Day Three. “Morning.”
I have only been here for two days and already I am kicking myself for the hundredth time for failing to bring a watch on this expedition. But really, who in the twenty-first century still wears a watch? My cell phone, unfortunately, has no idea what time it is here in… wherever I am… and at any rate has run out of battery power. As far as modern technology I am now completely on my own.
I was a bit concerned last “night” that the Murlods might return while I was sleeping, but my rest went uninterrupted. I am grateful for this good fortune as I needed the sleep desperately. I spent the morning directing the natives in clearing out more of the land around our growing village. As we opened the fifth treasure chest (where are these coming from?) Aurora ran to me, smiling broadly, and hung a crude medal around my neck. “Five treasure chests!” she exclaimed. “How wonderful!” I was pleased, of course, but after receiving my third or fourth medal of the day I must admit I stopped paying them much heed.
Game Tip:
Achievements in The Tribez are fun but are not generally worth pursuing on purpose. Unlike certain MMORPGs I could mention, the achievements in The Tribez are designed to mark your natural progress through the game. After playing for a few weeks you might want to glance through them, but the only ones you won’t get automatically are achievements like buying crystals. If you truly enjoy the game, I recommend that you DO at some point buy a few, just to support the title, but this walkthrough series is designed to help you spend them on something fun rather than on something necessary to your progression.
After cleaning up the village grounds a bit, I set off in the direction Jamboa had indicated to seek out his “giant iron birds,” but the natives became highly agitated, refusing to allow me to go deeper into the forest. Upon questioning them, I learned that they consider this territory to be dangerous. They told me they would need to “cleanse the bad spirits” before I could proceed safely. I was both touched and amused by their concern until I asked what preparations would be necessary, and I was told in no uncertain terms that the “cleansing ritual” required 10,000 coins of local currency.
Ha! Do they really think I am that naive? I know extortion when I see it! Nonetheless, what choice do I have? Apparently every “dime” I gather from the natives of the village is just going to end up back in their hands. I should have known this “generous, grateful” culture was too much like paradise to be true.
Game Tip:
You’re going to make enough game coins that it generally isn’t worth paying much attention to generating funds until much later in the game. Although, since a bar provides a quick 3-minute cash option, it doesn’t hurt to put a villager or two on 3-minute bar duty as long as you don’t need them for something else. Just don’t tie up your workers in longer deals until you’re ready to log off for a while.
Day Three. “Afternoon.”
My expedition plans having been thwarted for the day, I turned my attention toward building the natives a “cafeteria.” I enjoyed the looks on their faces yesterday as I introduced them to the concept of “bar snacks,” but I am paying for it now. They regaled me half the evening with questions about modern food consumption, and all morning as we weeded the village grounds they begged me to build them a cafeteria. I finally relented, directing them in constructing a simple structure to serve the watermelons from the farming patches and a few exotic fruits I collected from the local flora. They were so happy that I hoped to bargain with them regarding the price of the “cleansing ritual,” but alas, they stood firm on their original “donation” demand.
Game Tip:
The happiness bar does only one thing for you in the game: it allows you to build the population of your village, which you do by building homes of various kinds. If you see that a later home requires a certain happiness level while an earlier home can still be built, the reason is simply that the earlier home will attract fewer villagers and is therefore still within your current population limit. To build a new home, you will sometimes have to raise your happiness level first. Use local decorations like flower beds for small amounts of happiness, and structures from the cauldron building tab for larger leaps.
In fact, the cafeteria didn’t go very far with the villagers at all, as I ran into my first rebellion just an hour or so after lunch. I had gathered my thoughts and rekindled my enthusiasm despite the setbacks of the morning, intending to show them how to build a larger and sturdier home based a more “modern” timber frame design. Imagine my surprise when they refused for the first time to follow my direction!
At first I was confused when a village spokesman tried to explain to me that there was “not enough food to build a house.” Why would you need food to build a house? But when I attempted to go over the basic construction principles it quickly became obvious that they meant not enough food for their bellies! As it turns out, the villagers expect to be paid in both food AND local currency for their efforts! Fortunately, in a land of 3-minute watermelons, feeding even 7 people proved not to be much of a challenge.
Game Tips:
- At this level of the game, getting enough food to do just about anything is easy. Just plant 3-minute watermelons until you have enough for whatever you want to do. Don’t plant pumpkins until you are planning to log out for at least 30 minutes.
- Complete the quest to clear the stone blockages in order to get the stone to build the house for the first house quest. You will be able to “produce” more stone soon enough.
- Be careful about over-clearing your land. If you cut down a tree while your wood pile is at maximum capacity, you will lose the wood from the tree. This is not especially critical at this stage since you can produce 30 wood every 3 minutes, but as you progress into other resources that are more difficult to come by, paying attention to current resource levels becomes important.
- This is also a good time to start getting into the habit of lining up your longer quests so that you can start them all at the same time and then do something else for a while. In this case, 7 workers is just enough to build the house (1 hour), grow 3 pumpkin patches toward the pumpkin quest (30 minutes) and order the lengthy deals in the upgraded bars (30 minutes). Set up each of these tasks through the quest chains and then start them all at the same time to let them run while you are logged off the game.
Back to Part Two… On to Part Four (Less Commentary, More Tips)…
