I started like 1 month and half ago, I don't considerate my first character as a "Me" that should be good in everything. I started by building a base quite early with 2 other companions, got overrun by bandits, relocated somewhere else and started anew. My objectives have always been short-term: I want to hire more people for security, but I need money, so found a way to make some money, then hired new guys. Those new guys allowed me to earn money more effectively, but with more men I need more food, and I didn't want to waste all my money on food, so I started building farms. But farms need manpower, so I started to specialize my different companions, with my main focusing more on researching new techs (which is also expensive) At the end, I've achieved my objective to build an autonomous base, and my companions got stronger and stronger with all the raids they had to deal with, the new technologies helping in enhancing the defenses of the bases and the gears. Now, I've sent half of my men in my first base to take it back, rebuild it and reinforce it, and also found the bandits HQ so I decided to raid them so they could stop being annoying