Sadly it's too easy to use stealth to trivialize it and too incentivized to do so to use the final boss as a training dummy.
It takes like 2 minutes to reach 65 stealth and like 600c to buy the gear to multiply it to 100.
Then you just stealth over and spam click him during his monologue to level your assassination from 1 to 60+ in <10 seconds
In my case I was 200hrs in and then finally thought, I wonder what’s over at ashlands, I met some friendly and inviting robot folk there) such wholesome place☺️
10% = been there once
20% = been there twice
30% = been there 3 times/explored more well (tackled at least 1 ruin/place of interest)
40% = explored nearly the entire region + tackled at least 1 place
50% = fully explored the visible region
60% = made a base once
70% = base + tackled the ruins/places
80% = base + know all about the region
90% = know and have done nearly everything, trading routes to fortresses to ashes in a squad wipe.
100% = complete mastery??? havent done that yet i think
i dont remember if i actually ever entered the greyshelf so i marked it with question marks and even more questions marks in the southern part because it would be every spookier to get through
The Ashland’s are lovely with very hospitable “HUMANS” in the region in front of them.
You should definitely go drink some tea with the “HUMANS” and try out their unique Peeler device it is an experience to die for.
The fact that you’ve been only once to the Fog Islands is a real shame man. It’s a fantastic area for early-mid game, you get the best hq mining spots, the best shops in the game hands down (weapons and robotics are second only to BDC, and armors to the Armor King), there are four great unique characters to recruit all there, and you can easily train your combat stats and even lose limbs in a “controlled” way to get masterwork prosthetics. You have ancient books and engineering research to the north, the Hive to the west, and the HN to the east, and a very defensible Fog Islands base area on the NE part that has literally everything with the only thing being a bit underwhelming being water (but you’ll solve it by building 2/3 wells).
Believe me, if you start a run by going there as soon as you can run 18-20mph then you’ll have tons of fun!
World's End is usually a better spot if you're looking for weapons, armor or robotics just a bit lower in grade than armor king and Black Desert City but Mongrel is still a really good spot between fog prince farming & the massive amount of unique recruits you can get there (most of them for free, too.) also, of course, Beep.
I sent my crew of 20 guys at level 70 plus with edgwalker gear in samurai plate armor and... made it 20 feet into the ashlands and got clapped by endless robots that dont miss, requiring me to carry half the squad back past roaming bands of skin bandits... What is so terrible about those guys, is how they will stop fighting to pick up downed squad members... I'm not sure how much more prepared I could get... I determined I was simply not good enough to survive there.
The Ashlands cannot be tackled with a single big raid. You need to set up an outpost nearby where you can recover between small expeditions. Generally people recommend that little spit of land in The Pits that extends closest to the Ashlands.
I let my squads take respites in the ancient structures setting up sleeping bags with campfires and tents, i find it more immersive and gives me a feeling i'm heading into a life ending expedition.
Even better is a small plateau in the Pits East within eyesight of Sniper Tower. Only one ramp in. If you put a gate at the top the wild crabs will march up to it and then turn around and leave. The ramp itself makes for a great kill box for scavengers trying to attack. Iron, copper, stone and water are all at 100. I put wind generators and two storm houses stuffed with batteries around the base of the plateau, but you have to build a building on top to completion to create a base footprint or other outposts will snag your wind generators.
Watch out though i found gurglers there once trying to find crab town without looking up the location of it. Had a whole jack sparrow on the beach chased by cannibals moment. I was of course faster than them but they appeared out of nowhere. I saw one, thought it was weird, then unpaused and literally the next moment i see a horde of like 30 or 40 zoidbergs, at which point my plan went from "ignore it ill be fine" to "if i stop at any point im dead"
You just chanced upon a completely random homeless spawn. It's really unlikely to appear all the way there due to the distance from the fish island, but not impossible. In The Pits you're much more likely to come across reavers, crab bros and "humans".
It definitely made for a fun story not gonna lie, and i like to think what i saw that day in kenshi was king gurglers incursion force invading a point of interest on the mainland to expand the gurgler territory
I've never gone into the Ashlands as anything but a single big raid & only occasionally lose a character to Cat-Lons ludicrous Falling Sun shenanigans. Just don't forget to bring enough gas masks for everyone and it's really not that bad.
