4Game

So, while I'm dragging my feet to reach the Elder, I wanted to share the story so far as it was exciting and interesting for me, though I realize that it pales in comparison to most of the posts on this sub.

I started on a landmass with plentiful resources, close to Eikthyr and sea access. I quickly conquered the first boss and entered into the bronze age, but when I finally bit the bullet and sought to find a path to the next boss I found I had to cross the sea. Okay, no big deal, except it was a bit further away than everything else, but eventually I set out on what I had dubbed a 'suicide mission,' leaving with very inexpensive gear expecting to craft everything I needed on the way so that, in the case that I died on the water and lost everything it would be no great loss.
About halfway into this 'suicide mission,' I encountered something I didn't know I would ever see: a two star boar! Suddenly the mission had stakes, and I slammed on the brakes in order to build a pen and tame this boar to start a ranch. I would begin moving on after building the ranch before actually capturing the boar. This detour has made me far more established in this game than I have ever been, but it gets better still.
I found a small island with multiple blueberry bushes, no big deal, but the real treat was finding two beehives (and two queens) while I only had two at home. From Blueberry Isle I finally caught a decent wind and sailed my raft across the narrow channel through a thick fog, hoping to not see the green eyes of a sea serpent.
With all my luck, I did land in the black forest on the other side of the channel. I immediately built a fire and built a crappy base around that near the water, then gathered my surroundings… Which were far from ideal. I still had a short way to go before reaching the Elder, so my short-term goal was to build a base of operations from which to venture out and prepare for the upcoming battles… But there was no GOOD place to build one. Even if I just made one, right next to my first (crappy) landing base there was a burial chamber. Next to that there was a tower. Up the hill from the tower was a spawner. Up the hill from my base was another burial chamber. Surrounding all of this… Is a swamp. Yeah.
If I left my base toward the Elder, I would hit a river – NO BIG DEAL, I actually have a bridge across it now, but the swamp comes right up to the river, making it really dangerous to come out of the water on that side. If I skirt the swamp, like the noob I am, I hit a burial chamber. Not far from that, still skirting the swamp toward the Elder is another spawner. There's a tower next to a troll cave past that where I finally did build my FOB for when I do go fight the Elder, still with the swamp right there.
After mapping it all out, I built a small fort next to a troll cave up the hill from the burial chamber (up the hill from my first base) and called it Troll Watch. I raised stone walls around it and it is my prototype for the next stages of base building, since none of my other bases are 'troll-proofed,' yet.
I'm slowly making my way toward the Elder, but mostly because I'm still prepping my bases for the next levels of raids. I can NOT afford my new two-star boar ranch to get raided by skeletons and draugr, let alone trolls, so I'm enjoying being a noob for just a while longer. I'm sure lots of people breezed past this point, but it impressed me how this improved my position in the game overall. I'm also curious about whether the area around the Elder is always this challenging, because I looked hard for burial chambers in a previous world and I had never seen this many spawning areas in a black forest prior to landing where I did. Just thoughts, and hopefully a cool story I could share with the community.