Steam news
Full Steam announcements and update articles for this title.
Hi Everyone, Update 20 is all about Bears, their Behaviors, and their developing Stories. So, I spent a bunch of time researching Bears and fell into another rabbit hole. Here is the result! The Bears have a unique set of Behaviors that simulate the the natural drives and reactions of real bears. The goal was to make bears as realistic as possible instead of having them just be aggressive monsters. I will describe life with bears in detail below, but rest assured it is possible to coexist with the bears if desired. You can also scare them away, or hunt them if feeling foolhardy. If you want to avoid Bears completely, you can also turn them off in Settings/Gameplay. Story wise, the Bears are fully tracked, just like people, and remember everything that has happened to them. Currently there are two "story" bears, each with three story stages that unfold over three years, but that will expand in time as well. Hooking the bears up to the Story Generator will allow for interesting longer term encounters with Bears, getting to know them over time as they roam their territory. Bears add some spice to the Homestead when they wander in, and probably some relief when they finally leave, but their return should feel familiar and maybe a bit nostalgic as their story develops. Note: You do not need to start a new game for Bears to appear. The only requirement for them to appear is that it is year 2+ and the right season. Also: There will be some behavioral oddities with the Bears for the next few days. I am working hard on ironing these out and will be pushing small patches. Since their behaviors are so complex, there is a lot of emergence between Bears, Cubs, Clanfolk, and Deerhounds which can lead to situations that I had not accounted for. But if anything, these situations will be odd/entertaining for the most part :)
Clanfolk is 50% off during the Hooded Horse April Sale. Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children, and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations. Hooded Horse April Sale
Clanfolk is 50% off during the Hooded Horse Spring Sale. Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children, and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations. Hooded Horse Spring Sale
Blorf has been hard at work continuing development of Clanfolk, recently adding two major systems and inadvertently learning a lot about historic Scottish Beekeeping. Down below, we'll talk about the latest development updates for Clanfolk and what's been going on in case you missed it. Also, Clanfolk is part of the Hooded Horse Publisher Sale at 50% off. Check it and other games out in the sale.
Hooded Horse Publisher Sale 2026
While Blorf is hard at work on even more content based on your feedback and Steam reviews. Here's Update #18's recap. This update adds a New Settlement System and a historically accurate Beekeeping Simulation. Building on the previous update World Map the New Settlement System allows players freedom of choice in how to advance their Settlements further and gain Renown. Players may take on a new challenging start, build in a handpicked suitable location, or continue their original settlement while sending envoys around the map to progress. You can build a new Settlement each time you build a Stone Throne, so expand as much as you wish. Bees are now in Clanfolk with their own dynamic systems that allow them to interact with the world in realistic ways. Players can also unlock new crafting stations and items to begin Beekeeping, allowing your Settlement to create new items with honey and other products of Beekeeping. Seven supporting patches have also been released in the build-up to Update #18, introducing and bug-fixing many of the major features that were introduced. Look forward to news about Update #19 in the future, too! Check out the full details here:
Thanks for reading and happy gaming! ~The Hooded Horse Team
Clanfolk is 50% off during the Hooded Horse Publisher Sale. Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children, and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations. Hooded Horse Publisher Sale
Hi Everyone,
It features the New Settlement System and a Beekeeping Simulation that I have tried to make as historically accurate as possible.
If you have been keeping up with the last three "Progress Updates" you should be ready to jump right into Update 18. I have done my best to compress all the info from those posts to cover everything in the Update 18 release notes below.
Before I go into the main new features though, I would like talk about Clanfolk Player Types. This all came about based on feedback from the Testing Branch, and it is quite important in how I shape my thinking on new feature priorities. I want to make sure that I am making the game better for all the types of players and not just the ones that overlap with how I tend to play.
Before we dive into the update itself, I wanted to take a moment to talk about Steam reviews.
If you have been playing Clanfolk and have thoughts you feel like sharing, reviews on Steam are especially helpful right now. They do not need to be long, detailed, or perfectly written. A few sentences about what is working for you, what feels rough, or what stood out is more than enough.
Reading how different people experience the game helps me understand where things are landing well and where they are not. That feedback directly shapes how I think about future updates and priorities, much like the Testing Branch discussions do.
So if you feel inclined to leave a review, thank you. And if not, thank you just for playing Clanfolk in the first place.
"Challengers, Builders, and Nesters oh my."
While taking in player reactions and ideas related to Update 18 via the Testing Branch, it became apparent that there are three groups that play Clanfolk. The problem was that Update 18 was only really desirable for the first group, neutral for the second, and awful for the third. So I set out to upgrade my thinking. I shall now explain.
So the original idea behind the Secondary Settlement System was that it would provide a method for me to deliver new technologies to the player later in the tech tree since adding even more early unlocks would just be too overwhelming.
It would also create quite a different initial building flow to have the player start a new homestead with all the technology that they had already unlocked. What to build first when you don't need to start with straw anymore... And also, what items do I bring to the new settlement?
The new settlement would also be packaged with a themed story scenario that was themed to the new technology. In this case it was "The Brown One" a Bear themed scenario that introduced Beekeeping, since Honey and Bears just go together.
To spice things up, I also wanted to introduce a New Biome along with this Scenario, so "The Brown One" would take place in Winter in a rocky Highlands type area.
So, this all seemed great together to me. I would draw the player to the new Settlement by dangling shiny new technology (Beekeeping) in front of them, and I would also introduce a new Biome to build in with an associated set of story elements! It sounded just perfect to me. But of course there was a problem or I wouldn't be writing this.
I will quickly define the Player types now and describe the problem for the second two.
Challengers:
These players want the game to be as difficult as possible. They want to generally always feel like they are struggling and when they get to the point where they are no longer struggling, they start a new map with different, even more strict, settings.
For Challengers, having to travel to a more difficult biome to unlock new technology was great. This also happens to be the group that I tend to overlap with mostly, so my thinking mostly orbited this until I started getting feedback on the Testing Branch.
Builders:
These players enjoy building up elaborate homesteads. The fun for them is to build up their long term vision for the current map over time. These players are also the ones who want the Planning Mode the most (it's still coming!)
For Builders, the move to a new area was not so much of a problem really, but the fact that it was a terrible place for building (dense mountains) was a problem. Builders had to go to a place that restricted their ability to build to get the new things TO build. Oops.
Nesters:
These players go well beyond the builders in developing a homestead. These are the players who invest hundreds of hours on a single homestead, growing it over generations, becoming personally invested in the family tree. These are the Nesters. They have a home, they built it, and they want to stay there to watch it flourish, maybe forever.
So while the Builders weren't thrilled about being forced to move, the Nesters hated it, and rightly so.
There was new tech they wanted, but they had to abandon the home they loved to get it. Double Oops.
1) Challengers:
Nothing changed here. "The Brown One" is a great new Challenge with the beginning of a new Story Scenario (Which will be finished in Update 19)
2) Builders:
Builders now have a New Secondary Settlement, called "The Perfect Spot"
So instead of being forced into the Highlands, Builders can now opt instead to start their secondary settlement in a more typical environment where they have control over all the terraforming sliders.
These players can continue their Clan's story in a new spot on the same world map, but build where they prefer and use technology they have already unlocked.
3) Nesters:
Nesters now have their own expedition training option called "Growing Renown."
After the Stone Throne is built, Nesters do not have to leave their Homestead, and they can now send an Envoy to one of the Castles to do some learning and to make connections. This is essentially a more political approach to gaining... Renown.
All three paths, "The Brown One", "The Perfect Spot", and "Growing Renown" will award the player with the first level of Renown (Well Respected).
