In this Kenshi location guide, we'll be taking a look at the land of Shem. Strategically positioned with a variety of other perks, Shem is a cut above the rest.
Best place in shem is right next to the swamp, on the border there is a big tree in the desert. You can get both 100% arid AND 100% swamp. Both 0% wind and 15mph. You have the waystation and all of the swamp shops, with a safe route to trade hash. It also has Iron, stone, copper, water. BEST base location on the map imo.
Huh, sounds like the exact area I built the base myself in my current playthrough which is also my first. I didn't knew it's the best spot, prospecting just said its good so I settled there lol
@@malfuy9558 Just to chime in, I don't think I've found a base location that's better than the one in between Shem and the Swamp. I'll keep looking but that spot is VERY good.
Ist better to do in united cities terretory because you can sell it at a higher price and use hydroponics for growing. Regarding water you can just spam automatic wells
@@sonkehamann4510 not really, you have bigger price only in the north, so you have like 3 vendors across all the cities there (1 of them doesn't have a shinobi tower, which is the only place you can sell). In flats lagoon it is legal, and you have much more vendors with much more money. The basic mark up there is 500%, if you're lucky it can go around 600% (it's random, but never below basic value of 500%). Basically, if you want to spent 3-4 times more time to get another 100-200% of mark up you could run to UC, but if you live in Shem you would have to travel through Venge every time you want to do the trip. With flats lagoon you can stack up on hash and just leave 1 character with bags there and sell it once every day, if i remember it correctly vendors there have around 80-100k overall, so you would need a lot of hash for them to run out of money. You can live in great desert, sure, but have fun growing hemp there, with almost no water and low fertility, hydroponics is your only option there and you would still have to do the trip across the whole desert to sell your hash, probably several times over, since shinobi have like 10-15k of cats
its really good to make and sell green bricks to Flats Lagoon, but only if you made a base nearby them. Otherwise, its pretty much always better to make and sell alco everywhere else (much cheaper and less to setup, also always legal)
Which is actually why I hate using it, honestly I don't do a lot of things mentioned in this video anymore. Watching people swim into harpoon fire was fun for the first few times it happened, but between that feeling like the ultimate cheese and me also having to swim to get out, idk it just felt like it took the fun out of the experience. When I had a base in shem I just found myself doing very little besides farming and smuggling, maybe I just don't know when to stop.
@@HandleMyBallsRUclips I never even bothered using water in shem, it is more annoying to swim through every time you want to leave the base than it is useful. The strongest foe you can face there are black dragon ninjas, and those guys suck at being a threat, their stats at best would be around 30, so if you can kill a beak thing (which you should, since they happen to spawn there sometimes) you would have no problems with those guys, even if they can survive against harpoons before opening your gates. Never happen to me though, the only time those weebs got behind the walls is when they spawned behind them when i wasn't looking.
With mods I had a huge base spanning a flat area around two of the pools. Had iron, copper, fertility (not that it mattered much given hydroponics later on), and of course plenty of water. Oh, and nice and windy. I think by the time I got it fully set up it was the largest and most powerful settlement on the continent/moon. Shem is DEFINITELY OP.
I always come back to Shem, out of all the different locations it has to be my favourite place to settle. It’s centrality and freedom of where exactly to build is just unmatched
Same, it is also beautiful and make for a create place to settle lore wise as well. I had a faction of exhile shek called the Zillers form a town in that region, rebelling against the warrior culture indoctrination. There is no shame in running away from a fight you cant win.
I always settle Sem's south west corner. Its good drug running, has gutters, and has a toxic rain to pull enemies into or place your gate at. This is my compromise to settling in the swamp avoiding its wall of crap you normally need to build around. The dragon weebs will be the most annoying raiders, dust bandits most regular but often thinned by gutters. The Nomad's little baby goats are almost always visible and I love watching them❤❤❤
For me Venge is personal favourite, because it has least of grass clutter, and isn't as wavy in surface like it is in other desert areas not including ashlands and region next to it.
I have noticed there are some fertile spots in Venge. Is there enough iron/copper/stone? If all your characters wore Dustcoats, the the lasers might be manageable?
Shem is an amazing location. Multiple types of bandits and beakthings that arent too difficult once you get walls and defenses. A well placed MOAT makes this place extremely peaceful and idyllic. You will NEVER be within iron or copper, it is plentiful . . . because it is so flat the ideal base locations, you can have MASSIVE farms to produce and do whatever you want. I've found myself building TOO much and having so much space that I end up really throttling things by continued growth. The lack of green fertility is not even worth mentioning since the overall fertility allows growing wheat and dustwhiches, which keep you full for a LOOOONG time. Hydroponics fix everything in the end. There are basically NO downsides to Shem, which could be off putting. I wish Kenshi had a more robust town and faction system. I really would love to have been able to make my own faction with associated shops so I could have a city that rivals any of the others and have it function as such.
I pray that Kenshi 2 will be more moddable than Kenshi 1, including the faction mechanics you want. Kenshi 1 is just about the perfect game in my opinion, the only thing lacking is better modding support.
Man, you helped me A LOT. Got less than 30 hs on kenshi and managed to settle near the swamp and shem with my shecks. This time i needed only a little bit of save scumming, and not a lot of it hahahah. Keep this coming! The Venge vs Deadlands was very funny AND helpful.
Glad you liked it. Save scumming is alright to an extent! I think reloading saves is great for experimenting with what works and what doesn't. Shem/Swamps border is VERY good.
Playing kenshi for the first time and im looking to move away from the border zone where i started to greener pastures. Thanks for the video think ill make my megabase here where i will stage preparations to become the ultimate warlord...
if you make your base on the boarder you can get both arid and swamp fertility. I did that south of the swamp and made tons of money selling sake to catun for a 70% mark up. Great idea with making the npc swim
Picked up the game a week ago and ended up settling on the big dune that's at the western edge, separated from the start of the swamp by a big pool. It is pretty peaceful once you got walls, lots of easily dispatched starving bandits and the occasional beak things which aren't hard to deal with with polearms. Been able to farm wheat pretty easily. I mostly go to Shark to pick up building materials, it really makes me wish Flats Lagoon sold some good ones, while they have good gear they don't sell enough mats. At least you do get hiver merchants which are always nice and helpful.
