Tips and Tricks | Of Life and Land Guide
Image Credits: Kerzoven, Of Life and Land
If you're just starting Of Life and Land, the first bit can be rough. Like "everyone's dead by spring" rough. However, with the right early setup and a few small adjustments, you can go from clueless noble to decent ruler fast.
Here's a full breakdown of things that actually help.
Choose Your Start Spot Wisely
Plan roads early, not later
Before you plop down any buildings, pause the game and get your bearings. Look for starting supply crates and any nearby cliffs, bushes, trees, and stone piles. Then lay out mud roads from the Community > Streets tab.
These roads help your villagers move faster, and it’s better to build them before anything else distracts your workers.
Make Shelter and Fire Top Priority
Don’t let your people drop like flies
Place straw huts near the starting supply crates, and always group them around a campfire. The fire helps keep everyone warm through the brutal winter. Don’t skimp here.
A couple huts might be enough at first, but go ahead and build a few extras before late summer.
New settlers can show up around then, and if you don’t have beds ready, they’ll freeze before they can even unpack.
Set Up Two of Each Early Station
One close, one far
Place two forester stumps and two stone mason buildings. Keep one of each close to the main camp and tuck the others further out.
Why? In winter, disable the far-out stations to keep everyone working near home. If you don’t, your villagers might freeze just trying to clock in.
Keep Food Simple and Nearby
Stay small, stay fed
Don’t build a massive farm right away. Instead, put a gatherer’s shack near the camp and assign wheat plots and garden beds inside its range. You can hover over the building to check that.
Start small, then scale later. The early game doesn’t give you enough storage to support huge farming anyway.
Don’t Fence Animals Out (Yet)
You’ll need them later
Sheep and cows will wander into your wheat fields. That’s a good thing. Once you build a barn, you can tame them for milk, wool, and meat.
If you fence everything off too early, they won’t get close enough to tame. Yes, rats and rabbits will steal your food too, but they’re also useful once you unlock hunting and clothing recipes.
Let the chaos happen. Tame later.
Adjust Priorities Often
Micro the big stuff
You can adjust which materials your gathering buildings go after. For example, put grass at top priority early so you can keep making rags, which are critical for warmth.
Later, once you unlock hunting, switch the tailor shop to use animal hides instead of grass or wool. And make sure you don’t accidentally use up all your wool just making rags, because you’ll need it for real clothes.
Also, don't build just to build. You can queue a structure, then set its priority to low so you can see how it fits without rushing the materials.
Pause Often and Use the Overlay Views
0 is your best friend
When things get chaotic, hit 0 to pause and check on everything. Use overlays for temperature, water, and soil, especially when choosing farming spots or figuring out why people are sick and starving.
And yeah, don’t assume that weird gray trench is a road. That’s probably a river. Don’t build a road through it unless you want a panic bridge-building moment.
Final Blurb & FAQ
If your villagers are freezing, starving, or getting mugged by squirrels, we hope we’ve been able to help at least a little bit. Everyone messes up their first run.
Just build small, keep it close, and save the fences for when you’re rich and bored. You’ll get the hang of it once your second year starts and you realize half your people actually survived.
Happy founding, future town hero.
FAQ
Q: What happens if I delete a building? Do I get materials back?
Nope. Deleted buildings don’t refund anything, so only scrap it if you’re sure.
Q: How do I tame animals like sheep or cows?
Place a barn near wheat. Animals will wander in to eat, and you can tame them if they're close enough.
Q: Should I prioritize fences early to keep animals out?
No, hold off on fences early game. You want animals to come close so you can tame or hunt them.
Q: How do I stop villagers from freezing to death?
Keep buildings close to the campfire, and build extra huts before winter. Also, set jobs so no one walks too far during cold seasons.
Q: Is cereal a food source? Can villagers eat it directly?
No, cereal (grain) needs to be processed into flour with a handmill, then turned into bread in an oven or bakery.
Q: What do the red squares or symbols mean in the build menu?
Red usually means that area is blocked, either by terrain or an object. Hover over it to check.
Q: Can I prioritize which resource gets removed first?
Not directly. You can set building priorities, but there's no way to tell a villager "remove this bush first." Devs are aware and might improve this.
Q: Do I need to micromanage villagers?
Not exactly. You don’t control them directly, but job and building assignments are your best way to guide behavior.
Q: Is there a victory condition?
The game has story goals, but you can keep playing as long as you want after completing them.
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