Hey guys, I was playing OHOL for a long time, and I was one of the first on figuring out exploits and new metas, some of my ideas even made it into the game.
https://onetech.info/versions
probably most of you used onetech, if you check the versions, it shows by updates. Right now is 368 and didn’t change much in a year, also quite bad updates for a long while.
349 the paver was good update, nothing great ever since, seems overly complex for no reason.
Around 327 there were some bugfixes, which were quite good as Jasus listened to the community feedback for a short while, those fixes aren’t in YAH but some fixes are similar to it.
306-315 there were added stacks. Seems like around update 180-182 was quite the same recipes, from there YAH only losely follows the OHOL recipes and lot of things got their own versions. That was end of 2018 start of 2019. Seems that there are similar recipes up to update 230 or even more but there are differences.
Things you can do in YAH but not in OHOL
-Pouch start: there is a recipe that consists of a short shaft and a drill bit (sharp stone on a flint). Same as arrow/drill. It allows you to make a pouch without a needle, you cut a hole then use a thread on the cut rabbit fur. This item is useless afterwards but in some situations might be handy to just go for a pouch+skewer farm and ignore the fire making until you collect enough branches.
Yah still has the Spiral map so the families spawn close in a spiral and it rotates as they die out so eventually you get back to old cities.
Yah also has Peace lilly which allows you to respawn to a selected spot. If they bury you (dug hole, bones in, flat rock) and you played at least 10 minutes since (or meanwhile) then you can get back to old cities. Seems like sometimes lets you back if the city isn’t too advanced but I found it unreliable without being buried after a while.
The map of YAH is also old school. There are some patterns you can notice, helping with orientation. If there is a few tiles of a biome on the edge of the other, chances are that the rest is on the other side of that biome. Veins seem to be along the biome borders, if you find a long biome border that is straight (badlands usually) then there is often a vein on that same line. The biome edges: there is an orientation, you can spot a few edges that are straight but diagonal, both sides of a biome. IF you imagine the map as a clock, then try to figure out the orientation. Like 2 of the same biome types are 6 a clock and 12 a clock then chances are the map is vertical and you find more of that biome N-S direction. It can be diagonal or horizontal but the rules seem to apply. It also indicates which side of the map are you, south and north center is more vertical east and west more horizontal and the cardinal directions more diagonal shape biomes.
You can cut a log into 4 bricks with an axe. Those bricks can be further cut into kindling. Don’t cut firewood or branches, especially straight ones anymore after the axe. Cutt 3-4 logs into 4 then use hatchet to cut those into kindling.
Collecting clay: you can stack 3 clay and make a crock, you can make big plates from 2. A wet crock allows you to skip baskets, the plates are more optimal to carry more clay at once. 6 with basket, 6+8 with bag and basket. You can unstack at the kiln by smashing it with round stone again and make bowls/plates. Big bowls would be the same, they go to pack/basket just as big plates, but some people don’t know this trick and they just do pottery, and big bowls are only for cakes which isn’t that useful, big plates are useful later, if they don’t disassemble it not the end of the world.
Generally you want at least 3-3 bowls and plates at minimum, but 4-5 plates for pies is better. Don’t cook eggs on eve camp, it’s a noob trap. Same goes for stew. While it’s decent food, it take a lot of place, pottery, and it will block the city with lost beans and delays storage crocks.
You want at least 3 bowls for smithing, usually one for each wild bush that is close, then a few more for watering. It increases survival rates a lot when you send a kid with a bowl to collect berry. Wild berry respawns each 10 minute so it’s a decent backup. A pouch near the oven is nice, since you might use up all bowls for wheat and flour so a pouch can be used to water it and no one will take it for storing things like the bowls.
Big plates. They hold 5 pies instead of one, so minimally needs 2 of them, 3 is better, since you can do 2 types of pies then, empty one then use that to store the other.
Rice: you can put soil in a box (useful in the ‘all the way to the east’) event. But it only produces one rice instead of two and needs future soil to fix the box. but you can later reclaim the soil. If you got a bucket you can dig a hole and fill it. It acts as a wall too. It produces 2 rice which has a straw extra so you want it in pairs of 4 to make baskets out of it, but it can be used for compost or brick making. You can use 2 rice bowls and 2 water to cook rice in a crock, then you can eat from bowls or place it on banana leaves. This gives 2 bites for each bowl and it’s more optimal than pies. People don’t seem to care about the pip size, they just eat it. So carrot pies and this rice bentos are smaller bites which end up more optimal for the camp. You keep the last rice ball on the leaf then you can refill to 4 multiple times.
Basket teleporting: this was fixed in ohol, it was a fun thing, the wall teleporting doesn’t work anymore, but if you place a basket on another basket with items (or both with items) then they fly out to the closest empty tile. This is usually top right, so for example drop iron filled basket bot left of kiln and they fly to top right next to the kiln.
This saves a bit of time emptying the baskets and some players will organize it for you.
Milkweed gives a full thread, in ohol gives half, and so it’s double the price. This was changed later I think. In ohol the rabbits need sheep food too, in Yah you just use a snare. Sadly you can’t disassemble snares like in ohol. I think one of the dogs also can hunt for rabbits, havent tried yet.
