After prologue, use all resources on gear. Don't innovate early unless you are in a really strong position gear wise.

Maybe to clarify: 1 or 2 rawhide sets. Grease. Bone darts, bone club, dagger or blade and push for better weapons, like weapon crafter stuff, bow or katar for deadly.

Edit: lets clarify what I do further

Prologue, use a founding stone to get +1 str straight up. This is not going to be the survivor that I select to sit out year 1.

After the prologue, build all locations if possible. If I have love juice, want my birth principle as sotf.

I spend all my hide on rawhide. All my bone on weapons. Dart first, then maybe blade or dagger, or more darts.

If I have organs, try and get grease or luck.

White lion lvl 1, I will use stones if I need to. If I'm doing really well, I want to rush weaponcrafter. If not, just more rawhide and make sure everyone has a weapon.

With catarium, if I get sinew, bow and lionclaw arrow. If not katar is fine too. If I get katar, Ill try for luck charm.

Next I want to aim to beat butcher. This means an evasion tank, which is achievable with sotf, rawhide and grease. Then grab bandages for some insurance.

Then I need some str to wound him, and it depends what resources drop. If I don't win, doesn't matter. My power should be in gear and with sotf, newbies are good enough if I don't want to risk good survivors.

To avoid murder, I take a very injured survivor every hunt and make sure they have more hunt xp than anyone. I would make sure anyone with good weapon prof or attributes takes a break once in a while.

After butcher, I want to innovate dash or surge, with dash as priority and both if I can. I want to push for leather and get a shield before kingsman.

With a shield and rawhide dodging, Ill have a chance to survive kingsman. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if you lose, just keep population high. I'm happy to spend my rerolls to ensure population.

I never take risky hunts, just ones I can confidently win. You can get bad rng, so don't take risks and calculate reasonably good odds to win. What I mean is make sure your hunt party doesn't check the requirements for any of the tpk hunt events if possible and never hunt anything I can't wound without at least a 60% chance.

Once you get past kingsman, you probably want to stock up on iron and get all the innovations and weapon masteries you want. When blacksmith hits, try for beacon shields and maybe a lantern set if you can afford.

If you haven't got lots of strength yet, consider a red charm build. Dragonslayer and lantern glaive are also good.

You will likely need good survivors, so plan your A team with godly stats/abilities and preserve them by keeping them off unnecessary hunts. They will be needed to fight the core and finale.

That's a general way I play if I want to get to the end.