Renown is what will unlock the next tier of technology, but also new story events and scenarios. So Renown is like a gateway into the next phase in the game. The Clanfolk are established and now they are either expanding their territory or making a name for themselves in other ways.
What it all boils down to though is Renown means new stuff unlocks, and unlocks at a time when it is not going to be overwhelming. This was even the idea behind the original system using "The Brown One." It does not make sense for me to continue to add more and more tech to the early game because there is already so much there.
I wanted to be able to continue adding new stuff to Clanfolk, but without destabilizing the feel of the early game. This is why we now have Renown.
What Renown means is that once you build the Stone Throne, you can pick when and how you want to step through that door to the next phase with your Clan.
For example, remember those year 2+ challenges? They don't make sense to add into the early game, but they make a lot of sense to add when the player has their first Renown level and they have proven that they know what they are doing.
The original key feature for Update 18 was the New Settlement System. This system allows you to decide to expand the Clan to a new location on the World Map, keeping all unlocked technologies and also taking a hand picked group of Clanfolk and Supplies to the New Homestead location.
Here's how it works:
This example will describe "The Brown One's" flow, but it is similar to "The Perfect Spot" which is the new wide open settlement location for the Builders. The Nesters can skip ahead to the Beekeeping section below as there is a method to unlock the Beekeeping using Renown as well, as described above.
Build the required Technology (In this case the Stone Throne)
This unlocks a new Settlement Event on the Map (The Brown One)
Build an Expedition to the new Settlement (Spending coin to purchase Animals and Items from the current Homestead)
Watch a short (skippable) Cinematic of leaving the current settlement (this is in progress, but ideally will be somewhat emotional eventually)
Once the new Settlement Expedition is off the Map, the new Settlement Map generates.
New Settlements sometimes exist in new Biomes, so the Map generation may look different. See the size of the mountains above. Level 6 mountains have never been seen before and are huge. The Mountain slider will be locked at 6, but the other sliders can be moved as the Clan searches the Highlands for the best possible starting location.
The Settlements sometimes also have different starting seasons (in this case Winter) as well as some new challenges and gameplay alterations.
The Highlands have new Hard Stone and Deep Caves, as part of the map generation. There is also the Colder and Rainy modifiers to better simulate mountain living.
Once the perfect location is picked, Settle Here is pressed and the Clan must begin their new life at this new Homestead location. Note: Time marches on as the Expedition journeys to the new settlement, so pregnancies for example may be completed upon arrival.
Now this will be a lot different than the usual start, because everything you unlocked in the previous Homestead is still unlocked. In this case though, you are starting in Winter and have to quickly get situated in the Deep Caves before it gets too cold. Note: The reason for the Winter arrival is to get set up while "The Brown One" is hibernating.
As time progresses, new Messengers will arrive with details about "The Brown One" which then kicks off a series of missions to track it down. The first Messenger is will be the Beekeeper.
Note: After the Beekeeper arrives, the Scenario for The Brown One will pause until Update 19, but playing in the Highlands Biome is fully functional and you can also send out new expeditions for found a Settlement in "The Perfect Spot" if you wish.
The original Homestead remains on the World Map and is now a new location which can be used as a node for Story Events as well as a source for Visitors for special occasions. This will be another focus of Update 19.
The plan is to continue to grow the New Settlement System for Update 19. As of right now, you can start a new Settlement each time you have built a Stone Throne in the previous settlement. So feel free to expand as much as you wish.
So the Bee's turned out to be complex enough that they need their own management layer to handle how they exist on the map. Bees can fly as far as 8 kilometers (5 miles) looking for pollen and nectar, so the Colonies needed to be aware of the entire map.
Based on the map sliders, the total possible Bee population will change. Currently the Grass, Forest, and Peat Bog sliders provide a Positive influence and Mountains and Lakes are a Negative influence. So this boils down to a Global Land Fertility value for the Bees. (There is also a Local Land Fertility Value which I will go into later) So more lush maps will support more Bees.
The Bee Manager's brings new Bees to the Map if there is a low population and also maintains the Global Bee Growth Rate value, which changes with the Seasons' progress, Global Land Fertility, as well as Bee Population. So as there are more mouths to feed colonies will naturally stop growing when an equilibrium is reached. As Winter approaches, the Bees have the same problem as the Clanfolk, how to stay fed and warm. Populations will decrease to 1/5th their maximum value, but this will also allow the Honey reserves to span the Winter. This happens in nature as well.
It all starts with the Bee Manager looking for a Dead Tree.
Dead Trees will automatically appear on the Map as trees age. The Old Trees will die in Winter, so expect to notice a few new ones in the Spring when the leaves start to reappear. These Dead Trees are potential homes for the Wild Bee Swarms. (More on Swarming later)
When a Swarm finds a Dead Tree, it will establish a new Bee Colony there. Over time and based on the surrounding area, the Wild Colony will grow and Bee Activity around the Dead Tree will increase.
All Wild and Domestic Bee Colonies have a lot of stats to consider as seen above. Lets review how all of these work.
Environment:
This value determines how large a Bee Colony can grow. In Spring and Summer, there is lots of Nectar and Pollen, so the Bee Colonies will quickly grow in size, but in Fall and then Winter, the size of the Bee Colonies will decrease to allow the Honey to span the Winter.
The Global Growth value was discussed previously, but another important factor is Local Growth. This is how Fertile the local area is around the Hive itself. This means that particularly rich areas on the map will be able to support more Bee Colonies. So even if the Global Growth is low, a Hive in the middle of a field of Heather will still be able to prosper well beyond the average on the map. Placement is very important.
This circle represents the Local Bee Fertility value of the tiles within it. The circle will update its color as you move a Skep Shelter blueprint and is a good indicator of the best places to put new Skeps.
Bee Colonies are aware of the growth state and type of every tile within their circle. There are 300+ tiles that they monitor. Bees are literally aware of every blade of grass, leaf, and flower in their domain.
They are also aware of other Colonies sharing the same tile, which will lower the food value of that tile based on the relative size of the colonies. Small colonies have less impact on the tiles than large ones.
There is a synergy between the growth tiles and the bee colonies. The colonies increase the yield from the tiles by pollination within their domain, and the tiles provide Pollen and Nectar back to the Bees for more growth.
So placing Bee Skeps near farm land will be desirable. But too many will start to produce diminished returns.
Here is the same spot in Winter when there is nothing to eat but the remaining Honey stores in the Hive. The circle is now Red because nothing within the area can feed the Bees.
Now back to explaining the Colony Attributes.
Colony Size:
The Colony will grow or shrink based on the current Environment Value. When a Colony size hits the maximum value (50,000 Bees) then a Swarm may be triggered. This is how new Colonies are established. When there are more Bees than the global and local area can support, the colonies will no longer reach full size and will no longer swarm.
Bee Activity:
Bees are most active on nice warm days. As the weather gets bad, they will stay inside the hive for protection. This means with settings that cause more rain, bees will end up being less active as well.
Bees only produce Combs/Honey when working. So the weather plays a huge role, just like hive placement. This is an indicator of the activity level for the bees but is not related to size of the colony.
For that, we need to look at Production.
