Kenshi is a sandbox RPG at it's core. With a heavy emphises on city management and battles. The basic core goal is to survive , And build a place you can call your home.

In Kenshi, The developer did not want you to feel like a superhero, and did not want the player to start with any advantage over another character, after all, you are just a regular guy.

Kenshi has a much slower approach to the sandbox genre. MUCH slower. If you are not patient, or are looking for a game similar to SimCity , Look elsewhere.

Sudden bandit attacks can wipe your workers , Building Materials are hard to get initially and getting started can be very frustrating.

What you will get in return, Is a very deep and rewarding game. Once your city starts getting bigger and you begin understanding how the game works, the controls are great, and it brings a sense of accomplishment I havent felt in a game since Monster Hunter.

Also, There WILL be bugs......

Once you have created your character ( As for which character to go with, I went with wanderer, But it dosent really matter, For simple play, You should choose to start with a whole group )

Once the game is started you will find yourself either outside a single building in the middle of nowhere, or in a town in the middle of nowhere. First of all , You're going to want to get some money , Or "Cats" As its referred to in this game.

Run out of the city ( Or away from the single building ) until some bandits try to attack you. Simply get them to aggro you , By just moving close to them they should begin chasing you. Lead them back to base and the guards there will kill them for you. As a pro-tip, Avoid fighting enemies at all for the first portion of the game. Just let the guards kill them. The reason being you are not powerful...... At all.

Once the guards have killed all the bandits, loot them all for their weapons. Once your inventory is full, Find somebody in the town to sell them too.

Now , Shopkeepers..... Allow me to explain....

Let me get this out of the way , Yes , you can only sell things to the merchant if he has spots in his "Inventory" , If he has no more room, Just hang out for a bit, the merchant is always getting new things, so if there is no space, just wait for a bit, or find another merchant.

First thing you will want is a backpack, ( To hold more looted swords! ) there will ALWAYS be a merchant in town who sells them. Opt for the largest , 5000G one if you have the patience. Its worth it.

Bigger towns often have a merchant for everything , Boots, Shirts etc. etc. But every town will sell you Backpacks, and building Materials. Speaking of which....

Building materials are your lifeline. You need them to build any building. At the start, you are only able to buy Materials when the merchant happens to have them. A Bit later you will be making your own supplies, but for now, Get your backpack, then start buying all the Building Materials you can find.

In the bottom right of the screen, there is a button labeled "Build" , Obviously enough it does just that. Lets start by building a Small shack.

Click "Build" --> "Buildings" --> "Small Shack"

You will see an outline of the shack appear. Unless it is green, you may not place the shack, Keep in mind buildings must be on Semi flat ground, and a certian distance from an already existing city.

When you finally see the green shack, click to place it. ( Use "< >" To rotate the building , And "PgUp , PgDwn" to raise and lower the building. ) Now press spacebar to finalize the build.

Once the game unpauses, You will see a bar stating "Adding Materials" to the building. If you click on the unfinished building, Then look at the bottom left of the screen , You will see 2 things.

1 : " Condition"

Easy stuff, Just the percentage of the building that is done being built.

2 : " Materials Needed "

For the shack, It should say 0 / 1 , Because it costs 1 building material to build your fist shack. Also keep in mind, if you dont have quite enough materials to build something, you can still START building it. If you have say, only 8 building materials, But the building requiers 10 , You will be able to get the condition to 80% before you will stop building. I Really hope that makes sense the way I type it.

At this point. You should have a small shack. If you do have a small shack, Then proceed forward a step.

Now, Just gather some money and as many building materials as you can find, As soon as you can afford a reserch bench. It is located under.

Tech --> Research Bench

Keep in mind, It must be placed inside a building. Build it the same way we built the shack. As soon as it is completed. Locate the button on the bottom right of the screen labeled "Tech"

On the left side of the pop up box, there are a few things you can upgrade. ( Example if Well 1 to Well 2 , Or the ability to make a Bed ) I dont want to tell you what to research, because that is part of the fun in my eyes. Once you click on the Skill you want to train. ( And see it go from the LEFT column , To The RIGHT one ) Then hover your mouse over the research bench. Right click to begin "Researching"

Once you aquire another party member, Its a good idea to just have somebody researching things all the time. Now, Onto Farming.

