I loved the cannibal hunters start, it took me several attempts to actually escape and once I did successfully, it felt like I beat that campaign and I started a more normal campaign, but man was it an experience. Equal parts frustration and fun 10\10 would recommend.
My introduction to Kenshi was a Venge nobodies start: -On the first attempt I looted the waystation I spawned at and was immediately killed by robots. -My second attempt I somehow managed to flee north without noticing any enemies or laser beams but then I zoomed out and saw that I was surrounded by ~5 different hostile factions all converging onto my location simultaneously (I died). -My third attempt I tried fleeing west but was intercepted by a beak thing which attacked and started eating one of my guys. The other 4 now limping up a hill were hit by a laser reducing most of them to a crawling state before almost immediately being attacked by more beak things. My only conscious character remaining continued crawling up the hill bleeding to death but was struck by another laser killing him, with more beak things coming to feast. -My fourth attempt I successfully fled west and managed to make it to smuggler's bar (although two of my characters had gone unconscious due to a spider incident) and we sold all of our pants for one piece of meat. We continued west and saw a dome on the outskirts of the black desert, which upon opening contained 100s of security spiders which flooded out and killed everyone.
Ok, the 4th part got me. The part of having 5 hostile factions and unable to kite them enough into fighting each other was unfortunate, but at the same time such an impressive feat for someone just starting.
Welcome to the university of rebirth where you will be trained in the art of assassination, stealth walking, lockpicking and through our rigorous training, you will have your body to become stronger and thougher
My first playthrough was in rebirth, i knew nothing about the game, when i finally escaped, my character hae Tinfist levels of numbers in the stealth tree
Got to say 'The Slaves' is by far my most favourite start. I like (ab)using Rebirth as a safe-ish training facility and attempt to recruit some shek or hivers from there as well ! And then Burn is practically around the corner when you escape. Next stop 'Worlds End' for a first base and reasearch hub and then the world is your oyster ! More recruits from the flotsam or fishermen ? go for it. A trip to the UC in the Grey desert ? go for it. Foglands instead to recrui beep ? go for it. A trip to the Holy nation with your greenlander males after getting a Holy Flame ? go for it. All paths are open and promise waaaaaay too many recruiting opportunities. Heck you can even save up some cats, abduckt a bunch of 'holy nation robots' around the northern coast and try the enslavement trick if you don't have a mod for recruitment. Sometimes you'll be lucky and get one to join.
I also love "the slaves" start, I don't know why it is marked as hard afaik you can't starve and as long as you are careful about pissing the guards off nearly no danger. I even removed one of my 2 starting characters and by the time I escaped on day 14 I had 40+ assassination, stealth, athletics, 30+ thievery, lockpicking and 10+ strength and toughness. Even found a decent supply of food and first aid for my journey to squin where I'm currently raising funds by mining copper and robbing squin blind.
@@jeff8205 yes, the 'difficulty' lies in rationing the food so you get out of starvation, before you make your escape. so that you actually can run. But, Kenshi is only going to be as difficult as you want it to be, considerign that savescumming is possible and it has a sheer endless ammount of cheesing options. If you know what you're doing, then no start is truly difficult. Just like Koko said :)
@@jeff8205 all up to you. It is getting easier the longer you stay, as long as you keep the fooditems stored away somewhere. Longer stay = more time to safely train stats after all :)
for cannibal hunters, the literal second you spawn just go into the cages that are next to you. they’ll just walk away. Then just leave right after, enjoy the free strong dudes.
One of the Nobodies starts is The Hub, which is makes it a more awesome version of the Wanderer start. I started with what my character would be in Wanderer, but with four assistant Skeletons. Call it the Mechromancer start. :)
My favorite start is 5 nobodies particularly because of where they can spawn and how powerful it is to have 5 people this early into the game - safe stealing, more time efficient strenght training, a focus on more strategic approach and the sheer volume of development options to use while at the bottom part of the map.
@@gavinnelson3402 maybe cannibal Hunters is for you if you can't have fun without civilization. I tend to focus on telling a story with a start more than gaming because kenshi is just too easy.
Was my first game start! Loved it. Ended with a beak thing chasing them down because I wanted to start a base at then pretty blue sand. It was very educational. XD 2nd try went great mostly
One of my most memorable playthroughs was a "boy and his dog" start. A UC noble 1 shotted my dog while we were scavenging in the desert early on, and it turned into a John Wick simulator.
Son of a captain deserves a higher rating, as you failed to mention that you are 100% allied with UC so it's a great start for beginners since the UC soldiers will protect and heal you right out the gate. EDIT: Well not for beginners but it's a great second play thru. The desert is really no place for a new player lol.
