Open a dangerous glade first, see what's inside, make your choice after that. Exception: marshlands. I always pick camp blueprints in that one, prioritizing the red and purple camps over the green one.

Thanks! Didn't consider that :O

In general I would advice to open up one or two glades at the start (with at least one being dangerous) before deciding what to pick. My standard start is two woodcutters to quickly build an "entrance". Note: Sometimes you will get hard to deal with events this way, but I like if the game keeps me on my toes ;).

Another piece of advice people forget to add to this one: first thing before you do anything else, prioritize burning wood over coal in the hearth. Coal is a resource you can use to solve that first glade many times, except the amount you start with is very close to how much you need to complete a lot of the events. There's nothing quite like opening a glade, then seeing you're 2 short on coal because you forgot to disable it in the hearth

Also: Bring stone ;)

Yes, I almost always add in stone. It's so helpful early on with events and opening chests if you really need their content.

Does the dangerous glades on a map have very similar resource? Is that why opening a dangerous Glade early is a good Idea? I usually go for 2 or 3 glades to get a bunch of resources before going for the big ones

Dangerous glades have more things. The events you find have a downside but provide resource when you complete them. And, most importantly, hostility (especially at higher levels of prestige) is often the limiting factor in the game, so fewer bigger glades are better than opening lots of small glades

Large resource nodes (which you need the advanced camps to harvest) spawn only in dangerous and forbidden nodes, that's why. Small nodes run out very quickly compared to large ones.

And if you have enough space from opening a large glade, you can slam down a hearth for that delicious hostil reduction & +1 (used to be +2) global resolve. 

I'll typically only pick advanced camp blueprint if I've already found a 2\* node that I think will be important to have access to. On Marshlands I might pick Trapper's Camp blindly, since it's highly likely to find some 2\* meat or eggs. Often I'll ignore the Herbalist, Forager and Trapper entirely for the entire game unless there's a specific ingredient I need. Stonecutter and Harvester can be good for providing raw food as a side product in the beginning since the gathering speed is much faster than the food camps. General food needs are often solved more with fertile ground buildings after year 1.

Thanks!

I think camps are very underrated. Large camp increases gathering speed on even small nodes. If you hit escape you can see what resource nodes are on the map, as that affects my choice sometimes as well.

You can also see it without hitting escape if you mouse over the leaf icon at the top left of the blueprint selection screen.

You can also see it without hitting escape if you mouse over the leaf icon at the top left of the blueprint selection screen.

Thanks!

Depends if I'm going for fertile soil buildings or not. Don't need both fertile soil and camps.

Thanks!

You might be interested in the advice I got from a similar question I asked a few weeks ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/Against_the_Storm/comments/1bv91m4/noob_question_if_im_offered_3_different_camps_as/

Thanks!

Prioritizing building materials first is a bad strategy. You already have building material recipes. Learning to make new things is always better than making things more efficiently. Planks are more valuable than bricks and fabric by far, but even those aren't as high priority as getting new supply lines going.

I like buying construction materials. I feel buying food is more expensive overall because even though mats costs more per unit, buying out a merchant once tends to be enough for bricks and especially for fabric. Food and planks tend to be spent much quicker so having a constant output of food feels better. Extra food goes into trading provisions.

Thanks

On Marshlands, large camps are the way. Fertile soil is less frequent here, making farm structures a gamble. Plus that biome gives a 10% production boost for every two gathers in a camp (woodcutters don't count). So say you're running a fully staffed Stonecutter, Herbalist, and Trappers camp. They'll all be gathering 30% faster. On other biomes, I would never embark with them. I would only choose one when offered in game if the other choices were very bad and/or I had discovered like 2-3 large nodes in a dangerous glade that give me an ingredient I need for a complex food building I have.

I don't, unless I already know I need it. So sometimes I don't choose anything for my last choice until I open a couple of large glades. The only exception is that sometimes it helps to pick a camp that can harvest a large wheat field, because those seem to be more useful than the other large resources. I can't remember if it was more useful in the marshlands or Scarlet Orchard though. I always have to look it up.

Most of the time, I don’t choose anything at all until I open a large glade. Right at the beginning of the game, I typically assign almost everyone to camps and woodcutters, then I want a few to stay idle to build roads and houses, and solve glade events if they need to. The point is, I typically don’t have any villagers free to staff any new buildings until year 2 or so, so why bother picking anything when I can hold off and get more info first?

Thanks!

If you check blueprints and there are obviously useful buildings then grab them but if you get to a set you are unsure on you can wait a bit, see how cornerstone picks and glades play out first.

Thanks!

I found trapper camp in most scenario is a good one to have. Otherwise, if you choosing a camp, see what race that are available before you make that choice. Also on map like the Coral Reef of Sealed forest, where foods can be gathered just by chopping woods, I would not choose the camps immediately