Couple additional tips. 1 When sailing keep your boat angled 90 degrees to the wind, for some reason this is faster than having the wind at your back. Apparently thats true to life, idk why it works, physics is weird like that.
2. Carts are very useful, but true to life, they're great on smooth flat terrain and near impossible to use on rough ground. Make roads.
3. Ores and metals don't work with portals, setup roads outposts and ports to make transporting them easier. Or just make a forward workshop to use the new stuff without having to take them back to your main base.
4. Shields are good, parries are great. Apparently round shields and bucklers are better than tower shields as the former can parry while the latter cannot. Also block health, the amount of damage you can take while blocking before staggering, is tied directly to your HP. So if you want to tank be sure to use health buffing food. Parries stagger most enemies except bosses.