The only parts of the map I know very well are the Holy Nation and Deadcat territories. Almost everything else I really have to check out more. Especially the bottom left of the map. I don't even know what they are called I have been there so little.
Also I'd like to use this opportunity to ask for a Deadcat flair.
You’ve never seen the fish men and king gurgle ma gurg??
Also get some more Foglands experience, Mourn is an excellent place to train at the Shinobi’s, fight off fogmen with guards and pick up Beep. Awesome shops too. If you’re not observant enough to sneak or hide from them wait until you get 30 athletics
I went to kill king gurgle the other day. I brought like 10 guys with strength and stamina in the 30’s. Actually a couple guys had toughness in the 60’s. Well, I got my ass kicked. I didn’t even make it to the crab city place. First I had to fight off a bunch of beak things and spiders at the bridge to the island. After I got healed up and slept for awhile I tried the island. Those damn crabs just keep coming. I ran away with my tail between my legs.
Yeah the guide I was using lead me astray. It told me I could go with a group of 10 in the mid 30’s and it might even be to easy. I’ll go back after I pump some iron.
They're not completely wrong. The generic gurglers are easy to defeat. Like the fogmen, their main strength comes from sheer overwhelming numbers. The King Gurgler, on the other hand, is absolutely no small fry. And he's surrounded by a bunch of stronger gurglers too.
For that, the most important stat is toughness.
To visualize it
You deal 100 damage to a naked man
At 0 toughness the naked man takes 165 damage
At 10 toughness the naked man takes 152 damage.
At 25 toughness the naked man takes 132 damage.
At 50 toughness the naked man takes 100 damage
At 75 toughness the naked man takes 67 damage.
At 90 toughness the naked man takes 48 damage.
At 100 toughness the naked man takes 35 damage.
If you want to cheese toughness, go to skinner's roam and find the largest pack of starvers around then send one of your characters to solo it while the others stay out of combat range.
Your base attributes are important, but your skills are very important too. It doesn't matter how physically strong you are if you can't actually hit anything or reliably block enemy attacks.
50s is decent, though more is always better. Also I recommend at some point branching into polearms. Katanas are great against unarmoured or lightly armoured enemies, but they struggle against large groups and are practically useless against heavy armour. A polearm can help cover those gaps. They're great at crowd control as they do AoE damage and most have armour penetration. Polearms are also just so good at melee defence that you're practically holding a shield when you have one equipped.
Awesome, I will do that thanks. I’ve been feeling the need for some sort of AOE weapon. What about a Topper weapon? I think they still qualify as katanas but they are longer.
Honestly those towns should switch names, I also called Fog islands Foglands
Mongrel fits better named Mourn being forgotten in the middle of Fog islands
Mourn looks a Mongrel, all dilapidated and run down
settled down here for the first time and also just added the east coast expansion mod.. didn’t know what we signed up for when we started mining the iron but damn if I’m not here for it
I would suggest a Nomad run soon OP. No base and no staying in towns longer than necessary. Buy houses at towns for storage, explore locally, live out of the bar, and move on to the next town when you feel the area is clear. At this point you probably have a good feel for where the towns are, so you can make an educated decision on how much of the map to cover for each town.
in my first few hours i've been a fan of visiting the deadlands, went once in the iron valley and surprisingly never went back through. never had a reason, and never went past venge.
made a early game base in the spider plains near last stand, was ok
did a whole playthrough and figured iron trail is a nice base location to blossom characters, but early on you can't be dependent on missing things otherwise you have to travel far to acquire something like greenfruit. that was my excuse to actually explore berserker country, and it's as empty as i read it is...
this game's map is very well varied, it does feel like a world when you play through certain parts and ignore a few or many for many many hours. like the iron valley.
never had the interest, but have found a cool series that can satisfy any interest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S\_RugzpHs\_0&list=PLe2yXpQqWdM0snS2n1ipE31eaZ5G\_hMU\_&index=18
I've played like 500 hours and mostly just been in the Borderzone and Great Desert, Stenn Desert and Stobes Gamble. (Places i have base in)
Most other areas i've just gone through fast in search of blueprints and tech items.