Production:
The Production bar will show the rate at which Combs/Honey are being produced. The Bees are producing Raw Comb, which is what we will be extracting from the Wild Hive. (I will discuss Raw Comb a bit more later)
Consumption:
This is how much the Bees are eating. It may seem that in Winter that the consumption would be less (I thought this at first,) but it turns out that the Bees spend a lot of energy vibrating to keep the Colony warm in Winter. Worker Bees in Spring and Summer burn out after about 6 weeks, but the Winter Brood (which are much fewer) will live up to 6 months to span the entire Winter. The Colony will naturally shrink over Winter as the Spring and Summer Bees die off (this is all Simulated in Clanfolk as well)
One interesting note is that, unexpectedly, killing hives for more Honey/Wax right before Winter is actually somewhat sensible. I didn't understand this until I saw it simulated in game. But with fewer hives in the Spring, the remaining hives' growth explodes and they create new swarms to replace all those that were killed for the Honey/Wax. If the hives are all left to survive the Winter, then they ended up eating all the Honey that would otherwise be extracted and are not all that far ahead of the new Colonies from during the Spring Swarms.
Raw Comb:
This is what Clanfolk Extract from the Wild Hives. This will Destroy the Wild Hive, but Raw Comb provides both Honeycomb and Brood Comb.
Brood Comb is also a good for attracting Bee Swarms to the Skep in the Swarm Lure (which will be discussed later) But the first step in your Bee keeping empire is to extract some Raw Combs from the Wild Hives. I will review Apiculture (Bee Farming) in section 2. For now, lets look at Swarms!
Once a Wild Hive (or Skep) is full of Bees and Honey, a Swarm will trigger. Swarming Bees are actually quite docile. The Bees will be full of Honey and do not have a Colony to defend.
The Bee Swarm in Clanfolk is a real Unit, just like a Rabbit or Fox. When the Bee Swarm is "born" its first priority will be to find a shady tree to land under, some distance away from the old Hive. The Swarms are quite active as they travel the map, and this still picture really does not do Swarms justice. (It took quite a while to get them looking like Bees instead of some weird army of ants on the ground. The individual shadows were the key. Every Bee casts a shadow now)
Once the Swarm finds a good place to land, then it goes into Scout mode. In this mode. Scout Bees will fly away from the Main Swarm (which no longer moves, but is still somewhat active.) When the Scout Bees find a Dead tree or hopefully a Swarm Lure (discussed later) then they will inform the Main Swarm of the viable location using Nasonov pheromone. More Scout Bees will check out the new spot, and if enough Bees agree that it is a good spot and emit the Nasonov pheromone then a critical mass is reached and the Main Swarm will decide to move to their new home. They essentially vote on where to live using smell and a waggle dance.
An interesting note here, is that Lemongrass Oil can simulate the Nasonov pheromone and can trick Bees into Skeps much more easily than in Clanfolk (But there was no Lemongrass in 1300's Scotland)
Here a Swarm has landed in the Shade of a Tree Branch while the Scout Bees are sent out looking for new Hive Locations.
The Scouting can go two ways. If the Scout Bees find a good spot, then the Swarm will move there, and if they cannot find a spot, or if the map is too populated with Bees, the Swarm will move off of the map.
Here, the Scout Bees have found a perfect new location with a Dead Tree (top left) near a Heather field. The Scouts informed the Swarm and then the whole Swarm flew to their new home in the Dead Tree.
Everything up until now is happening without player intervention. This is the natural Bee simulation and will just do its thing, But, that is now how we get Honey, so lets do some intervening!
So now I will follow the entire process in order from discovering a Wild Hive, to extracting the Raw Combs, to Building Skeps, and finally Extracting Honey and Beeswax.
To start our Beekeeping adventure, we will need a Bee Smoker. Pawing around Wild Hives with active Bees is not a good idea. The Bee Smoker is crafted at the Simple Kiln. When the Bees encounter the smoke they think there is a fire and then they gorge on honey and become more calm.
Finding art reference for Clay Smoking Pots turned out to be a little difficult. But from what I did find, they looked like this. Fill the belly with grasses from the wide end, light it on fire, hold the handle because the burning pot gets hot. Then blow in the wide end and point the small end at the Bee Hive.
Beatrice is now Smoking the Wild Hive to Extract the Raw Combs.
Now Beatrice takes the Raw Comb AND the Bee Smoker to the Comb Separator. As much as possible I tried to make the Bee Keeping efficient, taking multiple tools at once or using kits to prevent having to make multiple long trips across the map.
The Comb Separator is used to separate the Honeycomb from the Brood Comb. Honeycomb tends to be light in color. The Honey is usually stored in the newly created cells which are white in color. Whereas the Brood Comb tends to be much darker as multiple generations of Brood (Bee Larvae) have been reared in these cells. They were likely once used for Honey, but are recycled as Brood Comb.
Beatrice is now done. We can see the difference between the Honeycomb and the Brood Comb above.
For now, we will put the Honeycomb aside and look at the Brood Comb. We don't want to trek half way across the map and to kill the Bee Colony every time we want a bit of Honey.
The Basketry has a new option, the Empty Skep. A critical piece of the Empty Skep recipe is the Brood Comb. The Brood Comb is attractive to new Bee Swarms as it gives them a good start building the new Colony. The placement of the Brood Comb at the top of the Skep can also influence how the Raw Combs are oriented. As can be seen in the art, the Skep has Sticks pushed through in the opposite direction of the Brood Comb to provide support for the Raw Combs as the Skep is moved around.
Now that we have an Empty Skep crafted, we need to get some Bees in there... This will require the Swarm Lure and Swarm Lure Kit.
The Swarm Lure Kit works like the Snare Kit in that it allows for construction of an object with a single haul task. As can be seen from the recipe, hauling those five items across the map one by one would be a huge time sink. The Swarm Lures are temporary structures that do not provide any shelter to the Skeps, but they are great for attracting Swarms in Wild Bee forests.
So here there is a Swarm in the tree to the bottom left that is in scouting mode. The Dead tree holds the original Hive, and the constructed Swarm Lure is on the right. As long as a Swarm Lure is within 20 tiles of a Bee Swarm that is Scouting, it will attract that Swarm.
This allows the capture of the Bee Swarms to be something that can be done without being constantly vigilant for new Swarms on the map. As long as a Swarm Lure is out there, the Clanfolk will know when it has caught a Swarm and will then work to move that Filled Skep to a new Location, and reset the Swarm Lure at the same time. So the important part here is placing your Swarm Lures well.
The Swarm Lure is now filled, but if we want this Colony to Survive the Winter, or be moved near some crop fields, we need to move it to a Skep Shelter. The Skep Shelter provides shelter for Skeps so they can survive the Winter and also can be strategically placed near fields of Heather or Thistle patches.
Above we can also see that we are missing an Empty Skep to replace the one we will be taken from the Swarm Lure. In an effort to again keep travel time down, Beatrice will Swap out the Full Skep at the Swarm Lure for an Empty one, so it can keep catching more Swarms. It should also be noted, Swarm Lures are fully functional hives too, and their stats will be preserved as the Skep is moved to its new home.
Now Beatrice has moved an Empty Skep onto the Swarm Lure and will be moving the Colony Skep to the Skep Shelter on the right. (I made her drop the Colony Skep so it could be seen. It is covered on the bottom and the hole is plugged to keep the Colony inside)
An important note here is that Skep movement is all Priority Based. So the Skep in the lowest priority Swarm Lure or Shelter is always moved to the highest priority one. This allows you to move them around from field to field as needed. I tried to keep the Bee Keeping management as streamlined as possible since it is overall such a complex system. Swarm Lures are by default lower priority than Skep Shelters, so the Skeps get moved, but if the Swarm Lure is given greater or equal to priority as the Skep Shelter, it will not be moved.
Ok there is a lot going on in this picture. This is our new Bee Colony that we moved to the Skep Shelter from the Swarm Lure. Next to Beatrice at the top.
I have added a patch of tilled soil with some Beans near the hive, and within its Domain circle which can be seen as the yellow arc at the bottom right. The circle is a bit yellow because this area is not that great and it overlaps with the original Wild Hive that spawned the Swarm for the Lure.
