From a fresh claim to the deed

In this tutorial you will play the prototype from a brand new 160-acre claim until the land office issues your deed. It takes about fifteen minutes. You will cut and haul timber, build a cabin and a barn, replant two parcels, and keep going until the claim has produced 10,000 board feet (bd ft) of lumber from its own timber.

The hosted game has an in-game version of this walk-through: a card on the practice claim that points at the real buttons.

You need a browser and the file standalone.html page of the prototype. Open it directly. Near the top you will see a dashed box labelled Sandbox test tools with a ticked No waiting box. Leave it ticked for this tutorial. With it on, your crew never needs to rest and the wagon comes back from the mill at once, so nothing makes you wait.

Every new claim is laid out differently. The numbers below come from one recorded run, where parcel D7 happened to be mature redcedar. Your D7 will be something else. Follow the method, and expect your own figures to differ.

1. File a new claim

Click Start a new claim. The button changes to Tap again to erase this claim. Click it again within three seconds. If you wait too long the button resets and you start over.

You should now see these gauges at the top of the page:

• Lumber 0 board feet
• Logs at landing 0
• Crew 3 / 3, rested
• Forest 100%, standing
• Saws 100%, sharp
• Wagon at landing

On the right, the Your deed panel reads 0 of 5. The deed has five goals: build a cabin, clear four parcels, build a barn, replant two parcels, and produce 10,000 bd ft from your own timber.

2. Read the map

The map is an 8 by 8 grid. Columns run A to H and rows run 1 to 8, so each parcel has a name like D7. The river runs along the bottom, and the wooden landing sits on parcel B8. Every log you cut is skidded to the landing, and the nearer a parcel is to it, the fewer logs you lose on the way.

Click any parcel. The side panel names it and lists its ground, species and growth stage, then a line called Cut now and a line called Skid to landing. The Cut now line is the number of logs you would get after skidding losses.

Try a few parcels. Small trees are seedlings, saplings or pole timber. Mature timber gives 12 logs and old growth gives 16 (before losses). A parcel marked “Too young to cut” is a seedling stand.

3. Pick your first parcel

Look for a mature or old growth parcel with a low Skid to landing figure. In the recorded run that was D7, mature redcedar with 6% lost skidding, which meant 11 logs. Click your choice so the side panel shows its name.

If the panel says “Cutting early yields fewer logs”, the trees are not mature yet. Pick another parcel.

4. Cut the timber

Click Cut timber (it costs one crew-day, which is free while No waiting is on). You should see:

1. A brief message at the bottom of the screen saying how many logs were skidded to the landing.
2. Logs at landing change from 0 to 11 (your number will differ).
3. Saws drop from 100% to 80%. Every cut dulls the saws by 20%.
4. The parcel on the map turns bare. It is now cleared ground, and its panel offers replanting and building instead of cutting.

The newest line in the Ledger at the bottom of the side panel reads something like “Cut Western redcedar (mature timber) on D7. 6% lost skidding to the landing. +11 logs”.

5. Haul the logs to a mill

Scroll the side panel down to Timber bids. Three mills show what they would pay for the logs you are holding, and each card ends with a haul button that gives the total.

In the recorded run, 11 redcedar logs would have paid:

Mill	Total
Harrison mill (3 miles, 4% haul)	1,246 bd ft
Medimont mill (6 miles, 8% haul)	1,154 bd ft
Springston mill (10 miles, 13% haul)	919 bd ft

Medimont pays extra per log for redcedar, but its 8% haul share eats the bonus. The best offer carries a BEST OFFER tag. Click the haul button on that card (here Haul 11 logs here under Harrison).

Lumber now reads 1,246 board feet and Logs at landing is back to 0. With No waiting on, the wagon is back already. The ledger reads “Wagon back from Harrison mill. Hauling took 4% of the load.”

6. Keep cutting, and keep the saws sharp

Repeat steps 3 to 5. Choose parcels with the most logs after skidding, and check the mills each time because the best offer changes with species and with how full each mill’s log yard is.

Watch the Saws gauge. It goes from “sharp” to “getting dull” to “dull, wasting timber”. A dull saw wastes logs, and the Cut now line tells you how many. Select a parcel that still has standing timber and you will see two buttons: File the saws yourself (a crew-day) and Hire the saw filer (150 bd ft). Hire the filer when the saws drop to about 40% and the lumber is there to spend. These buttons only show when the selected parcel has trees on it.

Keep going until Lumber reaches 1,500.

7. Build the cabin

Click a cleared parcel (not the landing at B8). Under the replanting buttons, the panel shows a row of buildings. Click Cabin (1,500 bd ft).

You should see Lumber drop by 1,500, a small house drawn on the parcel, and the cabin goal ticked in the deed panel.

Pick a parcel you do not plan to replant. A building stays on its parcel for good.

8. Build the barn

Keep cutting and hauling until Lumber reaches 2,500. Select another cleared parcel and click Barn (2,500 bd ft). The barn goal ticks off in your deed panel.

9. Replant two parcels

Select a cleared parcel that has no building on it. The panel says “Replant with a species suited to…” and lists species by name, each with a value and a growth label. Click a species name to plant it. It costs 100 bd ft.

In the recorded run, two parcels were replanted with white pine. White pine is only offered on bench ground, the middle zone of the claim. River bottom parcels offer redcedar, hemlock, grand fir and cottonwood instead, and the steep ridge offers ponderosa, larch, Douglas-fir and lodgepole.

After two plantings the deed panel shows replant 2/2. The two parcels show young trees again on the map.

10. Reach 10,000 bd ft

Look at the last deed goal, “Produce 10,000 bd ft from your own timber”. Its counter climbs each time a wagon comes back from a mill. Keep cutting mature parcels and hauling them until it reads 10k / 10k. Only lumber from your own logs counts. Money from farming and businesses does not.

The recorded run crossed the line at 10,029. By then it had cleared 35 parcels, held 5,829 bd ft of lumber, and left 46% of the forest standing. Yours may use fewer parcels if you pick good ones.

11. Collect the deed

When the last box is ticked the claim proves up on its own. The ledger reads “Claim proved up. The land office issued your deed”. The Your deed panel shows the issue date, an appraisal of standing timber, buildings and roads, and a List the claim for sale button.

That button only records an asking price. There are no buyers yet.

What just happened

You turned standing timber into lumber. Each cut took a share in skidding losses, each wagon took a hauling share, and every cut wore the saws. Your lumber paid for a cabin, a barn and two plantings. The deed arrived when the claim had produced 10,000 bd ft of lumber from its own trees, not after a set number of days.

Where next

Open your first business in Open your first business, or pick a task from the how-to guides. The rules behind these steps are in crew, cutting and saws, town mills and the deed and proving up.