What should I build first in Hearthfall?

Farms and Cottages. Your starting wood covers two of each with enough left for a Lumber Mill, and that's the best first minute you can have. Food feeds villagers and soldiers alike, and new villagers only turn up while there's a free bed and a bit of food in store. Stone and gold can wait a moment.

Why did my watchtower not shoot?

Because nobody's inside it. A Hearthfall watchtower only shoots with archers in it: one archer at level 1, two at level 2, three at level 3, and one more with the Mason's Hoardings research. The Marshal trains archers and sends them up. Crossbowmen in a tower hit even harder.

Which difficulty should a beginner pick?

Pilgrim, if your first run on Knight ended in tears. Pilgrim makes the monsters weaker and gives you more to start with. Knight is the default and the game as intended. Lord makes the monsters stronger and your stockpile smaller, so keep it for when you're feeling smug.

What happens if the Keep falls?

The run ends, so the Keep is the one thing you can't lose. It has 1,500 hp at level 1 and grows tougher with each upgrade, and it shoots at monsters that get close. Upgrading it early gives you more health, more homes, more soldiers and more repair crews in one go.

Can I start the night early?

Yes. Ring the bell when you're ready. Once every player has rung it, dusk arrives a few seconds later. It's worth doing when the walls are up and the soldiers are in place, because the monsters get stronger each day whether you use the time or not.

Hearthfall Beginner Guide: Survive Your First Nights

Your first Hearthfall run is a race against the bell. This beginner guide gets you through the first three nights: spend the long first day on farms, cottages and a mill, wall the side the monsters come from, put archers in your towers, and never let food run out. Do that and the first dawn is yours.

New to the game itself? The complete Hearthfall guide explains what it is and how a run works. Everything below assumes the default Knight difficulty. Want to follow along? Open Hearthfall in another tab and play while you read.

What do you start with?

Every run starts the same way: a small Keep, five villagers milling about, and a modest pile of supplies (160 food, 220 wood, 90 stone and 70 gold). The Keep can shelter six people and takes potshots at anything that gets close, but it won't hold a night on its own.

Wood is the thing you'll run short of first. Here's what it buys on day 1:

Building	Cost	Why you want it early
Farm	40 wood	Grain for everyone; even better beside meadows
Cottage	30 wood	Homes for four more villagers
Lumber Mill	35 wood, 10 stone	More wood; put it against thick forest
Quarry	50 wood	Stone for walls and repairs; needs rock close by
Wall	6 stone a section	Drag to lay a line in one go

Two Farms, two Cottages and a Lumber Mill use almost all of your wood and leave most of your stone for walls, roughly a dozen sections. The Quarry has to wait for the mill's first logs. That's fine: it's the next thing you build.

Day 1: the minutes that decide the run

The first day is your longest: a little over three minutes, or about four if you're playing alone. After that, days shrink to about two and a half minutes. Use the long one to build an economy, because you won't get that much calm again.

A first day that works:

Food first. Two Farms beside meadows, close to the Keep so the villagers don't spend their lives walking.
Homes next. Two Cottages. New villagers wander in every quarter of a minute or so by day, but only while there's a free bed and some food in store.
Wood from the forest. Push the Lumber Mill right up against the thickest trees you can find. More trees around it means more wood.
Stone for tonight. A Quarry next to rock as soon as the mill's wood comes in, so the Master Mason has stone for walls and repairs.
A short wall. Close off the side the attack is coming from. If your scouts found a lair you'll be told; if not, the red rings at dusk give it away, and you can still lay walls in those last seconds. Leave a Gate so your villagers can get out to work.

A young village with the Keep, two cottages and a farm with its fields — A first village taking shape: cottages so the village can grow and a farm with its fields, all close to the Keep.

With friends, all of this happens at once, each step by its own duty: the Steward does the farms and mill, the Master Mason the wall. The Hearthfall duties guide shows who builds what.

Why does food matter so much?

Food is the quiet run-killer. Every few seconds the whole village eats. Villagers nibble, soldiers eat more, and knights and siege engines eat twice what a soldier does. A modest village of ten villagers and six soldiers gets through about 65 food a minute.