Slaves start way to grind 100 strength: 1. lockpick leg cuffs and put 10 in your inventory 2. leave game running and go to bed 3. ????? 4. wake up to 70+ strength on each character
Guy with dog, cannibal hunters, and slaves are my favorite. They’re very different compared to the standard wanderer start and has fun roleplay scenarios
guy with a dog is my favorite because i can get the human killed and play as a bonedog kinda hard to get the bonedog strong enough to de-limb people tho
i just had my first slaves start, and even though i hardly escaped, then got imprisoned immediately, after that, i had one of the best starts i ever had. i was able to level every important stat except for the combat ones, and i also somehow ran into burn (the skeleton) literally right outside the mines, and instantly had a solid fighter on the team. its a grindy start, but since i leveled up as a slave, my future endeavors were so much easier
When new players ask me how to get stronger in Kenshi I often recommend they get enslaved. Everyone thinks I'm joking, but being a slave in Kenshi is a great way to safely level up.
@@KokoplaysMB thats actually solid advice, but id probably say that you wana get enslaved by the holy nation, cause its closer to newb territory. dont wana gt caught as an escaped slave in UC territory
The Slaves start is great for unarmed steath characters. If you load yourself up with shackles you lockpick you'll get a lot of exta xp. Steal food and armor from Gaurds, stockpile food, ect. It was so satisfying when I finally beat up the first gaurd
I had some prior knowledge of kenshi, not any of its mechanics or anything mainly just that it was super hard and unforgiving. I didn't want to start in an easy fashion because I'll get bored if I get too settled in too fast so i started rock bottom for my first playthrough and have thoroughly enjoyed it. There has been some save scum fuckery a few times in the learning curve but I'm like 50 days in with quite the little army. We can only really take on starving bandits but we are settled in the hub and doing pretty well
Personally I'd put the Slaves as S tier for a few reasons. Check it out, see what you think: 1. You're shackled and shackles are heavy. If you lockpick the shackles and place them in your inventory, a new pair is added to you. Rinse and repeat until you inventory is full, you'll bulk up strength quickly. 2. The Holy Nation will NOT let you die. This makes them amazing training partners, since immediately after they beat you up, they'll come rushing to your aid. Just try not to lose limbs if you can help it. They won't reattach them, and you won't be able to get replacements for a long while. 3. You will be malnourished. You cannot starve to death in Rebirth as a slave, but before you escape you definitely want to be well-fed. Train your lockpicking and stealth and steal food from the HN guard houses around rebirth. It sometimes spawns in the slave shacks too. In the month I spent in Rebirth, I was only malnourished for the first few days and remained well-fed, it's pretty easy to get away with. 4. If you manage to KO or kidnap a guard, you can put him in a slave cage and loot all his gear to train melee attack and defense. Just be sure to drop the gear when you get knocked out as they WILL take it from you. The upside is, they will treat the guard you stole from as another slave, and shackle him accordingly and force him to work. By the end of a month, probably 50% of the guards in Rebirth were enslaved using this tactic. 5. If you free a bunch of slaves to train your lockpicking but remain in rebirth, they will fight the guards with you. By themselves, they aren't great, but a group of 10, especially if you can steal from a few guards and arm the more skilled slaves, are a force to be reckoned with. This is where you can actually start clearing a somewhat "safe area" in Rebirth where you can heal, stash supplies, hide from passing patrols. All you really need is to kill the guards of an empty slave house, and nobody will really look into it. You might have a few stray guards to wander by, or maybe collect a prisoner you didn't see. This is why you have these slaves armed and waiting for them. Don't worry if the slaves go down, as it also trains their stats to fight and get KO'd. After you initially free them, and the brave ones want to follow you, most of the time they will repetitively pick their own locks and free themselves to follow you. Build a slave army, lose horribly, spend 2 days in a recovery coma, and by the time you're awake your slave army should be waking up and trying to regroup with you as well. Super useful to abuse this, especially for a gloriously violent escape like I pulled. I spent a month there and got pretty bored, i had enslaved or killed most of the guards, and freed, fed, and equipped all brave slaves who would follow me. My combat stats were all 40-50, and I didn't want to become a literal God in Rebirth before ever interacting with the world, so we made our escape. Most of the slaves had stats in the 10s-30s, and actually put up a pretty good fight against the gate guards, downing two of them before me and a few others booked it. With the stolen HN gear, i managed to scrape up some money and eventually formed a Shek-only warband (with the exception of Beep, since he has the heart of a Shek) and dubbed it Clan Shatterspine. It's becoming quite an operation, we've got a few camps in the world but no outposts. Outposts attract raids, a few beds around a campfire doesn't. No need for defense! We do have our main base of operations in Squin and recently turned in Seta's bounty, officially beginning the war of vengeance against the Holy Nation. I fucking love this game
Recently started a new character for solo playthrough and was looking at which scenario would make it most interesting. I started with Slaves, because in my headthis character would be getting really tough in process, learn some skills and maybe gain few stats from beating and running around, preparing for escape and maybe saving a bunch of people in process and thought it would take me several days to do so. I lockpicked my shackles in cage and observed my surrounding, while doing "obedient slave" job and in first minutes of the game, my character goes outside of a slave camp to dig on one of the rocks that a bit further away. So i just took off the shackles and clothes and just walked out. Nobody even seen me going. Then i walked out of the Holy Nation, snatched me some rags from dead bandits and by day 2 i was in hub, basically at the start of Wanderer scenario. Time well spent.