It bothers me that Flats Lagoon doesn't sell mats. If it had that, I think it would be one of the best cities. (Mongrel in Fog Islands is probably my favorite city)
i settled right outside venge in flats lagoon on this little land bridge i absolutely love it nothing really out there to mess with your group only thing i didnt know the beams from venge would hit me i watched for a while to see and none came over and now my farmer keeps getting messed up haha hes strong tho i hope its raising his toughness overtime
The first time that I ever tried base building was in Shem. It's a nice area, has a fun terrain, and the beak thing packs are small enough to provide decent amounts of leather and food without being overwhelming. Definitely a great base for a 10-15 person group to start a base, but be sure to bring all of your startup supplies in one go if you can.
My favorite location is the southwest peninsula in Venge, between Shem and Flats Lagoon. Pick the "Freedom Seekers" start, get an all skelly crew so you don't have to worry about getting roasted and grow hash, sell to Flats Lagoon. The downside is there isn't any iron or copper immediately nearby, but it's next to a T intersection so they'll always be Hive / Traders Guild caravans passing by. You can also build an item furnace and melt down all of the shoddy grade weapons / armor from raids for iron ore. Plus if you have a peeler you have leather for tanning!
My current playthrough, I settled south of Mongrel on the border of fog islands. The spot I found has everything in abundance as well as 70% green and arid environment. The location also taught me that the rain actually waters crops.
My favourite location to build a base is guts, if you survive the insane amount of beak things wandering around you can make use of the green fertility and the high quality iron plus beak things can sometimes eat the tax collectors
Loving the series! I would like to suggest the northeast mesa of the Fog Islands. As long as you are not at war with the holy nation, you should not receive raids, and the Fog Men won't bother you much once you're walled off.
If you're willing to be a heretic and pray. The patrols from the HN will Obliterate any raids coming to you. Had a fat raid coming and a high paladin took on ten naked dudes on his own. I love it.
I've been using Shem as my base for almost 2 years now and everytime i love it more, currently i wanted to move to a different place so i'm playing on the Cannibal Plains
once I built a base in the border but with a small field occuping the swamp. I grew everything but rice. and still near enough from flat lagoon, low danger around. sometimes swamp bandits, mostly starving bandits but nothin actually dangerous. I tried to base at ohter regions but building at the center of the map I found a big advantatge for distance travel. hugs from spain
Great video. Shem is a great place for a megabase for sure. My only quip is that it's kinda out-of-the-way, but it's a great "southern megabase". Perhaps build a separate "northern megabase" and done. Bonus if they're easy to travel between. I didn't realize Flat's Lagoon is a great place to sell hashish, gonna try that soon. Right now I just have a foglands base. It's quite nice, but all in all I think I prefer Shem. Navigating the foglands is kind of a PITA, and it's just a matter of time before a character gets kidnapped by the fogmen or cannibals. I'm going to keep my foglands megabase for now and perhaps create another one in Shem or Gut. I like having an impenetrable fortress, and Shem definitely beats Foglands in this regard, because of how you can place a huge lake between your settlement and the gate.
I usually make my first base nearby, in the border zone next to the abandom village (where you can find lots of useful matterial to make your base) you don't have to worry about beak things or shek taxing in there.
I settled in the center of shem when I did a full robot playthrough. No food or water needed, just power and ore. Bought all the research books by selling katanas made of iron plates to Flats Lagoon Built a watchtower and blasted people before they even got close, shoot first and ask questions later. Robots don't attract beak things and can't be eaten alive so the biggest threat was basically a non factor
I've built a good partly automated base at the center of Shem. It's a really convenient base of operations and it has enough resources for a decent base! I haven't used water to my advantage actually because I have a very strong shek melee warrior (probably the strongest of all characters I've ever had) and a moderate shek defensive squad. Also I have some problems with farming here.
Buy a shack in flats lagoon before you move to shem. You can run your research jobs and collect materials for the trip, and make some initial money by ransacking the abandoned drug lab and selling in FL. FL also has a fun habit of attacking random hiver trade caravans, so you can grab fully loaded garru and packbeast corpses with no repercussion. I had more building materials and food than I knew what to do with by the time I made the move to shem.
@@paulrogersgaming you can't *buy* them 😎. I just went there as a solo character, bought a shack, and while researching all the basic tech I noticed that there was combat going on outside. I looked and saw a hiver caravan getting massacred on the front steps of the city by the city guards, and I could freely loot them. This would happen very often because for some reason, no caravan would be allowed into the city. It was the caravan's animals that had bags of food and materials, and I just collected as many of those saddlebags as possible.
@@paulrogersgamingEven after multiple playthroughs, it seems like the traders always get into fights at FL. I haven’t seen what triggers it but I’d imagine their pathing is making them attack a door. Almost without fail, they begin battling at some point. Strange though because sometimes the merchants will stay for quite a while, only after 50-60 days becoming hostile. Must be random luck on if the pathing causes it:
I really like your tutorials, they're extremely informative and helpful. I personally like settling in Vain, there is a big sort of beach area right on the coast. It has excellent resources, natural defences, fertility and I swear I have never been raided once, maybe it's even worth a tutorial of yours?
I just set up my first base in Heng for food production, goal is to set up in Shem eventually for hash production once my combat skills are high enough to deal with at least 1 beak thing at a time. Kenshi is such a good unique game, kicking myself for not getting it sooner. I made about 300,000g running hash out of Shark but they recently experienced a genocide and I can't rely on their shopkeepers being alive anymore to sell me hash so I must make my own.
