I am new to Conan Exiles and I am a staunch PvE player. I am currently at level 21. I have spent several hours running around gathering resources primarily near the area of the broken bridge. I have a small base set up just west of the bridge. Actually, it is more like a shack than anything else. That said, I am looking to build a compound settlement type thing somewhere close to the best resources… i.e. 3rd and 4th tier areas.
As I said, I am a newbie… like a fish out of water. Therefore, I would welcome any help, from anyone willing to offer it?
Eventually, three of four friends of mine are going to start a server. We are mostly players from Fallout 4 and ESO. They love to build elaborate structures. Me, not so much so it is a very steep learning curve. Currently, they have settlements in the Jungle/swamp area and they are all level 60. Thank you in advance for your kindness.
I would stay away from the Jungle. Resources are available but the area is not rich. I would look at the green areas in the north close to the 2 thrall capitals marked with a blue elephant icon and green eagle icon i.e Mounds of the Dead and New Asagarth.
Your primary goal is to get lvl 60 and get the best fighter thrall you have access to. Everything would be easy afterwards. There are some videos of how to level quickly by either crafting or killing specific monsters which give a lot of xp.
As a 1st step into building stuff, you should make sure you understand how the building decay system works to avoid bad surprises. Make sure to understand how the purge system works, once again to avoid bad surprises. And Make sure to understand how to defend agaisnt purges.
That would be a good start before picking the spot where to build. Because ressources are not the only consideration to examine when building. Accessability and defence are major ones too.
At level 15 you can safely traverse the rivers coming down from the north. Follow the western branch north, avoid the Hyena packs (just run by them) and try to make it to the hand (the hand of the maker) . Once in that area you will see iron ore and coal deposits. That is the best spot to start an intermediate base and gather iron. its also centrally located and you can explore all areas from there. I wouldn’t recommend a push north if your not familiar with the game. Build a nice small working base and go from there. And remember, your primary goal is to have FUN.
As my personal suggestion the area where you are is good enough:
Just north of it there is an area, near howling plateau, with all wood and rocks you need to build.
The Imp cave providing you crystal, the Sinner’s refuge providing you brimstone, and the huge iron fields near tower of bats requiring you just build a couple of elevator to access it from the falls of the little river near your base position could provides you all you need at mid-low level are cole to your shelter position.
The place is also not so far from obelisk at the Dregs, even if you’ll need to build a stairs to bypass darfari’s village or just to comfortly use the platform where it is.
The point is when you’ll acquire the cartographer feat from Archives in Unnamed city, learning how to craft maprooms, the game perspective will totally changes for you.
Being able to teleport to obelisks you already discovered and attuned to your bracelet allows you to build small outposts in each area of interest on the map, usually to enslave thralls building there your wheels of pain or just to be used a base when farming a specific dungeon or area (just to say: the buccaneer’s bay just to farm gold from the many chests underwater in the area, or to farm the new Sunken City for Dagon scales).
Probably the only advantage at your level, but disadvantage at high level is about purges: in the river area you’ll have not so interesting purges (in terms of t4 npc capturables).
We have a dozen of outposts around the map, but we never felt the need to change position to our main base just north of howling plateau.
Hi Jallard, and welcome to the community! Look honestly, I would forget about moving to the Highlands or Tundra biomes for the time being. At your level you would certainly have your work cut out for you. Instead just stockpile resources for when you ready to move, then haul them up using a Bearer or Pet. Which brings me to the following point. Do you have any/many thralls and/or pets yet? If not, I would strongly recommend purchasing the Thrall Taker feat and buildind a Wheel of Pain and an Animal Pen. Here is the tip I gave another newer player only recently:
Thralls and Pets will really help you out in battle, especially at lower levels. I have noticed that a named (T4) Fighter thralls often spawns at coordinates I,4 on the map just outside a Dafari camp. Also buddy you CAN swim while dragging thralls if you have downloaded the newest game updates.
