The Settlers Online Level 1 to 16 Guide

The Settlers Online Level 1 to 16 Guide by Calen

Quest 1: Build a pine wood cutter

You start out with just a Mayor’s house. A run down old rickety looking building made of wood.

Upon logging in for the first time your first quest pops up. You are told to build a pine wood cutter. pine wood is your basic wood resource and resembles a pine tree. pine wood is scattered around in abundance and one of your primary resources for all buildings types for quite a while. So build a firwood cutter near a lot of firwood trees.

Upon completion you receive the quest completion dialogue and gain 100 experience points (xp). Experience is what allows you to level, which in turn unlocks more buildings for you to build.

Quest 2: Build a pinewood sawmill

What does one do with pinewood after cutting it down? Well of course we turn that into usable lumber to make more buildings. So now we need to build a pinewood sawmill. The first thing I did now was to draw some roads around my mayor’s house in square patterns so that I can kind of layout a grid for myself and neatly organize my buildings. You can do whatever you like of course just remember, place it near to the mayor’s house so that it can get the logs from the mayor’s house quicker and produce wood quicker.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 50 xp points.

Quest 3: Check out the mayor’s house

You are now tasked with investigating the mayor’s house. This is really nothing more than a giant storehouse. Level 1 mayor’s house which is what you start with can hold 500 resources. So click on the Mayors house and check out your stock of supplies. Then return to the home screen by clicking on the X on the mayor’s house screen and await your next quest. You also gain a level after this quest.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 50 xp points and become Level 3!

Quest 4: Build a pinewood forester

So we are cutting down trees, we are turning them into logs. It only makes sense now that we need to replenish our supply of trees to keep production in a nice harmonious flow right? So now we need to build a forester. In general you should have 2 foresters per cutter, but we are only going to build one for now to complete the quest. So toss up a forester near the cutter so he can replenish the same wooded area the cutter is cutting down.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 50 xp and 5 settlers!

Quest 5: Send a geologist out to find some stone

Now that we have a steady flow of wood we have to look into the second most common resource which is Stone. But how do we find stone you ask? You send your Geologist out to look for it! So per the next quest click on the Star in the middle of the menu and you will see your geologist that the game just gave you. Click on the Geologist and you will be taken to the resource screen where you can choose which type of resource you want your geologist to search for. Click on Stone and click ok. It takes 4 minutes to hunt for a stone deposit. The more valuable the resource, the longer it takes to find. Once you click ok you will see a little popup dialogue at the top left of the screen that states your geologist is going to look for resources. At any time a geologist is out “working” you can click on the star menu again and hover your mouse over your geologist to see how much time is left on his current mission. Once complete you will see a stone quarry appear on the map.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 50 xp points and gain a level!

Quest 6: Build a stone quarry

Now that we found some stone we need to build a quarry to process it into nice usable blocks. So click on the basic buildings button and click on the quarry and place it right next to the quarry. We will drop a storehouse down here also later once we can build them to speed up stone production.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 100 xp points and move to level 4!

Quest 7: Build a Residence

Now that we are growing steadily we need to make sure we keep a supply of settlers coming in to fill the positions of employment for the buildings we are making. So we need to build a residence. A basic residence adds 10 settlers to your population limit. So click on the basic buildings icon and add a newly unlocked residence to your empire. A residence requires no proximity to any production buildings so it is best to put them in areas that you won’t be using for production. A good spot is in the lower South East of your initial map in the wide open area.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 100 xp, 8 settlers AND a level!

Quest 8: Build a fisher

Now that we have some production going we need to start thinking about food. Workers need to eat! So the next quest is to build a fisher, which will be your only source of food for a while so I hope you like FISH! Click on the basic buildings icon and click on the fishery. You will notice when you do in the south of your island you will see a couple fish icons. These represent fish deposits. Place the fishery near one of the fish deposits.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 100 xp, 5 settlers and another level!

Quest 9: Build a Provisions house

Once you build a fishery other than food we can actually build a building that will allow you to convert all kinds of resources into other things. This building is the Provisions house. It can turn fish into magical buffs which boost production, it can turn wood into more expensive wood later on, and other things you will see as you get bigger. So let’s build the Provisions house. I suggest placing it down near a residence as it requires no proximity to anything to function.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 25 xp and 50 fish

Quest 10: Build a buff

50 fish, what on earth am I going to do with that? The next quest will tell you. With your newly built Provisions house you can now create magical buffs which use…you guess it. Fish. The first buff we can create is called a fish plate. So click on your Provisions house and click on the buffs tab if it isn’t already selected. Click on fish plate, 1 is made by default so just click ok to make your fishplate.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 25 xp and 5 settlers.

