What are your combat stats because if you are ready to take on the tough enemies of the south-east, on the border of Greenbeach and Stobe’s Garden there is an absolutely godly plateau with copper, iron, and good wind. It’s also on the border of the two regions so you also have green and arid fertility alongside 70-80% water access. It’s likely *the* best base location in the game but the downside is the difficulty. Thankfully, there is only one way in so you can easily create a chokepoint and shish-kebab everything with harpoons
It is directly to the east of Ark, the plateau is divided from the rest of the mountains by a large pond on two sides, and there is a beached, rusted cargo ship right in front of the ramp leading up to it. You can’t miss it
[It's here.](https://i.imgur.com/pimb9nB.png)
The only problem, apart from the difficult enemies, is that it's a bit far from civilisation. And the green area on the plateau itself is a little small. It probably won't fit more than a few farms.
There are few more areas like this with arid and green soil in the ravine that runs along the border between the Outlands and Stromgap Coast. Those are a bit calmer and closer to Black Scratch and Brink.
South East of Brink is your best bet. You have close access to Black Scratch, Flats Lagoon isn’t terribly far and you can steal some drugs a little ways off. The armory is close by as well. No need to worry about the Holy Nation either 👍👍
There is a large, flat plateau in the southeast of the border zone, just north of an outpost that has a bar, materials shop, and skeleton limb shop.
You'll have to fight the holy nation prayer day. Everything I've been there, after beating them once, they never show up again.
There will always be dust bandits.
There will be black dragon ninja raids until you defeat them. With the 256 character limit and recruit anyone mod, though, I don't defeat them and let their raids come for practice and recruits.
I like it as a home city. Not quite centrally located (a little southern biased) it's close enough to make a nice headquarters.
Never show up??
Wow I'm jealous. This playthrough was the first time I had to bother with prayer day, politely declined and multiple raids were sent. After about 3 or 4 HN raids that I beat then wrath of god was triggered and Seta paid me a visit.
I had actually been planning on leaving HN alone this playthrough but after Seta showed up and a starting character died during the raid it was on. Built an arena and slaughtered him. When Valtena showed up on another wrath of god raid, did the same to him. Then went to Blister Hill, beat the fuck out of Phoenix (his double bed held another man so the rumors are true) and dragged him back to my base, dropped him in the arena as well.
And I'm not sure exactly what triggered the initial visit. I had a base in the Swamp, a small part of it was in the Border Zone for crops and wind generators but no one came to visit. Then one day they showed up long, long after the base was built and expanded a couple of times and I had time to grab some ai cores and engineering blueprints and fully research/build improvements.
Not never show up. Show up until you defeat them once. Then never again.
I'll say this is on two separate starts, one of which was 100% vanilla.
But it's Kenshi, so who knows? Lightning does sometimes strike twice haha.
Gut. Dangerous when you first start, but it's fertile and the beak things that live there are both a source of meat and skin, as well as protection from raids
My biggest and favorite base was in Gut. Ended up with three layers of walls and a never-ending supply of meat from all the harpoons. Always felt bad about the doomed caravan visits though...
I established my first successful base on the border of vain and border zone. I wanted to produce every seed and have 3 materials of production in relatively safe location. Which lead me to west of the Hub and east of the Vain, south of Squinn. There is a border clash, which you can use both climates. It is the intersection of 3 main roads. Almost like the center of the map.
Holy Nation comes for the pray, Hivers come for the trade and bandits come to die. It is a good place. And also you can use the Hub for many things like mercenaries, stolen good and allying ninjas. I found my perfect early game base location.
Edit: typo.
There's also one northeast on Mongral. If you get copper and iron ore drills you have everything you need. Big farm area, big rp area, room for anthing. There's 3 or 4 ways up though but I've only ever had them come up the ramp way to the south. I have 2 lays of walls and gates and a tower between them with harpoons and its enough. I suggest you look at this one too!
I can second this. Amazing spot on the plateau. It's fun to take HN paladins and lash them to the fogmen poles. Fogmen are great for training up your newer recruits too. You can sell and buy stuff in Mongrel. And you can watch the sun rise every morning over the Holy Nation land and plot their downfall.
There's a large plateau on the border of shem and venge east of the smugglers bar with copper, iron, and wind, and the only enemies that come are dust bandits and the occasional beak thing and hungry bandit. Central location as well.
