This game is literally MAD. Totally weird, doesn't make much sense... and I love it.
I took some time to explore, killed the first boss, converted 2 native girls and have 3 more in cages, defended a few raids, built 3 tribal shacks, a workbench, some other bits and bobs, planted a bunch of trees and...
I still have no idea what I'm doing! This game does look particularly "hard", but there is so much to learn and do that it's a real challenge. And I love it.
If anyone has any particularly good tips for a noob, especially for resource management and base defence, please tell me. Right now I really need charcoal. I believe it's obtained by using the forge (still working to build it).
Furnace, 50 stone to craft, crafted by hand and doesn't require a bench. Charcoal requires 2 wood to "craft" at the furnace.
I read about a strategy of building tables to defend the base as enemies cannot take them down. I already have some wood walls with wood spikes all around but I grossly under sized my base and pretty much need to redo everything. I'm actually pretty decent at fighting enemies (mostly lure them away to try and pick them one by one).
Tables have durability now and can be torn down by enemies. You need staircases (up-to-down) and stone benches (horizontal) for this cheese strat now. Or heart closets.
If the bulk of your "befriended" workers are native women and native DLCs, an easy and cheap way to defend is to just give them all bows and then spam 2-3 layers of wooden palisades (the Wood Spikes construction) at the outer perimeter of your base. This should suffice for most purposes if you haven't used totems to raise raid levels yet.
Also best to find some place with a lot of "invisible walls" or mountains/sea around so you can only need to defend one direction, ideally towards the east or west (because you can position NPCs to face east or west when idle, making it easier for them to spot enemies).
Later on you can intentionally let one of your NPCs be kidnapped so you can go mount a rescue operation to save them. There will be an optional "Warden" miniboss who drops a Decoy Charm that makes raids exclusively target whoever wears it. You either put it on an NPC in a deathtrap decoy base surrounded by spikes and needles, or equip it on your main character and fight them personally or avoid them until they despawn (most conveniently done by heading inside a cave to mine).
Another option is to get the Plant Workbench to craft leaf dummies and leaf mascots to reduce the number of raiders in a raid. Reduce it to zero and there will be zero raiders (scouts will stil lspawn though). I wouldn't recommend this though since raids are free XP and items once you can manage them and they're good practice for doing totem-boosted raids later on for even better goodies and the opportunity to capture high level elite-variant NPCs.
But mostly I'm still very clueless, especially about what I need to focus on next. I guess that for now I need to focus on feeding my NPCs. Once my come out of the cages, it will be 5 already.
But man, I'm getting to like the game.
Get the furnace, mine and smelt iron so you can move up to iron tier weapons and tools. You'll need a well (requires 8 iron ingots for the shovels) if you want your NPCs to work since working drains their water meter.
You can also YOLO your way past the desert all the way to the northwesternmost native village for the Sand Workbench Recipe. Taking the sea route with a raft can be safer. The Sand Workbench lets you craft Cactus Sickles (15 attack), Cactus Shields (90% damage mitigation and reflects 50% damage on block) and Cactus Walls (800 durability, reflects 100% damage when attacked), all of which can be crafted cheaply with just cacti. Cactus Walls alone can cheese most non totem-level-boosted raids, a few of them strategically placed can make most raiders kill themselves. You don't even need to wall off your entire base.
The village itself also has NPCs up to level 61. Capturing a handful of female natives and giving them bows will also trivialize most raids in the middle of the map and below. (Note that raider levels increase as you go north and slightly as you go east, so be mindful where you place your base. )
Am I right to assume that I can play with either character and ignore the other? Because I've been doing it. And haven't found how to move the other character away from the beach yet.
You need Yona (the female lead) for main story progression, and the male self-insert character for sidequests (usually unlocking a unique female NPC). Though usually it's enough to just play one and then switch to the other when needed. Might need to farm levels a bit but shouldn't take too long if you also swap some gear over. Or you can farm Wonder Berries (+XP consumables) on one character and hand them to the other.
To move the other character, you need to return to the starting campfire at the beach after defeating the Native Boss. There will be an "event circle fog" that will trigger a conversation between the two characters. After this you can reposition the other character as you would an NPC. You can also teleport the other character to a blue flag (craft at the iron workbench after defeating the Native Boss).
P.S. Is there any particular downside to stun a tribal by (clears throat) "r*pe"? Seems much easier than a club for now... Going from caveman love to creep real fast... lol
Other then it leaving you vulnerable for a period of time, potentially taking longer than a club (at Level 0 Grapple) and causing the NPC to hate you (-10 relationship) if you progress the grapple into actual R*... nope. And all of this can be mitigated by the almighty pause button anyway. Or doing the deed at night while they're sleeping (pick the forceful option, otherwise they won't faint).
Just can't R-capture male NPCs. And female NPCs who don't have R-grapple animations in game yet.