As mentioned before, Settlers Online is a social game. One of the best reasons to have friends is the ability to swap buffs. Buffs placed by a friend will last 50% longer than if you place one yourself. In the case of Fish Plates, one that you place on your building will last 30 minutes, but one placed on your buildings by a friend will last 45 minutes. Later, as you get the ability to make longer lasting buffs, this benefit grows to 3 hours for sandwiches and 9 hours for baskets. You can tell the difference in a building that you buffed versus a building that was buffed for you by the appearance of the glow. A buff provided by a friend will have the appearance of swirls.

Quest 11: Explore a new sector

Now that we have all the basic productions materials in flow it’s time to expand our work area. You are tasked with exploring for a new sector. To do this click on the Star button and you will now see that you have an explorer which appeared out of nowhere. If you click on him you are able to then click on explore sector and he will go off “into the fog” to try and find new areas to conquer. Once explored, the clouds will disappear and this area will become visible on the map. The first area is unoccupied so we will take it in the next quest but after that you can only take areas by conquering the bandits that reside in them. So send off your explorer and wait for him to finish. Exploring for a sector takes 10 minutes.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 25 xp, 30 fish and another level!

Once you explore most of the sectors there is a very important tip that the game really doesn’t touch on much, which is treasure hunts. Click on the star menu, and click on find treasure. The only available option is a quick treasure hunt which takes 6 hours. After you are done exploring for new sectors and your explorer is bored, send him on constant treasure hunts. The prizes he brings back are building materials, and sometimes gold, both of which you will always need a constant supply of, and they are free so…if your online, your explorer better be hunting.

Quest 12: Conquer the new sector

In order to conquer an area that is clear of bandits you only need to one thing which brings us to the next quest. Build a storehouse in it and it is yours. So click on basic buildings and build a storehouse in the new sector. I recommend putting it near the mines because the next thing you are going to do is build copper mines.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 100 xp, 5 settlers and gain a level!

Quest 13: Search for Copper

The next task we are given to do is to look for a new resource which became unlocked with the advancement of our last level. Copper mines can now be located and mined. So open up your star menu, and click on your geologist. Click on the copper icon and send him off a few times to find a few copper mines that line the new sectors mountains.

We are going to take a small break here as this is the first thing that will take more than 5 minutes to complete. Searching for copper will take 10 minutes per mine. There are 3 copper mines in the new sector to the north so feel free to find all 3 at your leisure though only 1 is needed to complete the quest.

Intermission from quest 13:

Let’s talk about production a little bit starting with pinewood. A good ratio of pinewood production buildings to have is a 2-3-2 configuration, meaning 2 pinewood cutters, 3 foresters and 2 sawmills. This setup seems to keep a steady production flow without any of the 3 buildings running out of resources. So while you wait, why not go build another pinewood cutter, 2 more foresters and 1 more sawmill. Optionally, I also searched for a few more stone deposits before sending my geologist off to find the copper deposit. I built a few more masons to bolster my stone production and built another fishery on top of that so I can make more fish plates to buff my village. One thing to also note, is that with stone quarries, you can have as many masons as you want working out of one quarry. Be advised though, the quarry will run out of stone faster. In general, I don’t build more masons than 2 per quarry. I also built a storehouse on the southern end of my island so my stonemason and fisheries don’t have to walk all the way back to my mayor’s house to deposit goods. You should have over 100 fish by now, so make 10 fish plates and boost all your buildings output 2x for 30 minutes.

Return to quest 13:

Ok, so your geologist found some copper, and if you were patient, you went back and found the other two as well so you can get the most out of your production early on. Better production means faster progression and leveling. So, if you haven’t yet, go search all 3 copper deposits and then move onto the next quest which is, you guessed it. Build a copper mine.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 50 xp and 5 settlers

Quest 14: Build a Copper Mine

Once you have found at least one copper deposit, it is time to drop a mine on it. Unlike quarries which you find and then have to put a mason next to, a mine you actually build on the deposit and IT is the production building. So drop a mine or 3 and grab that nice reward. You will also see now why I suggested building the storehouse near the mountain.

Upon completion of this quest you will get 50 xp, 35 Gems and another level!