In the same way we built the shack, and the bench, choose Build --> Farming --> Small Farm. Place it somewhere near your shack. When the Farm ois complete , Click on the finished farm, And a box will pop up on the right side of the screen. You should see 2 Empty Spaces.

"Water"

Simple enough. A Farm cannot run without water correct? Under the farming Section of build. Buy a well and place it very close to the farm.

"Output"

The "Output" of the building, In this case wheat , Will show up here when harvesting is completed.

Once your Well is complete, Highlight one of your men ( Or your only one, If you dont have more then one party member yet thats totally ok ) and click on the finished well, You should see him begin to work at it.

Once your guy looks like he is working, click on the well he is at. Then look at the bottom left of the screen. You should see an "Output" Bar , When this gets to 100 , then whatever you were working at is complete , In this case, you get water.

The water barrel will show up in that empty inventory spot labeled "Output" on the right side of the screen when you click on the well. When you see it, right click to add it to your inventory.

Click on the Farm again , And where it has an empty space for water, simply drag the water barrel onto that spot, Now if you tell your guy to begin harvesting the farm, he will! However note that several barrels of water are needed per harvest.

Now, I think we need somebody to do our work for us....

At this point, you should have A Small shack , A Farm , A research Bench and a Well. If you started the game with a Party, Then you dont really need to check this part out, but I will explain how to get more workers.

Hitting the "Map" button on the bottom right will open the map. Also please note that the Little "X" on the map, is the location of your CAMERA , not your unit.

Check for the closest settlement. Send a guy out ( With money , a Worker is 700 Cats to hire , A Warrior can be aroun 5000 - 6500 , So be prepared )

You are going to need to find the saloon. If you have NO idea what the saloon looks like, with a tiny bit of wandering you will eventually stumble accross it. Its entry door is ALWAYS on the VERY CORNER of the building.

Talk with people in the saloon, If they say something like "Dont Steal anything" then just ignore them. Some of them will ask for work, providing you pay them. once they have been payed. They will show up in the bottom middle of your screen. Now you can make this little slave farm for you all day long! But oh no! Because the farm needs water, That means you will have to keep telling him to go get water for the farm right?.....

WELCOME TO ONE OF THE BEST PARTS OF THIS GAME!! ( See Next Chapter )

Pathing is simple, When you are highlighted on a character, and you click somewhere telling him to move, The way your character gets there, is called pathing.

An amazing feature of Kenshi is this. If you have a worker on a farm , ( Or working ANYWHERE for that matter ) And you tell him to endlessly farm. You will NOT have to manually obtain the water each time. If there is a well nearby, or a box anywhere nearby with water in it, Your worker will auto-Path there, and obtain the water himself.

To see an example ot what I mean. You remember how to research right? ( See Chapter - - - ) I need you to research "Storage" When it is complete, I want you to build a storage chest somewhere in your shack.

When this is complete, Get a worker to work at the well until it produces water. Place the water into the storage container. ( If you simply click on the storage container, you will see an area pop up where you can drag it too , Pretty self explanitory )

Now, Ensure the farm DOES NOT HAVE WATER IN IT ( Just for the sake of the example ) then have the worker go begin working at the farm. Since the farm has no water, you should see him run to the storage container you built , grab the water, run back , and resume working. Cool Huh?

Now I know what your thinking , " Oh wow! I can just forget about this guy now, He will farm forever! "

Not exactly. 2 Things prevent this from occuring.

1 : " Output Capacity "
If you leave your little man to farm, clicking on the farm will show its output in the bottom right. It starts with one bundle , then a little number in the bottom right. However, The farm can only hold so many. ( I think its 100 bundles, For other things in the game like hemp and mining, the capacity is MUCH lower, around 5 or so )

2 : " Random Bandit Attacks "
Self explanitory, If your main guy heads off and leaves the little guy to farm, chances are you will return to an empty wasteland.

Now, We are going to begin manufacturing Building materials. Yes, I know you just let out an excited screech, keep it in your pants, weve got work to do.