Picking out a base location is critical. If you set up at too easy a location, mid-game becomes a constant chore and travel to resources or weighing a decision to abandon a base and move. For this reason, I avoid anything near the starting area, commonly known as “Noob River.”
Noob River is not a bad place, it is just extremely limited in iron, a critical component for mid game. My suggesting is to avoid the 3 and 4 block and move directly into block 5. I selected I5, across from Scavenger’s Berth, north of Cannibal’s Rest and South of Bonebreaker’s Bend. There is a series of three levels, I choose the top one to make certain I de-spawn as few resources as possible and still have access to iron, brimestone, glowing goop, pets (crocodile and hyena) and a ready supply of various tiered thralls, including names thralls of all disciplines.
Below are a list of steps I use when planning and building my initial base to support me into level 60 while I gather resources for my next base in block 8/9.
Establish a foundation footprint to include four (4) foundations blocks between the edge of your base and your placables. NOTE: Pillars are equal to foundations in health and stability
Face your foundations in Fence Foundations to increase their survivability and it just looks better
Never use walls for you ground level outer builds, they are fragile
Build at least two (2) blocks up per level, preferably four (4) to accommodate larger placables
Have at least two entrances to your base for rapid access when time is critical
Plan you internal stairs to maximize space and minimize mazing
Build with an eye to upgrading in place, tearing down a structure to upgrade it is time consuming and disheartening
Place Thrall/Pet guards early and often, especially inside for when the Purge decide to spawn in your base
Place complimentary structures near each other to maximize resources and time management
Decorate as your whims lead you, all decorations can be picked up, place them with abandon
These are my strategies, I am interested in yours.
I pick to not start a base till i get to level 20. Can easily be done by doing many of the 1st stage steps and following the west side of the map right up to the neutral city. After that then i usaly set up either on or near the southern aqueduct as it is almost the central point of the map. You will be able to easily get thralls from the den or if you build a bridge across the priest kings retreat can even sneak out afew nords without much trouble using the walls, blunt arrows and a bow with a blunt upgrade.
I start on the first BIG island in the jungle, there is stone, iron, komos for fast ichor/hide, birds for feathers. The executuoners entrance is close for brimstone. Its only a min from an obelisk
For purposes of fighting the Purge, I’ve found that a compact base with a good central lookout position is much better than a huge sprawling castle.
While it’s resource-intensive and of dubious practicality to try and get everything under one roof (maprooms, animal pens, greater wheels, temples are all HUGE), you can build out a line of foundations from your main base to where you want to place such structures, and then set them atop these “decay runners”. When placed in this way, they will inherit the decay timer of the foundations, and you can then delete any foundations left sticking out from under the edges.
When you take this approach, place the more expensive placeables (i.e. wheels of pain, vaults) closer in, and put cheaper-to-replace structures like animal pens further out. Since maprooms can be picked-up and won’t get destroyed by other players in PvE, they can also be located towards the periphery (just make sure to pick them up before the Purge hits).
Also, to ensure you don’t garner the ire of otherwise indifferent or friendly players on the same server, try not to build atop lots of resources or block off passageways with your walls. If you build inside such a high traffic corridor, be considerate enough to leave a route open for people to get thru or past your base when dragging a thrall.
If you live near a world boss and are concerned about people kiting it thru, you can easily prevent this while still allowing honest players to pass by doing the following…
Build a reasonable outer wall.
Outside of the wall, leave a 1-foundation gap and then build some stairs up to the same level as the top of your wall.
On the insides of your walls, build some stairs up to the tops from the inside.
In this way, someone dragging a thrall can hop across the gap to get in, then run up the opposite stairs to get back out, but a world boss won’t be able to enter. Even if a troll leaves an unconscious NPC in your base to wake up, provided you have pets and thralls deployed (in case of a purge spawning inside your base), then you should be fine. Typically the game’s AI is only active when a player is in the immediate vicinity anyway.
If you want to build a huge sprawling base, my advice is to build it in an area that isn’t particularly popular (i.e. NOT at Mounds, New Asagarth, or Sepermeru), and then have a smaller, more utilitarian base with a wheel in close proximity to an obelisk.
In this way, you can drop off unbroken thralls at the wheel, stow your adventuring gear in the outpost, and then remove bracelet to reappear at your massive estate. When you want to resume adventuring, you can then maproom back to your outpost by that obelisk. In this way, you can easily travel to up to 3 different bases: one with your bed, one with a bedroll, and one by an obelisk.
Since the Purge will almost always attack your largest, most expensive base, you may want to study the purge map on the wiki to find what enemies you’re most interested in fighting (or what set of Purge thralls you most desire) before you break ground. Also, before building, I would recommend loading that area up in single player, activating ghost mode and flying under the map to ensure there aren’t two ground meshes in that area. If there are, there’s a good chance your purges will be bugged and you’ll never reap the benefits: the southern tip of the lake at Riversend is a good example of this buggy map geometry.