Bees will Increase Crop Yield. Every tile in the game keeps track of every Bee Colony that overlaps with it. Each colony has a population and that is also taken into consideration as well as the length of time that the colony has been in the area doing pollination (so no tricky moving of a hive to a field right before harvest to get extra yield. I saw that one coming a mile away :)
So if we look at the top left info panel, we see a new piece of info: Bee Crop Yield: +1%
This is a new spot for this Colony, so there has not been much pollination done yet. Over time and with a large colony, the maximum bonus reaches 50%, so it is very worthwhile to keep bees. I opted for Yield instead of Growth Rate changes because it made more sense to me since the Bees are handling the Pollination.
Another thing so look at above is the Environment Score. It is not a full bar in this case. That means this area is not productive enough for this hive to Swarm. There are just too many bees in the area compared to available food, so the Hive will never reach Maximum Size. The Wild Hive is competing a little too much in this area. On the other hand, if we don't want more swarms, this hive is placed well to aid in pollinating that Field.
On the other hand...
Now I planted a whole bunch of Wheat and Berry Bushes around this same Bee Colony. As can be seen, the circle is now Green, and the Environment value is much Higher. Almost High enough to allow another Swarm.
Another thing to notice here is the Auto Harvest toggle. Bee Keeping is quite automated, with the main decisions being smart Swarm Lure and Skep Shelter Placement. Also managing the Shelter priorities can be fun when trying to maximize crop yields. By default, Auto Harvest will be on. Auto Harvest also takes into consideration the current Season and will always leave enough Honey for the Colony to survive the Winter.
The rule in the Geoponica (which is a famous 10th century book on agriculture and another good reference) was taking 2/3 of the honey twice a year, but only 1/10th of the Honey before Winter. I follow similar rules with the Auto Harvest.
Before I get into Honey and Beeswax Extraction, there are a couple more cool things to discuss.
Honey theft was a booming industry in medieval times. Honey and Beeswax were very desirable trade goods but also one of the only sources of a sweet treat. So to combat the thefts, and to provide shelter for the skeps, Bee Boles were developed.
Here is Beatrice's humble home. It has Bee Boles facing in each direction, and the one by the front door is active with a Skep inside. These exist mostly for historical accuracy, but they are also great space savers.
Skep Shelters and Bee Boles can also be Winterized. This closes in the Skep to provide extra insulation over the Winter. This is a task that the Clanfolk must spend time doing, so it may be best to move all the Skeps into Bee Boles in late Autumn before it gets too cold. Then the Winterizing process can be carried out much closer to home.
We made it!
Honeycombs and Brood Combs are processed at the Honey and Wax Extractor. The Honey and Wax Extractor is a complex crafting station that can be configured in multiple ways to produce the desired products. I tried to simulate the actual processes visually using these different configurations. I will describe them below.
Honey Extraction (Top)
Honeycombs are tied up in sack cloth and crushed over bowls. After the initial hand squeezing, they are left sitting over the bowls on a rack to let gravity do some work. The squeezed and drained Honeycombs are then heated in water and most of the wax seeps out of the sack cloth bag. When this mixture cools, the wax settles to the top and can be reheated and melted into forms. This creates the Crunchy Honey and Beeswax Ingots seen on the right. Crunchy Honey and Beeswax at this stage are not finely filtered so there are bug parts in it, but that's extra protein!
Brood Combs (2nd)
Brood Combs can also have their Beeswax extracted. In this case the extractor does not show any Honey collection, but instead shows more of the Wax collection process.
Fine Honey (3rd)
Fine Honey is a Trade Good and will be used in more Advanced Recipes. This is warmed Crunchy Honey that is passed through Linen Cloth as a filter. The warming is done double boiler style which is why the water is shown over the little oven.
Fine Beeswax (Bottom)
Fine Beeswax is also a Trade Good and will likely be used in Candle Making in the future. The Fine Beeswax also has a Thistle embossed on it because that looks nicer :)
As mentioned a while ago, sometimes it makes more sense to kill the entire Colony in the Skep instead of just harvesting a smaller amount of the Raw Combs. This is where the Skep Smoker comes in.
The Skep Smoker uses Brimstone Smoke (Sulfur Smoke) to kill the Brood within the Skep. Brimstone can naturally be found near Iron Veins so it may become a byproduct of Iron Mining in the future.
This is a new type or rock deep in the Highland Mountains. It can only be cleared with the Steel Pick. This promotes using natural caves and using the shape of the mountain interiors to your advantage instead of hollowing out the whole mountain. Hard Stone will likely also be a resource used for sculpture type decorations in the future, and perhaps gemstones.
If you want to try out Beekeeping right away, there is a new start Scenario called Beekeeper's Legacy.
(Note: It requires World Map Mode to be Active)
With Beekeeper's Legacy, you will start with a Senior Beekeeper who has taken on an apprentice to teach. The initial unlock of the Beekeeping technology costs a large amount of coin, so the initial homestead will be very small. Just the Beekeeper, a trusty Deerhound, and the wide eyed apprentice.
Originally everything to do with Beekeeping was going to be unlocked with "The Brown One," but again in the Testing Branch this turned out to be somewhat disappointing for people who wanted to experience the Bees in some way right from the start of the game.
Initially, I didn't want to have bees at the first homestead because there was nothing you could do with them yet, so I thought it would be confusing or frustrating, but then I was reminded that there was something special about bees even early on.
Bees increase crop yield, even Wild Bees.
This adds a very interesting wrinkle to the first Homestead. It is actually somewhat interesting/strategic to look for the Wild Beehives, and then build farm plots nearby. This then makes some parts of the map more attractive than others, where the player can adjust their plans to best utilize the wild bees. I like this a lot.
Cutting down Dead Trees with Wild Hives will also produce a little bit of Honeycomb, but nothing compared to what can be achieved later once Beekeeping technology has been mastered.
Update 19 will continue the work on the New Settlement System, completing "The Brown One" story.
I have also been working on adding Training expeditions world map locations like the Inn to increase skills and generate coin. It would be interesting to start using the previous settlement locations as story element generators, so I will experiment with that as well. Having members of the previous settlement come for a visit for example is pretty compelling.
I also want to keep the Builders and Nesters better in mind, so I am thinking that it is time to expand on the decorating options on the homesteads. It would be nice for people to be able to further customize their home since some spend literally hundreds of hours there.
So that's what's on my mind for Update 19. I would very much like to hear your thoughts as well!
For a longer term view, please also take a look at the Road Map for further details.
Thanks very much for playing Clanfolk!
Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.
Clanfolk is 50% off during the Hooded Horse January Publisher Sale. Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children, and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations. Hooded Horse January Publisher Sale
Clanfolk is 50% off during the Hooded Horse Winter Publisher Sale. Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children, and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations. Hooded Horse Winter Publisher Sale
Hi Everyone,
Beekeeping the the Secondary Settlement Part 1 has been available on the Testing Branch for three weeks now, and I wanted to review the changes.
But, The most important detail is that:
Update 18 will release to the Default Branch Early January.
If you are feeling curious, anyone can join the Testing Branch by selecting:
Steam/Clanfolk/Properties/Betas and it will be in there list there.
A very special thanks to everyone who has been participating in the Testing Branch and finding bugs and suggesting tweaks! You all have kept me very busy, but in a good way :)
Ok, I am going to dive into the changes since the other two progress Updates, which I will also link here for reference. They are both still contain a ton of useful info and images.