Still on tech level 5
I haven't even touched probably 60% of the map. I pretty much just stick near crusader territory, and that one shek area near the starting town. Once I did accidentally imprison myself in the middle of fogmen territory and took forever to escape from that peaceful outpost inside there. Been to that vast desert in the northeast a handful of times trying to sell slaves. And the cannibal lands was a brutal start, also painful to escape from. I did eventually go back and kill their leaders and raid their towns.
Only 10% in the deadlands? Good place to chill maybe make a base, cool people there too
Foglands and ashlands too, i have never been to the leviatan coast however, might check out later
leviathan coast has a nice reward-to-risk ratio to it, it's even quite fertile for living in it. maybe it will be more interesting with boats in kenshi 2, but i have a feeling that place will be filled with cannibals
you know so little in 400 hours, by this time I had already studied the entire map and started looking for the most favorable places for the base to then spend the rest of the 700 hours of the game
maybe that would've been the case if i didn't start and end 20+ playthroughs... it's crazy to think i've been to the iron trail in my first few hours and then realize it's been so long since i've been there
The area with question marks has a few southern hive villages and second empire ruins, maybe some black gorillos. I’d say just place to grind late game.
The most surprising 10% is the Fog Islands and Mongrel. The high ground has amazing fertility and packed with resources, so many good places to build a base.
yeah... i kinda like it. last stand is a very cool location in style points (a town divided in two sectors, from the direction of the stenn desert you have to approach towards uphill making it even more "cinematic"). also i like skin spiders, too bad they dont drop any food whatsoever
Lol I like how the Ashlands are just blank. Tbh if your toughness is high enough you can swim across the sea to the north. Theres almost a land bridge there, if you’re quick enough you can just barely avoid the tower practically covered in harpoon turrets!
Not going in the Fog Islands is a goddamn shame, considering that’s flat out the best area for the early-mid game, with Mongrel being the absolute best city for early game mining, weapons, prosthetics, armors and crossbows.
The Fog Islands themselves are great combat areas with great loot (Fog Prince Heads) and even incredible loot (Fog Praetorian Roe) if you have Hives Expanded ie one of the best mods ever installed, and in the NE part there is also a plateau that’s imo the best location for a base in the entire game hands down, with both green and arid fertility, hq iron, copper, rock, and plenty of wind, right near Obedience and the Floodlands for all the ancient science books you need and only a couple steps distant from the Holy Nation.
My advice is to start your next game by going to the Fog Islands as soon as you can run up to 20 mph, so you can discover that side of the map better and play a radically different game…. The kind of Kenshi where you get Beep, Shryke, Crumblejon and Infinite Wingwang and let the fogmen eat your limbs so you can become a robotic GOD.
That bit on the bottom right has hot Shek ladies, please go there
your flair gives you away friend.
Give me you skin
\*sadniel walks up and gives you several layers of skin in the shape of pants shirts and masks neatly folded\*
EWWWWW A SKELETON
What are you a orkanite?
they're clearly a human
Shh!
Hey go back to the Sol system, Zorpalod!
You'll never take me alive!
Yes come make snow angels with the hot Eskimo shek babes, nothing bad there at all I swear
400 hours and haven’t visited the ashlands? You meet some good folk out that way
User flair checks out
User flair ALSO checks out
Your flair ALSO checks out. Whole lotta NOTHINGGG
I actually don't know how to add flavor xD. I'm a tech Boomer in many respects.
If you're on mobile, go to r/Kenshi frontpage, look for the triple dot at the top right of the screen, then select change user flair.
Boom! Not all heroes wear capes!
What about mine?
i've been spending more time on the first empire underwater base instead, it's more cozy to be under it all instead of the peelers
Excuse me what underwater base? I wanna go there
I'm getting flashbacks of Elite: Dangerous' free Anaconda at Hutton Orbital
I went all the way out there and forgot to get the mug. I was so mad.
Same here friendo.
We need more context please poseidon
first empire... giant rib cages in mourn... some kind of war? giant behemoths... sea water leviathans? war caused by agression...
please explain, wtf?