So i did some testing with the slave start and even though its probably not the most viable way to gain stats but I just constantly aggro the gaurds to gain toughness stats early on, considering they will contantly heal you and if you're damaged enough will force rest. You can also gain other stats from this start (i.e lock picking and sneaking) as well as the laboring, strength etc.
I actually did my first playthrough as a modded start Son of a Paladin. It's been fun. Discovered that copper vein right outside Stack and I gotta say mining cats straight from the ground has been fun.
Great question... and a better answer from Koko !!! I haven't seen any new Kenshi from other gamers in a long time, most have been Asian language moded with no english at all. 😪
Slaves start is probably the easiest one because you can think of the slave camp as in tutorial. You can't die there - guards will heal all your injuries and will feed you. You can train few different skills there for free as long as you want and when you decide that you are ready you run off and start the real game
I actually found the cannibal hunters start to be quite smooth. There are lots of rivalling factions (=easier than expected escape), places that you can loot undisturbed without spoiling too much and if you ally with the Flotsam Ninjas you can use their training dummies. You are close to World's End, so you have access to good weapons. There are some free recruits in the area.
The Slaves start is one of my favorite starts. Very easy to train up Strength, Toughness, Athletics, Laboring, Lockpicking, Stealth, Thievery, and Assassination. It's a bit of a slower start since you will just be doing obedient slave stuff during the day and having to wait until the guards go to bed to have a little fun. If you take your time you can eliminate all guards by knocking them out and putting them in cages. Once the guards are out of the way you can release every prisoner and casually walk out of the gate.
> Nobodies > create 5 Shek, reroll until you spawn at The Hub because Venge is nearly impossible to escape at lvl 1 > visit Squin and Admag for Shek warriors > visit the Shek Ruins for Planks and Fragment Axes Done, you have yourself an army of 16 Shek with heavy weapons, all in about 7 days.
I played kensi for the first time the other day and started as a guy with his dog. Man was it an experience, couldn't find food anywhere in bask at all. Came across a massive battle and ended up with high quality armour and weapons but soon realised ive wasted my time. The dog started to pass out and being ive already searched north, west and south abit. i picked him up and trekked through the desert east. Just barely making it i arrived at a slavers compound and finally found food! Now its day 19, ive got a house, 2 companions, a garu and a still breathing dog 😂 us five and my 30,000 cats are doing okay as slave traders/battlefield vultures.
I rolled a women with a dog. Decided I'm gonna navigate without the map. Only landmarks. Got lost and wound up at a holy nation city. As a woman. At night. Alone.
Cannibal hunters was my first proper playthrough, I have conquered the cannibal plains, destroyed the holy nation, crippled the economy of the united citites and buried the second empire.
I think the biggest problem with The Holy Sword is how katanas are mostly considered beginner weapons. So not only is your skill low to use it, but you're not really going to keep on using it unless you want to just have it for those RP purposes.
The Freedom Seekers are my favorites. Trying to build base early one of the hardest/coolest challenges. You will need to hire mercs for early protection.
My main campaign was a Guy with a Dog, and my guy was a skeleton so I was unaware of being malnourished. Skeletons really have a leg up on the other races except for being disliked.
Skeletons are awesome. repairs and maintenance costs are higher than food and heling costs on average though. Making a bit trickier for ne players to manage.
I always pick the Freedom Seekers start and just sell all the materials. Now you are playing with 6 characters with a decent amount of starting money. The only downside is probably the starting location I guess.
I always like nobodies, and high roll for a good starting point. Getting to choose your starting guys always helps. I generally go with 2 shek and 3 hive princes. Best overall coverage for starting stats and a good team combo. Generally train the shek to be my melee guys, princes for xbows. Then train 1 prince as a ninja/rogue type.
i just first started a Nobodies game yesterday and all 5 peoples spawned in the Hub, and i thought ... hey ... this is Amazing! Its basically Wanderer on steroids. And then i watched this video and realize that you can spawn in Venge.