Steam :: Clanfolk :: Clanfolk Progress Update! (Towards Update 18)
Steam :: Clanfolk :: Clanfolk Progress Update! (Beekeeping Deep Dive)
So, as mentioned above it has been a very busy time since the Testing Branch was updated three weeks ago. The Bees and Secondary Settlements have had at least a year's worth of combined testing playtime now, and I wanted to call out the changes to both systems.
So the most interesting bit of this write up is likely a discussion on how I learned to better approach content delivery by understanding the different player types in Clanfolk. I will explain what I initially did wrong, and how it is now solved, so take heart, this was an important learning experience for me that will improve future systems. Testing Branch to the rescue!
If you want to skip this design discussion, the Solution is The Renown System, described below.
The original idea behind Secondary Settlements was that doing some kind of Challenge would unlock the Next Tech Tier. This delivered the new tech at the end of the tech tree instead of in the middle which is already very full.
So a late game Unlock Challenge seemed like a great idea to me. (it wasn't exactly)
I went on to build "The Brown One" in the Highlands as the gateway to unlock the next tech tier.
I was actually quite happy with the new system. I had a Highland Biome (Very Scotland), and was unlocking Beekeeping, which of course is closely related to Bears. So everything came together in a nice themed package with a pretty bow. Yay me... So, let's finally push it to the Testing Branch.
At first, many players were focused on (and mostly enjoying) the new Beekeeping. Many used the new "Beekeeper's Legacy" start, which gives the Beekeeping tech at map start for the cost of much Coin. So early on there were a lot of Beekeeping fixes but not much word on the settlements.
But eventually people did finally get to the Highlands Expedition which was unlocked by building the Stone Throne, a very late technology.
This is where the learning began. Three types of players emerged with comments on the new Settlements. One type was happy, one was kind if indifferent, and one was moderately horrified.
Here, I was trying to collect these reactions and solutions in one place.
Thinking on Bees and The Brown One flow. :: Clanfolk Gameplay Discussions
It turns out that the Settlement Update was having unintended consequences for two of the types above.
1) Challenge Oriented: (Challengers)
These players tended to like the new Settlement System and the Challenge of "The Brown One." It was something that made the game even harder than the usual difficulty tweaks and added some new flavor with an added reward (new tech.)
So here there were no problems. This is also the category the I tend to fall into, but I need to better think of the other two categories in the future.
2) Building Oriented: (Builders)
These players enjoy building up elaborate homesteads. The fun for them is to build up their long term vision for the current map over time. These players are also the ones who want the Planning Mode the most (it's still coming!)
So, here is where things went a bit sideways, and also why the Builders were less than thrilled with The Highlands. The Highlands are tight, really tight, mountains on all sides and no where to spread out. It is cold, wet, and you have to live in caves, potentially for years. So how do you bring your vision of the perfect homestead to life in the valley of desolate doom... Oops.
These players don't really mind having to move to get the new technology, after all it would be fun to start a new homestead with everything already unlocked! But... I put them in the worst possible place to build. (Don't worry, there is a solution)
3) The Nesters: (Nesters)
These are players that go well beyond the builders in developing a homestead. These are the players who invest hundreds of hours on a single homestead, growing it over generations, becoming personally invested in the family tree. These are the Nesters. They have a home, they built it, and they want to stay there to watch it flourish, maybe forever.
Annnnd... I dangled shiny new tech in front of their noses and said they can't have it unless they abandon their home. The Nesters were not happy at all, and I don't blame them.
Where Builders don't mind the move, because it is just a new opportunity to build, Nesters hate the move because it forces them away from exactly what they loved about the game.
Glad you asked! So I really need to keep these three groups in mind going forward. When working on systems, there needs to be a path for each of these player types to continue to enjoy Clanfolk in the way they enjoy it the most. Also, updates should focus on delivering features that improve the game for each type of player.
I also need to remember that a Nester today may be a Challenger tomorrow or a Builder the next, so jumping between these different paths and back needs to be supported.
1) Challengers:
Nothing changed here. The Brown One is a great new Challenge with the beginning of a new Story Scenario (Which will be finished in Update 19)
2) Builders:
Builders now have a New Secondary Settlement, called "The Perfect Spot"
So instead of being forced into the Highlands, Builders can now opt instead to start their secondary settlement in a more typical environment where they have control over all the terraforming sliders.
These players can continue their Clan's story in a new spot on the same world map, but build where they prefer and use technology they have already unlocked.
3) Nesters:
Nesters now have their own expedition training option called "Growing Renown."
After the Stone Throne is built, Nesters do not have to leave their Homestead, and they can now send an Envoy to one of the Castles to do some learning and to make connections. This is essentially a more political approach to gaining... Renown.
All three paths, "The Brown One", "The Perfect Spot", and "Growing Renown" will award the player with the first level of Renown (Well Respected).
Renown is what will unlock the next tier of technology, but also new story events and scenarios. So Renown is like a gateway into the next phase in the game. The Clanfolk are established and now they are either expanding their territory or making a name for themselves in other ways.
What it all boils down to though is Renown means new stuff unlocks, and unlocks at a time when it is not going to be overwhelming. This was even the idea behind the original system using "The Brown One." It does not make sense for me to continue to add more and more tech to the early game because there is already so much there that it can border on overwhelming for people.
I wanted to be able to continue adding new stuff to Clanfolk, but without destabilizing the feel of the early game. This is why we now have Renown.
What Renown means is that once you build the Stone Throne, you can pick when and how you want to step through that door to the next phase with your Clan.
For example, remember those year 2+ challenges? They don't make sense to add into the early game, but they make a lot of sense to add when the player has their first Renown level and they have proven that they know what they are doing.
With adding "The Perfect Spot" as described above, we now have two expansion settlements, and I did not like the idea of locking people into "The Brown One" or "The Perfect Spot" once they moved there.
So although it wasn't planned for Update 18, the Settlements will now be able to Chain for as long as their is room on the World Map.
It is safe to experiment with going to "The Brown One", because you will also be able to leave there and jump to "The Perfect Spot" or vice versa.
"The Brown One" currently stops (Story wise) once the Beekeeper arrives, but it is a fully working map and can be played for as long as you want. It also introduces Hard Stone, which will play more of a role in Update 19.
In the future, Scenarios like "The Brown One" will have completion conditions that will unlock other related world map events as well. Completion may also unlock a non-story version of the Highlands as an initial world building option.
Originally everything to do with Beekeeping was going to be unlocked with "The Brown One," but again in the Testing Branch this turned out to be somewhat disappointing for people who wanted to experience the Bees in some way right from the start of the game.
Initially, I didn't want to have bees at the first homestead because there was nothing you could do with them yet, so I thought it would be confusing or frustrating, but then I was reminded that there was something special about bees even early on.
Bees increase crop yield, even Wild Bees.
This adds a very interesting wrinkle to the first Homestead. It is actually somewhat interesting/strategic to look for the Wild Beehives, and then build farm plots nearby. This then makes some parts of the map more attractive than others, where the player can adjust their plans to best utilize the wild bees. I like this a lot.
Cutting down Dead Trees with Wild Hives will also produce a little bit of Honeycomb, but nothing compared to what can be achieved later once Beekeeping technology has been mastered.
So it has been a very eventful few weeks. The whole Renown system took quite a bit of me pacing around grumbling to myself, but I am very happy with the result!
I am going to keep an eye on the Testing Branch throughout the Holidays, but I am also going to take some family time to increase my Social meter.
This means that Update 18 will probably arrive somewhere early January. There is still a little tweaking and translation to do, and the translations will have to wait until the Holidays pass so people are back in their offices.
If you can't wait though, the Testing Branch is currently quite stable already.
Happy Holidays everyone and thanks for playing Clanfolk!
