A Better Guide to Kenshi: Set yourself up for the End-Game!

Theres an endgame in this game? Because I have this game for years and i haven't even explored 1/3 of the map

Are there property taxes for building in a city?

Kenshi has an end?

Dollars??? Dude....

I always set up my first base at the border zone - swamp border just close enough to have both arid and swamp enviroment farms, copper and iron. Then I visit the grid and shun to get the first ancient books and shit also recruting some humans in the united cities because Sheks eat to much like you said.
But then I always I always end up doing the same thing. I try to level up my craftsmen to make some decent & matching gear for my characters to explore the rest of the world.. but I just end up attacking the Holy Nation. Then I end up with to many characters that I get tired of feeding and just start over again after a few months.

DAMN, the first Kenshi how to video that is not 2 hours long. Hats off to you sir and I have not even watched it yet!

new players: don't rush! the worst thing is being too op at the end game

Been playing Kenshi for 4 years now. This tutorial is really beginner friendly, just wished there were more videos like this back in the day

Some not-so-great advice in this one.
1. You don't need a scorchlander for crafting. Dont bother wasting your time to find one.
2. Starting with a wooden backpack reduces your ability to fight and will suck at the start when you get ambushed mining.
3. Mining is a slow way to start earning cats. Better to just loot dead bodies if you hang around Squinn. The guards will destroy bandits and animals and protect you. You can start battling around Squinn with a single character. Just look out for slavers.
4. The only reason to mine at squinn is to really get one character mining and the rest body-guarding to boost their athletics, then fill the bodyguards up (high encumbrance) to build their strength. Keep your miner and bodyguards stealth'd to train stealth. Get the miner to auto-fill a storage container in a house in Squinn.
5. Start fighting hungry bandits and dust bandits around Squinn, focus on katana's first to get dexterity up which boosts DPS by increasing attack speed with all weapons.
6. Try a playthrough without building a base.. no need to do it at all. You can make lots of cats just getting good at hunting in Vane and and anywhere beak things live.
7. When fighting beak things near a nest, pull 1-2 out of the nest so you dont have to fight the whole nest to start. If your squad gets downed around a bunch of beak things you will likely get eaten.
8. With a few characters with katanas and decent dexterity you can suppress the attacks of a beak thing (and other enemies). The faster you attack the less chance the enemy can take a swing as their focus is blocking or showing the damage animation.
9. A lot of enemies have an area of attack. If you put a weak character in with strong ones, the whole team is more likely to get trounced as the weakest character will not be able to block the attack and then it will hit the rest in the area. This will be a key learning when fighting stronger animals.
10. Fight gorillos early. They will get you toughness up and they dont care about you when you are down/unconscious. Set the characters to block to increase survivability.

I disagree with needing to hire bar people to get a big crew.


All I need is Burn, Beep and I

Yeah other guides a either stupidly detailed, or not enough information, this is bang on, cheers

A lot of players forget the sneak button, use this while mining also to avoid Getting attacked while mining, you automatically raise stealth when used.

I thought that Rock Bottom is quite a easy start
Tbh it is.

How do you deal with all the glitches that come with making your own town? I have to import/reload my save serveral times a day just to keep things slightly running. From turret gunners not firing to characters glitching through building/gates. Half the time my person that makes food just stops for no reason, only a reload fixes them. Game is a glitchy mess.

Dunno why but i always build my base in Shem, it just seems a convenient place for me.

Started of with a single dude and settled in Squin. I bought a house with my first money and started my swamp connection by getting a Garu from a animal trader. Next step was to farm swamp merchants for hash. Either buy it or steal it, either way its rather cheap there. Now be on your way to United cities in the great desert for a 500% price markup. Each run brings around 100k depending on the amount of hash you can carry. This is how i created a solid financial basis for building and researching my own outpost.

The currency is Cats.... NOT dollars.... Otherwise good vid...

i keep getting blasted by the black dragons.. everytime i have a wall, and i mean nothing to them!

Should have the scorchlander named Chad be your main crafstman because... Chad.

Why is this game so hard? And so ugly? I feel like one or the other is acceptable, but both is almost too much to get past.

Funnily enough if you are new to kenshi i'd advise against base building. Id pick a skeleton of some sort to start since they don't have to eat, head to the hive villages to farm nests of beak things (beak thing eggs sell for like 4000 if im not wrong)... Buy repair kits from the hivers and head to the fog islands to fight some cannibals. They won't eat your robot ass so you'll be fine there to train everything combat related... and that's it, you've just made a viable end-game character that can do pretty much anything the game has to throw at it in less then a day, congrats!

