After losing far too many villagers from sites to invasions. It was time to go on a long-term undertaking of making the realm a bit safer and increasing the village's defenses. This would end up being such an undertaking that, almost 100 days later, it was still in the works.

The first thing I wanted to do was clear some sites. Early on, I had some failed attempts. I’d later form a party with my top warriors, and we would go on quite a clearing rampage. To clear a site, you kill off the spawners, and then a boss shows up.

Instead of making things safer for a short while. I ended up having this powerful necromancer running around, causing all kinds of issues. Sometimes you must learn the hard way, as I did with this one.

My own combat level is still quite lacking. While I could train it in my village. I just don’t have that kind of spare time to be sitting there hitting posts with my weapon. If I am going to increase my combat level, it has to get something else accomplished at the same time.

While out on one of my adventures. I ended up finding where the next winter portal was for the invasion. Knowing this, I ended up expanding the road that was heading in its direction. While that might sound counterintuitive to do. Giving the enemy an easy walk to get to the village. This would ensure I'd know the route they would take to get to me.

This would end up working out better than I was expecting. As I was about to find out. While for the time being, my entire village had a very basic and easy-to-break-down wall. It can be upgraded.

The issue is that upgrading the wall requires some quite time-consuming materials. I’m also running out of trees to chop down for the kind of wood I need for them. Where then does that wood need to be processed.

Instead of trying to upgrade my entire wall around my massive town all at once. I’d just start to upgrade the section from which any invasion attack was coming. While sometimes it was a close call. We usually could get the work done in time.

On top of that. I wanted to test out two different kinds of defense buildings. One would end up being a tower where, once an attack was underway, the guard could sound an alarm, alerting the village. The other was much shorter, which seemed to give a melee combat point of view advantage before rushing into combat.

Naturally, while wanting to go work on a wall, another issue would come up. For instance, the village would run out of ore. So, I went down into the mine to discover they had opened another area that had some nasty stuff I needed to clear out for them.

With just a couple of days till the next invasion. I had had enough of the necromancer that had been roaming free, not that far from the village. I needed the trees around that area. So I put together a small group to go and kill it.

Funny enough, I could not have done it sooner. While I was working on upgrading one side of the defense wall of the village. Another side got attacked during a blood moon. Since I was far away from gathering blood shards. My house, which was used to form a group, was destroyed. My villagers continue to show their incompetence and lack of respect for defending things like their chief's house!

Once that issue was resolved. You could say we went on a bit of a killing spree. With three of my best melees, the village had to offer. The Necromancer, Hauger the Relentless, Fenrir, and some others were taken out.

I wish I could say that made those areas safe once their bosses were defeated. I usually got around two winters of safety before these areas would respawn. By then, in most cases, my villagers had stripped an area bare of any resources. That it did not matter if creature spawners and the boss were back again. If anything, they gave me something to farm for much-needed combat experience. Along with some of their drops.

Each of the different types of bosses drops an element that can be turned into a runestone. The only issue is that getting that buff requires someone to sit there performing a ritual and using some resources to do so. Yet another darn thing that requires a villager.

While earning gave some bonus towards things like mining and foresting experience. It also gave a boost to health. I decided to have someone perform the rituals at night so we could get some further health. If it could save some villagers from getting killed, it was well worth it.

During the final days before the next invasion, I stopped everything I was doing to focus on building our defenses up. I only took a break to warm up inside my own house when I was too cold to keep working.

When that next invasion hit, I went in full force, trying to do all the damage I could. The new walls held, keeping them from getting inside our village for once. Saving me a lot of time, not losing a bunch of important buildings.

As expected, once they got close enough to the towers, the town went on alert. Those who were assigned to defend the village came out in full force. One of them, for some crazy reason, started charging down the road right towards the winter portal. I tried to tell him to turn back, but he refused.

In that attack, I did end up losing two villagers in total. While not perfect. It’s a lot better than past attacks on us have been. Not shocking, I ended up losing one recruit that I had just brought into the village two days prior. We did not have a bed for him, so that kind of worked itself out anyway.

Don’t worry, though. In his honor, and knowing I was going to need a lot more villagers. I set up a few more beds after the attack. I now had time to breathe again, as it would not be till next winter when we had to deal with the invasion again. I was hoping by then to have an even lower kill count on our side.

That, however, will be getting harder over time. The more villagers you have, the bigger the attacks from blood moons to the invasion end up becoming. Perhaps it was best we started to upgrade our walls when we did.

Final Thoughts

The work was also far from being over. This time next year, we will still be upgrading walls. Since, for now, I did not know which direction the next blood moon would be coming from. I ended up upgrading one of the sides of the village that has been attacked by a few blood moons in the past. Hoping that in the future, even if I am not in town, they would no longer be breaching into the village, taking out critical buildings that cause quite a setback.

Information

Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about ASKA.

Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.

Disclosure: This content was written during early access.