I tend to add on one of the several mods that modifies the holy sword start, makes it more interesting I feel. And as someone that's pretty much a universally Genesis player its not the hardest thing in the world to get factions to like you again and makes a goal for why to get money other then for the sake of advancement for advancements sake essentially turning the normally locked off HN and UC 'unlocks' if you will though I tend to just decide which nation im gonna stay enemies with, usually the UC as Genesis adds more then enough new places to conduct trade makeing the HNs safety far more valuable compared to the UCs commerce. Especially as I don't tend to have any problems, like EVER with the Holy Nations rules as they are pretty easy to navigate if you know what your doing vs the UC or minor factions that hang around the UC like manhunters randomly sometimes fucking you up.
slave should be S, no? you won't starve to death and guard will heal you, so you can train freely. free equpment after you are free later, basically the best start if you want to create stealth character. best place for afk strenght training by putting the shackles in your inventory + the labor and athletic by just running around.
Latest playthrough I went Holy Sword with the 'real holy sword mod' to make it Meito Grade. Loving my progression from basic bandit with a sword they can't use to becoming a badass swordsman on his way to make a name for himself. And I refuse to lose that sword! XD Also have recruit anyone and recruited a hungry bandit I broke out of slavery to be my crossbow user, and a Gorrilo Bandit I saved from being eaten alive by beak things. XD He's going to be my martial arts master in the group.
Holy Nation citizen is probably the easiest start in the game. The mobs are the easiest on the map and the ore just outside of the walls in each city is very heavily defended by the paladins and their turrets. You can set up automated mines in the Holy Nation cities very easily, for dirt cheap, and the chance of them getting wiped out is practically zero. The mobs are even weaker up there than they are in the hub. A mine with 3 people in each city, just owning a small building with a food box and a copper/iron box will takes about 10 days in game time to set up and will bring in about 7-9K per day. Each mine can naturally expand to about 5 characters per town. Just have to sell the ore and stock the food about once every two days while your main party explores the world. Also surprised to see the hunters in F tier. It's a huge time saver to start with such high stats on two characters. That's hours of grinding that you don't have to do. Just have to survive the initial attack and get out of there. It's like the reverse of the Holy Nation start, a very high risk start that demands game knowledge, but you're rewarded for it by getting two beefy characters. You'd normally have to get the RNG Jackpot and spend about 14K to have two characters like that in a starting team.
It’s strong for people who know what they’re doing since its just wanderer start but with 5 recruits but for new players its like 5x hunger rate and a bad spawn location. Kind of counter intuitive because skilled players want more of a challenge so they’ll almost never pick this start
I don’t really get how the slaves start is A tier while cannibal hunters is F tier. Both are really good challenges for experienced players and would destroy any beginners. Also I’ve never actually picked the trader start from how easy and boring it sounds
Starts get way too overrated, particularly slave start. If you have game knowledge slave start just doesn't make much sense, you could always just go become a slave if it meant that much to you. Hell you could go nobodies and walk all their sorry asses down to rebirth and start with 5 slaves. When people are hitting like 50 unarmed and dex, still getting their thief leveled, owning property and advancing their research in first week it shows how kind of weak slave start is compared to just being a free person. I mean it's not a huge hindrance or anything but it's kind of a tutorial start. I also don't really agree with wanderer and rock bottom being S. Wanderer is like B and Rock Bottom is like C or F. Freedom Seekers and Trader Boy S.
Yep. It depends on what you value. I took like trader and freedom seekers. I liked the idea of a place of my own and choose freedom seekers for my first start. Struggled even withh all of them. Went to the desert to follow a tutorial video I read and learned to hate the desert. Group of Kenshin players I talked to had such a hate boner for holy nation I feared it more than I should have and later learned I should have just gone there to start up since they are the most protective place.
"you do have a thousand cats... so... if you need a snack" a lot more disturbing when you don't remember the name of kenshi money
Good point :D
Probably why there are no cats in Kenshi right there
I loved the cannibal hunters start, it took me several attempts to actually escape and once I did successfully, it felt like I beat that campaign and I started a more normal campaign, but man was it an experience. Equal parts frustration and fun 10\10 would recommend.
My introduction to Kenshi was a Venge nobodies start:
-On the first attempt I looted the waystation I spawned at and was immediately killed by robots.
-My second attempt I somehow managed to flee north without noticing any enemies or laser beams but then I zoomed out and saw that I was surrounded by ~5 different hostile factions all converging onto my location simultaneously (I died).
-My third attempt I tried fleeing west but was intercepted by a beak thing which attacked and started eating one of my guys. The other 4 now limping up a hill were hit by a laser reducing most of them to a crawling state before almost immediately being attacked by more beak things. My only conscious character remaining continued crawling up the hill bleeding to death but was struck by another laser killing him, with more beak things coming to feast.
-My fourth attempt I successfully fled west and managed to make it to smuggler's bar (although two of my characters had gone unconscious due to a spider incident) and we sold all of our pants for one piece of meat. We continued west and saw a dome on the outskirts of the black desert, which upon opening contained 100s of security spiders which flooded out and killed everyone.