Me: "leaves to Squin solo"
Escaped slaves enters the chat

Thank you, now I know to set up scorchlanders as cotton farmers

If you're new to kenshi, do not build a base in the swamp. It is a windless, spider infested nightmare that gets raided by slavers, ninjas and other bandits every ten minutes.

I am farming Shek’s revenge now. My base is very close to your recommended area.

A little late to the party but another thing to note with weapons and smithing: When it comes to weapon grades you create vs. the world it's consistent that weapon grades created by the game of the same quality as one crafted by one of your squads will have higher stat values. Though I would never shake my head at an Edged Weapon I would strongly advise if you are looking for the highest numbers to scavenge ancient armories or go to the Skeleton Smiths and Black Desert city. The only real exception to this in my knowledge is crossbows but I never really craft those to begin with.

Also remember Weapon/Armor crafting is bulk. Bulk is size. Size is range in melee. It doesn't hurt to raise these if you're really trying to push your elite units to their peak.

This is the video, folks. This is the real starter guide - skip those 1hr nonsense vids.

Just started playing a couple of days ago, was looking everywhere for a guide just like this, now that I found it I'm glad to see I've been doing most of the things on the video (after rage-quitting a couple of times and getting back in for the game being so unforgiving when you start lmao), only thing was that I rushed my base and I wasn't aware of pack animals, but now I know I'm on the right path, thanks for making this video, it was extremely helpful.

If you are new and want easy start then you should go to Waystation in Grey Desert

I have almost 1000 hours in this game and didn't realize I could upgrade certain work benches /facepalm

My choice city is Stoat, followed by the Heng(the capital city). All the buildings there are repaired so no discounts. However these two are economicaly supreme. If you want to know why, i will tell.

savior, i now know how to play ty, short and sweet

I always play kind of like a tech hunter. I think a great way of starting is just baiting bandits / wildlife to the guards. Free money and you can safely level combat stats.

Thank you for these guides! I finally got around to buying kenshi and ive been watching these videos before i even start lol

Just steal beak thing eggs for like 30k

The chests on the second floor of the Snail House bar in Squin are great for lock picking practice early on if you can stay out of the sights of the guards ; ). You don't have to set a haul job with ore. If there's a container nearby they do it automatically.

The big problem with using training dummies is that it only trains melee attacks. It doesn't train dexterity or melee defense, and since you aren't getting hit, it doesn't train toughness, either. Best to just throw all of your guys except 1 at a bunch of starving bandits and have the one extra guy come over to heal them all.

Martial arts solo to end game

Honestly thank you so much, what a refreshing video. I swear 99% of Kenshi tutorials are just 2+ hour videos of people yammering on the whole time and never really getting to the point. You are clear and straightforward, and I absolutely appreciate that so, so much. Your guide has helped me immensely, and I look forward to watching more of your content, sincerely, thank you.

this is a really thorough guide that deserves more views. There should be some "small channel" and kenshi subreddits where you might consider posting links!

If you're new, follow this guide! Building in a city like Stack, Squin, or Stoat is way easier than roaming around. I recently started a playthrough where I travel more, but there are those basic techs that are so important to research, and doing that in a city is way better than trying to build a base earlier. Building an independent base early has never gone well for me. Doable? Kind of. But, you have to be very careful while being in a city is so much safer.

Is that hack stopper clothing?
Why?
Plate is superiour.

Scorchlanders have nothing on P4 skeletons.

fantastic guide but hearing him not call them cats and instead dollars or gold is setting off my autism

Okay...Fish Isle tied for best spot. 150% grow efficiency and its almost 100% safe if you can do away with fish things.

i love squin

Newish to kenshi 25ish hours.... outposts are hard.. SO hard. lmao

In a game where it is so easy to fall prey to information overload and just perpetually not really doing anything in the game, guides like this have made it easier to pick the game back up, set some goals, and do stuff. I'm working right now with a hybrid team consisting of a combat/exploration squad, a stealth squad (for making ridiculous amounts of money via my theft racket), and a base management team (it is one lonely Shek that I force to build all my stuff and do all my research LMAO). Learning about the productivity of the Scorchlanders and basebuilding tidbits I think gave me some new ideas on what I'd like to do for this playthrough since it's my first long one that I've really survived and not given up on after getting KO'd a couple times. Have three capable assassins, and team of hearty, combat hardened Shek explorers, and a dedicated nerd for the base. Lol.