Here is some basic guidance for those of you attempting this challenge:
This challenge is very difficult! You will fail many times. Don’t give up; you will have a lot of fun as you get deeper into this. Since this is a Year 1 challenge, it doesn’t take long to attempt and it’s easy to start over.
Ironman doubles the amount of food your citizens need to eat (from 100 to 200 each per year). All food has to go into a storage building (not a house) before your citizens can eat it.
You will need to build at least 1 Goahti house at the start of the game to give your citizens a place to warm up before they freeze. You can collect firewood or peat for fuel.
The most difficult map terrain options are Mountains and Lakeland since you can’t hunt deer or collect boulders (needed to build Thingstead) on mountains or water. This challenge is very difficult even on Valley or Lowland maps though!
As soon as the game starts, hit pause and check out your options for nearby food and boulders. If you don’t have deer and enough boulders for Thingstead available without building a bridge, it is probably best to start over with a new map seed.
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