Regarding Pets. Pets are ready and yours for the taking. Simply go into the Feats menu > then across to the Survivalist menu (fire logo) > then scroll down to Thrall Taker menu. It should be below the Lesser Wheel of Pain logo and called Apprentice Tamerand ensure the Feat is unlocked. Now build that bad boy (a Pen) at the Carpenters Bench. Just a caution, its a monstrosity of a thing size wise, so you may need to find a good flat clearing to set it down (or clear one yourself). Now the final part; animal collection. You will see a bunch or baby animals getting around (eg- hyenas, crocodiles, shalebacks in your area) which you can simply pick up them up using the interact button. Just take them back to the Animal Pen and put them and some suitable food in it to start growing/taming your Pets (a bar will appear like thralls). Theres stacks of different animal types depending on the biome.
For one last tip, I would also say that there are Religion trainers around the world who can teach you the other religions for free (without spending 50 points). You can learn all religions and produce multiple benefits. Just think of it as the best of all worlds.
At lower levels my favorite spot for a base is on the river south of Black Galleon. The river produces water (and fish once you know how to catch those), there are plentiful spots of iron, stone and wood as well as some coal and brimstone, and the Galleon contains thralls of all flavors, including many named craftsmen.
At your level, raiding the Galleon all by yourself can be hard, but once you learn where the bad guys are, you won’t usually be facing more than three at the same time. It’ll be very helpful if you build a stairway from the river’s edge up to the plateau where the southern entrance to the Galleon is. You can even place a Wheel of Pain up on that plateau for easy recruitment of thralls.
I can post screenshots of my base there if you feel it’s helpful.
Wow! I never expected this much help. Words cannot describe how much I appreciate all your kindness. There is a lot to take in here. Conan Exiles, for me, hasn’t been all that intuitive. Major learning curve. As it is I have started the game over more than a dozen times in the 48 hours that I have been playing this game. Thank you all for your suggestions. I will take them all into consideration. Thanks again.
build near the hand of the maker. Your are close to Ore, Coal, Brimestone, Demonblood, Thralls, etc. it is a bit of a hike to places but it is close to a obelisk so if you build a few map rooms around the map you can actually move around fairly quick. Gold and Silver are the only things really missing.
There is a very nice place near the Green Wall south of Sepermeru. Firespark81 showed this spot in his recent video on YouTube. Surprisingly, it’s VERY easy to get there even on lvl 1. Just pick up a Sealed Waterskin in the starting area, get some insects and run to the Noob River There is one place where you have to run past Hyenas, and that’s all. There are lakes to get water in Sep, there are LOTS of trees in the city, and almost no hostile NPCs inside. There is a GREAT LOT of Stone and Ironstone, enough Coal nodes outside the city along the Green Wall, just mind Rhinos and sandstorms. There are Anthelopes at the Oasis of Nekhet for meat and skins… and as a cherry on top there are chests all over the city on high buildings. I’m lvl 19 now and already got some full sets of Shemite armor from those chests, some Ivory arrows, a couple of stacks of Steel, enough Thick Leather for a heavy armor set and even more, and so on. I play SP with vanilla settings by the way, just an honest x1 game. It’s really a fantastic spot and will be even better when time will come to farm Relic Hunters Thralls.
I just joined a private PvE server and a friend and I built me a million dollar chateau overlooking the pond where the giant Crocodile lurks; not far from the Sentinels; and, east of the broken bridge. It is a place fit for a princess… my Toon, Princess Caroline. The area is quite large and it can be easily fortified with 30-foot walls just on two sides… The view from my private deck is phenomenal. (My friend is a retired structural engineer, who loves building elaborate chateaus.)
I was out and about farming wood and stone to replenish my friends wood and stone while he built the chateau when he called out me to tell me that my box was empty. When I got back it was full of salted meats, water, armor, and weapons.
The irony of this whole thing is that we are friends who came over to Conan Exiles from ESO.
My favorite area is the Savannah near the middle of the map. It has a high rock wall in the middle that I always build a base on. It offers great protection and resources are not far at all.