Gravel floors: each three mined iron leaves a basket of gravel, you can take those home too. each basket can make a tile of gravel road, which has asmr crunchy sounds. Best to make 4 tiles with stakes then use shovel to take 1 dirt each into a wheelbarrow (not cart, one wheeled wheelbarrow, and only shovel works). This can make bricks too.
Same goes for bricks, either take 4 tiles 1 dirt each and later put the bricks in, or one tile of water 4 dirt, fill with water, plant rice, and make 2 bricks out of it. To make it faster, you fill a crock with sand (you can dump it on floor later) then go next to ponds/well. You need 2 stakes in a group then smash with a stone, then put a board on it. That is for brick molds. To make it more optimal I do 3 wheelbarrow and 4 brick molds. 2 wheelbarrow and 5 molds also good. The reason being is that you got 2 portions in each wheelbarrow, so you got to dump it in the molds. But then you don’t have space to next batch, you can leave one dirt on a shovel (replace with item, don’t put it down directly) but then you either get 2 shovels like this or a 3rd wheelbarrow, or a 5th brick mold. The recipe is easy just weird to get started and might take long doing a single one, but if you got everything there it speeds up the process.
One wheelbarrow with 4 shovels of dirt (not baskets) then a half bucket of water (it says partial or full, doesn’t specify but I tested and it’s 5 bowls in a bucket, which is visible on top of bucket) so you better do 2 buckets more, take a full bucket of water then split into the second one. Then put this on the dirt. Then you need a bowl of sand, which is on deserts but goes into storage crocks. So each sand is 2 tiles of brick floor. Then a straw which you can get from 2 rice or 1 wheat. Then a stomper which is just a long shaft hit with a mallet (other use is sauerkraut). Then once mxied, you get 2 batches of brick material which you dump into molds and leave to dry. with 4-5 molds the 2 dries by the time you do 2 more.
Both gravel and bricks consume the stakes so better get a horse first and collect straight branches or plant a few mapple trees and collect them each 30 minutes.
Sadly you can’t plant rubber/juniper in YAH, in ohol you can but it’s race locked so it’s weird now.
Some other unique yah recipes: baby bottles ,allows babies to eat from bottles, so you don’t have to feed. Bottles have to be washed each time so you need a few of them. One trick is to make a tea with the hot water you use for cleaning bottles. You drop pine needles into the hot water and then drink it, you get the hot coals back. Also effective in Eve camps to extend fire time without using kindling. AKA when you got the pottery but need time for the iron and shafts.
Watering can and wheelbarrow with soil (forgot the exact name), allows to use multiple soil and water on the farm, which makes berry farms less annoying and static compost less dumb. Pretty high tech so hard to make in normal cities. Needs newcomen.
Double shafting: this works in ohol too, but a good trick: use a shaft on fired kiln to light it up. If you do pottery or wait 6-10 seconds, you got that 6-10 seconds after the kiln produces charcoal to light it again and repeat. Fire goes 1 minute, hot coals 1 minute, lit shaft and kiln 30 seconds. So you can use a lit shaft after the fire goes out if you got multiple long shafts. It also good for timing. If you wait 3-5 seconds after lighting up a shaft, stand near the kiln a bit, don’t light right away, it will go out 3-5 seconds before
you finish, visual and sound clue to finish the last pottery and use the adobe, or put one more iron in and light a shaft on it too.
This way each kindling you would put on the coals, can make a charcoal instead. After making the axe you don’t have to worry about fire and kindling, but before it, you can run out of branches before making an axe.
Double kilns. My trademark 2 kilns 2 tiles spacing between was adopted by many people in OHOL. Most of people did the Newcomen on the right 1 tile distance as well.
This allows to make charcoal on one while smithing on the other. You can do even more but at least 2. Also better do 2 new ones elsewhere if people constrict the space around the kiln. Babies running wild around kilns and food, rabbits and other stuff will slow you down, so rather spend 5 minutes moving the iron and bellows, tongs, hammer and other tools than struggle a full life in a mess.
Bridges: they can cross water tiles, it also stops animals (I think, need to test), bridge platforms: two shafts cut with saw then a board on it. You can rotate with a mallet or remove. Also good for pen corners instead of bushes.
Torches: torch base also allows moving trough but blocks animals in corner and can’t be removed until finished so good for pen corner. You can cut with an axe, put a medium yarn ball on it and dip it into a tarry spot (or palm oil, but rather save it for next hour to extend the torch life). It gives fire for 1 hour instead of 4 minute fires with a firewood. You can still do fire for babies but most people don’t get firewood so a torch is godlike in that case.
Fire starter tool. It’s also high tech so not many towns have it. Allows pine needles/wood shavings to but lit right away with it and a bellow.
Glasses seem to differ from OHOL, I think there is for liquids and powders only. In yah you can put like 6 eggs in a glass jar so good for storing small things. Needs some Newcomen parts and sand.
Will extend this topic when other things come to my mind.