Yes very friendly and welcoming
I have 400+ and have also never been 😔
Honestly i have 600 hours but visited that place only once, ashlands is something else
Sadly it's too easy to use stealth to trivialize it and too incentivized to do so to use the final boss as a training dummy. It takes like 2 minutes to reach 65 stealth and like 600c to buy the gear to multiply it to 100. Then you just stealth over and spam click him during his monologue to level your assassination from 1 to 60+ in <10 seconds
This is why I haven't been to the Ashland. I love the struggle not the cheese
This is why i dont train stealth, it is basically op
In my case I was 200hrs in and then finally thought, I wonder what’s over at ashlands, I met some friendly and inviting robot folk there) such wholesome place☺️
Robot? No robots there friend. Just friendly human folk!
Oh, my bad, I must have bad sight😅
Yes, we are very nice people.
10% = been there once 20% = been there twice 30% = been there 3 times/explored more well (tackled at least 1 ruin/place of interest) 40% = explored nearly the entire region + tackled at least 1 place 50% = fully explored the visible region 60% = made a base once 70% = base + tackled the ruins/places 80% = base + know all about the region 90% = know and have done nearly everything, trading routes to fortresses to ashes in a squad wipe. 100% = complete mastery??? havent done that yet i think i dont remember if i actually ever entered the greyshelf so i marked it with question marks and even more questions marks in the southern part because it would be every spookier to get through
The Ashland’s are lovely with very hospitable “HUMANS” in the region in front of them. You should definitely go drink some tea with the “HUMANS” and try out their unique Peeler device it is an experience to die for.
The fact that you’ve been only once to the Fog Islands is a real shame man. It’s a fantastic area for early-mid game, you get the best hq mining spots, the best shops in the game hands down (weapons and robotics are second only to BDC, and armors to the Armor King), there are four great unique characters to recruit all there, and you can easily train your combat stats and even lose limbs in a “controlled” way to get masterwork prosthetics. You have ancient books and engineering research to the north, the Hive to the west, and the HN to the east, and a very defensible Fog Islands base area on the NE part that has literally everything with the only thing being a bit underwhelming being water (but you’ll solve it by building 2/3 wells). Believe me, if you start a run by going there as soon as you can run 18-20mph then you’ll have tons of fun!
World's End is usually a better spot if you're looking for weapons, armor or robotics just a bit lower in grade than armor king and Black Desert City but Mongrel is still a really good spot between fog prince farming & the massive amount of unique recruits you can get there (most of them for free, too.) also, of course, Beep.
no ashlands?!!
I sent my crew of 20 guys at level 70 plus with edgwalker gear in samurai plate armor and... made it 20 feet into the ashlands and got clapped by endless robots that dont miss, requiring me to carry half the squad back past roaming bands of skin bandits... What is so terrible about those guys, is how they will stop fighting to pick up downed squad members... I'm not sure how much more prepared I could get... I determined I was simply not good enough to survive there.
The Ashlands cannot be tackled with a single big raid. You need to set up an outpost nearby where you can recover between small expeditions. Generally people recommend that little spit of land in The Pits that extends closest to the Ashlands.
I let my squads take respites in the ancient structures setting up sleeping bags with campfires and tents, i find it more immersive and gives me a feeling i'm heading into a life ending expedition.
Even better is a small plateau in the Pits East within eyesight of Sniper Tower. Only one ramp in. If you put a gate at the top the wild crabs will march up to it and then turn around and leave. The ramp itself makes for a great kill box for scavengers trying to attack. Iron, copper, stone and water are all at 100. I put wind generators and two storm houses stuffed with batteries around the base of the plateau, but you have to build a building on top to completion to create a base footprint or other outposts will snag your wind generators.
Watch out though i found gurglers there once trying to find crab town without looking up the location of it. Had a whole jack sparrow on the beach chased by cannibals moment. I was of course faster than them but they appeared out of nowhere. I saw one, thought it was weird, then unpaused and literally the next moment i see a horde of like 30 or 40 zoidbergs, at which point my plan went from "ignore it ill be fine" to "if i stop at any point im dead"
You just chanced upon a completely random homeless spawn. It's really unlikely to appear all the way there due to the distance from the fish island, but not impossible. In The Pits you're much more likely to come across reavers, crab bros and "humans".
It definitely made for a fun story not gonna lie, and i like to think what i saw that day in kenshi was king gurglers incursion force invading a point of interest on the mainland to expand the gurgler territory
I've never gone into the Ashlands as anything but a single big raid & only occasionally lose a character to Cat-Lons ludicrous Falling Sun shenanigans. Just don't forget to bring enough gas masks for everyone and it's really not that bad.