Ok, the 4th part got me.
The part of having 5 hostile factions and unable to kite them enough into fighting each other was unfortunate, but at the same time such an impressive feat for someone just starting.
Welcome to the university of rebirth where you will be trained in the art of assassination, stealth walking, lockpicking and through our rigorous training, you will have your body to become stronger and thougher
My first playthrough was in rebirth, i knew nothing about the game, when i finally escaped, my character hae Tinfist levels of numbers in the stealth tree
Got to say 'The Slaves' is by far my most favourite start. I like (ab)using Rebirth as a safe-ish training facility and attempt to recruit some shek or hivers from there as well !
And then Burn is practically around the corner when you escape. Next stop 'Worlds End' for a first base and reasearch hub and then the world is your oyster ! More recruits from the flotsam or fishermen ? go for it.
A trip to the UC in the Grey desert ? go for it.
Foglands instead to recrui beep ? go for it.
A trip to the Holy nation with your greenlander males after getting a Holy Flame ? go for it.
All paths are open and promise waaaaaay too many recruiting opportunities. Heck you can even save up some cats, abduckt a bunch of 'holy nation robots' around the northern coast and try the enslavement trick if you don't have a mod for recruitment. Sometimes you'll be lucky and get one to join.
I also love "the slaves" start, I don't know why it is marked as hard afaik you can't starve and as long as you are careful about pissing the guards off nearly no danger.
I even removed one of my 2 starting characters and by the time I escaped on day 14 I had 40+ assassination, stealth, athletics, 30+ thievery, lockpicking and 10+ strength and toughness. Even found a decent supply of food and first aid for my journey to squin where I'm currently raising funds by mining copper and robbing squin blind.
@@jeff8205 yes, the 'difficulty' lies in rationing the food so you get out of starvation, before you make your escape. so that you actually can run.
But, Kenshi is only going to be as difficult as you want it to be, considerign that savescumming is possible and it has a sheer endless ammount of cheesing options.
If you know what you're doing, then no start is truly difficult. Just like Koko said :)
@@KonaFanatiker Ah yeah I get that, I guess I kind of made it easier by only worrying about one of my starting people then.
@@jeff8205 all up to you. It is getting easier the longer you stay, as long as you keep the fooditems stored away somewhere.
Longer stay = more time to safely train stats after all :)
Indeed, best vanilla start imo
for cannibal hunters, the literal second you spawn just go into the cages that are next to you. they’ll just walk away. Then just leave right after, enjoy the free strong dudes.
One of the Nobodies starts is The Hub, which is makes it a more awesome version of the Wanderer start. I started with what my character would be in Wanderer, but with four assistant Skeletons. Call it the Mechromancer start. :)
My favorite start is 5 nobodies particularly because of where they can spawn and how powerful it is to have 5 people this early into the game - safe stealing, more time efficient strenght training, a focus on more strategic approach and the sheer volume of development options to use while at the bottom part of the map.
I also love this start, although I tend to spawn in Venge amidst the robots and laserbeams...
@@gavinnelson3402 maybe cannibal Hunters is for you if you can't have fun without civilization. I tend to focus on telling a story with a start more than gaming because kenshi is just too easy.
Was my first game start! Loved it. Ended with a beak thing chasing them down because I wanted to start a base at then pretty blue sand. It was very educational. XD 2nd try went great mostly
@@secretname2670 I mean, you can make it harder with a few rules like no stealing, no running legs etc
@@secretname2670 the realism mod for kenshi is definitely up your alley
I’m an Empire Citizen with 25,200 cats, 2 goats, and a Longhouse on day 5. All of that with no slavery too, only thievery which is pretty cool
One of my most memorable playthroughs was a "boy and his dog" start. A UC noble 1 shotted my dog while we were scavenging in the desert early on, and it turned into a John Wick simulator.
Son of a captain deserves a higher rating, as you failed to mention that you are 100% allied with UC so it's a great start for beginners since the UC soldiers will protect and heal you right out the gate. EDIT: Well not for beginners but it's a great second play thru. The desert is really no place for a new player lol.
Skimmers rip low levels to pieces with single hit
Slaves start way to grind 100 strength: 1. lockpick leg cuffs and put 10 in your inventory 2. leave game running and go to bed 3. ????? 4. wake up to 70+ strength on each character
GENIUS
Guy with dog, cannibal hunters, and slaves are my favorite. They’re very different compared to the standard wanderer start and has fun roleplay scenarios
guy with a dog is my favorite because i can get the human killed and play as a bonedog
kinda hard to get the bonedog strong enough to de-limb people tho
i just had my first slaves start, and even though i hardly escaped, then got imprisoned immediately, after that, i had one of the best starts i ever had. i was able to level every important stat except for the combat ones, and i also somehow ran into burn (the skeleton) literally right outside the mines, and instantly had a solid fighter on the team. its a grindy start, but since i leveled up as a slave, my future endeavors were so much easier
When new players ask me how to get stronger in Kenshi I often recommend they get enslaved. Everyone thinks I'm joking, but being a slave in Kenshi is a great way to safely level up.