Quest 15: Coal

The next quest tasks us with making coal, which comes from pinewood logs. So now we have to build a coking plant. Coal is a resource you will use a LOT of for the rest of the game. It is used in the production of almost all weapons so don’t be skimpy in production of it early or you will suffer later on. If you have been making more than one of each buildings as you go along I would definitely make 2 of these to start with. All ingots are made with coal then more coal is used to make weapons and making weapons is the only way to level. So until you reach level 23 and can find coal mines yourself, you will depend heavily on making coal from pinewood logs.

Upon completion of this quest you will get 100 xp, 5 settlers, 10 tools and a level!

Quest 16: Smelters

Once you have coal you can now begin changing copper ore into copper bars are used for a couple different things, like tools and making weapons! You are tasked with building a copper smelter and a tool maker. So click on the Intermediate building icon and pick the newly unlocked tool maker and place 1 of those. Then click on the intermediate building icon again and place a copper smelter. Remember place them near the storehouse. You will soon find out that all your buildings will be built in clusters around storehouses so the production times are the lowest possible.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 100 xp, 5 settlers, 40 gems and another level!

Quest 17: Build a Barracks

Now that we are making tools which are required for more advanced buildings and copper bars which will be used shortly to start making weapons, we need to build a barracks. So click on the Intermediate buildings icon and drop a barracks. This building does not require proximity to anything so drop it away from a storehouse somewhere probably in the South East of your camp.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 50 xp and 5 settlers

Quest 18: Check out the barracks

This is a simple task. Click on the barracks, click on a soldier and see that you do not have any beer or swords yet and close the barracks. This Quest is complete. After completion of this quest you should be turning level 13 and you will notice that your roads (if you built any) have all of a sudden gotten a little more solid and visible. The next road change is at level 21 which is beyond the scope of this beginner’s guide.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 50 xp and another level!

Quest 19: Beer Quest

It is kind of ironic that the last quest which was a 3 click speed quest that now you get a build 4 buildings quest. We are going to start producing Beer. Your troops will drink a ton of beer and it will always be in demand. So click on the Intermediate buildings icon and put up all 4 buildings. If you have been only making one of each building up to this point you will now see for the first time that you can queue up to 3 buildings at once.

Another useful note is that if you are close to having enough to make a building you can drop the foundation and go to bed or whatever and when you do get enough, it will start automatically. Good strategy to stay ahead of the game.

The next useful note to mention is that wells and wheat fields do not take up any building licenses. So you can build 1 farm and drop 3 wheat fields near it and if one of them runs out, then the farmer will automatically start the next one. Depending on your play time it might be beneficial to drop multiple wheat fields if you will be offline for a long time so production doesn’t come to a stop while you’re away!

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 100 xp and another level!

Quest 20: Make a Sword

Now we are starting to get to the heart of the game, your Army. First thing we need for an army? That’s right, weapons. So the next quest looks to be an attempt to make you explore a little on your own. It tells you now to go build a sword. How do you do that do you ask? Well click on the Intermediate buildings icon and you will see a new buildings unlocked. ..A Bronze Weaponsmith. Super! Click on that and drop 1 or 2 of those near a storehouse and let’s get producing swords. Once you place it you have to wait until a sword is completed before the quest will complete. Click on the Weaponsmith and then click on details. You can see the total time to make a sword and that is how long it will take for the quest to trigger completed.

A note about weapons I want to mention. Each troop type takes a specific amount of weapons to produce (on top of the beer). For instance a recruit costs 10 swords. A bowman costs 10 bows. A militia costs 10 Iron Swords. Get the idea? Ok let’s move on.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 30 xp, 120 hardwood planks and 100 marble!

Quest 21: Upgrade something!

Wow, hardwood planks and marble. That is the first time we’ve seen that! Unless of course you have been sending your explorer out on short adventures, which you better be! Sometimes he will bring back small quantities of hardwood and marble but not this much! What can we do with this? Well of course it was given to you for a very specific purpose, which just happens to be the next quest. It’s time to upgrade a building to level 2.

One thing I want to mention about upgrades. Almost all basic and intermediate buildings can be upgraded to level 3 using only hardwood planks and marble which you will be able to build later on. After that upgrades require gold so it would be wise to not blow all the gold you do find and earn from defeating camps, too quickly. You also need gold to buy more generals, explorers and geologists.

