Now that the latest Buckbally Race is over, I'm able to utilize my "split focus" time at home towards other purposes, like getting reacquainted with Rimworld. Since I was getting reacquainted with the game, I decided to disable all the expansions, including Anomaly, which I'd already purchased. Back to basics for me. I decided not to reroll my colonists until I got a good result, because it would be more interesting that way.
My starting colonists were a married couple, Viking and Tomomi, and an unrelated woman named Marjot. Viking had plants covered, and Tomimi had social and research skills. I'd thought about bringing their son Harris with them instead, but the young man was not only staggeringly ugly, but had no useful skills, and was psychically sensitive to boot. Marjot, on the other hand, was "Too Smart," and would thus hopefully fill in any missing skills, as well as our doctor. And we were missing three critical skills, as it turned out. The Three C's: construction, crafting, and cooking.
Which was less than ideal, because I rolled randomly for a starting location, and ended up in arid scrublands. It wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought. It was "perpetually summer" and there were fertile soil nearby, which was good for growing crops. There was, however, a critical shortage of trees, which meant that there wasn't a lot of wood for construction
or fuel. Marjot had to practice her construction skill to get good enough to build a windmill and a nutrient paste dispenser. Tomimi needed to get batteries researched.
It was a rough first quarter. Conditions were primitive, it was perpetually hot, and the packaged rations were soon consumed.And the windmill would require research into batteries to provide constant power. My colonists were eating raw rice by the time that nutrient paste dispenser was up and running... most of the time. They were on the raggedy edge, mood wise, but there were no mental breaks, thankfully. But finally, they got things up and running.
Oh, and an emu managed to savage Marjot's pet monkey when that nasty bird went after our crops. Poor monkey is now missing an ear.
At the beginning of the second quarter, we managed to capture and recruit Lady, who was not only passionate about construction, but was also a much better miner than Tomimi as well. This allowed Tomimi to concentrate on research, and Marjot to develop her crafting skills, starting with masonry. She could also support Viking when it comes to crops... and a plantation for a nearby and renewable source of wood. A mated pair of donkeys also spontaneously joined the colony, which necessitated the growing of hay to feed them, because grazing land was in short supply.
And that's when a herd of hungry elephants showed up. We have no exterior walls, and the fences didn't stop them, so they managed to ravage our crops by the time they moved on. None of my colonists had particularly stong combat skills, except for Marjot who was our best shot and way too valuable to risk as a melee fighter, so the one elephant we killed left Lady and Viking bedridden for days.
The only good news is that that nutrient paste dispenser, while horrible tasting, at least is efficient food wise. Our freezer is quite full of rice, so we've got time to recover. Hopefully, those elephants won't return before we finally get outer stone walls up and running.
I'm planning on running this game two full years before I start a new game with Royalty and Ideology added to the mix. Repeat the cycle with Biotech, and then I'll feel ready to tackle Anomaly.
