To build huts, simply go to the building panel (press the Insert key to get there quickly), select a building, and click on the ground. Hold ctrl while doing this to place multiple huts at once. In most maps, you’ll want to place a firewarrior hut at the start, then build regular huts, then a warrior hut as soon as possible.

Use the follower panel to quickly assign braves (only braves can build) to build buildings. Simply click the idle braves button and select as many as you want, then click on a hut plan, right click on the game’s view area to deselect, select idle braves again, etc. If possible, also send them to trees before hut plans; see “Harvesting”.

When a regular hut’s green bar fills, a new brave will be generated. The more units in a hut, the faster the green bar will fill up (although it can fill up without braves). A hut starts with this bar set to the maximum, so a brave will be immediately generated after building a hut. This can be exploited by using the dismantle trick to partly unbuild a hut, then start building it again., in order to quickly generate new braves.

When a regular hut’s red bar fills, it will upgrade. A regular hut has three levels: small, medium, and large. The higher a hut’s level, the faster it produces braves, which is crucial for your mana. Note, however, that contrary to popular belief, a brave will produce the same amount of mana no matter the level of the hut he is in (see test data). A hut must have units on it (even if they’re not braves) for the red bar to fill up.

When a building is being built, the initial wood piece will be taken from the closest location which is NOT the square directly in front of the hut, be it a tree or wood piece. After that, it’ll be taken from the closest location, be it a tree or wood piece, whether it is directly in the front or not. This is why it’s best to harvest with two braves instead of three – so the initial wood search does not result in the tree which the wood was taken from being fully cut.

Buildings are crucial to get mana and thus get spells quickly. The more population you have, the better your mana is. Your maximum population capacity depends on your huts, and goes up to 199.

Hints:

• Never place a hut facing a tree. It won’t be able to upgrade.
• For the fastest build time, place a tower facing a tree (With the space key).
• The first wood piece will never be taken directly from the front of a hut. After that, it’ll be taken from the closest location.

Source for both tables: The player Challengeme3, also known as c3_TN. Link.

Building process: Half the braves working in a plan (rounded down, so 3 braves = 1 brave will search for wood) go search for wood. The first wood piece will always be put into the plan and will NEVER be taken from directly the front of the plan, the rest of the wood will go in the front. The other half jump on the land to make it flat. Each of the braves from the first half will get one wood piece and then also start jumping on the land. When the surface is flat, braves will form a circle around the plan (this step usually takes about a second, in rare circumstances – not based on randomness, it can be controlled – it can take a very long time) and then the first step of the hut being built will appear. Braves will then put wood pieces into it, until it’s finished. New wood pieces will be acquired by only one brave at a time. This last step takes a very short time.

Harvesting/Farming: Preserving trees is crucial to your success: it takes a very long time for a tree to grow again when being fully cut, but when cut partially, a tree only takes a short amount of time to grow. When sending braves to the plans you placed, select two braves, ctrl+click a tree, then click on a plan. Then, with the next group of two braves, do the same, but on a different tree.

Ultimately, there is a ONE to ONE ratio for pieces of wood used to followers added to your maximum population.

– Challengeme3.

In other words, if used properly, every wood piece you acquire should grant you an addition to your maximum follower capacity of 1 extra follower, until you reach 199 followers. Read: An interesting analysis about huts and wood by Challengeme3.

A very comfortable way to harvest I’ve found is to select all your braves, click on the edge of land so that they go “hands up”, and then, from the followers panel, select idle braves, ctrl+click to a tree, then ctrl+click to a plan, and repeat the process. This is useful because braves won’t go do things by themselves when they’re in a “hands up” state, units which are “hands up” generate the same mana (tested) as active units (even though they’re marked as “idle”), and they’ll immediately set themselves in the idle category, without all needing to go to a certain point. A disadvantage, however, is that units in a “hands up” state die if they are in it for a very long time (a few minutes) – but this can’t realistically happen in this scenario.

Dismantle trick: If your population bar near your shaman’s portrait in the control panel is green (there is enough space for more men), start dismantling a hut, then when the first wood piece is taken out of the hut, start building it again (make sure you don’t completely dismantle the hut). This will reset the hut’s properties, so a brave will be immediately generated, but will reset the upgrade bar to zero.

Upgrading: Although braves search for wood when upgrading by themselves, it’s crucial to manually provide that wood in order to make upgrades faster and preserve trees. I recommend all huts are filled with the most amount of units possible; starting from the inner to the outer, as the outer of a base is damaged more easily. Then, with each hut, select three braves from a hut, ctrl+click on a tree, and ctrl+click back to the hut. You can also do this from the hut panel, although it’s less efficient as it may send braves from a hut which may be just about to be upgraded to a hut which is not unless you view each hut’s details individually, which takes too much time and effort. Note that although a hut needs three wood pieces to start the upgrade process, only two wood pieces will be actually used. This means that if two huts are facing each other, only four wood pieces are requied to upgrade both if the red bar for both fills up at the same time, or five pieces if they fill up at different times. So the best for huts facing each other would be taking 3 wood pieces from one tree, and then 2 wood pieces. Upgrading huts also has the benefit that less land needs to be used up for reaching a high enough population (you almost never have the amount of land necessary to reach maximum population from only small huts, and in some maps not even a decent population). I recommend you make all huts face each other. (rotate a hut by pressing the space bar key while placing a plan)

Repairing huts: After a building is damaged but not destroyed fully, you can repair it by sending a brave to it. Note that one (1) brave will repair a building as fast as any other number of braves will! So use just one brave to repair a building.

Tower land manipulation: Braves jump on a plan to make the land flat. This can be exploited to place huts in terrain which would be considered too uneven, by making braves build a tower in specific locations, and, after the hut has been built to the first wood piece (so the braves have already jumped on the land and made it even), dismantling them. If the towers have been placed correctly, and the correct amount of towers has been used, you will be able to place a hut where a hut couldn’t be placed by default. This is particularly useful in Face Off. Sometimes, it’s even possible to even the land up with huts instead of towers. Rarely, when part of the land on which a hut plan is placed sinks, the plan will still remain there and be able to be built, turning the water into land.

Interesting stuff: Red and yellow shamans sit more towards the door in a tower – this means that their spell casting range is affected by how the tower plan was rotated with the space key.