So for this quest we need to pick any building and upgrade it. Like I said it has to be a basic or intermediate building. Of course you can upgrade something else if you want but I picked a storehouse myself.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 30 xp, 25 beer and 50 swords!

Quest 22: Train 5 Recruits

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the prize from every quest is pretty much what you need to do the next quest. So ask yourself what you would do with beer and swords? That’s right…military! It is time to train 5 recruits, which is the most basic fighter, which you will end up training thousands upon thousands of and sending off to die in groups of 200 many times over. So training the first 5 is just a small taste of what is to come! Click on the barracks, click on the first unit which is the recruit and drag the slider over to 5 and click Train! It will take 15 minutes for 5 recruits to train with a level 1 barracks.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 40 xp, 20 gold, 5 settlers and another level!

Quest 23: Build a Tavern and Hire a General

Now that you are making a few troops you need to hire a general to lead them. An army can only consist of 200 units. Of course, the more soldiers you send, the less you will lose overall. You will also notice that you have acquired 100 gold over all the quests so far. Guess how much that general costs? 100 gold! Bet you never would have guessed. A tavern is another one of those buildings which requires no proximity to a storehouse. So place it somewhere away from your warehouses and production buildings. Click on the intermediate building icon and plant your tavern. Once it is done building and this one does take a fair amount of time to build, click on the tavern and click on “Hire a General”. You will also notice you can hire explorers and geologists as well. The cost doubles with each purchase but we only have enough for the general right now. Build him and let’s move on.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 20 xp and 5 settlers!

Quest 24: Station your troops

Once you buy a general which I might add has no training time you need to plant him somewhere in a garrison with your troops. The garrison is the point in which you attack from. So naturally it’s best to place your garrison on the outskirts of your village near the sector you intend to start invading. The first one you will have to attack is to the east of you. So place it on the farthest east spot you can on your border somewhere. Click on the star menu, click on the general and place him. When you do you will see a man on a horse pop out of your mayor’s house and start riding to the spot you chose.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 20 xp and 5 settlers!

Quest 25: Assign your troops to the General

Since it is possible to have more than one general and many different troop types, when you train troops you need to assign them to a general before they can be given orders. Click on the new garrison that you just planted and you will see each troop type represented with a slider bar underneath it. Drag the bar over to the right to assign all the recruits you have trained to this general. Remember to click OK after you adjust the slider each time or you may send too few troops into battle on accident.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 20 xp and 5 settlers!

Quest 26: Bandits!

If you have been sending your explorer out which you always should be when you’re online you will see a bandit camp to your immediate east. This is our first target! Now that your troops are assigned to your general it is time to use them!

Let’s talk about bandits for a minute before we go rushing into battle. Since combat is the main way to level after the tutorial quests are over it’s pretty important to understand combat. I will cover the basics for the sake of this quest and will throw in more tips and techniques at the end of this document for you to look over. As you explore around you will find bandit camps scattered around the map.

When you click on a bandit camp you will see a red shaded area around it. This is called the area of influence. If you try to attack a camp that requires running through another camps area of influence your general will get waylaid into attacking the other camp. So be very careful when attacking and look at your route which is depicted with swords on the map. Even on the first battle if you are too close to the north camp you will run into the clouds and attack the camp you can barely see and die. So what do you do if you see your general heading to the wrong camp at the last minute? Quick click on the garrison and click on the middle button on the left which is retreat. As long as you click that before battle starts your general will return home safely. Then you will need to move your garrison and re-launch so you can attack the correct camp without getting sidetracked.

The next thing I want to tell you is pretty simple common sense. The more you send the less you will lose. The quest we are on has us sending 5 recruits up against 6 scavengers. We will win because it is designed that way and we have a higher “% chance to hit” than the scavengers do. But by all means you can wait and train 20-30 more troops if you have the idle settlers sitting around which you should and you will incur less losses, albeit not many less but a couple. So go kill that camp and let’s move on. You will also see when you attack a camp a meter will pop up over the camp showing the progress to winning.

After each battle you will earn loot and be given an option of watching the replay of how the battle played out. The loot from the first battle is always the same, 50 bows. So now you can train 5 bowmen as well as make more!

Upon completion of this quest you will gain 35 xp, 100 gold, 50 gems and another level!

This brings you up to level 16 and us to the end of the basic tutorial. You will continue to get one quest per level from here on out and it is the same quest each time. Make it to the next level and earn 100 gold coins. It will seem daunting at times but hang in there and soon you will have a true Empire worthy of admiration.

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