I'm new but my first base is in shem and it is real good, earlier in the game black dragon ninjas and dust bandits gave me all the iron ore in the world so I didn't even need to mine
my favourite location. beautiful and you can build around a small lake near the village. make a huge water entrance etc. there are also other locations in the east with a big lake. build my entrance in the lake and literally put impr camping fences around the whole lake, forcing ppl to swim across. it is easily one of the safest places AND no stupid city taxes. ye, Shem is Mine :-)
Still new to the game and have been olaying for a few weeks. First playthrough is at 200 hours almost. Rock bottom start building my way up. Ran the hub for a bit then moved by squin. While out that way we destroyed the dust king, the black dragon ninjas and tora the fearless. Getting bored of hungry bandits i decided to try shem. And by god. Immediately uoin setting roots i was ambushed by sime band of bones, maybe ten or so, about thirty hungry boys and five beak things before my laptop shit the bed and crashed. Will be rebuilding here for a while but all in all very fun far. Surprised all my men survived the welcoming party before the game crashed
Personal notes: Shem is a great location for a base that have an acceptable presence of predators and not deal with anything that intend to abduct your base guards. With significant sloping, having crossbows on hand and the storm house will go a long way to dealing with beak things until turrets and walls are researched and built. A full party of 20 may also work to help with bandits early on until the turrets are up to keep the door guarded. This region is where the Naginata Katana shines due to a high presence of poorly armored humanoids and animals alike if the cannibals make the NW region unpalatable for base building and lack Skeletons and🎉 animals for gate defense. At times keeping the Dust Bandits and Black Dragon Ninjas may be preferable to train the base staff before moving on to better, more dangerous base locations, at which gate guards can switch to heavy polearns and benefit from their polearm experience. As a note, it may necessitate having more wheat farms and hemp than normal due to reduced yield if not taking advantage of the swamp border and the swamp-related problems that come with it. Getting hydroponics is a suggested tech goal if planning to go to less fertile base locations.
I settle in the border zone personally. There is a great spot which requires minimal fortifications. Is great for Arid and moderately good for Green crops. Also had good water. Not far from the Dust Bandit's base. Has Iron and with a copper drill, copper as well. It's not perfect but the worst raids seem to be Dust Bandits. It's pretty close to a Way Station as well, literally down the road. Only problem with it, is it will require at least a mod that allows more flexibility with leveling structures. If you want to build a large base. As a farm without mods it's great, you cam farm iron convert it to armor plates or grow most food crops.
I am actually a fan of the forbidden isle for a base. If you eliminate a certain enemy you get garru and goats instead of iron spiders. If you should do that depends on if you want to travel to get hides or not. There is also a spot on the Northern Coast I am a fan of. It is a location that is close to 3 towns for selling, and you get a lot of visitors. Also in that spot you do not get taxes or prayer day, and if the UC or HN is angry with you they will still send raids. Also cannibals are a constant threat/training source. Also if I don't really want to be bothered by much while I train on the local wildlife, a Leviathan Coast base is a good choice. Lastly I am a fan of having one main base and a bunch of unmanned "safe houses" or "small forts" scatted around. They may also have some crafting capabilities so I can restock on food or medical supplies while adventuring. Edit: Before I forget there is also a couple good spots in Darkfinger.
Yeah, I think the Northern portion of the map is where we're going next after we go to the Pits. I haven't lived on to the Forbidden Isle at all but I'll try to change that soon.
I have more than a thousand hours on this game . I have build bases all over the moon of Kenshi from the C Canibal plains, to Greenbitch and Hook. Still i watched this video for some reason ( nice guide.for beginners) . My current base is in a ravine in the high Boneyard area . I used modes to alter the fertility of the area i order to at least farm at 50 % and also utalised the f12 menu . If you are using mods its the best place to build . Rocks protect you all around and you can ez wall the few gaps. Its just a bit notth of Catun and east of Morn and under the swap and Burning forest . There are also like 10 copper nodes but scant iron .
I've been searching for another base location because I already had a playthrough with a Shem base. But man, it's really hard to find anything nearly as good. My only gripe, although a major one, was the distance to other towns. Recruiting new people and trading was annoying as all hell (10 minute trip to get anywhere reasonable), but other places seem to have even bigger issues (mainly security and being located off-center, most of the central region is inhospitable) so I might go for Shem again
True. The border of the Swamp/Border Zone is a little closer to a waystation and the swamp towns. If you really want to see the other side... there's the Bonefields. It's doable but challenging with all the wildlife.
I like the gut for setteling because the local fauna makes for a great defense and all you need is makeshift walls. You also can grow everything exept riceweed and who needs riceweed LOL?
One thing that I feel should've been more emphasized is its location relative to the bottom middle part of the Deadlands. In the early game, this is pretty useless due to its sheer inhospitability, (acid rain, burning sands, spider murder bots.) But the Deadlands is probably one of my most frequently traveled to places in the lategame because of Black Desert City. That place sells some of the best weapons, some masterwork grade bows and prosthetics, and even rare research like AI cores and Engineering Research. Really useful place to frequent if you're planning on cutting off all your party member's limbs and arming them with Edge type III weapons.
Thanks for video! I want build a base in my new run (i dont have much experience in kenshi) and I like Shem. But I am hesitating between Shem or Border zone (looks more safety) 😅
my first ever base was between the swamp and shem, left my main guy with a garru to trade hashish and ninjas wiped out the base and my two hired mercenary gangs, then blood spiders ate them all
UC attack spawn at Farm ruins in the Burning Forest (makes zero sense but that's just how the game is) so they will be at your doorstep fairly quickly. But yeah, other factions have a pretty long way of getting to you
My first playthrough I settled right next to the fishing village at the north of the map, just to the left of it. It became a problem because somehow my base was "eating" the fishermen houses that were outside the village and my mercenaries thought they were invading my property so a conflict spawned from that so I had to move to the east on the same shore. :( but I was happy with the resources I had, I only was missing riceweed I think
usually take over the "Secret Drug farm" in Stobe's Gamble, produce my own Hash.. there are a total of 2(3) spiders to take out.. the doors are locked, so its a great place to level up lock picking.. and the hash already there, is an easy 80K profit.. Shem is great though, you can wall up around the ponds and use turrets to shoot the slow swimmers! 😆
my 2nd day playing kenshi. lost like 4 partys already got a decent pary of 7 people now. went to shem but a bit more south almost ''hugging'' the red mountains there. got caught by a group of hungry bandits wiped them all out. 2 seconds later 3 beakthings show up. managed to kill 2 only 1 person is still standing just to get eaten alive by blood spiders xD shieeeet 6th time is the charm right?