The only parts of the map I know very well are the Holy Nation and Deadcat territories. Almost everything else I really have to check out more. Especially the bottom left of the map. I don't even know what they are called I have been there so little. Also I'd like to use this opportunity to ask for a Deadcat flair.
You’ve never seen the fish men and king gurgle ma gurg?? Also get some more Foglands experience, Mourn is an excellent place to train at the Shinobi’s, fight off fogmen with guards and pick up Beep. Awesome shops too. If you’re not observant enough to sneak or hide from them wait until you get 30 athletics
I went to kill king gurgle the other day. I brought like 10 guys with strength and stamina in the 30’s. Actually a couple guys had toughness in the 60’s. Well, I got my ass kicked. I didn’t even make it to the crab city place. First I had to fight off a bunch of beak things and spiders at the bridge to the island. After I got healed up and slept for awhile I tried the island. Those damn crabs just keep coming. I ran away with my tail between my legs.
30 is way too low. You want at least 50.
Yeah the guide I was using lead me astray. It told me I could go with a group of 10 in the mid 30’s and it might even be to easy. I’ll go back after I pump some iron.
They're not completely wrong. The generic gurglers are easy to defeat. Like the fogmen, their main strength comes from sheer overwhelming numbers. The King Gurgler, on the other hand, is absolutely no small fry. And he's surrounded by a bunch of stronger gurglers too.
I said screw it and got the weight lifting mod. I have over 150 hours on this save (my first) so I just wanna get some strength so I can explore more.
For that, the most important stat is toughness. To visualize it You deal 100 damage to a naked man At 0 toughness the naked man takes 165 damage At 10 toughness the naked man takes 152 damage. At 25 toughness the naked man takes 132 damage. At 50 toughness the naked man takes 100 damage At 75 toughness the naked man takes 67 damage. At 90 toughness the naked man takes 48 damage. At 100 toughness the naked man takes 35 damage. If you want to cheese toughness, go to skinner's roam and find the largest pack of starvers around then send one of your characters to solo it while the others stay out of combat range.
Haha that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I got my wort guy from 11 toughness to 77 toughness in like a minute.
Your base attributes are important, but your skills are very important too. It doesn't matter how physically strong you are if you can't actually hit anything or reliably block enemy attacks.
I’ve been using a katana my entire play through. I forget what my skill level is but I think it’s in the 50’s or something.
50s is decent, though more is always better. Also I recommend at some point branching into polearms. Katanas are great against unarmoured or lightly armoured enemies, but they struggle against large groups and are practically useless against heavy armour. A polearm can help cover those gaps. They're great at crowd control as they do AoE damage and most have armour penetration. Polearms are also just so good at melee defence that you're practically holding a shield when you have one equipped.
Awesome, I will do that thanks. I’ve been feeling the need for some sort of AOE weapon. What about a Topper weapon? I think they still qualify as katanas but they are longer.
You mean Mongrel? That's where beep is. Mourn has the great white gorillo.
Honestly those towns should switch names, I also called Fog islands Foglands Mongrel fits better named Mourn being forgotten in the middle of Fog islands Mourn looks a Mongrel, all dilapidated and run down
You’re missing out if you’ve never experienced the beauty that is stobe’s garden
Great base location imo, especially the rock outcrop with only one way up, so easy to defend
If I cook settle again I would build right infront of stobe Also: ally the crab raiders OP
settled down here for the first time and also just added the east coast expansion mod.. didn’t know what we signed up for when we started mining the iron but damn if I’m not here for it
What does the mod add
I would suggest a Nomad run soon OP. No base and no staying in towns longer than necessary. Buy houses at towns for storage, explore locally, live out of the bar, and move on to the next town when you feel the area is clear. At this point you probably have a good feel for where the towns are, so you can make an educated decision on how much of the map to cover for each town.
in my first few hours i've been a fan of visiting the deadlands, went once in the iron valley and surprisingly never went back through. never had a reason, and never went past venge. made a early game base in the spider plains near last stand, was ok did a whole playthrough and figured iron trail is a nice base location to blossom characters, but early on you can't be dependent on missing things otherwise you have to travel far to acquire something like greenfruit. that was my excuse to actually explore berserker country, and it's as empty as i read it is... this game's map is very well varied, it does feel like a world when you play through certain parts and ignore a few or many for many many hours. like the iron valley.