When I first start off, I beeline to the Tower of Bats area.
It’s up the western river, but not far. People have mentioned stuff in its general area already here in this thread. Imp cave. Hand of the Maker.
I don’t go up as far as Hand of the Maker and try to settle on the river near the Imp Cave. That way you can get your fishing and thus oil going early on. You have access to crystal from the Imp Cave and you have access to all the iron you’ll ever need to gather on your own. You have coal deposits if you go up that river for fuel until you get your oil going. And there’s a dafari camp not too far away where there is always a Bearer who can provide a nice boost in resources each time you kill him at Fleshtearer Falls. This bearer can also be a T4, and T4 bearers are absolute beasts as thralls from the start of the game all the way through you decide you’re done playing. Also a T4 Armorer can spawn at this location.
Enemy wise you’re gonna have crocs and rocknoses to deal with nearby your base. Nice XP gains early game from both.
Near the river in G6 is the best place to start. Food, Water, Iron, Stone, Wood, and Plant Fibers are all close. There is an obelisk nearby for teleporting home easily. There are a bunch of smaller thrall sources nearby, and the river gives you an easy path to the pirate ship. There are caves nearby with other things you may want or need, such as crystal. The enemies around there are also easily manageable for low level players too.
You can run there are level 6. Which is what I did. Built a shack near one of the oasis areas. Tons of iron. Meat. Trees and morw importantly most of the people in Sep are not hostile.
So you can farm treasure chests for items to make the rest of your life easy…
At level 20 you can already do more than I couls at 6
Another suggestion since you already have your first base up…
I’m gonna guess you have a sickle by now. Go out with your sickle and hack up all the plant fibers you can, you’ll run into some berries, some bugs from doing this. After you do this put everything back at your base in a box, except leave the berries and bugs on your hotbar.
Proceed to run around the entire map, naked, just with food for regen and hunger purposes. You’ll run into enough water sources along the way to sate your thirst.
While running the map, you’ll unlock locations, find chests which you can loot or leave tbh - depends on if you wanna eventually run all the way back home or just let something kill you so you can respawn. While unlocking locations, reading lore stones, unlocking religions, visiting Sepermeru, Asagard, Highlands you’ll also be gaining XP which will obviously level you up even further.
Then you’ll be higher level, better stats, more feats, and you have the ability to move even further north. A good place for that is New Asagard or Mounds of the Dead. Some tougher creatures to be sure, but better XP gains than killing Dafari camps and much better loot. You won’t even have to make steel bars, as you’ll collect steel bars off your kills - for example.
This. The game does not adequately explain how the decay system works. So many new people play for weeks strait building a base, take a week off, and come back to find EVERYTHING gone.
Build yourself a repair hammer, equip it, point at your structure. It will show how much time is left on said structure, before it disintegrates into dust. Any time you are in range of your base the countdown timer will refresh.
Or, pro-tip, you can press and hold the TAB key to get the same result. Not sure what the console equivalent is, if any, but since this is tagged PC, TAB key it is. That way you don’t need to bother with the repair hammer unless you’re actually repairing stuff.
Other than that, I fully endorse and agree with learning the decay system and the purge system, as those are two of the nastiest (and least-explained) systems in the game until you understand them.
There is one place where you have to run past Hyenas, and that’s all. There are lakes to get water in Sep, there are LOTS of trees in the city, and almost no hostile NPCs inside. There is a GREAT LOT of Stone and Ironstone, enough Coal nodes outside the city along the Green Wall, just mind Rhinos and sandstorms. There are Anthelopes at the Oasis of Nekhet for meat and skins… and as a cherry on top there are chests all over the city on high buildings. I’m lvl 19 now and already got some full sets of Shemite armor from those chests, some Ivory arrows, a couple of stacks of Steel, enough Thick Leather for a heavy armor set and even more, and so on. I play SP with vanilla settings by the way, just an honest x1 game. It’s really a fantastic spot and will be even better when time will come to farm Relic Hunters Thralls.