There is a valley on the northern part of Shem near the Deadlands border that would make an awesome base location if only it wasn't "blocked" by a boulder near the southern part. I wanted to establish a base at either end, because in the north part you have lots of minerals and the south part is fertile and has water, and use the valley as a safe, natural corridor between them, but sadly it doesn't work =(
I settled in Shem on my very first playthrough but I found it was too "safe". I ended up creating a new base on a cliff right between The Hub and Squin and that was much more lively. Plus it had these massive plunging cliffs surrounding my base, very aesthetic.
I have Leviathan Plains as my preferred first base. Higher risk with Cannibals, Beak Things, and Leviathans, but great non-human target practice in such conditions.
There's something deeply Kenshi about the best area in the game to settle still being at risk of beak thing attack and giant death laser on the eastern end
ah shem, the first place a base really took off for me. the only downside was the the neighborhood, damn whitebrow ninjas and schorched skeletons harrased me. but was home.
Skeletons ? never seen a raid of those in all my time in shem (i have a large base right in the middle of it). Hungry and dust bandits, some sheks (band of bones) and ninjas, are the only ones that ever came to me. If they annoy you too much you can put an end to half of those, you can kill leaders of ninjas and sheks, as well as thralls if they bother you (which is wierd), that will stop the raids for good, so the worst thing that can come to your base would be dust bandits. If you have reactive world you can eradicate dust bandits as well, leaving only some random hungry bandits that will sometimes knock on your walls.
Idk what it is for me and shem i hear/read multiple times sometimes the rare 2-3 beakthings show up. Currently in my 8th playthrough in 30 hours xD yet everytime i settle there. I get rushed by 3 beakthings. My group was strong enough to kill them. After the dust bandits show up hard battle but we won. Most people are recovering from the wounds just for 6 more beakthings to show up. I hired like 4 merc groups ( also hired tech hunters but they seem to be bugged the contract is long over yet they camp at my base. Free mercs i guess ) what is the ideal group size for shem i have around 11 people most are ~30toughness and combat stats. Yet i cant defend against the ninja raiders. ( tech hunters dont do shit only help against beakthings) i only managed to win once with the help of mercenaries. Yet the problem is if their contract ends it takes so long for them to be back at Shark for another contract. Long story short: tips for new kenshi player settling in Shem and what is the recommended party size
I have like 20 hours in the game and I tried to settle in the Spider plains next to the town with all the old Shek warriors😂 it didnt last too long lol
Anywhere other than the holy land is blasphemy. Joeks aside, my main game i built on a plateau in the fog lands. More than enough food Near fog men to train new recruits Can let people get captured, put on poles and eaten to easily lose limbs for upgrades. Easy dollars through fod prince head farming Never got attacked by anyone other than weak ass fog men so very safe. The only downside i could think of if i really needed to pick one was that its not very centralised on the map.
@@paulrogersgaming shem will always be the most efficent, but for a challenge i like the south east of the map where the crab raiders are at ,others would be canibal plains or great desert.
@@paulrogersgamingended up making a totally consensual fight club in the Hub using local dust bosses. Love how this game temps you to be morally dubious. Speaking of which i still don’t know what ill do with these guys after the fact
It's so painful listening to the audio now that I have a better microphone! Thanks for the feedback and I'll try to keep the volume at a good level in future videos.
Best place in shem is right next to the swamp, on the border there is a big tree in the desert. You can get both 100% arid AND 100% swamp. Both 0% wind and 15mph. You have the waystation and all of the swamp shops, with a safe route to trade hash. It also has Iron, stone, copper, water. BEST base location on the map imo.
Huh, sounds like the exact area I built the base myself in my current playthrough which is also my first. I didn't knew it's the best spot, prospecting just said its good so I settled there lol
@@malfuy9558 Just to chime in, I don't think I've found a base location that's better than the one in between Shem and the Swamp. I'll keep looking but that spot is VERY good.
A pleasant place... As pleasant as it gets in kenshi
im looking for this spot can you give more details on what the area looks like or link to a pic of the location?
i think i found the spot but it says 100% swamp not green
Im proud to say that ive chosen shem as my base location in my first ever playtrough, WITHOUT a guide.
Bravo! You have good taste!
Cool, do you want a gold star?
@@redsol3629Can I have two gold stars?
Making hash in shem and running it over to flats lagoon is the ultimate money pipeline imo.
Ist better to do in united cities terretory because you can sell it at a higher price and use hydroponics for growing. Regarding water you can just spam automatic wells
With united cities terretory i mean the great desert there is a nice spot aruond the middle of the area between shoubatai heft and heng
@@sonkehamann4510 not really, you have bigger price only in the north, so you have like 3 vendors across all the cities there (1 of them doesn't have a shinobi tower, which is the only place you can sell). In flats lagoon it is legal, and you have much more vendors with much more money. The basic mark up there is 500%, if you're lucky it can go around 600% (it's random, but never below basic value of 500%). Basically, if you want to spent 3-4 times more time to get another 100-200% of mark up you could run to UC, but if you live in Shem you would have to travel through Venge every time you want to do the trip. With flats lagoon you can stack up on hash and just leave 1 character with bags there and sell it once every day, if i remember it correctly vendors there have around 80-100k overall, so you would need a lot of hash for them to run out of money.
You can live in great desert, sure, but have fun growing hemp there, with almost no water and low fertility, hydroponics is your only option there and you would still have to do the trip across the whole desert to sell your hash, probably several times over, since shinobi have like 10-15k of cats
So true hahahaha
its really good to make and sell green bricks to Flats Lagoon, but only if you made a base nearby them.
Otherwise, its pretty much always better to make and sell alco everywhere else (much cheaper and less to setup, also always legal)
peak location, almost like cheating imo
Which is actually why I hate using it, honestly I don't do a lot of things mentioned in this video anymore. Watching people swim into harpoon fire was fun for the first few times it happened, but between that feeling like the ultimate cheese and me also having to swim to get out, idk it just felt like it took the fun out of the experience. When I had a base in shem I just found myself doing very little besides farming and smuggling, maybe I just don't know when to stop.
