hay all.
i think the contest's gone haha.
because anyone has accapted m score.

A story of survival. 

Our ship was a wreck.  We swam to the headland as instructed by our captain and leader.  I was surprised there was so many smuggled goods on the shore, most other times I've been wrecked we chose a headland with a storehouse waiting for us!  The land was good, our crops would grow fast, the leader explained the 12 of us were all that was needed for such land and the difficult swim was worthwhile, I am not sure.  We were all put to work like dogs anyway. 

Our leader gave us a map and marked places he called E1, C5, G3 and F4.  He told us to build walls, but he told us to do many other things besides.  The buildings we put up were in the following order:  A storehouse, a hospital, a saw mill, a quarry and then the first wall.  Only when the first wall was up did we make the tavern.  We were very hungry.  The next wall was a race to make enough stone and wood .  Only then did we make a vegetable farm.  We had just one farmer and just one fisherman, two lumberjacks, and three stone masons and we made the last two walls to make ourselves safe.  We always made time to look after the sick.

No rest.  We made a wheat farm, a mill, and a bakery.  Often we would put up two buildings at the same time so noone was idle.  After the walls, one of the stone masons was sent out as a hunter, he became a butcher after we put up his butcher's shoppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp.  The lumberjacks never rested as after the wheat farm we put up a vineyard and needed much wood for barrels. 

We worked like dogs and our food resources grew, we were helped by having the busiest buildings next to our store.  Our last bit of land we made a tannery, thank god we had enough cloth for the sick, we had no room for a textile.  We made leather, but had no room for a monastry, until our leader pulled down the quarry.  The clever ones then recorded some words of wisdom.

Wisdom did not help when 80 of our bread moulded.  We burned our vineyard and were forbidden wine.  We built a second wheat farm and had 3 bakers on the go all night.  At last we had our precious food store when 85 of our barrels cracked.  Our leader had kept bakc a little stone and we broke up the second wheat farm and rebuilt the vineyard.  So much hard work and we only made 75 barrels, but all 12 of us were rewarded with upgrade certificates at the end of the week.  I still wonder if we would have done better on the other headland with the storehouse instead of the extra goods, and perhaps a couple more swimmers might have made it there.  Either way, it was a blessing not to fight the goblin hoard outside our walls.

Wow, apparently I got really lucky when it came to stuff spoiling. I only ever lost 1 vegetables. Perhaps I won't be so lucky next time I play.

Interesting post regarding starters, perks and faults yujin. I too tend to go with strong start, as in this game, time is incredibly valuable. In other missions I like to pick other starters, but not this one. Those ticks you save are huge.

In the save file I submitted, I went for flower power and green thumb as my perks. Green thumb I might pick again, but I'll probably change my first one. Baking bread is already really efficient, flower power might have been overkill (though it did permit me to reassign my baker occasionally, as even with only one baker I frequently soared way over 100 bread). Ah I do love games with many different ways to play and configurations to try. Also tempted by flinstone vitamins and strong bones, I kept getting surges where like 4 people would get sick. Assigning a doctor meant suddenly 5 of my 12 people were unable to otherwise work, a huge pain! Though it did get better once I upgraded someone to a physician.

As for faults, I too chose Trojan man. Not enough time for waiting around for women to get knocked up anyway. I might try one sometime with both sweat shop and premies, but then soldiers and the like will be an absolute must, as there's no way I could fit houses in my little walled off corner.

You know, I might try that next time. I just gave a second go that did beat my first though, by making better use of tomes and better wall placement as well as a few trial runs to see where the goblins appeared first. I also think I picked my perks better - I was quite right, flower power is overkill, still ended up with way more bread than I needed, even with 48 (!) molding toward the end, so I chose union smasher instead. Also dropped green thumb in favor of strong swimmers, and I did enjoy the use of the two extra people, which were no bother at all to feed, especially once I had a chef and innkeeper.

Still kept strong start as my starter, I doubt I'm ever going to change that, at least on this map. Defender sucks IMO as that one knight cannot hope to fend off goblins fast enough, compared to getting a strong start and getting the first crucial wall up straightaway. Brain food is tempting and a free 1000 points, and unlike defender the points will actually help with productivity too, but that strong start is just too good to pass up. Smuggled goods is ok but I'd rather get my buildings up quickly and have those resources replenishing anyway. Hermaphrodite... I get enough pregnancies on other maps even without that (and even with Trojan man up!) so no.