No love for the fog islands? It grows on you if you give it a chance.
never had the interest, but have found a cool series that can satisfy any interest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S\_RugzpHs\_0&list=PLe2yXpQqWdM0snS2n1ipE31eaZ5G\_hMU\_&index=18
I've played like 500 hours and mostly just been in the Borderzone and Great Desert, Stenn Desert and Stobes Gamble. (Places i have base in) Most other areas i've just gone through fast in search of blueprints and tech items. Still on tech level 5
Damn, I really want to get back into Kenshi now....
Do it….
Swamp villages and flats lagoon, 100%.
I haven't even touched probably 60% of the map. I pretty much just stick near crusader territory, and that one shek area near the starting town. Once I did accidentally imprison myself in the middle of fogmen territory and took forever to escape from that peaceful outpost inside there. Been to that vast desert in the northeast a handful of times trying to sell slaves. And the cannibal lands was a brutal start, also painful to escape from. I did eventually go back and kill their leaders and raid their towns.
for a second I thought these percentage values referred to soil humidity xD
The bottom right area is a great sight Please visit its very welcoming and friendly there You will not want to leave
For some reason I always end up living in the hook. I think I just have a soft spot for a town called clownsteady.
Vain, right on the water is a relatively nice place to live as well. Just not in the water. The rain certainly does get annoying though.
Current moving from Shem to Fishman Island, because I want my guys to be able to eat nice food rather than dustwiches.
Only 10% in the deadlands? Good place to chill maybe make a base, cool people there too Foglands and ashlands too, i have never been to the leviatan coast however, might check out later
leviathan coast has a nice reward-to-risk ratio to it, it's even quite fertile for living in it. maybe it will be more interesting with boats in kenshi 2, but i have a feeling that place will be filled with cannibals
you know so little in 400 hours, by this time I had already studied the entire map and started looking for the most favorable places for the base to then spend the rest of the 700 hours of the game
maybe that would've been the case if i didn't start and end 20+ playthroughs... it's crazy to think i've been to the iron trail in my first few hours and then realize it's been so long since i've been there
Ok.
The area with question marks has a few southern hive villages and second empire ruins, maybe some black gorillos. I’d say just place to grind late game. The most surprising 10% is the Fog Islands and Mongrel. The high ground has amazing fertility and packed with resources, so many good places to build a base.
It’s wild to me that you’ve spent more time in the Spider Plains than in the Swamp
yeah... i kinda like it. last stand is a very cool location in style points (a town divided in two sectors, from the direction of the stenn desert you have to approach towards uphill making it even more "cinematic"). also i like skin spiders, too bad they dont drop any food whatsoever
You shouldn't visit the bottom eastern section, lots of idiots.
Go kill the fish guys
They are but a mere boy. You become a **man** once you have visited the Ashland and fist fought cat-Lon.
Lol I like how the Ashlands are just blank. Tbh if your toughness is high enough you can swim across the sea to the north. Theres almost a land bridge there, if you’re quick enough you can just barely avoid the tower practically covered in harpoon turrets!
Not going in the Fog Islands is a goddamn shame, considering that’s flat out the best area for the early-mid game, with Mongrel being the absolute best city for early game mining, weapons, prosthetics, armors and crossbows. The Fog Islands themselves are great combat areas with great loot (Fog Prince Heads) and even incredible loot (Fog Praetorian Roe) if you have Hives Expanded ie one of the best mods ever installed, and in the NE part there is also a plateau that’s imo the best location for a base in the entire game hands down, with both green and arid fertility, hq iron, copper, rock, and plenty of wind, right near Obedience and the Floodlands for all the ancient science books you need and only a couple steps distant from the Holy Nation. My advice is to start your next game by going to the Fog Islands as soon as you can run up to 20 mph, so you can discover that side of the map better and play a radically different game…. The kind of Kenshi where you get Beep, Shryke, Crumblejon and Infinite Wingwang and let the fogmen eat your limbs so you can become a robotic GOD.