When the store hits zero, the food counter pulses red, your soldiers' panels say Starving, and every soldier loses 6% of their health every 10 seconds. Your army melts before the monsters even arrive, which is a very sad way to lose.

The fix is simple: watch the food card. Hover over food (or tap it on a phone) and it shows what you made and what you ate over the last minute, with a plain verdict on whether the farms keep up. If they don't, build another Farm before you train another soldier. A Storehouse helps too: it makes your food go further.

The Food card showing food made and eaten per minute and that the farms keep up — Hover over food, or tap it on a phone, for the economy card: made versus eaten over the last minute, and a plain verdict on the farms.

How do you survive the first night?

The first night is the gentlest you'll ever see: one lair attacks and the wave is small. It's still plenty to end a run that skipped its defences. Before you ring the bell:

Fill the towers. A watchtower only shoots with archers inside. Train archers at the Archery Range and send them up.
Bring the soldiers home. At dusk, gather soldiers by the Keep and put the heroes out front. The red rings show where the monsters will come from.
Try Patrol. Soldiers on Patrol defend the village by themselves, which frees you to steer your hero and have fun.
Lay a surprise. The Warden's Spike Trap is cheap and slows whatever walks over it. A straw Decoy lures night attackers away from your walls.

A walled village at night with archers in the corner watchtowers and lit lamps — Ready for the night: walls closed round the village and archers in the watchtowers, which only shoot with archers inside.

Once night falls you can't place anything new, only repair. The Master Mason sends crews out to damaged buildings, and anything you placed before dark keeps going up. A night lasts five minutes at most, and it ends the moment the last monster drops.

Dawn: the report and the boon vote

At dawn everyone heals up a good chunk, and the dawn report pops up: foes slain, who you lost, the best hero and tower, and every building that fell, with Rebuild buttons that put them back where they stood.

The dawn report for night 4 beside the boon vote with three boons, one of them cursed — Dawn after night 4: the report counts 34 foes slain and nothing lost, and the vote offers three boons, one of them cursed (Blood Oath).

Then the realm votes on one of three boons, with half a minute to argue about it. Most are simply good (Fertile Soil makes your farms grow more), but now and then one is cursed. Devil's Wager hands you a pile of gold now and makes the next night a Blood Moon, when the monsters hit much harder. Great fun when you're ready. A disaster when you're not.

Days 2 and 3: what to do next

From day 2 the days are shorter and the nights grow. Two lairs attack on nights 3 to 5, and every lair from night 6, and the monsters get a bit tougher every day. Use your second and third days to get ready:

Upgrade the Keep. Level 2 costs 150 wood, 150 stone and 60 gold, and it's worth every log: a tougher Keep, more homes, more room for soldiers, an extra repair crew and the next tier of research. Only the Master Mason can do it.
Start research. Tier I is cheap and quick. Iron Tools, which makes every worker faster, is a safe first pick for the Steward.
Scout. By day, get a building or a unit near a lair and it's scouted. From then on you know which way tonight's attack is coming.
Mind the wilds. From day 2 packs of monsters roam the open land. Don't stroll your hero into one alone.

What are the most common beginner mistakes?

These end most first runs, and everybody makes at least two of them:

Training soldiers you can't feed. Soldiers are hungry. Farms before barracks.
Building towers and forgetting the archers. They look mighty and do nothing.
Leaving building to the last second. Once night falls nothing new can be placed. Things you already placed keep going up, but a half-built wall doesn't stop anyone.
Ignoring the Keep. Nothing can be upgraded more than one level above the Keep, so a small Keep holds the whole village back.
Shrugging at the tax collector. If the Crown's Tax Collector turns up and nobody pays, he's refused after a minute by default, and that night's attack is bigger.

Survived a few nights? The Hearthfall campaign guide shows how to strike back: break the three seals and storm the Citadel. Bringing friends? Our list of co-op browser games on Pixaplay has more to play together.

The bell won't wait. Play Hearthfall.