@@KokoplaysMB thats actually solid advice, but id probably say that you wana get enslaved by the holy nation, cause its closer to newb territory. dont wana gt caught as an escaped slave in UC territory
Actually if you get enslaved by the Reavers they allow you to carry weapons and fight for them, which is even better.
The Slaves start is great for unarmed steath characters. If you load yourself up with shackles you lockpick you'll get a lot of exta xp. Steal food and armor from Gaurds, stockpile food, ect. It was so satisfying when I finally beat up the first gaurd
I had some prior knowledge of kenshi, not any of its mechanics or anything mainly just that it was super hard and unforgiving. I didn't want to start in an easy fashion because I'll get bored if I get too settled in too fast so i started rock bottom for my first playthrough and have thoroughly enjoyed it. There has been some save scum fuckery a few times in the learning curve but I'm like 50 days in with quite the little army. We can only really take on starving bandits but we are settled in the hub and doing pretty well
Personally I'd put the Slaves as S tier for a few reasons. Check it out, see what you think:
1. You're shackled and shackles are heavy. If you lockpick the shackles and place them in your inventory, a new pair is added to you. Rinse and repeat until you inventory is full, you'll bulk up strength quickly.
2. The Holy Nation will NOT let you die. This makes them amazing training partners, since immediately after they beat you up, they'll come rushing to your aid. Just try not to lose limbs if you can help it. They won't reattach them, and you won't be able to get replacements for a long while.
3. You will be malnourished. You cannot starve to death in Rebirth as a slave, but before you escape you definitely want to be well-fed. Train your lockpicking and stealth and steal food from the HN guard houses around rebirth. It sometimes spawns in the slave shacks too. In the month I spent in Rebirth, I was only malnourished for the first few days and remained well-fed, it's pretty easy to get away with.
4. If you manage to KO or kidnap a guard, you can put him in a slave cage and loot all his gear to train melee attack and defense. Just be sure to drop the gear when you get knocked out as they WILL take it from you. The upside is, they will treat the guard you stole from as another slave, and shackle him accordingly and force him to work. By the end of a month, probably 50% of the guards in Rebirth were enslaved using this tactic.
5. If you free a bunch of slaves to train your lockpicking but remain in rebirth, they will fight the guards with you. By themselves, they aren't great, but a group of 10, especially if you can steal from a few guards and arm the more skilled slaves, are a force to be reckoned with. This is where you can actually start clearing a somewhat "safe area" in Rebirth where you can heal, stash supplies, hide from passing patrols. All you really need is to kill the guards of an empty slave house, and nobody will really look into it. You might have a few stray guards to wander by, or maybe collect a prisoner you didn't see. This is why you have these slaves armed and waiting for them. Don't worry if the slaves go down, as it also trains their stats to fight and get KO'd. After you initially free them, and the brave ones want to follow you, most of the time they will repetitively pick their own locks and free themselves to follow you. Build a slave army, lose horribly, spend 2 days in a recovery coma, and by the time you're awake your slave army should be waking up and trying to regroup with you as well. Super useful to abuse this, especially for a gloriously violent escape like I pulled.
I spent a month there and got pretty bored, i had enslaved or killed most of the guards, and freed, fed, and equipped all brave slaves who would follow me. My combat stats were all 40-50, and I didn't want to become a literal God in Rebirth before ever interacting with the world, so we made our escape. Most of the slaves had stats in the 10s-30s, and actually put up a pretty good fight against the gate guards, downing two of them before me and a few others booked it.
With the stolen HN gear, i managed to scrape up some money and eventually formed a Shek-only warband (with the exception of Beep, since he has the heart of a Shek) and dubbed it Clan Shatterspine. It's becoming quite an operation, we've got a few camps in the world but no outposts. Outposts attract raids, a few beds around a campfire doesn't. No need for defense! We do have our main base of operations in Squin and recently turned in Seta's bounty, officially beginning the war of vengeance against the Holy Nation.
I fucking love this game
Recently started a new character for solo playthrough and was looking at which scenario would make it most interesting. I started with Slaves, because in my headthis character would be getting really tough in process, learn some skills and maybe gain few stats from beating and running around, preparing for escape and maybe saving a bunch of people in process and thought it would take me several days to do so. I lockpicked my shackles in cage and observed my surrounding, while doing "obedient slave" job and in first minutes of the game, my character goes outside of a slave camp to dig on one of the rocks that a bit further away. So i just took off the shackles and clothes and just walked out. Nobody even seen me going. Then i walked out of the Holy Nation, snatched me some rags from dead bandits and by day 2 i was in hub, basically at the start of Wanderer scenario.