Andrew (Blorf) Hume MinMax Games Ltd.
Clanfolk is 50% off during the Hooded Horse November Publisher Sale. Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children, and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations. Hooded Horse November Publisher Sale
Hi Everyone,
The 2025 Steam Awards have begun! Nominations are open, and I’m hoping you’ll support Clanfolk by nominating it in the Labor of Love category.
Clanfolk is now in year 8 of development, and year 4 on Steam, since Next Fest way back in October 2021.
Developing Clanfolk has been a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I am so thankful for all of your patience and support while I go on my side quests delving into obscure historical technologies. My distractions by new shiny things do sometimes take longer than expected, but I also think it would be worse to cut corners. In the end, Clanfolk deserves to be the best game that it can be.
I do still love working on Clanfolk every day, even after all this time. I just want to keep expanding this little world to let the Clanfolk lead more meaningful lives.
In 2025, I released 2 major updates and made good progress on the next two major updates as well. Below is a brief look at what each update has brought to the game, but follow the links for even more detail on the content of each update. If you haven't read these patch notes in the past, you'll find a ton of additional info on there.
This update added new environmental challenges for players to contend with:
Flooding: Some areas of the map will flood, providing increased fertility at increased risk
Upgraded Lightning: New mechanics for what structures will attract lightning and how it interacts with Flammable Roofs
Caves and Rocky Overhangs: Sheltered areas that appear in the mountains and provide cover
It also introduced new difficulty modes, including the "Nature's Wrath" mode, where nature is out to get you and mistakes could prove deadly. In this mode, players may find themselves contending with heavy rain/snow, flooding, storms, lightning, colder winters, harsher winds, and even higher flammability.
In addition to making nature a hazardous force, Update 16 also added:
Multiple other difficulty modes
New objects and items (such as dried berries or customizable pet tombs)
World-based saving
Smarter cats and rats
Check out the full changelog for Update 16 for a more in-depth look at everything it brought to Clanfolk.
This update was the biggest change to Clanfolk so far and allows Clans to develop over many more game years.
World Map: A new map in the Planning Table where players can plan Expeditions
Expeditions: A mechanic that allows players to explore new territories by spending time and rations
70 Historically Researched Crafting Stations/items: A whole new game flow related to technology
The World Map added 500+ new Hexagonal Territories to explore, with unique Exploration events sometimes triggered upon arrival.
In future updates, the Expeditions mechanic will be further improved, so players can do things like bring additional members or navigate sets of choices upon the arrival of their Expedition.
Update 17 also added an entirely new flow to the Crafting System, making it even more historically accurate and better differentiated between the different phases of tech. It significantly improved the general pacing of unlocks, especially in the early game.
If you visit the full update notes for Update 17, you can see a full breakdown of the various tech phases and how you can learn more advanced crafting processes via Expeditions.
In addition to the two updates above, here is also some information about what I have been working with for Update 18, and Update 19, namely, secondary settlements and beekeeping.
The Secondary Settlement System extends gameplay by allowing your Clanfolk to create new Homesteads on the same world map, so they can continue the family story while unlocking new Biomes, Tech, and Events. This system is scheduled for release in Update 19, but parts of it will also be available for testing in Update 18, which is coming soon. There's a lot of good info in the Secondary Settlement Progress Update blog about what is complete already and where this system will be headed.
Beekeeping is the result of a deep dive into historical beekeeping methods. What was originally meant to be a quick addition turned into an 8 week bee fest to deliver a fully authentic medieval beekeeping experience. It is an in-depth beekeeping simulation that lets you extract honey from wild hives or build domestic hives that will increase crop yield and produce honey for further processing. This will be the central feature of Update 18, and I plan to release it to the Testing Branch very soon. The whole Beekeeping system is very detailed, so if you haven't had the chance to give this progress update a read, you should check it out. It's a really good example of those side quests I mentioned at the start of this post. :)
Thanks again for all your support with your ideas and kind words. I love seeing how Clanfolk has been developing its unique personality based on player feedback. Often times it feels like the Clanfolk is taking on a life of its own now, and that is in major part due to this community. I hope you will consider clicking the "Nominate" button at the top of this post for the Labor of Love award! Now, I am going to get back to work on those Bees. Andrew Hume (Blorf) MinMax Games Ltd.
Hi Everyone,
So I ended up getting really into historical beekeeping methods. Originally, I had scheduled a few days to "Add Bees," but as I researched how complex the Bees and Beekeeping topics are, I wanted to deliver on the full and authentic medieval beekeeping experience. So I am going to describe what I have been up to for the last 6 weeks. Yikes...
It all started with watching a series of combined documentaries on YouTube to get a better idea about how Skep Beekeeping worked. So as an interesting learning resource, I do recommend searching for "Skep Beekeeping in the Heathland - 1978"
Between watching the videos and reading articles about Skep Beekeeping in medieval times, my desire to go all out with the beekeeping just kept growing. I wanted to show it all. The hard stuff that required specialized code is finally done now. There is still more to do, but the additional work only requires existing tech so it will be much more efficient time wise.
First I will cover Bees. How they arrive, live, and move around the map.
Next is Beekeeping. This will cover the initial extraction from Wild Bee Hives all the way to producing Fine Filtered Honey from Domestic Bee Colonies.
What's Next. The Plan to get to Update 18, 19 as quickly as possible.
I hope by the end of this is it clear why Bees took six weeks. :)
So the Bee's turned out to be complex enough that they need their own management layer to handle how they exist on the map. Bees can fly as far as 8 kilometers (5 miles) looking for pollen and nectar, so the Colonies needed to be aware of the entire map.
Based on the map sliders, the total possible Bee population will change. Currently the Grass, Forest, and Peat Bog sliders provide a Positive influence and Mountains and Lakes are a Negative influence. So this boils down to a Global Land Fertility value for the Bees. (There is also a Local Land Fertility Value which I will go into later) So more lush maps will support more Bees.
The Bee Manager's brings new Bees to the Map if there is a low population and also maintains the Global Bee Growth Rate value, which changes with the Seasons' progress, Global Land Fertility, as well as Bee Population. So as there are more mouths to feed colonies will naturally stop growing when an equilibrium is reached. As Winter approaches, the Bees have the same problem as the Clanfolk, how to stay fed and warm. Populations will decrease to 1/5th their maximum value, but this will also allow the Honey reserves to span the Winter. This happens in nature as well.
It all starts with the Bee Manager looking for a Dead Tree.
Dead Trees will automatically appear on the Map as trees age. The Old Trees will die in Winter, so expect to notice a few new ones in the Spring when the leaves start to reappear. These Dead Trees are potential homes for the Wild Bee Swarms. (More on Swarming later)
When a Swarm finds a Dead Tree, it will establish a new Bee Colony there. Over time and based on the surrounding area, the Wild Colony will grow and Bee Activity around the Dead Tree will increase.
All Wild and Domestic Bee Colonies have a lot of stats to consider as seen above. Lets review how all of these work.
Environment:
This value determines how large a Bee Colony can grow. In Spring and Summer, there is lots of Nectar and Pollen, so the Bee Colonies will quickly grow in size, but in Fall and then Winter, the size of the Bee Colonies will decrease to allow the Honey to span the Winter.
The Global Growth value was discussed previously, but another important factor is Local Growth. This is how Fertile the local area is around the Hive itself. This means that particularly rich areas on the map will be able to support more Bee Colonies. So even if the Global Growth is low, a Hive in the middle of a field of Heather will still be able to prosper well beyond the average on the map. Placement is very important.
