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> Using a harsh climate and a small mountainous map, maintain a population of 50 people for 20 years.
One of the hardest achievements in the game. Doesn't require a specific difficulty.
Food
Crops and animals
Avoid crop fields, orchards, and pastures, as they take up a lot of space, and you won't have much space to spare.
Forests
Find optimal places to build forester lodges that allow planing of trees in the whole circle, and then build a gatherers hut and a hunting cabin within that circle, to take full advantage of the whole forest.
This should help supply you with a good amount of logs, and initial food.
Fishing docks
Make sure to keep an eye out for bends in the river, or peninsulas on lakes. The amount of fish you get from a fishing dock depends on how much water is within it's "circle" when placing it - if you can find a good spot, then you'll have a great source of fish.
The first winter
Right when starting the game, set your citizens to go out and harvest trees and stone for building - while they are doing this, you can think about your town layout. Make sure not to cut down the trees from where you're planning your forestry circle.
The initial period is the most tough - your priority list when starting is as follows:
- Build 4 wooden houses - enough to ensure none of your people are exposed to the elements and freeze.
- Build a food source - the best at the beginning will be a gatherers hut, due to the multiple food types and good yield, unless you can find a particularly good fishing spot.
- Build a woodcutter - you will need to start getting firewood as soon as you possibly can, as (depending on your difficulty), surviving the winters will be essential.
- Harvest enough resources to build all of the above buildings.
Surving onwards
Next, you'll have to start replacing the items that you started with, such as clothing and tools. If you don't produce tools and clothes, you'll run out on your third year (depending on your difficulty). Once you run out of these on this map, it's game over.
You will need hunting cabins to produce leather for your clothing, as you won't have access to wool through pastures, and then a tailor to produce the clothing.
Additionally you'll need to build a blacksmith and set to work producing iron tools for your citizens.
Further game
Once you've got the essentials set up, it's time to slowly start expanding as well as you can, and building what is needed as you need it. There's little room for error, so you may well find yourself restarting many times before you get the perfect strategy for this.
A school house will be needed after a few years, but it has the disadvantage of keeping your children from becoming labourers straight away - only build this if you can afford to spare the labour.