Survive Deep in the Woods Base Building Guide: Build Your First Base

The first documented building move in Survive Deep in the Woods is to chop trees until you have about 10 wood, pick one spot, and place a chicken farm. Wood is the material that gates construction — you need it for your shelter and "basically every important early structure" — and the chickens that first farm spawns pay out the gold that funds everything after it.

This guide walks the loop surviving Farmers actually use: gather, place a first economy building, get a shelter and fences up before dark, then grow the base from farm income as the build menu unlocks more structures.

What you need before you can build

Construction runs on two resources:

• Wood — chop trees. Each tree gives 2 wood, or 3 with the Lumberjack class, which also raises chopping speed by 25% at max level. Chopping pays coins too: one full-guide run cut about 10 trees "so we get some coins as well."
• Gold — you start with 100, and farms grow it. A starter chicken coop produced about 1 gold every 3 seconds in one recorded run, collected from the chickens it spawns.

Opening the build menu is a single action. One full-guide run narrates pressing P to start the chicken farm, then pressing it again to place the next structure — but that control appears in only one recording, so if P does nothing in your version, check the build prompt on your own controls.

Recorded starter costs

These figures come from gameplay recordings captured at unknown dates, and prices differ between runs. Treat them as a budgeting ballpark, not a fixed price list, and confirm each cost in your own build menu before committing resources.

Starter base construction sequence

1. Chop trees immediately. As soon as the round starts, cut as much wood as you can — it pays for the shelter and every early structure, and chopping drops coins along the way. The standard route spawns you as a Farmer, the role built to stay alive while your base and economy grow; our Farmer guide covers the role in depth, and the wood guide covers gathering.
2. Commit to one spot. Pick a good base area right away "instead of spreading everything around the map." Experienced players find a map corner and clear a small space before placing anything.
3. Place the chicken farm first. One run gathers exactly 10 wood and builds it on the spot. Success is easy to recognize: chickens spawn at the farm and drop gold you collect — roughly 1 gold every 3 seconds in one recording.
4. Get a shelter up early. "Getting your shelter up early is really important, especially before the beast starts actively hunting you. Nighttime is the most dangerous part," so have at least basic protection before dark. Our night survival guide covers what to do when it hits.
5. Fence the perimeter. Once the shelter is placed, put fences around the area "to make the base safer and control where enemies can approach from." Keep chopping between placements so wood never runs dry.
6. Repeat: farms, gold, unlocks. More chicken farms mean more gold, and gold is what unlocks more buildings — runs show the build menu expanding mid-round ("we just unlocked some new buildings").
7. Save for the expensive farms. Pig, cow and bee farms scale income fastest. One run measured a pig farm at about 2 gold per second and soon hit roughly 10 gold per second across the whole base. The crystal farm is a favorite at that stage too — one creator calls it "the best farm."
8. Then add the defense tier. Once income is steady, add turrets, ballistas and land mines; one run priced its first ballista at about 300 gold. How to lay out walls and respond when the beast actually attacks is the job of our base defense guide — this page sticks to construction.

Placement rules that save wood and gold

• Rotate before you confirm. Structures face where you leave them. One player rotated a defensive cannon into position before placing it, while another grabbed a ballista, rotated it, still "placed it facing the wrong way," and demanded his money back. Check the facing before you pay.
• Placement checks wood at the moment you place. A metal gate refused to go down until another tree was chopped — only then could it be placed. If a build won't place, chop first.
• Placement checks space, too. A cow farm wouldn't place — "there's just no space" — until the player cleared the area, and cluttered ground is genuinely finicky: "This game makes it so hard to place things."
• Keep a wood surplus. Upgrading placed buildings consumes additional wood and gold, so don't spend down to zero.
• Know your walls from your gates. The golden fence/gate opens and closes; iron and metal fences don't open. Leave yourself an entrance you can actually use.
• Shape the footprint for an escape. Common patterns: start in a corner, turn corners to make a zigzag line, and leave an emergency exit about two blocks wide — if the beast traps you inside, the exit it blocks may be your only way out. One player even parks a decoy chicken coop at a fake base so the beast notices the coop and leaves the real base alone.

What the build menu contains

As income grows, the menu fills out into four rough categories:

• Economy farms: chicken (the starter), sheep, pig, cow, bee, crystal, mushroom and vegetable beds.
• Defense: wood fence and wall, stone wall, spiked wall, metal wall and iron fence, metal gate, golden fence-gate, watchtower, turret, ballista, catapult and land mines — one run notes a landmine "only works once."
• Utility: the shelter, plus a workbench that one run identifies as research for upgrades. It's a later unlock and optional for a first base; the workbench guide covers the interaction.
• Decorations: flags, scarecrows, a fountain and statues. One player sums them up mid-build: "actually decorations aren't important."

Helpers and the shared base

Building goes faster with teammates. Instead of everyone making separate bases, work one shared base — it "makes construction faster and gives you a much safer area overall." Runs show teammates expanding a shared base mid-round, and even donating wood and statues to each other. The starter loop works solo too; it just takes longer.

Next decision: defenses

Finish the sequence — shelter up, fences around it, at least one chicken farm paying gold — and you have a functioning first base. From there, spend your first big gold surpluses deliberately: another farm tier or a first turret. When you're ready to plan for the beast itself, move on to the base defense guide.