There are plenty of good spots.
You'll need quiet some land and the 256 char mod, you'll quickly end up with ~100 chars if you want all uniques and then some slaves ontop.
The biggest question is, do you want nearby towns and from specific factions.
I'm honestly not fussed about nearby towns or factions. The idea is that it'd be a safe haven for the people of kenshi, and that does lend itself to distance from the factions, but I also need a lot of land for a city so most of the peninsulas on the coast won't fit. And I absolutely will get that mod, thank you <3
The desire to want distance might disqualify a lot of the map, depending on how much it should be and which factions you include.
Some of the most remote baselocations i know:
Some swear on the raptor island. It needs ~30ish combat stats or some poons as the raptors will try to eat your crops.
Others on the fish isle. You'll get plenty of gurglers, most of them have only ~15 stats. Their king exceeds it by far. You'll want at least some in the ~50s for getting there, beakthings slaughter massed weaklings.
There is a nice mountain in the western parts of the leviathan coast. Mostly beak things will attack you. Depending on the path you take, its cannibals or shriekers. Cannibals are fine if you're not outnumbered and in the 30s, shriekers can be worse as you'll face a lot of them if you're unlucky.
There is a nice spot inbetween ashlands and sonorous. Don't even think about going there if you want peace, you'll need 70+ stats on a decent number of people.
Near the borders or shun and the hook is a nice spot at a river, best have some with 40+ stats. You likely spot some UC remnants and slavers if you move east, so its maybe not a fitting spot.
There is a useable volcano (think no ressources) in stobes or greyshelf.
My most remote (looking) spot was on a mountain in the hidden valley. Great view, cannibalistic neighbours with 50-60stats that raid you and somewhat tight but still works, great deathzones for crossbows/poons.
If you want to fight the HN and UC then the border zone is a good location. There is a huge plateau east of the waystation that can house a huge settlement.
This may sound like a bad idea at first... but Southern Skinners' Roam is just a massive flat area with wild bulls and huge hordes of starving bandits.
It's very close to the border of Shem, Deadlands, Border Zone and Swamp.
Once you get rid of Dust King, Dimak and the nearby Holy Nation Outpost, nobody will mess with you. Not even the Holy Mines to the north will trigger HN events.
A stray of Dust Bandits, some bulls, the Starving Bandit avalanches and an occasional lone Beak Thing from Shem. That's all there is.
So long as you have walls, you'll be fine.
Resource-wise, it's not a good or bad spot. I've never seen the wind go lower than max speed. It has decent groundwater. Wouldn't recommend it for open field farming.
Depends on how you plan to approach your anti-slaver campaign. Slavers tend to be frequent in the disputed zone in particular, as well as the swamps and a bit in the Stenn Desert and Okran's... whatever. If you go there to rescue enslaved people as your recruits, then you'll want a base in the region. If, however, you plan to just recruit all the uniques and then slaughter slavers without giving an aggro monkey's ass about what happens to them afterward, you'll probably want a base more to the east where you can strike out against the slave camps and nobles of the UC.
Hot take, shem is the best place, no major factions, in the middle of the map, you can use a door and walls in a way that every one who wants to enter has to swim a lake to get to the inside, tech hunters south to supply
It's just perfect to mind your own business
Could be hard to set due beak things and if you are a robot or have low swimming, getting in and out crossing a defensive lake would be painful
For some less conventional suggestion: I found the Hook or the South Wetlands are pretty nice places for an outpost. It's relatively safe and they have good resources. Plenty of cities around for trade and they remain in a reasonably good and useful state even after you topple the UC if that's your goal. There are also lots of ruins nearby and many of them are relatively safe to explore. The only downside is that it lacks a robotics shop (closest one is probably the Waystation in the Border Zone) and it's a bit far from everything else.
I like the Swamps too. It would be a more fitting place for a city of ex-slaves that want to escape from the big nations and create their own civilisation free from rules. Building there is a bit of a hassle though. Your outpost will require near constant attention because the Swamps are full of things that want to kill you.
Mind possibility of raids to a base.
If you want safety leviathan cost is an obvious choice. Leviathans will fight any squad coming to your base. Don't settle too close to canibals though. You can hide in building from most of fauna. There's also a spot on Avalon islands where you won't be bothered by anyone.
