Dungeon Settlers Beginner Guide: Your First Week

Before you start: scenario and difficulty

The campaign opens on the Crawling Doom story: your first scouting party was wiped out by the Red Monster Rat, and you start again with Lowell (a Human City Guard), Liana (a Human Poacher who joins during the tutorial) and Kragas (a Lizardman Exiled Warrior). The Expedition Founding scenario lets you reroll a starting team instead, and since patch v0.4.19 you can lock portraits, ability stats, Major Traits and Sub Traits while you reroll.

You set combat difficulty and management difficulty separately. Normal has been the default since v0.4.19; before that the game defaulted to Hard. If your first run keeps collapsing, lower management difficulty first. The difficulty guide explains what each setting changes.

Day one in the settlement

1. Harvest the wagon. Select a settler, right-click the starting wagon and it drops supplies, including the cogwheel you need for the research table. Then harvest the wagon to clear it.
2. Build the research bench indoors. It only works inside a room, so put up four walls and a door first.
3. Research Basic Wood Processing. It is one of the cheapest nodes and unlocks the Goddess Statue, which is how settlers level up. See the research guide.
4. Recruit a fourth member. The game hands you 500 gold for this. Read the backgrounds and races pages before you pick: a settler’s talents never change.
5. Give everyone a bed. A private bedroom gives a mood bonus that carries into the dungeon. The room guide has the size rules.

Your first dive

• Go in rested. Energy drains through the day and with every skill. Sleep before you leave, and let the party nap at a portal room when energy gets low.
• Look for the portal room. Each floor has a portal down. Early on you do not need to clear every room.
• Pick things up on purpose. Party members can auto-collect drops; toggle “Auto Pickup in Dungeon” from the pick-up mode button if they keep running off for loot.
• Tear down abandoned buildings. Ruins on dungeon floors are full of wood and other materials.
• You can build down there. A basic workstation for arrows, a fire, beds or barricades all work on a floor, but anything you leave behind is gone when you move on.
• The Red Monster Rat is on Floor 2. Rest to full energy before you engage it. See the boss guide.

Controls worth learning

The Ctrl and Shift inventory controls were added to the in-game guide in v0.4.17; the task keys and F toggle come from players on the Steam forum.

The mistakes that kill settlers

• Letting mood slide. Low mood builds stress, a maxed stress bar causes a mental break, and a second break before recovery kills the settler outright. Read mood and stress.
• Staying down too long. Every day past midnight in the dungeon worsens the Dungeon Stay penalty.
• Eating the wrong food. Elves hate meat, Lizardmen hate an all-plant diet.
• Leveling the wrong way. Level-ups need mana stones and a Goddess Statue; see how to level up.
• Ignoring clay. Clay gates farms, pottery and base expansion. See how to get clay.