Do NOT Always Be Innovating (Patreon)

There is a phrase in the Kingdom Death: Monster community which has become something of a mantra, I don't mean 'Rule of Death' or 'Hur DUR it's Kingdom DEATH of course you die' (both of which are annoyances we'll always have to deal with). I'm writing about the more insidious 'Always Be Innovating'.

The idea behind this statement is very simple, whenever you can innovate, you should. In principle, this is a sound thought, innovations add a lot to your settlement; things such as dash, leather, surge, acanthus doctors and the Barber surgeon cannot be gained without their relevant pre-requisite innovations.  In addition innovation is the main way to gain a higher survival limit and stat bonuses for starting survivors.

However, this 'rule of thumb' (I hate using that term, anyone got a better one?) is one that is slavishly applied and it's become so entrenched that alternative (and honestly superior) ways of thinking get shut down.  

There are a lot and I mean a LOT of players who sound like experts out there, but when I investigate closer a large portion of them are at best theory crafters or those who have a couple of partial campaigns of the core game under their belt.  No offense to people like that, but it's easy to sound like an expert to a new player when you are in that position, but it's dishonest.

That's where we are with this innovation situation, an echo chamber has formed and this mantra is catchy, so it's spread like a virus.  However I think you can tell from the title of this post, my position is in opposition to it.  However, publicly I've given up trying to educate many members of the community out there by suggesting that in a sandbox game there are multiple paths to victory and 'Always Be Innovating' is only one of them, it's not even the best one.

Sometimes be Innovating

OK, so if my position is that always innovating is not the best route in the game, I need to explain why. I hope by now that all of you are in the position where you do not take things as wrote, that you consider and weigh up matters before deciding (and testing) for yourself. 

There is a cyclical rhythm to a successful settlement in Kingdom Death, this is like a heartbeat to which the people in your own little slice of darkness march.  

Survivors create resources which builds things which protects survivors. 

This is one of the main cycles in KD:M, when it's disrupted a settlement can falter and when it's constantly out of beat the settlement will die. The main reason for this is nemesis monsters, they are set to a certain checkpoint level of difficulty; for example the Butcher is weak to evasion and bandages, the King's Man is weak to Shields and so on.  These checkpoints are almost always gear based, which is why we've all read so many stories of 'Man I just faced the Butcher for the first time and got wiped'.  You pick yourself up and learn how to prepare for the nemesis monsters better next time, or you end up never learning and you don't get anywhere.

Quarry monsters in contrast are a gentler beast because you choose how difficult to make things. If you just want a massive pile of resources without challenge you fight an L1 Flower Knight or Screaming Antelope, but you don't have to go after an Ink Sword (L3 Sunstalker) until you are absolutely ready to do so.  As I'm sure you've noted, most higher level quarries require extra survival and survival actions to handle, this is an innovation gate.

This means that the primary gate for handling nemesis monsters is gear, and the primary gate for higher level quarry monsters is innovations.  Because one is forced on you, that's the one you should prepare for.

But also, good gear protects survivors and they accumulate stat bonuses, weapon proficiencies, fighting arts and rare abilities as time passes.  If they're getting beaten up because they lack offense and defense, they instead accumulate injuries and death.  Both of which reduce your pool of survivors and reduce the quality of them.

Early Game, Early Shame!

Kingdom Death is a sandbox crafting game at its heart, gear is the one way that you can springboard yourself to better gear, the better your gear is, the better gear you can get and the longer your survivors live.  Long life is important for survivors because the ways of completing proficiencies outside of hunts are rare or unreliable. Family is great, but it's stuck in the worst part of the innovation tree (Hovel) - Clan of Death has the same issue.

So the earlier you start on gear, the more resources you can have early on and the better stuff you can make. If you are not struggling to breathe after each hunt, you'll have more options.

Each innovation in the early game basically costs you half a weapon, a monster grease/fecal salve/lucky charm and a fifth of a rawhide set.  That's a HUGE cost to pay early on, especially when you consider just how powerful the combination of full rawhide, monster grease and tall grass is in the early game.  