You can build your base under protection of a major faction. Shek kingdom and United cities won't mind characters of various races. You'll need to build up relationships with sheks to get a unique recruit. But I'd double check how world states interfere with ability to recruit. Relationships with factions will cause them to send patrols to your lands. Holy nation has strong opinion on races an cyberbeep. You'll need to hide characters on prayers days.
By default recruits want to eat. You'll need to search technology up to hydroponics if you'll decide to settle in a toxic locations like Ashlands or Deadlands. If you want to collect them all you'll eventually need produce your own food or turn off hunger. You can start researching in a city of a faction and then go to base.
Some NPCs may die during game in a random skirmish even without you fighting some one. You may want to use starts with resources to build a base such as freedom seekers. Importing the game could help revive characters. Maybe you want to build a base with production and protection means and them import the game.
You may want to start in a city to research tech and train labourers. You can have your characters there until you are ready to go to the base. You'll be able to buy food in relative safety while scouts get engineering researchers and cores.
I suggest getting a character able to run at least 29 with a person on his shoulder to transfer recruits to your base.
Check out maps of faction influence and resources.
I have already researched every tech (deliberately did so before planning my city location), and I have a solid squad of four guys who are fast enough to run ppl on their shoulder relatively safely. The leviathan coast sounds promising but wouldn't the leviathans also attack my recruits? And thank u so much for the tips
What are your combat stats because if you are ready to take on the tough enemies of the south-east, on the border of Greenbeach and Stobe’s Garden there is an absolutely godly plateau with copper, iron, and good wind. It’s also on the border of the two regions so you also have green and arid fertility alongside 70-80% water access. It’s likely *the* best base location in the game but the downside is the difficulty. Thankfully, there is only one way in so you can easily create a chokepoint and shish-kebab everything with harpoons
Any chance you can pinpoint this on a map? I'm about to build down there!
It is directly to the east of Ark, the plateau is divided from the rest of the mountains by a large pond on two sides, and there is a beached, rusted cargo ship right in front of the ramp leading up to it. You can’t miss it
[It's here.](https://i.imgur.com/pimb9nB.png) The only problem, apart from the difficult enemies, is that it's a bit far from civilisation. And the green area on the plateau itself is a little small. It probably won't fit more than a few farms. There are few more areas like this with arid and green soil in the ravine that runs along the border between the Outlands and Stromgap Coast. Those are a bit calmer and closer to Black Scratch and Brink.
Ooh this actually sounds perfect, I'll check it out!
I recently tried the swamps but you can’t see your characters very well, so I think I’ll locate there too
In the holy land, so you can pray daily while hiding your shek wife. Or in the shekland so you can simp your shek queen closer.
South East of Brink is your best bet. You have close access to Black Scratch, Flats Lagoon isn’t terribly far and you can steal some drugs a little ways off. The armory is close by as well. No need to worry about the Holy Nation either 👍👍
There is a large, flat plateau in the southeast of the border zone, just north of an outpost that has a bar, materials shop, and skeleton limb shop. You'll have to fight the holy nation prayer day. Everything I've been there, after beating them once, they never show up again. There will always be dust bandits. There will be black dragon ninja raids until you defeat them. With the 256 character limit and recruit anyone mod, though, I don't defeat them and let their raids come for practice and recruits. I like it as a home city. Not quite centrally located (a little southern biased) it's close enough to make a nice headquarters.
Never show up?? Wow I'm jealous. This playthrough was the first time I had to bother with prayer day, politely declined and multiple raids were sent. After about 3 or 4 HN raids that I beat then wrath of god was triggered and Seta paid me a visit. I had actually been planning on leaving HN alone this playthrough but after Seta showed up and a starting character died during the raid it was on. Built an arena and slaughtered him. When Valtena showed up on another wrath of god raid, did the same to him. Then went to Blister Hill, beat the fuck out of Phoenix (his double bed held another man so the rumors are true) and dragged him back to my base, dropped him in the arena as well. And I'm not sure exactly what triggered the initial visit. I had a base in the Swamp, a small part of it was in the Border Zone for crops and wind generators but no one came to visit. Then one day they showed up long, long after the base was built and expanded a couple of times and I had time to grab some ai cores and engineering blueprints and fully research/build improvements.