@@HandleMyBallsRUclips I never even bothered using water in shem, it is more annoying to swim through every time you want to leave the base than it is useful. The strongest foe you can face there are black dragon ninjas, and those guys suck at being a threat, their stats at best would be around 30, so if you can kill a beak thing (which you should, since they happen to spawn there sometimes) you would have no problems with those guys, even if they can survive against harpoons before opening your gates. Never happen to me though, the only time those weebs got behind the walls is when they spawned behind them when i wasn't looking.
With mods I had a huge base spanning a flat area around two of the pools. Had iron, copper, fertility (not that it mattered much given hydroponics later on), and of course plenty of water. Oh, and nice and windy. I think by the time I got it fully set up it was the largest and most powerful settlement on the continent/moon. Shem is DEFINITELY OP.
It’s cause you’re weak and inefficient.
I always come back to Shem, out of all the different locations it has to be my favourite place to settle. It’s centrality and freedom of where exactly to build is just unmatched
Same, it is also beautiful and make for a create place to settle lore wise as well. I had a faction of exhile shek called the Zillers form a town in that region, rebelling against the warrior culture indoctrination. There is no shame in running away from a fight you cant win.
@@Smilemonster1912 agreed, it is pretty :)
You & a handful of other RUclipsr's are a BLESSING to the Kenshi Community.
I always settle Sem's south west corner. Its good drug running, has gutters, and has a toxic rain to pull enemies into or place your gate at. This is my compromise to settling in the swamp avoiding its wall of crap you normally need to build around. The dragon weebs will be the most annoying raiders, dust bandits most regular but often thinned by gutters. The Nomad's little baby goats are almost always visible and I love watching them❤❤❤
For me Venge is personal favourite, because it has least of grass clutter, and isn't as wavy in surface like it is in other desert areas not including ashlands and region next to it.
I have noticed there are some fertile spots in Venge. Is there enough iron/copper/stone? If all your characters wore Dustcoats, the the lasers might be manageable?
I’m a venge player myself
Shem is an amazing location. Multiple types of bandits and beakthings that arent too difficult once you get walls and defenses. A well placed MOAT makes this place extremely peaceful and idyllic. You will NEVER be within iron or copper, it is plentiful . . . because it is so flat the ideal base locations, you can have MASSIVE farms to produce and do whatever you want. I've found myself building TOO much and having so much space that I end up really throttling things by continued growth. The lack of green fertility is not even worth mentioning since the overall fertility allows growing wheat and dustwhiches, which keep you full for a LOOOONG time. Hydroponics fix everything in the end. There are basically NO downsides to Shem, which could be off putting.
I wish Kenshi had a more robust town and faction system. I really would love to have been able to make my own faction with associated shops so I could have a city that rivals any of the others and have it function as such.
I pray that Kenshi 2 will be more moddable than Kenshi 1, including the faction mechanics you want.
Kenshi 1 is just about the perfect game in my opinion, the only thing lacking is better modding support.
Man, you helped me A LOT. Got less than 30 hs on kenshi and managed to settle near the swamp and shem with my shecks. This time i needed only a little bit of save scumming, and not a lot of it hahahah.
Keep this coming! The Venge vs Deadlands was very funny AND helpful.
Glad you liked it. Save scumming is alright to an extent! I think reloading saves is great for experimenting with what works and what doesn't. Shem/Swamps border is VERY good.
Playing kenshi for the first time and im looking to move away from the border zone where i started to greener pastures. Thanks for the video think ill make my megabase here where i will stage preparations to become the ultimate warlord...
if you make your base on the boarder you can get both arid and swamp fertility. I did that south of the swamp and made tons of money selling sake to catun for a 70% mark up. Great idea with making the npc swim
I have yet to do a proper Hashish dealer playthrough, but settling in the spot you mentioned is most def where I want to be for that!
Picked up the game a week ago and ended up settling on the big dune that's at the western edge, separated from the start of the swamp by a big pool. It is pretty peaceful once you got walls, lots of easily dispatched starving bandits and the occasional beak things which aren't hard to deal with with polearms. Been able to farm wheat pretty easily. I mostly go to Shark to pick up building materials, it really makes me wish Flats Lagoon sold some good ones, while they have good gear they don't sell enough mats. At least you do get hiver merchants which are always nice and helpful.
It bothers me that Flats Lagoon doesn't sell mats. If it had that, I think it would be one of the best cities. (Mongrel in Fog Islands is probably my favorite city)
i settled right outside venge in flats lagoon on this little land bridge i absolutely love it nothing really out there to mess with your group only thing i didnt know the beams from venge would hit me i watched for a while to see and none came over and now my farmer keeps getting messed up haha hes strong tho i hope its raising his toughness overtime
Shem is so good for a base, love it
The more of these vids there are, the more I kick myself for putting my first settlement in the deadlands
The first time that I ever tried base building was in Shem. It's a nice area, has a fun terrain, and the beak thing packs are small enough to provide decent amounts of leather and food without being overwhelming. Definitely a great base for a 10-15 person group to start a base, but be sure to bring all of your startup supplies in one go if you can.
I’ve been on the Shem pill a long time
My favorite location is the southwest peninsula in Venge, between Shem and Flats Lagoon. Pick the "Freedom Seekers" start, get an all skelly crew so you don't have to worry about getting roasted and grow hash, sell to Flats Lagoon. The downside is there isn't any iron or copper immediately nearby, but it's next to a T intersection so they'll always be Hive / Traders Guild caravans passing by. You can also build an item furnace and melt down all of the shoddy grade weapons / armor from raids for iron ore. Plus if you have a peeler you have leather for tanning!
Thank you so much for perfect base location, with love from Russia ❤
My current playthrough, I settled south of Mongrel on the border of fog islands. The spot I found has everything in abundance as well as 70% green and arid environment. The location also taught me that the rain actually waters crops.
My favourite location to build a base is guts, if you survive the insane amount of beak things wandering around you can make use of the green fertility and the high quality iron plus beak things can sometimes eat the tax collectors
guts dude? xDDDDDDDDDDDDD
you are crazy af
i liked the cannibal lands btw, very funny
what a time to come across this video :) currently walking around to settle
Loving the series! I would like to suggest the northeast mesa of the Fog Islands. As long as you are not at war with the holy nation, you should not receive raids, and the Fog Men won't bother you much once you're walled off.
