Interesting side note on the natural defensive properties of terrain, many defensive medieval walls were filled with sand and dirt so that the shock from large siege weapons would not collapse the wall as easily when it was compromised. So, terrain is actually the best defense for real.

Forget walls. Make earthen works higher than the mobs can jump over. It can't be destroyed as it is classed as terrain. Then put a wooden wall on the top with towers inside. The only weak point is the gate, but you can overcome that by using the AI against the mobs.

Originally posted by A.:

Hi! Thank you for filling me in on this! And hey, I know that farming stone is one thing, but I mean, is that aside from farming stone everywhere, I'd need to keep with me some iron bars or the Stone Cutter, which is heavy and will stop you from entering portals. -- sorry, this part is just inconvenient for me (though I know it's part of game design to give the game more challenge).

You don't have to go to all that trouble. Build a portal at your main base and a portal linked to it at your mining sight. Load the ore into a cart or a ship and just portal the stone back. You can store the stone in lots of chests or dedicated carts that you leave parked in your base's yard until you are ready to use it.

When your ship is full of ore or your cart is half full (you won't be able to move a cart completely filled with ore) sail or haul it back to base. Empty the cart/ship and use your axe to destroy the cart/ship to recover the materials and portal back to where you were mining and rebuild the cart/ship. When you have completely mined out that site take every thing back to your base and when you portal back out dismantle the portal and its work bench and move on to the next task.

The ancient Vikings built massive defensive structures known as Trelborgs. They built a circular earthen wall around an area that they were going to defend and live in. They got the earth by digging a dry moat around the perimeter of where the earthen wall was going to go. They built a gate at each cardinal direction with a draw bridge to cross the moat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maptj8eJzgA
(you can tell from the ruins where the buildings were and where the farm fields were)

Inside the Trelborg they made a road from the North gate to the South gate and from the East gate to the West gate. Which divided the circle into 4 parts. Each section had 4 rough hewn wooden lodges built end to end in a rectangular shape with an open area in the middle for outdoor activities like smelting, penning and butchering livestock, and gardening. Cheap and easy to build with available materials (although labor intensive) and virtually impregnable. The game does a very good job of letting you recreate this structure though it lacks drawbridges. You can simulate a draw bridge by using a horizontal corewood beam across the dry moat and just building floor on top of that when you need to cross with a cart or live stock (you can balance beam across when its just you). You can then pull up the wooden floor boards. Enemies can't walk across the corewood beam and if they attack the corewood bean they just fall in the moat where you can pick them off with your bow. Flying enemies can still get in but if you put your live stock undercover (by building a barn) the flying enemies won't be able to see them and won't attack them. which gives you time to shoot them down with your bow.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2845923276
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2853688768

If you build a large enough base all of the raids will start in the same place and you can dismantle and rebuild your stone cutter to build your stone walls and then when you are done permanently place it inside the wall where the raids occur so that you can repair quickly and easily after the raid ends.

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Growths can jump over a stake wall.

You mean blobs and oozers? Growths probably can do that too, sure, but I don't think they are part of events for time being?

Blobs and growths use the same model with just different coloring and attacks so if a blob can jump over it a growth can. If you build too near a tar pit then night time fuling raids can attract growths as can a roaming deathsquito during the day and those growths can jump over your stakewall. A growth can detect you on the other side of the stake wall and since it fires multiple projectiles in one attack it can destroy a stake wall section in less than 2 attacks.

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Growths can jump over a stake wall.

You mean blobs and oozers? Growths probably can do that too, sure, but I don't think they are part of events for time being?

Totally "Nope": I had to build trenches around my base and this had been the reason i did not kill the dragon boss on my main server. A fuling raid party will go through an wood base like butter.

Fortunately the fuling events are disabled by taking out their king, though that upsets the power balance enough to allow seekers to find you, until you do the same to their "faction". Be prepared.

Originally posted by Van N00b:

Totally "Nope": I had to build trenches around my base and this had been the reason i did not kill the dragon boss on my main server. A fuling raid party will go through an wood base like butter.

Sheyt 😥

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Fortunately the fuling events are disabled by taking out their king, though that upsets the power balance enough to allow seekers to find you, until you do the same to their "faction". Be prepared.