But will definitely try your suggestion about building then smashing up houses - for some reason I never think to destroy buildings, but I can see how it would help here. Those extra people could come in handy, especially at the part where my peasants kept doing other things instead of what I wanted which was taking those 3 pieces of leather that were clearly ready to the monastery right next door... again, destroying or at least closing buildings could have gained me a few more points here. Ah well.

Oops, I have rambled. Past my bed time at that. But I hope someone gains something out of that mass of text. Good night, don't let the goblins bite!

EDIT: Since no one else has posted, might as well amend this one.
Tried the pregnancy/destroy-houses tip. Ended up with roughly the same score, although half my vegetables rotting toward the end lost me at least 5000 points, so if that hadn't happened, I might have reached 120 k or so, what with the vegetables and the stuff I could've had my other guys doing instead of the mad scramble for farmers at the end. Seeing 21 people take me from like 30 k to 110 k in the last 3000 ticks of the game is quite the spectacle, though. Definitely think I've found the wall placement I like best, though.

It's true, I discovered Castaways only shortly before I found this contest. Wouldn't say I'm an expert yet, but I can find my way through a mission.

Hey Aprone, I did notice something while I was playing. Is mining supposed to eat up rocky terrain like stone masonry? I suppose it kind of makes sense as the miners have to dig somewhere, but the jobs guide says mining is a constant supply, yet as I tested it, my miners consumed rocky terrain farther and farther away and took longer and longer to bring back ore. I know you didn't write that part of the jobs guide, but that should probably at least say something about that, unless it's a bug.

Suggestion: Add a "preservatives" perk. Spoiling food really, really, really sucks. It just completely destroyed another attempt I made right at the end. An attempt I originally said I wouldn't do. So now I'm kinda annoyed at the wasted time. But I guess that's how luck works sometimes. ON the plus side, my wall placement gets better and better. I may share it a little later on.

Loxias, that's a great idea for a new starter/perk.  Maybe one of these days I'll add it.    Be thankful you didn't use that fault that increases random disasters, because you probably would have lost 3 times as much food, Yikes!

Rocky, I think they've helped out a lot of people.  Out of curiosity, have you beaten the game yet?  Judging by your skill on the challenge map, I bet you could fly through the whole game with little trouble, haha.  I'm not yet aware of anyone beating Castaways since the 2 new missions were added.

I got a pretty good laugh out of this.  Nice one Loxias. 

I just had to have another go, trying to find the optimum strategy.  I did not believe this was possible a week ago.  Built 7 walls, built 10 tutor houses, got a population of 70, burned the houses, built a mine a forge and a barracks and a stables and some more farms on the land with the bricks and timber.  Upgraded 6 knights, 6 cavalry, 7 rangers, and 7 pikemen, and used 44 tomes to upgrade everyone else.Not really fair if I get all the top prizes  - so here's some more hot tips:
Keep everyone busy, use the v key to check, and reassign them.  Always heal the sick.  One veg farm will do to begin with.  A hunter is better once the butcher's shop is built.  Concentrate on the economy after the walls, which means build houses.  Build a tannery  and a monastry to get some tomes and upgrade key workers, this helps the economy.  Build an animal farm to generate more furs for the leather workers.  With an animal farm and a bakery you will need 2 then 3 wheat farms then even more if your population grows.  All this needs land of course, which depends on getting the walls up in the right places and in the right order.  The goblins come in first at E1, then A5 and I1 and N5.  So block E1, H1, I1 and C5 as priority.  If you're not quick enough, then E2, H2, I2 and C5 will have to do.

There's an easy 4 wall strategy but that's not going to hit the scoreboard, I got 117k with that.  There is also a 5 wall easy strategy at E1, C5, H3, I4 and H6 (build in that order).  this gives 6 extra  land and puts the best square G6 for the quarry inside the walls.

Hope that helps open things up a bit.

Yes, 70, with 10 houses.  My first game I had 49 with 7 houses, believing 8 was the limit.  It's a rich game with so many variants, I hope you make  another competition and would happily chip in some sponsorship.

Well this is it, the last day of the contest!  I'm sure I'll have people scrambling to turn in some final game submissions.  Good luck guys.