The Lonely Forest
In-Game Description
"This small valley, that seems to have gone unnoticed by the infected, sits deep in the forest. In this region you can build a large colony without risk of being infected. Build a large colony, saving the space and resources to succeed. However, although there are no infected in the region, we have detected a colossal swarm coming from the mountains that is 40 days away from this place. You have a lot of time to fortify the colony and prepare your army to face the swarm, but do not get overconfident..."
Tactics
The Lonely Forest is both deceptively simple, relaxing, and a shockingly easy map to get "trapped" by. DO NOT attempt this map without the Stone Workshop unlocked. While mostly a simple introduction to the "boom" mission type, the claustrophobic dimensions of the building space can give you fits on the population condition if you aren't careful -- and since that comes around so far into the mission, you can waste a lot of sunk time.
This map starts with absolutely no Infected present, and none will arrive until the large final swarm on day 40 (which may come sooner or later than that depending on difficulty). The swarm WILL come from all sides, but is relatively small. However, you are going to need just about every inch of land on the map, so be prepared to fortify at the edges.
Firstly, however, focus on booming. You have no threats, guaranteed, and thus no reason to invest in military units at first. Build up an economic base and as quickly as possible. The stone and iron supplies are relatively limited -- stone especially -- so be cautious with how you use them. You'll need stone for your Stone Houses, both to ultimately hit the population goal and to give you the economic grunt needed to fortify the edges, but you'll also want it for one layer of Stone Wall if possible on the outside.
Hitting 1500 population on the available space will require planning things out to make sure you get the absolute most out of your Markets and Warehouses, as well as the myriad Mills you'll need (unless you have the Thermal Plant already, which is very strong on this map). The good news is, once you survive the big wave, nothing else will show up and you have the remainder of the 60 day limit to hit 1500 population with no threats. Dismantle the military at this point if you need the food or gold income.
If you don't have enough stone to build up full defense, you can abandon the north part of the map and build up defense at two choke points.
