Ideas

Ideas are the things that Clanfolk can know in game.

At game start they only know four simple Jobs and more are unlocked as tasks are completed. (Three other commands can be given via the Main Toolbar: Drinking Zone, Wash Zone, and Sleep Zone)

The Ideas button on the Main Toolbar will bring up a tiered listing of all 330+ Ideas in game.

• Already known Ideas are displayed in colour
• Ideas which are partially unlocked are displayed in greyscale with a padlock icon on one corner.
• Ideas not close to being unlocked are displayed as a padlock icon.

A portion of the Ideas in game are designated as Important and are marked with a superscript plus sign by their name. These Ideas will form bottlenecks and not unlocking them can significantly hinder progress in game.

In addition to the tier listing of Ideas, which takes up most of screen and is scrollable, there are some additional Commands / Information available to the player.

• At top right there is a search box to make it easier for the player to find particular Ideas (instead of scrolling).
• Across the middle of the top are 13 buttons which can (un)hide Ideas related to particular categories (Building, Cooking, etc.)
• At the top left is a button that will toggle all 13 categories on or off, useful if wanting to look at one particular category of Idea.
• Also at the top left is a toggle to (un)hide all Ideas that are already known.
• Down the left side of the display is a column that will show recently unlocked Ideas with a blue padlock icon over one corner. Clicking on such an icon will leave the Ideas display and change the display to the menu that builds the object, or plants the crop, or makes the Tool, etc. (That blue padlock symbol is also present on newly discovered Ideas on the Main Toolbar until the player at least hovers the cursor over it.)

Pre release-17 screenshot of the middle portion of the Ideas display, where all displayed Ideas are known.
Note the Important Unlock designator does not apply to the Add Fertiliser and Add Water Ideas. The image has also been cropped to omit the buttons across the top of the Idea screen.

Idea Points

Experienced players may choose to make the game harder by selecting the Ideas Points option during Game Creation. (The setting may not be altered after the game begins.) This adds an additional requirement for unlocking most Ideas (Storage Objects tend to be unchanged).

With this mode enabled the player must take an action to unlock most Ideas instead of them unlocking as soon as the prerequisites are met. No indication is given on the main screen that an Idea is available to unlock so if not paying attention the player may miss the opportunity to progress for quite some time.

Gaining the Points required to unlock Ideas relies on the Clanfolk gaining XP (experience) by completing Jobs and other tasks that use their Skills. When using a Skill they like, and/or while their mood is good, leads to higher XP gain. If a Clanfellow is set to Overwork, or completes a task using a disliked Skill, and/or has a poor Mood, the XP gain is reduced.
The XP required for each point increases from the prior Point, and more than 200 must be gained to unlock all Ideas in game.

This game setting adds another Object that can be constructed, Training Bench, which may be used to increase the Skills of a Clanfellow and provide 350 XP at the expense of specific resources. The Bench is not available in the default setup.

List of Ideas

Prior to the Update 17 release of 2025 June there were 30 Tiers on the Ideas popup. That List of Ideas will need updated due to a massive rearrangement of Ideas with many (70+ ?) additional Items, Objects, etc. being added to the listing.