This circle represents the Local Bee Fertility value of the tiles within it. The circle will update its color as you move a Skep Shelter blueprint and is a good indicator of the best places to put new Skeps.
Bee Colonies are aware of the growth state and type of every tile within their circle. There are 300+ tiles that they monitor. Bees are literally aware of every blade of grass, leaf, and flower in their domain.
They are also aware of other Colonies sharing the same tile, which will lower the food value of that tile based on the relative size of the colonies. Small colonies have less impact on the tiles than large ones.
There is a synergy between the growth tiles and the bee colonies. The colonies increase the yield from the tiles by pollination within their domain, and the tiles provide Pollen and Nectar back to the Bees for more growth.
So placing Bee Skeps near farm land will be desirable. But too many will start to produce diminished returns.
Here is the same spot in Winter when there is nothing to eat but the remaining Honey stores in the Hive. The circle is now Red because nothing within the area can feed the Bees.
Now back to explaining the Colony Attributes.
Colony Size:
The Colony will grow or shrink based on the current Environment Value. When a Colony size hits the maximum value (50,000 Bees) then a Swarm may be triggered. This is how new Colonies are established. When there are more Bees than the global and local area can support, the the colonies will no longer reach full size and will no longer swarm.
Bee Activity:
Bees are most active on nice warm days. As the weather gets bad, they will stay inside the hive for protection. This means with settings that cause more rain, bees will end up being less active as well.
Bees only produce Combs/Honey when working. So the weather plays a huge role, just like hive placement. This is an indicator of the activity level for the bees but is not related to size of the colony.
For that, we need to look at Production.
Production:
The Production bar will show the rate at which Combs/Honey are being produced. The Bees are producing Raw Comb, which is what we will be extracting from the Wild Hive. (I will discuss Raw Comb a bit more later)
Consumption:
This is how much the Bees are eating. It may seem that in Winter that the consumption would be less (I thought this at first,) but it turns out that the Bees spend a lot of energy vibrating to keep the Colony warm in Winter. Worker Bees in Spring and Summer burn out after about 6 weeks, but the Winter Brood (which are much fewer) will live up to 6 months to span the entire Winter. The Colony will naturally shrink over Winter as the Spring and Summer Bees die off (this is all Simulated in Clanfolk as well)
One interesting note is that, unexpectedly, killing hives for more Honey/Wax right before Winter is actually somewhat sensible. I didn't understand this until I saw it simulated in game. But with fewer hives in the Spring, the remaining hives' growth explodes and they create new swarms to replace all those that were killed for the Honey/Wax. If the hives are all left to survive the Winter, then they ended up eating all the Honey that would otherwise be extracted and are not all that far ahead of the new Colonies from during the Spring Swarms.
Raw Comb:
This is what Clanfolk Extract from the Wild Hives. This will Destroy the Wild Hive, but Raw Comb provides both Honeycomb and Brood Comb.
Brood Comb is also a good for attracting Bee Swarms to the Skep in the Swarm Lure (which will be discussed later) But the first step in your Bee keeping empire is to extract some Raw Combs from the Wild Hives. I will review Apiculture (Bee Farming) in section 2. For now, lets look at Swarms!
Once a Wild Hive (or Skep) is full of Bees and Honey, a Swarm will trigger. Swarming Bees are actually quite docile. The Bees will be full of Honey and do not have a Colony to defend.
The Bee Swarm in Clanfolk is a real Unit, just like a Rabbit or Fox. When the Bee Swarm is "born" its first priority will be to find a shady tree to land under, some distance away from the old Hive. The Swarms are quite active as they travel the map, and this still picture really does not do Swarms justice. (It took quite a while to get them looking like Bees instead of some weird army of ants on the ground. The individual shadows were the key. Every Bee casts a shadow now)
Once the Swarm finds a good place to land, then it goes into Scout mode. In this mode. Scout Bees will fly away from the Main Swarm (which no longer moves, but is still somewhat active.) When the Scout Bees find a Dead tree or hopefully a Swarm Lure (discussed later) then they will inform the Main Swarm of the viable location using Nasonov pheromone. More Scout Bees will check out the new spot, and if enough Bees agree that it is a good spot and emit the Nasonov pheromone then a critical mass is reached and the Main Swarm will decide to move to their new home. They essentially vote on where to live using smell and a waggle dance.
An interesting note here, is that Lemongrass Oil can simulate the Nasonov pheromone and can trick Bees into Skeps much more easily than in Clanfolk (But there was no Lemongrass in 1300's Scotland)
Here a Swarm has landed in the Shade of a Tree Branch while the Scout Bees are sent out looking for new Hive Locations.
The Scouting can go two ways. If the Scout Bees find a good spot, then the Swarm will move there, and if they cannot find a spot, or if the map is too populated with Bees, the Swarm will move off of the map.
Here, the Scout Bees have found a perfect new location with a Dead Tree (top left) near a Heather field. The Scouts informed the Swarm and then the whole Swarm flew to their new home in the Dead Tree.
Everything up until now is happening without player intervention. This is the natural Bee simulation and will just do its thing, But, that is now how we get Honey, so lets do some intervening!
So now I will follow the entire process in order from discovering a Wild Hive, to extracting the Raw Combs, to Building Skeps, and finally Extracting Honey and Beeswax.
To start our Beekeeping adventure, we will need a Bee Smoker. Pawing around Wild Hives with active Bees is not a good idea. The Bee Smoker is crafted at the Simple Kiln. When the Bees encounter the smoke they think there is a fire and then they gorge on honey and become more calm.
Finding art reference for Clay Smoking Pots turned out to be a little difficult. But from what I did find, they looked like this. Fill the belly with grasses from the wide end, light it on fire, hold the handle because the burning pot gets hot. Then blow in the wide end and point the small end at the Bee Hive.
Beatrice is now Smoking the Wild Hive to Extract the Raw Combs.
Now Beatrice takes the Raw Comb AND the Bee Smoker to the Comb Separator. As much as possible I tried to make the Bee Keeping efficient, taking multiple tools at once or using kits to prevent having to make multiple long trips across the map.
The Comb Separator is used to separate the Honeycomb from the Brood Comb. Honeycomb tends to be light in color. The Honey is usually stored in the newly created cells which are white in color. Whereas the Brood Comb tends to be much darker as multiple generations of Brood (Bee Larvae) have been reared in these cells. They were likely once used for Honey, but are recycled as Brood Comb.
Beatrice is now done. We can see the difference between the Honeycomb and the Brood Comb above.
For now, we will put the Honeycomb aside and look at the Brood Comb. We don't want to trek half way across the map and to kill the Bee Colony every time we want a bit of Honey.
The Basketry has a new option, the Empty Skep. A critical piece of the Empty Skep recipe is the Brood Comb. The Brood Comb is attractive to new Bee Swarms as it gives them a good start building the new Colony. The placement of the Brood Comb at the top of the Skep can also influence how the Raw Combs are oriented. As can be seen in the art, the Skep has Sticks pushed through in the opposite direction of the Brood Comb to provide support for the Raw Combs as the Skep is moved around.
Now that we have an Empty Skep crafted, we need to get some Bees in there... This will require the Swarm Lure and Swarm Lure Kit.
The Swarm Lure Kit works like the Snare Kit in that it allows for construction of an object with a single haul task. As can be seen from the recipe, hauling those five items across the map one by one would be a huge time sink. The Swarm Lures are temporary structures that do not provide any shelter to the Skeps, but they are great for attracting Swarms in Wild Bee forests.
So here there is a Swarm in the tree to the bottom left that is in scouting mode. The Dead tree holds the original Hive, and the constructed Swarm Lure is on the right. As long as a Swarm Lure is within 20 tiles of a Bee Swarm that is Scouting, it will attract that Swarm.
