Going Medieval Beginner's Guide | Gameplay Tips & Tricks

Going Medieval is a colony simulator that takes a lot from games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld. It's set in Medieval England, and it doesn't go easy on you. Winters are hard, raids happen regularly, and keeping your resources in order takes planning.

This guide covers everything you need to get started, using the Standard scenario on Normal difficulty. That's the best place to begin. Other difficulty settings and scenario options can make things move faster than you're ready for.

In a Standard scenario, you begin with three villagers and a starting supply of resources that should carry you through the first few days. Your first job is to get those villagers somewhere to sleep, somewhere to pray, and something to do.

Building Your First House

Your villagers don't need anything special to start. Put up a wood structure with walls, a roof, and a door. Cover the floor with wood and place three Haystack Beds inside. The game will label it a Shared Room, which is fine for now. Privacy can wait until there's food on the table.

Early Priorities

Once your villagers have a place to sleep, there are a few things to take care of right away.

Food comes first. Until you unlock the Agriculture tech, you'll need to send villagers out to gather Redcurrant Bushes or Mushrooms and hunt Deer or Rabbits in the wild. You should have at least one usable Short Bow at the start, or a Longbow if one of your settlers has a marksman skill above 10. Put your best marksman or animal handler on hunting duty and keep them on it.

Your villagers also need downtime. Set up a schedule that gives them a couple of hours of leisure each day. During that time they'll play Backgammon or visit their shrine, both of which help their mood. Don't skip this step.

Get a Research Table built as soon as you can and assign your highest-rated intellectual villager to it. Research in Going Medieval works differently from other games. You collect Books that sit in a stockpile, and if those Books are lost or destroyed, you lose the tech that came with them. Keep them safe.

A few other things worth doing early: build a covered stockpile for materials that break down over time, especially food. Set up a small raised platform for your archer before the first raid hits. You don't need walls yet, but height gives your archer a real boost in both accuracy and damage. And when villager events pop up, always accept them. New settlers don't come along often and every extra pair of hands makes a difference.

Keeping Your Villagers Happy

A well-built settlement doesn't mean much if your villagers are in a bad mood. There are several things that affect how they feel day to day, and some of them are easy to miss at first.

The Thirsty debuff shows up early and can be confusing. In Medieval England, people didn't drink water. They drank beer, because the water wasn't safe. That means you need to start brewing. Pick up the Brewing tech and get production going before your villagers start suffering for it.

Clothing is another thing that hits morale. Every piece of clothing has a quality rating that runs from poor to good. Early on, most of what you'll have comes from dead raiders, which isn't always reliable. Once you have a Tailoring Station set up, your villagers can start making better clothes themselves. This becomes important before winter arrives.

For religion, you need to build Shrines. There are two types in the game, and each settler follows their own religion. Both Shrines are low cost, so just build both and let your villagers visit during their leisure hours.

Best Research Order

Research drives your progress in Going Medieval, and the order you go in matters. Here's a rough path to follow.

Architecture is available from the start. After that, go for Agriculture. This lets you set up farms, and Cabbages are a good first crop because they grow fast and can be harvested often.

After Agriculture, pick up Brewing. Your villagers will get thirsty and beer is the only thing that fixes it, so get this running before it becomes a problem.

Tailoring comes next. You need it before winter because your villagers will need warmer clothes. What you pull off raiders won't be enough for everyone as your population grows.

After that, work toward Military Tech. Being able to make your own weapons means you're not depending on what enemies drop. A few archers set up on walls get a boost to both accuracy and damage from the height, so getting them properly equipped pays off.

The Region Screen

The Region Screen doesn't do much at this stage of the game's development. It shows you nearby settlements and gives you a sense of your influence in the area. What matters right now is that influence number. It goes up as you build structures and gather resources, and as it rises, attacks become more frequent and come in larger numbers. On the other side of that, higher influence also brings more random events that add new villagers to your colony. Influence appears to cap at 100 percent in the region.

Defending Your Settlement

The first attack shows up within the first couple of days. It's usually just two or three weak enemies, so you don't need much. A full perimeter wall takes too much wood to build this early, but a small archer tower is worth putting together. A 5x5 stack of walls with a wooden floor on top and a staircase leading up gives your archer the height they need.

As you build up your defenses later on, traps work well alongside a perimeter wall. Funnel attackers through one entrance and place traps along that path. Attackers tend to go for the Campfire first, so keep that in mind when planning your layout.

One thing to know about Merlons: they look like walls but they aren't treated as walls by the game. Enemies walk right through them. Merlons go on top of walls to give archers cover, not as standalone barriers.

Preparing For Later

As your settlement grows and more villagers join, your regional influence goes up and attacks get harder. The game shifts toward something closer to tower defense at that point. Bigger walls, better weapons, and more soldiers become the focus. Winters also get harder to manage as you have more mouths to feed and clothe. The key is scaling up your production steadily so you're always a step ahead of what's coming.

Also, check our Going Medieval Review and other guides below:

• Going Medieval Beginner's Guide | Gameplay Tips & Tricks
• Going Medieval Guide | How to Raise Animals
• Going Medieval Guide | How to Build Underground
• Going Medieval Guide | How to Build Walls
• Going Medieval Guide | How to Mine
• Going Medieval Guide | How to Build Mineshaft
• Going Medieval Guide | How to Remove Villagers Chain
• Going Medieval Guide | How to Build Fortress