Beginning Phase
Ok brace yourself, here we go. The object is essentially to amass the requisite number of goods within a given time frame. While the total number of goods required to complete the settlement doesn’t change but the amount of each type need will vary. While this brings a dynamic experience to completing the settlement it also prevents creating a full step by step guide. So this guide’s purpose is to do some of the heavy lifting for you as far as strategy is concerned but you still have some management to do on your own as well.
The start will vary depending on the arrangement of those nasty rocks whose goal is to make it harder for you, lol. Of course they will not stop you. Ideally, you want to be able to fit 6 shacks and 2 Axe Smiths into your starting settlement. When the Axe Smiths finish building, set them up for 4 hour productions. When they finish, grab 2 expansions and fill them with shacks. You are trying to squeeze some more copper coins out while you’re waiting for the 4 hour productions to finish. The next collection will allow you to unlock the extremely important shrines. You need to sell off one Axe Smith and 3 shacks to build 3 shines. If you are having trouble fitting everything in, just stack your shacks so that they are not touching any roads. Getting a shack or two on the road is gravy but not necessary. For the next 4 hours while you wait of the Axe Smith to finish it’s third production, stockpile as many coins as possible. The best way to do this is use the shortest production time of your shrines that you can maintain. 5 mins is really difficult, 1 hr is easier but if you can do the 15 minute is the sweet spot.
Phase II
Congrats, you have left the beginning phase. Now you are in the main phase where you will focus on unlocking tech and expanding the settlement. It’s hard to be too specific here because some it will be affected by the amount of each type of good you need and the rocks in your settlement. During this phase you should:
Expand in blocks. Don’t snake too much to avoid rocks. Shared roads are extremely space efficient.
Unlock and use everything ASAP (except for clan houses)
Don’t build clan houses until you are finishing up quest line. They don’t build fast enough to be helpful in the main phase.
Try to stay focused on maximizing your productions. You are most productive when your population is as close to 0 as possible and all available spaces are filled. Odin doesn’t take kindly to lazy/unemployed Vikings.
Plan all developments ahead
Build totems/runes in unoccupied spaces. This helps save time and may even help you see deficiencies in your layout.
You can delete roads and rebuild them if you need more diplomacy to unlock a development.
You will rearrange your settlement several times before you finish. Build/sell/build/sell
Phase III
This starts when have collected enough goods to unlock the rest of your developments. This is the easy part. The only bit of advise here is to build 1 willow right after unlocking it because you must now have both 1200 diplomacy and 4 goods buildings at the same time to complete the final quest. With only 8 expansions, you will need at least one willow to reach this goal.
You made it!! Hopefully this helped you. You will improve each time you do it.