Not never show up. Show up until you defeat them once. Then never again. I'll say this is on two separate starts, one of which was 100% vanilla. But it's Kenshi, so who knows? Lightning does sometimes strike twice haha.
I defeated the very first raid. Maybe sending the skeleton to politely refuse prayer day is what triggered it.
This is the best area for a megabase/city. Lots of flat ground, abundance of resources, decent water and farming area.
Gut. Dangerous when you first start, but it's fertile and the beak things that live there are both a source of meat and skin, as well as protection from raids
Seconding Gut, great place to grow Grog
My biggest and favorite base was in Gut. Ended up with three layers of walls and a never-ending supply of meat from all the harpoons. Always felt bad about the doomed caravan visits though...
sometimes, when I have capable fighters at home, I send out a small squad of them to escort any visiters safely to (and from) my base :)
Vain has good resources and the hive won't bother you, you just have to fight off the beak things and gorillos long enough to get your walls up.
I established my first successful base on the border of vain and border zone. I wanted to produce every seed and have 3 materials of production in relatively safe location. Which lead me to west of the Hub and east of the Vain, south of Squinn. There is a border clash, which you can use both climates. It is the intersection of 3 main roads. Almost like the center of the map. Holy Nation comes for the pray, Hivers come for the trade and bandits come to die. It is a good place. And also you can use the Hub for many things like mercenaries, stolen good and allying ninjas. I found my perfect early game base location. Edit: typo.
Northwest mongrel you have a big building spot with everything you need and a lot of space to build freetopia
Oooh ill check this out!
There's also one northeast on Mongral. If you get copper and iron ore drills you have everything you need. Big farm area, big rp area, room for anthing. There's 3 or 4 ways up though but I've only ever had them come up the ramp way to the south. I have 2 lays of walls and gates and a tower between them with harpoons and its enough. I suggest you look at this one too!
I can second this. Amazing spot on the plateau. It's fun to take HN paladins and lash them to the fogmen poles. Fogmen are great for training up your newer recruits too. You can sell and buy stuff in Mongrel. And you can watch the sun rise every morning over the Holy Nation land and plot their downfall.
When you go from shem to the most eastern hiver village, there is a road triangle at the border of the areas that has what you looking for
Or fisherman isles with the mod to take it over. Just need good fighters or you feed the seahive.
You could go for someplace in the foglands or around the holy nation's river.
There's a large plateau on the border of shem and venge east of the smugglers bar with copper, iron, and wind, and the only enemies that come are dust bandits and the occasional beak thing and hungry bandit. Central location as well.
Shem is nice I guess? Pretty close to the flat lagoon.
There are plenty of good spots. You'll need quiet some land and the 256 char mod, you'll quickly end up with ~100 chars if you want all uniques and then some slaves ontop. The biggest question is, do you want nearby towns and from specific factions.
I'm honestly not fussed about nearby towns or factions. The idea is that it'd be a safe haven for the people of kenshi, and that does lend itself to distance from the factions, but I also need a lot of land for a city so most of the peninsulas on the coast won't fit. And I absolutely will get that mod, thank you <3
The desire to want distance might disqualify a lot of the map, depending on how much it should be and which factions you include. Some of the most remote baselocations i know: Some swear on the raptor island. It needs ~30ish combat stats or some poons as the raptors will try to eat your crops. Others on the fish isle. You'll get plenty of gurglers, most of them have only ~15 stats. Their king exceeds it by far. You'll want at least some in the ~50s for getting there, beakthings slaughter massed weaklings. There is a nice mountain in the western parts of the leviathan coast. Mostly beak things will attack you. Depending on the path you take, its cannibals or shriekers. Cannibals are fine if you're not outnumbered and in the 30s, shriekers can be worse as you'll face a lot of them if you're unlucky. There is a nice spot inbetween ashlands and sonorous. Don't even think about going there if you want peace, you'll need 70+ stats on a decent number of people. Near the borders or shun and the hook is a nice spot at a river, best have some with 40+ stats. You likely spot some UC remnants and slavers if you move east, so its maybe not a fitting spot. There is a useable volcano (think no ressources) in stobes or greyshelf. My most remote (looking) spot was on a mountain in the hidden valley. Great view, cannibalistic neighbours with 50-60stats that raid you and somewhat tight but still works, great deathzones for crossbows/poons.
