.

Remember: merlons are not technically walls. Merlons were, historically, placed on top of walls to provide cover for archers. Each gap in the merlons is called a crenel. This is the space archers would fire out of. Although they might look like palisades, enemies will walk right through them. Best to place them on top of your walls.

Preparing For The Late Game

castle in going medieval with banners and ramps

The more settlers you have, the greater your region's influence becomes. This also means you are attacked more regularly and by larger groups. It's at this point that the game becomes more of a tower defense game than anything else.

Bigger walls, better defenses, and better-armed soldiers are the best way to weather the storm. Winters become harder when you have more citizens to feed and clothe. It's all about scaling up your production nicely and steadily.

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