The plateau north east of Mongrel? On the high ground? Or, is there a low ground option that's good?
If you're willing to be a heretic and pray.
The patrols from the HN will Obliterate any raids coming to you. Had a fat raid coming and a high paladin took on ten naked dudes on his own. I love it.
I've been using Shem as my base for almost 2 years now and everytime i love it more, currently i wanted to move to a different place so i'm playing on the Cannibal Plains
The game always tempts us with the allure of green fertility 😏
once I built a base in the border but with a small field occuping the swamp. I grew everything but rice. and still near enough from flat lagoon, low danger around. sometimes swamp bandits, mostly starving bandits but nothin actually dangerous. I tried to base at ohter regions but building at the center of the map I found a big advantatge for distance travel.
hugs from spain
Great video.
Shem is a great place for a megabase for sure. My only quip is that it's kinda out-of-the-way, but it's a great "southern megabase". Perhaps build a separate "northern megabase" and done. Bonus if they're easy to travel between.
I didn't realize Flat's Lagoon is a great place to sell hashish, gonna try that soon.
Right now I just have a foglands base. It's quite nice, but all in all I think I prefer Shem.
Navigating the foglands is kind of a PITA, and it's just a matter of time before a character gets kidnapped by the fogmen or cannibals.
I'm going to keep my foglands megabase for now and perhaps create another one in Shem or Gut.
I like having an impenetrable fortress, and Shem definitely beats Foglands in this regard, because of how you can place a huge lake between your settlement and the gate.
I usually make my first base nearby, in the border zone next to the abandom village (where you can find lots of useful matterial to make your base) you don't have to worry about beak things or shek taxing in there.
I settled in the center of shem when I did a full robot playthrough.
No food or water needed, just power and ore. Bought all the research books by selling katanas made of iron plates to Flats Lagoon
Built a watchtower and blasted people before they even got close, shoot first and ask questions later.
Robots don't attract beak things and can't be eaten alive so the biggest threat was basically a non factor
My first base was in shem ,pretty chill despite I knew about beakfriends
This is a good spot i have settled here a few times.
my fav so far. beautiful area
I've built a good partly automated base at the center of Shem. It's a really convenient base of operations and it has enough resources for a decent base!
I haven't used water to my advantage actually because I have a very strong shek melee warrior (probably the strongest of all characters I've ever had) and a moderate shek defensive squad. Also I have some problems with farming here.
Buy a shack in flats lagoon before you move to shem. You can run your research jobs and collect materials for the trip, and make some initial money by ransacking the abandoned drug lab and selling in FL. FL also has a fun habit of attacking random hiver trade caravans, so you can grab fully loaded garru and packbeast corpses with no repercussion. I had more building materials and food than I knew what to do with by the time I made the move to shem.
Wait, where in Flats Lagoon can you buy building materials? I distinctly remember getting triggered by Flats Lagoon not having a materials shop.
@@paulrogersgaming you can't *buy* them 😎. I just went there as a solo character, bought a shack, and while researching all the basic tech I noticed that there was combat going on outside. I looked and saw a hiver caravan getting massacred on the front steps of the city by the city guards, and I could freely loot them. This would happen very often because for some reason, no caravan would be allowed into the city. It was the caravan's animals that had bags of food and materials, and I just collected as many of those saddlebags as possible.
Ahhh, traders do seem to stop by Flats Lagoon often. How (un)fortunate that there was an accident with the hiver caravan 😅
@@paulrogersgamingEven after multiple playthroughs, it seems like the traders always get into fights at FL. I haven’t seen what triggers it but I’d imagine their pathing is making them attack a door. Almost without fail, they begin battling at some point.
Strange though because sometimes the merchants will stay for quite a while, only after 50-60 days becoming hostile. Must be random luck on if the pathing causes it:
I really like your tutorials, they're extremely informative and helpful. I personally like settling in Vain, there is a big sort of beach area right on the coast. It has excellent resources, natural defences, fertility and I swear I have never been raided once, maybe it's even worth a tutorial of yours?
Rest assured, we will make a video on Vain!
I just set up my first base in Heng for food production, goal is to set up in Shem eventually for hash production once my combat skills are high enough to deal with at least 1 beak thing at a time. Kenshi is such a good unique game, kicking myself for not getting it sooner. I made about 300,000g running hash out of Shark but they recently experienced a genocide and I can't rely on their shopkeepers being alive anymore to sell me hash so I must make my own.
I'm new but my first base is in shem and it is real good, earlier in the game black dragon ninjas and dust bandits gave me all the iron ore in the world so I didn't even need to mine
Fog Islands plateaus get 100% fertility and plenty of water, and many of plateaus never get disturbed not even by Fogmen
my favourite location. beautiful and you can build around a small lake near the village. make a huge water entrance etc. there are also other locations in the east with a big lake. build my entrance in the lake and literally put impr camping fences around the whole lake, forcing ppl to swim across.
it is easily one of the safest places AND no stupid city taxes. ye, Shem is Mine :-)
Still new to the game and have been olaying for a few weeks. First playthrough is at 200 hours almost. Rock bottom start building my way up. Ran the hub for a bit then moved by squin. While out that way we destroyed the dust king, the black dragon ninjas and tora the fearless. Getting bored of hungry bandits i decided to try shem. And by god. Immediately uoin setting roots i was ambushed by sime band of bones, maybe ten or so, about thirty hungry boys and five beak things before my laptop shit the bed and crashed. Will be rebuilding here for a while but all in all very fun far. Surprised all my men survived the welcoming party before the game crashed
Personal notes: Shem is a great location for a base that have an acceptable presence of predators and not deal with anything that intend to abduct your base guards. With significant sloping, having crossbows on hand and the storm house will go a long way to dealing with beak things until turrets and walls are researched and built. A full party of 20 may also work to help with bandits early on until the turrets are up to keep the door guarded.