Time well spent.
So i did some testing with the slave start and even though its probably not the most viable way to gain stats but I just constantly aggro the gaurds to gain toughness stats early on, considering they will contantly heal you and if you're damaged enough will force rest. You can also gain other stats from this start (i.e lock picking and sneaking) as well as the laboring, strength etc.
I actually did my first playthrough as a modded start Son of a Paladin. It's been fun. Discovered that copper vein right outside Stack and I gotta say mining cats straight from the ground has been fun.
Koko when are u starting the new kenshi series?
In a week or so
Totally down to see it :D
@@KokoplaysMB YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Great question... and a better answer from Koko !!! I haven't seen any new Kenshi from other gamers in a long time, most have been Asian language moded with no english at all. 😪
Rockbottom would be my ultimate start if not for the missing arm.
Missing arm is a bonus, one less limb you have to loose
@@KokoplaysMB I don't loose arms at all. That's how I play. No bionics for main character.
Slaves start is probably the easiest one because you can think of the slave camp as in tutorial. You can't die there - guards will heal all your injuries and will feed you. You can train few different skills there for free as long as you want and when you decide that you are ready you run off and start the real game
Ayy nice vid i was wondering about a tierlist that talks about this
Thanks!
I actually found the cannibal hunters start to be quite smooth. There are lots of rivalling factions (=easier than expected escape), places that you can loot undisturbed without spoiling too much and if you ally with the Flotsam Ninjas you can use their training dummies. You are close to World's End, so you have access to good weapons. There are some free recruits in the area.
The Slaves start is one of my favorite starts. Very easy to train up Strength, Toughness, Athletics, Laboring, Lockpicking, Stealth, Thievery, and Assassination. It's a bit of a slower start since you will just be doing obedient slave stuff during the day and having to wait until the guards go to bed to have a little fun. If you take your time you can eliminate all guards by knocking them out and putting them in cages. Once the guards are out of the way you can release every prisoner and casually walk out of the gate.
> Nobodies
> create 5 Shek, reroll until you spawn at The Hub because Venge is nearly impossible to escape at lvl 1
> visit Squin and Admag for Shek warriors
> visit the Shek Ruins for Planks and Fragment Axes
Done, you have yourself an army of 16 Shek with heavy weapons, all in about 7 days.
I did 5 skeletons + Burn, Sadnail all martial. Based in desert or in Squin
For me the slaves for experienced players is god tier
For sure
I played kensi for the first time the other day and started as a guy with his dog. Man was it an experience, couldn't find food anywhere in bask at all. Came across a massive battle and ended up with high quality armour and weapons but soon realised ive wasted my time. The dog started to pass out and being ive already searched north, west and south abit. i picked him up and trekked through the desert east. Just barely making it i arrived at a slavers compound and finally found food! Now its day 19, ive got a house, 2 companions, a garu and a still breathing dog 😂 us five and my 30,000 cats are doing okay as slave traders/battlefield vultures.
I rolled a women with a dog. Decided I'm gonna navigate without the map. Only landmarks. Got lost and wound up at a holy nation city. As a woman. At night. Alone.
@@brandonfrancis1941 sounds like the followers backstorys that I hire 😂
Cannibal hunters was my first proper playthrough, I have conquered the cannibal plains, destroyed the holy nation, crippled the economy of the united citites and buried the second empire.
I think the biggest problem with The Holy Sword is how katanas are mostly considered beginner weapons. So not only is your skill low to use it, but you're not really going to keep on using it unless you want to just have it for those RP purposes.
I like to combine rock bottom with the slaves. 1 slave missing a limb, also hated by every slaving faction.
The Freedom Seekers are my favorites. Trying to build base early one of the hardest/coolest challenges. You will need to hire mercs for early protection.
My main campaign was a Guy with a Dog, and my guy was a skeleton so I was unaware of being malnourished. Skeletons really have a leg up on the other races except for being disliked.
Skeletons are awesome. repairs and maintenance costs are higher than food and heling costs on average though. Making a bit trickier for ne players to manage.
I always pick the Freedom Seekers start and just sell all the materials. Now you are playing with 6 characters with a decent amount of starting money. The only downside is probably the starting location I guess.
I always like nobodies, and high roll for a good starting point. Getting to choose your starting guys always helps. I generally go with 2 shek and 3 hive princes. Best overall coverage for starting stats and a good team combo. Generally train the shek to be my melee guys, princes for xbows. Then train 1 prince as a ninja/rogue type.
i just first started a Nobodies game yesterday and all 5 peoples spawned in the Hub, and i thought ... hey ... this is Amazing! Its basically Wanderer on steroids. And then i watched this video and realize that you can spawn in Venge.
