Starting Scenario
Scenario, storyteller, difficulty, and biome choices at colony start. The recommended first run and the harder options.
At a glance
Three choices set the shape of your run before a single pawn moves: the scenario (how you begin), the storyteller and difficulty (how hard and how often), and the biome (your food, wood, and temperature problem).
| Recommended first run | Crashlanded, Cassandra Classic, Adventure story or Strive to survive, temperate forest with hills. |
| Storyteller sets | Pacing: how bunched or spaced the threats are. |
| Difficulty sets | A flat multiplier on raid size. |
| Biome sets | Food, wood, temperature, and disease rate. It drives early difficulty more than almost anything. |
Scenarios
| Scenario | Start | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Crashlanded | 3 colonists, modest supplies, industrial tech | The default and the best for learning. Balanced. |
| The Rich Explorer | 1 colonist, good gear, more silver | Very fragile early. A self-imposed challenge. |
| Lost Tribe | 5 colonists, neolithic tech | More bodies, but behind on research and weapons. A slower opening. |
| Naked Brutality | 1 colonist, almost nothing | The hardest legitimate start. |
| Gravship start (Odyssey) | A small buildable ship as your early base | Reframes the opening around the gravship. |
Storytellers
| Storyteller | Pacing |
|---|---|
| Cassandra Classic | A rising curve of tension and relief. Roughly one to two major threats per quadrum with cooldowns. The balanced default. |
| Phoebe Chillax | Long gaps to let you build. Never two raids in quick succession. Community estimates around 8 to 24 days apart. |
| Randy Random | No rules, no guaranteed cooldowns. Back-to-back catastrophes or long calm. He also multiplies raid size 50 to 150 percent. |
Difficulty multiplier
Difficulty is chosen separately from the storyteller. It is a flat multiplier on raid size.
| Preset | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| Peaceful | 0.10 |
| Community builder | 0.30 |
| Adventure story | 0.60 |
| Strive to survive | 1.00 |
| Blood and dust | 1.55 |
| Losing is fun | 2.20 |
Custom mode exposes threat scale, adaption impact and growth, wealth-independent scaling, and many toggles.
Biomes by difficulty
- Easier: temperate forest (the classic beginner choice), arid shrubland.
- Moderate: boreal forest (wood and game, but harsh winters), tropical rainforest and swamp (fertile but high disease and heat), temperate swamp and cold bog, glowforest (permanent dark, no normal crops).
- Harder: tundra, desert and extreme desert, ice sheet and sea ice, and the Odyssey biomes: lava fields, Scarlands, glacial plains.
Terrain within a tile also matters. Mountainous tiles let you carve a base into rock for strong defense but invite infestations. Flat tiles favor built walls and killboxes.
Do this in order
- Pick Crashlanded for your first run. It starts at industrial tech and reaches guns and electricity quickly.
- Pick Cassandra Classic and a middle difficulty (Adventure story or Strive to survive).
- Land on a temperate forest tile with some hills. You get food, wood, and buildable defense.
- Save the harder scenarios, storytellers, and biomes for after you understand the wealth and raid loop.
Watch out for
- Tribal expecting a fast opening. Lost Tribe starts behind and must climb from neolithic. It is a longer, higher-variance run.
- Cold or dry biomes as a first run. Ice sheet, extreme desert, and glowforest force indoor food and heavy climate control from day one.
- Assuming the storyteller sets difficulty. It sets pacing. Difficulty is a separate multiplier, so read both.
Related
- Colony phases cheatsheet for the arc your choices feed into.
- Base layout cheatsheet for what to build once you land.
- Raids and events deep guide for what your difficulty and storyteller will send.