This region is where the Naginata Katana shines due to a high presence of poorly armored humanoids and animals alike if the cannibals make the NW region unpalatable for base building and lack Skeletons and🎉 animals for gate defense. At times keeping the Dust Bandits and Black Dragon Ninjas may be preferable to train the base staff before moving on to better, more dangerous base locations, at which gate guards can switch to heavy polearns and benefit from their polearm experience.
As a note, it may necessitate having more wheat farms and hemp than normal due to reduced yield if not taking advantage of the swamp border and the swamp-related problems that come with it. Getting hydroponics is a suggested tech goal if planning to go to less fertile base locations.
I settle in the border zone personally. There is a great spot which requires minimal fortifications. Is great for Arid and moderately good for Green crops. Also had good water. Not far from the Dust Bandit's base. Has Iron and with a copper drill, copper as well.
It's not perfect but the worst raids seem to be Dust Bandits. It's pretty close to a Way Station as well, literally down the road.
Only problem with it, is it will require at least a mod that allows more flexibility with leveling structures. If you want to build a large base. As a farm without mods it's great, you cam farm iron convert it to armor plates or grow most food crops.
I am actually a fan of the forbidden isle for a base. If you eliminate a certain enemy you get garru and goats instead of iron spiders. If you should do that depends on if you want to travel to get hides or not.
There is also a spot on the Northern Coast I am a fan of. It is a location that is close to 3 towns for selling, and you get a lot of visitors. Also in that spot you do not get taxes or prayer day, and if the UC or HN is angry with you they will still send raids. Also cannibals are a constant threat/training source.
Also if I don't really want to be bothered by much while I train on the local wildlife, a Leviathan Coast base is a good choice.
Lastly I am a fan of having one main base and a bunch of unmanned "safe houses" or "small forts" scatted around. They may also have some crafting capabilities so I can restock on food or medical supplies while adventuring.
Edit: Before I forget there is also a couple good spots in Darkfinger.
Yeah, I think the Northern portion of the map is where we're going next after we go to the Pits. I haven't lived on to the Forbidden Isle at all but I'll try to change that soon.
"Settlers of Catun" gave me a lil chuckle.
I have more than a thousand hours on this game . I have build bases all over the moon of Kenshi from the C Canibal plains, to Greenbitch and Hook. Still i watched this video for some reason ( nice guide.for beginners) . My current base is in a ravine in the high Boneyard area . I used modes to alter the fertility of the area i order to at least farm at 50 % and also utalised the f12 menu . If you are using mods its the best place to build . Rocks protect you all around and you can ez wall the few gaps. Its just a bit notth of Catun and east of Morn and under the swap and Burning forest . There are also like 10 copper nodes but scant iron .
I've been searching for another base location because I already had a playthrough with a Shem base. But man, it's really hard to find anything nearly as good. My only gripe, although a major one, was the distance to other towns. Recruiting new people and trading was annoying as all hell (10 minute trip to get anywhere reasonable), but other places seem to have even bigger issues (mainly security and being located off-center, most of the central region is inhospitable) so I might go for Shem again
True. The border of the Swamp/Border Zone is a little closer to a waystation and the swamp towns.
If you really want to see the other side... there's the Bonefields. It's doable but challenging with all the wildlife.
Cheese the game with the no face exploit, then settle in Gut, as you'll be allied with beak things, they will be your first line of def
Mother nature provides excellent security!
I like the gut for setteling because the local fauna makes for a great defense and all you need is makeshift walls. You also can grow everything exept riceweed and who needs riceweed LOL?
Good old Shem
That's a sub for you my beautiful sir. thank you, please make more.
Thank you good sir!
One thing that I feel should've been more emphasized is its location relative to the bottom middle part of the Deadlands. In the early game, this is pretty useless due to its sheer inhospitability, (acid rain, burning sands, spider murder bots.) But the Deadlands is probably one of my most frequently traveled to places in the lategame because of Black Desert City. That place sells some of the best weapons, some masterwork grade bows and prosthetics, and even rare research like AI cores and Engineering Research. Really useful place to frequent if you're planning on cutting off all your party member's limbs and arming them with Edge type III weapons.
Thanks for video! I want build a base in my new run (i dont have much experience in kenshi) and I like Shem. But I am hesitating between Shem or Border zone (looks more safety) 😅
Border Zone is a little bit safer I'd say!
Beep is immortal!
my first ever base was between the swamp and shem, left my main guy with a garru to trade hashish and ninjas wiped out the base and my two hired mercenary gangs, then blood spiders ate them all
UC attack spawn at Farm ruins in the Burning Forest (makes zero sense but that's just how the game is) so they will be at your doorstep fairly quickly. But yeah, other factions have a pretty long way of getting to you
THe one time i bothered with settlement building - i built inside Shem. Middle of the map + no major faction influence.
My first proper base was in Shem!
Currently planning on settling in Sonorous Dark, without walls. Can't wait to get my shit handed to me
Thoughts and prayers!
Please keep making these videos!
My first playthrough I settled right next to the fishing village at the north of the map, just to the left of it. It became a problem because somehow my base was "eating" the fishermen houses that were outside the village and my mercenaries thought they were invading my property so a conflict spawned from that so I had to move to the east on the same shore. :( but I was happy with the resources I had, I only was missing riceweed I think
usually take over the "Secret Drug farm" in Stobe's Gamble, produce my own Hash.. there are a total of 2(3) spiders to take out.. the doors are locked, so its a great place to level up lock picking..
and the hash already there, is an easy 80K profit..
Shem is great though, you can wall up around the ponds and use turrets to shoot the slow swimmers! 😆
my 2nd day playing kenshi. lost like 4 partys already got a decent pary of 7 people now. went to shem but a bit more south almost ''hugging'' the red mountains there. got caught by a group of hungry bandits wiped them all out. 2 seconds later 3 beakthings show up. managed to kill 2 only 1 person is still standing just to get eaten alive by blood spiders xD shieeeet 6th time is the charm right?
There is a valley on the northern part of Shem near the Deadlands border that would make an awesome base location if only it wasn't "blocked" by a boulder near the southern part. I wanted to establish a base at either end, because in the north part you have lots of minerals and the south part is fertile and has water, and use the valley as a safe, natural corridor between them, but sadly it doesn't work =(
This is really nice, I would love some specific coordinates.