This is why I avoid killing bosses until I've over prepared enough. And I heard that Mistlands is unreasonably difficult as of now..

Originally posted by A.:

And I heard that Mistlands is unreasonably difficult as of now..

It's not unreasonable, it's just about right for me. It's brutal, but as you said there's a lot of things you can have to prepare better for it, like making the root harnesk and barley wine to overcome its weakness to fire. And I'd imagine most players at that point have the Frostner already as well...

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

It's not unreasonable, it's just about right for me. It's brutal, but as you said there's a lot of things you can have to prepare better for it, like making the root harnesk and barley wine to overcome its weakness to fire. And I'd imagine most players at that point have the Frostner already as well...

Alright, that's good to know, haha. I was worried actually.

Frankly, I love this game, just like how I like Minecraft. But both games (Open World combined with Surival Crafting) are grindy by nature 😅 and I'm at a stage in my life where I really do lack significant amount of free time to invest in such games (random rant, but I'll try for the love of it).

Raised the ground 1 "square" all the way around since ground is indestructible, and then dug a moat behind it, both at max levels allowed. Then I placed a stone wall 3 pieces wide that has ballista installations on top of it. This way the base is practically impregnable and my ballistas don't shoot out of ammo on deer and hogs. Expensive, but its the best I know to do short of building out an island like I did in my second world. Stakes just slow them down and drain resources with needed repairs. Also, the entrances can be built in a way so that enemies will not be able to navigate. The real trick is keeping the creatures out of my harbor area.

Considering how weak stone is, probably. The durability of stakewalls is 1000, and stone is 1500. A 2-3 section thick stakewall is actually stronger than a single layer stone wall.

If you're trying to build on the plains, the only real defense is to make a moat and wall using indestructible terrain.

Always interesting when games and RL align.

There is a reason so many historically 'impregnable' fortresses were built where they were; to take advantage of natural defenses.

So the best defenses against late game raids are often in place early game - meaning if you pick a good location to build that already has natural defenses the battle is half over.

For example islands, mountain sides, high peaks, river bends, etc.

you only need 2 iron to use unlimited stone.

10 whacks from a no star Fuling is enough to destroy a section of stake wall (and allow them entry), Growths can jump over a stake wall. Stone walls have 50% more durability to damage than stake walls no matter what size pieces of stone wall you use. If you interlock 2x1 stone wall sections it will take a Fuling 15 whacks to break that wall section but to get inside a Fuling would have to break through 2 of those wall sections.

Earthen walls require rocks, a hoe, and a work bench (instead of a stone cutter) to build and earthen walls are invulnerable to damage. They can also be raised high enough (8 meters from base terrain) that blobs and growths can't jump over them (but other flying creatures can still fly over them).

You don't have to worry about conserving rocks, they are literally all over the place in every biome. You'll get more than enough rocks to build any thing you want just from mining copper and silver and Graydwarves drop them so even if you were to mine every single rock (and flatten every mountain) on your map you would still have an unending supply of rocks.

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

10 whacks from a no star Fuling is enough to destroy a section of stake wall (and allow them entry), Growths can jump over a stake wall. Stone walls have 50% more durability to damage than stake walls no matter what size pieces of stone wall you use. If you interlock 2x1 stone wall sections it will take a Fuling 15 whacks to break that wall section but to get inside a Fuling would have to break through 2 of those wall sections.

Earthen walls require rocks, a hoe, and a work bench (instead of a stone cutter) to build and earthen walls are invulnerable to damage. They can also be raised high enough (8 meters from base terrain) that blobs and growths can't jump over them (but other flying creatures can still fly over them).

You don't have to worry about conserving rocks, they are literally all over the place in every biome. You'll get more than enough rocks to build any thing you want just from mining copper and silver and Graydwarves drop them so even if you were to mine every single rock (and flatten every mountain) on your map you would still have an unending supply of rocks.

Hi! Thank you for filling me in on this! And hey, I know that farming stone is one thing, but I mean, is that aside from farming stone everywhere, I'd need to keep with me some iron bars or the Stone Cutter, which is heavy and will stop you from entering portals. -- sorry, this part is just inconvenient for me (though I know it's part of game design to give the game more challenge).