Dungeon Settlers combines the elements of a colony and base-building simulator with dungeon crawling. As a strategy game, Dungeon Settlers isn’t supposed to be easy – it’s designed to challenge you even if you adjust the settings to make it more forgiving. The early access nature of the game adds some difficulty as well, because you may encounter bugs or find that future updates make your strategies obsolete.
Your settlement’s design and resources provide a place for you to prepare for dungeons and recover when you return from them. The key to survival lies in your settlement, because if you aren’t prepared, you won’t be able to make progress in dungeons, which then lets you gather resources you might not find elsewhere. Luckily, there are ways to help you succeed in the current version.
Prepare at Your Settlement
The settlement is where you want to make sure you have ammo, supplies for healing, the best weapons available to you at that point, and the best armor available to you. Heading into a dungeon unprepared is a great way to end your run early, so it’s better to take your time and supply your team.
This is also where you want to keep your settlers happy with decorations and items like bedrolls. For an easy decoration that improves room conditions, you can use Flower Pots. To unlock this, you’ll want to keep up on research with your Research Table, which is crucial for learning new recipes to craft.
When you’re in a dungeon, make sure you have the supplies for bedrolls and campfires to improve the mood of your party. You also want to be able to craft a Basic Workstation. They don’t have to be indoors and you can use it to replenish arrows and other useful items. Additionally, you’ll be able to spawn a merchant for buying and selling items when you complete your first dungeon and unlock the Trading Table. Place it, and the merchant will spawn in that room.
Start Over When You Need to
In reality, you probably aren’t going to get that far during your first run. Or your second or third run. The design of Dungeon Settlers is such that you are meant to start over multiple times and make more progress during each one.
The other factor is that this is an early access game, so you could run across game-breaking bugs. I just had an issue with a crafting table, which isn’t great because you need to craft items to survive in dungeons. It simply froze even though I had the required materials and made the same item previously.
Some issues will resolve if you log out and log back in, but you could end up having to just start a new run. That’s fine and part of the game’s design, so it’s actually encouraged if you read the tutorials. Also, if you encounter a bug, definitely go into the menu and report it. This helps the devs improve their game so it can be the best possible experience.
Magic Is Currently Overpowered
Specifically, the nature magic skill tree is strong in the current build. You can recruit characters who can use this kind of magic by looking at their information before committing to recruiting them. Water magic, or tide magic as the game calls it, is also useful with its ability to create barriers. However, nature magic gives you a heal to start with, and then you can get other valuable abilities that provide utility like reducing the range of attacks that can hit you, reducing vision, and stunning enemies.
General Advice for Dungeon Settlers
A bit of the game relies on luck, especially when it comes to the enemies and resources that spawn. You also might not be able to put together a party with the skills you want right away. In these cases, it could be better to start over in a new run with a different seed, giving you the chance to have a more favorable beginning.
Since this is a game similar to Rimworld, the best advice I can give is keep researching, gathering, and building. These are the tasks that will keep you alive, happy, and prepare your team to handle the enemies they encounter, allowing you to clear dungeons without restarting in Dungeon Settlers.