I tend to add on one of the several mods that modifies the holy sword start, makes it more interesting I feel. And as someone that's pretty much a universally Genesis player its not the hardest thing in the world to get factions to like you again and makes a goal for why to get money other then for the sake of advancement for advancements sake essentially turning the normally locked off HN and UC 'unlocks' if you will though I tend to just decide which nation im gonna stay enemies with, usually the UC as Genesis adds more then enough new places to conduct trade makeing the HNs safety far more valuable compared to the UCs commerce.
Especially as I don't tend to have any problems, like EVER with the Holy Nations rules as they are pretty easy to navigate if you know what your doing vs the UC or minor factions that hang around the UC like manhunters randomly sometimes fucking you up.
I jumped straight into the slaves start my first playthrough
Holy Sword is very underrated, considering you can outrun everything in the game.
Nice video Koko :) like the shirt too!
Thanks! My grandma made that shirt for me :D
slave should be S, no? you won't starve to death and guard will heal you, so you can train freely. free equpment after you are free later, basically the best start if you want to create stealth character. best place for afk strenght training by putting the shackles in your inventory + the labor and athletic by just running around.
Latest playthrough I went Holy Sword with the 'real holy sword mod' to make it Meito Grade. Loving my progression from basic bandit with a sword they can't use to becoming a badass swordsman on his way to make a name for himself.
And I refuse to lose that sword! XD
Also have recruit anyone and recruited a hungry bandit I broke out of slavery to be my crossbow user, and a Gorrilo Bandit I saved from being eaten alive by beak things. XD He's going to be my martial arts master in the group.
Holy Nation citizen is probably the easiest start in the game. The mobs are the easiest on the map and the ore just outside of the walls in each city is very heavily defended by the paladins and their turrets. You can set up automated mines in the Holy Nation cities very easily, for dirt cheap, and the chance of them getting wiped out is practically zero. The mobs are even weaker up there than they are in the hub. A mine with 3 people in each city, just owning a small building with a food box and a copper/iron box will takes about 10 days in game time to set up and will bring in about 7-9K per day. Each mine can naturally expand to about 5 characters per town. Just have to sell the ore and stock the food about once every two days while your main party explores the world.
Also surprised to see the hunters in F tier. It's a huge time saver to start with such high stats on two characters. That's hours of grinding that you don't have to do. Just have to survive the initial attack and get out of there. It's like the reverse of the Holy Nation start, a very high risk start that demands game knowledge, but you're rewarded for it by getting two beefy characters. You'd normally have to get the RNG Jackpot and spend about 14K to have two characters like that in a starting team.
I start playing Kenshi today, I was a bit disappointed about nobodies.
It’s strong for people who know what they’re doing since its just wanderer start but with 5 recruits but for new players its like 5x hunger rate and a bad spawn location. Kind of counter intuitive because skilled players want more of a challenge so they’ll almost never pick this start
@@trivane626 Yes, pretty much.
Gotta be my favorite song from epidemicsound.
Do you know what it's called?
I don’t really get how the slaves start is A tier while cannibal hunters is F tier. Both are really good challenges for experienced players and would destroy any beginners. Also I’ve never actually picked the trader start from how easy and boring it sounds
im not a fan of The Hive Exile because its just wanderer but two regions over
just torso start mod is my favorite
Yes, nothing beats crawling across the empty desert for 2 RL hours on max game speed so you can get to the city and actually start playing the game.
@@KokoplaysMB but nothing will beat me after scout leg and klr arm, worth the struggle
Starts get way too overrated, particularly slave start.
If you have game knowledge slave start just doesn't make much sense, you could always just go become a slave if it meant that much to you. Hell you could go nobodies and walk all their sorry asses down to rebirth and start with 5 slaves.
When people are hitting like 50 unarmed and dex, still getting their thief leveled, owning property and advancing their research in first week it shows how kind of weak slave start is compared to just being a free person. I mean it's not a huge hindrance or anything but it's kind of a tutorial start.
I also don't really agree with wanderer and rock bottom being S.
Wanderer is like B and Rock Bottom is like C or F.
Freedom Seekers and Trader Boy S.
Yep. It depends on what you value. I took like trader and freedom seekers. I liked the idea of a place of my own and choose freedom seekers for my first start. Struggled even withh all of them. Went to the desert to follow a tutorial video I read and learned to hate the desert. Group of Kenshin players I talked to had such a hate boner for holy nation I feared it more than I should have and later learned I should have just gone there to start up since they are the most protective place.
so the holy sword is bad if you don't know how to play the game. if you do it's easily one of the best