Border between Swamp and Shem is really good 👍
I hear Shem I think of Conan. It just is how it is.
Commenting for those E N G A G E M E N T M E T R I C S ✊️
Okran's blessings to you and your house!
I settled in Shem on my very first playthrough but I found it was too "safe". I ended up creating a new base on a cliff right between The Hub and Squin and that was much more lively. Plus it had these massive plunging cliffs surrounding my base, very aesthetic.
Shem is pretty calm. And, the Border Zone gives the Arid fertility ya need. I'll be adding a Border Zone guide soon!
I have Leviathan Plains as my preferred first base.
Higher risk with Cannibals, Beak Things, and Leviathans, but great non-human target practice in such conditions.
I need more of these vids
I have another one in the works. Over time I hope to cover a good number of regions!
I wonder, with such beautiful flat land, could you just settle all of shem? Like, I want all of it. Beak things spawn in my megacity that's fine.
Finding this vid after setting up my Shem hash farm
I named character Shem then I found out there was a whole area named that already 🤦🏾♂️
Fog Plateau is too powerful imo, but this does seem a solid zone.
The plateau northeast of Mongrel? Do you think that spot is the "gold" standard for bases?
@@paulrogersgaming I mean for my less handsy playstyle? Oh yeah. The town practically runs itself.
Shem is the best place
Is a bit hard at the beginning, beakthings, hungry bandits, dust bandits, dragon ninjas, bonebands...
At least you wont have to worry about the taxes.
There's something deeply Kenshi about the best area in the game to settle still being at risk of beak thing attack and giant death laser on the eastern end
At the intersection of a giant swamp, deadly bonefields, a death laser, and the barren deadlands. Peak Kenshi indeed.
tbh in my 500 hours of kenshi i always found garrus to help me in combat rather than attacking me xd
ah shem, the first place a base really took off for me. the only downside was the the neighborhood, damn whitebrow ninjas and schorched skeletons harrased me. but was home.
Those thrall skeletons are a pain. They wrecked me so many times.
Skeletons ? never seen a raid of those in all my time in shem (i have a large base right in the middle of it). Hungry and dust bandits, some sheks (band of bones) and ninjas, are the only ones that ever came to me. If they annoy you too much you can put an end to half of those, you can kill leaders of ninjas and sheks, as well as thralls if they bother you (which is wierd), that will stop the raids for good, so the worst thing that can come to your base would be dust bandits. If you have reactive world you can eradicate dust bandits as well, leaving only some random hungry bandits that will sometimes knock on your walls.
great vid thx
Raptor island when ?
Can you do why you should settle in black desert/deadlands?
Idk what it is for me and shem i hear/read multiple times sometimes the rare 2-3 beakthings show up. Currently in my 8th playthrough in 30 hours xD yet everytime i settle there. I get rushed by 3 beakthings. My group was strong enough to kill them. After the dust bandits show up hard battle but we won. Most people are recovering from the wounds just for 6 more beakthings to show up. I hired like 4 merc groups ( also hired tech hunters but they seem to be bugged the contract is long over yet they camp at my base. Free mercs i guess ) what is the ideal group size for shem i have around 11 people most are ~30toughness and combat stats. Yet i cant defend against the ninja raiders. ( tech hunters dont do shit only help against beakthings) i only managed to win once with the help of mercenaries. Yet the problem is if their contract ends it takes so long for them to be back at Shark for another contract.
Long story short: tips for new kenshi player settling in Shem and what is the recommended party size
If you want to fight a beak thing, they're never there. But if you don't want to see one, well, he's already chasing you right now
@@paulrogersgaming fair enough xD once you spot them i mean im alreayd dead
hell ye
Slippin! My favorite bread-based youtuber 🥖
@@paulrogersgaming
This beats the fog island mega base?
In my opinion, yes. More central on the map and easier defense with the water pools.
The name of this location in Russian is a "СИМ" very similar in spelling to the word "CUM".We often joke about this name in the Ru segment Kenshi.
I have like 20 hours in the game and I tried to settle in the Spider plains next to the town with all the old Shek warriors😂 it didnt last too long lol
watched
Could you do ashlands or cannibal plains next? I love those shitholes.
Ashlands- Are you mad?! haha
Cannibal Plains- It's definitely an area I'd consider.
Especially when you download the mod that adds a city in shem, nomad city. Never did make sense how nomads never had a proper city
having a city for nomads kinda negates the whole nomad thing. You know nomad means people who wander and dont have a home?
Anywhere other than the holy land is blasphemy.
Joeks aside, my main game i built on a plateau in the fog lands.
More than enough food
Near fog men to train new recruits
Can let people get captured, put on poles and eaten to easily lose limbs for upgrades.
Easy dollars through fod prince head farming
Never got attacked by anyone other than weak ass fog men so very safe.
The only downside i could think of if i really needed to pick one was that its not very centralised on the map.
shem is the best starting location ,but ngl once u get more comfy with the game it gets super boring
When Shem gets boring, where do think players should take their squad?
@@paulrogersgaming shem will always be the most efficent, but for a challenge i like the south east of the map where the crab raiders are at ,others would be canibal plains or great desert.
Thinking about setting up near the swamp once I can train a squad strong enough to beat up the homeless in the border zone
The homeless truly are the first test an adventurer must face.
@@paulrogersgamingended up making a totally consensual fight club in the Hub using local dust bosses.
Love how this game temps you to be morally dubious. Speaking of which i still don’t know what ill do with these guys after the fact
Turn your mic up sounds like your whispering
100% with you on that. Ended up buying a better microphone so the sound quality could be improved. Thanks for the comment!
BIGGGGGGGGGG
😌 Promo-SM
What? What?! WHAT?!! Get good and close to the microphone, son. Nobody can hear you.
It's so painful listening to the audio now that I have a better microphone! Thanks for the feedback and I'll try to keep the volume at a good level in future videos.
maybe don't call them 'Boners'
why not?
Are you really do hashis for get money man... its bullshit
💩💩
I personally like rhe caldera in Howler Maze
Damn I kinda wanna see if Watcher's Rim is doable.