I often hear the counter argument that you need to innovate to increase the survival limit and get more survival for departing.  Well if you've ever built the Katar/Rawhide/Lucky Charm/Fecal Salve survivor you're already aware of just how much excess departing survival you have and also you should be familiar with how much max survival you need to kill the average L1 early game quarry (hint, it's 2 or 3).   

Typically the first innovation a settlement wants is Symposium, this innovation improves the quality of all other future innovation draws, which is a massive benefit for the long term survival of a settlement.  In addition it adds very few extra innovations to the deck, effectively picking Symposium thins your deck by 1 card and gives you +1 survival limit (to 3).  

However all you're getting right now is +1 survival limit, something you're not likely to even reach with most of your survivors.  

The other 'good' options are Paint, Ammonia and Inner Lantern.  But the only one of these that benefits an early game party is Ammonia. You just don't have the survival reserves to be able to use Dash/Surge early on, Rawhide is needed in order to maximise impact.

So what does this mean?

Well, in short, the answer as to when you should innovate isn't clear, but I would recommend that in the first 2-3 years you think very carefully before you innovate.  Getting that first complete set of Rawhide + Monster Grease is so much more important than anything.

As an example here's a typical haul from the Prologue White Lion.  (I literally just drew this).  We've assumed 1 extra resource from critical hits here, though it's often more than that if you punch the White Lion to death  (and I recommend doing that vs the Prologue White Lion).

That's 3 Hide, 4 Organs, 1 Bone and 1 ???.   My survivors have 2 Founding Stones left after the fight.  I've chosen one of my prologue survivors to gain the bonuses from Returning Survivors and they are skipping the next fight.

So we can see immediately that this Settlement's start is bone light, they are going to be dependant on one weapon at best.  

Now what's the right call here? You'd have access to the Lantern Horde and the 3 starting locations (Skinnery, Bone Smith, Organ Grinder).

Take a moment and think what you would do normally.

Right, so here's my thinking and actions on this.

1. If I've rolled 14 population, then I'm going to spend the Love Juice to try and get to 15 population, trigger the Principle and pick Accept Darkness.  If I plan to Survival of the Fittest I'll also use the Love Juice in order to get the stat bonuses online immediately.

2. There is no way I am innovating here, going out with Founding Stones and Fists, even if I've taken Survival of the Fittest; is a horrible prospect.  I need to build one weapon, so innovating is right out.  This means I'll have 1 spare endeavor to make Stone Noses or Augury with.

3. Normally my starting bone weapon would include bone darts, ranged weapons are super powerful and Bone Darts ticks all the boxes to be a top tier starting weapon - it's just there is no thrown weapon mastery.  

But, But! Here I'm going to build a Bone Axe.  Normally I do not prioritise making Bone Axes, but when you have an excess of Organs and a lack of Bones it's one of the best choices.  If the White Lion ground fights then I'm going to have to throw a founding stone to deal with that.  It's not ideal, but having power in one weapon should shorten the fight against the LY1 L1 White Lion.

4. The rest of the shopping list is simple, Monster Grease for everyone and the Rawhide Headband, Body and Gloves.  However I will save the Sinew in the settlement storage so I can build a Cat Gut Bow immediately.

My hunt party for the first year will be as follows:

Survivor 1. Rawhide Headband, Body, Gloves, Boots, Cloth, Monster Grease (1 armor to all locations, +2 evasion)

Survivor 2. (+Strength One), Cloth, Founding Stone

Survivor 3. Cloth, Founding Stone (Good luck!)

Survivor 4. Cloth, Axe, Monster Grease

Survivor 1 will spend all her time in the Tall Grass and use the Rawhide Headband to ensure that the White Lion targets her almost exclusively.  Survivors 2 and 4 will deal the main damage and Survivor 3 will be most likely be a newbie survivor there to gain a little xp as a backup and suck up the hits.

If I had innovated here I would have to go out without that Axe and my gear list would be.

Rawhide Headband, Rawhide Vest, Rawhide Gloves, 2 or 3x Monster Grease

That party has a significantly lower chance of surviving the LY1 hunt (which is generally one of the most dangerous hunts in the game) and also it's only 3/5 towards Rawhide 1 rather than 4/5.

And there we have it, this is the basic principle to which I innovate early on. I hope you can see why I will often skip innovating - and the reasoning is always that I prioritise gear, because gear is what keeps a settlement alive.