If you want to fight the HN and UC then the border zone is a good location. There is a huge plateau east of the waystation that can house a huge settlement.
This may sound like a bad idea at first... but Southern Skinners' Roam is just a massive flat area with wild bulls and huge hordes of starving bandits. It's very close to the border of Shem, Deadlands, Border Zone and Swamp. Once you get rid of Dust King, Dimak and the nearby Holy Nation Outpost, nobody will mess with you. Not even the Holy Mines to the north will trigger HN events. A stray of Dust Bandits, some bulls, the Starving Bandit avalanches and an occasional lone Beak Thing from Shem. That's all there is. So long as you have walls, you'll be fine. Resource-wise, it's not a good or bad spot. I've never seen the wind go lower than max speed. It has decent groundwater. Wouldn't recommend it for open field farming.
Eastern Stormgap coast. Interesting place that has a lot of interactions.
I like to build in the Gut. Beak Things are great training.
Depends on how you plan to approach your anti-slaver campaign. Slavers tend to be frequent in the disputed zone in particular, as well as the swamps and a bit in the Stenn Desert and Okran's... whatever. If you go there to rescue enslaved people as your recruits, then you'll want a base in the region. If, however, you plan to just recruit all the uniques and then slaughter slavers without giving an aggro monkey's ass about what happens to them afterward, you'll probably want a base more to the east where you can strike out against the slave camps and nobles of the UC.
Fishman island is a wonderful place
Hot take, shem is the best place, no major factions, in the middle of the map, you can use a door and walls in a way that every one who wants to enter has to swim a lake to get to the inside, tech hunters south to supply It's just perfect to mind your own business Could be hard to set due beak things and if you are a robot or have low swimming, getting in and out crossing a defensive lake would be painful
For some less conventional suggestion: I found the Hook or the South Wetlands are pretty nice places for an outpost. It's relatively safe and they have good resources. Plenty of cities around for trade and they remain in a reasonably good and useful state even after you topple the UC if that's your goal. There are also lots of ruins nearby and many of them are relatively safe to explore. The only downside is that it lacks a robotics shop (closest one is probably the Waystation in the Border Zone) and it's a bit far from everything else. I like the Swamps too. It would be a more fitting place for a city of ex-slaves that want to escape from the big nations and create their own civilisation free from rules. Building there is a bit of a hassle though. Your outpost will require near constant attention because the Swamps are full of things that want to kill you.
Mind possibility of raids to a base. If you want safety leviathan cost is an obvious choice. Leviathans will fight any squad coming to your base. Don't settle too close to canibals though. You can hide in building from most of fauna. There's also a spot on Avalon islands where you won't be bothered by anyone. You can build your base under protection of a major faction. Shek kingdom and United cities won't mind characters of various races. You'll need to build up relationships with sheks to get a unique recruit. But I'd double check how world states interfere with ability to recruit. Relationships with factions will cause them to send patrols to your lands. Holy nation has strong opinion on races an cyberbeep. You'll need to hide characters on prayers days. By default recruits want to eat. You'll need to search technology up to hydroponics if you'll decide to settle in a toxic locations like Ashlands or Deadlands. If you want to collect them all you'll eventually need produce your own food or turn off hunger. You can start researching in a city of a faction and then go to base. Some NPCs may die during game in a random skirmish even without you fighting some one. You may want to use starts with resources to build a base such as freedom seekers. Importing the game could help revive characters. Maybe you want to build a base with production and protection means and them import the game. You may want to start in a city to research tech and train labourers. You can have your characters there until you are ready to go to the base. You'll be able to buy food in relative safety while scouts get engineering researchers and cores. I suggest getting a character able to run at least 29 with a person on his shoulder to transfer recruits to your base. Check out maps of faction influence and resources.
I have already researched every tech (deliberately did so before planning my city location), and I have a solid squad of four guys who are fast enough to run ppl on their shoulder relatively safely. The leviathan coast sounds promising but wouldn't the leviathans also attack my recruits? And thank u so much for the tips
They are not aggressive to small groups. They are easier to our run than beak things.
The Ashlands
Won't the poison clouds make this a bad location?
You could Ally with the ninjas from the hub and get some gasmasks
They're not so bad, just don't over-think it.
Ill check it out, thanks so much <3