This allows the capture of the Bee Swarms to be something that can be done without being constantly vigilant for new Swarms on the map. As long as a Swarm Lure is out there, the Clanfolk will know when it has caught a Swarm and will then work to move that Filled Skep to a new Location, and reset the Swarm Lure at the same time. So the important part here is placing your Swarm Lures well.
The Swarm Lure is now filled, but if we want this Colony to Survive the Winter, or be moved near some crop fields, we need to move it to a Skep Shelter. The Skep Shelter provides shelter for Skeps so they can survive the Winter and also can be strategically placed near fields of Heather or Thistle patches.
Above we can also see that we are missing an Empty Skep to replace the one we will be taken from the Swarm Lure. In an effort to again keep travel time down, Beatrice will Swap out the Full Skep at the Swarm Lure for an Empty one, so it can keep catching more Swarms. It should also be noted, Swarm Lures are fully functional hives too, and their stats will be preserved as the Skep is moved to its new home.
Now Beatrice has moved an Empty Skep onto the Swarm Lure and will be moving the Colony Skep to the Skep Shelter on the right. (I made her drop the Colony Skep so it could be seen. It is covered on the bottom and the hole is plugged to keep the Colony inside)
An important note here is that Skep movement is all Priority Based. So the Skep in the lowest priority Swarm Lure or Shelter is always moved to the highest priority one. This allows you to move them around from field to field as needed. I tried to keep the Bee Keeping management as streamlined as possible since it is overall such a complex system. Swarm Lures are by default lower priority than Skep Shelters, so the Skeps get moved, but if the Swarm Lure is given greater or equal to priority as the Skep Shelter, it will not be moved.
Ok there is a lot going on in this picture. This is our new Bee Colony that we moved to the Skep Shelter from the Swarm Lure. Next to Beatrice at the top.
I have added a patch of tilled soil with some Beans near the hive, and within its Domain circle which can be seen as the yellow arc at the bottom right. The circle is a bit yellow because this area is not that great and it overlaps with the original Wild Hive that spawned the Swarm for the Lure.
Bees will Increase Crop Yield. Every tile in the game keeps track of every Bee Colony that overlaps with it. Each colony has a population and that is also taken into consideration as well as the length of time that the colony has been in the area doing pollination (so no tricky moving of a hive to a field right before harvest to get extra yield. I saw that one coming a mile away :)
So if we look at the top left info panel, we see a new piece of info: Bee Crop Yield: +1%
This is a new spot for this Colony, so there has not been much pollination done yet. Over time and with a large colony, the maximum bonus reaches 50%, so it is very worthwhile to keep bees. I opted for Yield instead of Growth Rate changes because it made more sense to me since the Bees are handling the Pollination.
Another thing so look at above is the Environment Score. It is not a full bar in this case. That means this area is not productive enough for this hive to Swarm. There are just too many bees in the area compared to available food, so the Hive will never reach Maximum Size. The Wild Hive is competing a little too much in this area. On the other hand, if we don't want more swarms, this hive is placed well to aid in pollenating that Field.
On the other hand...
Now I planted a whole bunch of Wheat and Berry Bushes around this same Bee Colony. As can be seen, the circle is now Green, and the Environment value is much Higher. Almost High enough to allow another Swarm.
Another thing to notice here is the Auto Harvest toggle. Bee Keeping is quite automated, with the main decisions being smart Swarm Lure and Skep Shelter Placement. Also managing the Shelter priorities can be fun when trying to maximize crop yields. By default, Auto Harvest will be on. Auto Harvest also takes into consideration the current Season and will always leave enough Honey for the Colony to survive the Winter.
The rule in the Geoponica (which is a famous 10th century book on agriculture and another good reference) was taking 2/3 of the honey twice a year, but only 1/10th of the Honey before Winter. I follow similar rules with the Auto Harvest.
Before I get into Honey and Beeswax Extraction, there are a couple more cool things to discuss.
Honey theft was a booming industry in medieval times. Honey and Beeswax were very desirable trade goods but also one of the only sources of a sweet treat. So to combat the thefts, and to provide shelter for the skeps, Bee Boles were developed.
Here is Beatrice's humble home. It has Bee Boles facing in each direction, and the one by the front door is active with a Skep inside. These exist mostly for historical accuracy, but they are also great space savers.
Skep Shelters and Bee Boles can also be Winterized. This closes in the Skep to provide extra insulation over the Winter. This is a task that the Clanfolk must spend time doing, so it may be best to move all the Skeps into Bee Boles in late Autumn before it gets too cold. Then the Winterizing process can be carried out much closer to home.
We made it!
Honeycombs and Brood Combs are processed at the Honey and Wax Extractor. The Honey and Wax Extractor is a complex crafting station that can be configured in multiple ways to produce the desired products. I tried to simulate the actual processes visually using these different configurations. I will describe them below.
Honey Extraction (Top)
Honeycombs are tied up in sack cloth and crushed over bowls. After the initial hand squeezing, they are left sitting over the bowls on a rack to let gravity do some work. The squeezed and drained Honeycombs are then heated in water and most of the wax seeps out of the sack cloth bag. When this mixture cools, the wax settles to the top and can be reheated and melted into forms. This creates the Crunchy Honey and Beeswax Ingots seen on the right. Crunchy Honey and Beeswax at this stage are not finely filtered so there are bug parts in it, but that's extra protein!
Brood Combs (2nd)
Brood Combs can also have their Beeswax extracted. In this case the extractor does not show any Honey collection, but instead shows more of the Wax collection process.
Fine Honey (3rd)
Fine Honey is a Trade Good and will be used in more Advanced Recipes. This is warmed Crunchy Honey that is passed through Linen Cloth as a filter. The warming is done double boiler style which is why the water is shown over the little oven.
Fine Beeswax (Bottom)
Fine Beeswax is also a Trade Good and will likely be used in Candle Making in the future. The Fine Beeswax also has a Thistle embossed on it because that looks nicer :)
As mentioned a while ago, sometimes it makes more sense to kill the entire Colony in the Skep instead of just harvesting a smaller amount of the Raw Combs. This is where the Skep Smoker comes in.
The Skep Smoker uses Brimstone Smoke (Sulfur Smoke) to kill the Brood within the Skep. Brimstone can naturally be found near Iron Veins so it will likely become a byproduct of Iron Mining once Beekeeping has been discovered. It will also be a Trade Good. I have not implemented the Brimstone yet, but will soon.
So that is the current state of Bees and Beekeeping! I hope it is more clear why this took me 6 weeks. I probably delved a little too deep into Beekeeping for most people, but I decided if it was going to be done, I was going to try to deliver on the whole Beekeeping experience.
Yes this is the Beavers all over again. :)
Most of the remaining Bee tech will be related to Candles. There are some lighting issues to resolve, but Candles are much more similar to the rest of the game than the Bees were. Mead will also come in the future, but I am going to hold off on that in an effort to get people playing with this sooner.
I am still working on a plan on how to deliver the Beekeeping without the full Secondary Settlement system. I may try to tie up just the Beekeeping portion of Secondary Settlements and then make it very clear that there is more to come with "The Brown One" storyline. I may also make a "The Beekeeper" start Scenario that gives much less starting coin to allow the Beekeeping to be tested sooner.
There is still a lot of tuning and bug fixing to do, but I am close to a Testing Branch version. In an effort to not get sucked into another major side quest like the Bees, I am going to wrap up the work on the Bees and then push them for Update 18, instead of having people also have to wait for me to totally finish everything to do with Secondary Settlement storyline as well.
So I am thinking Update 18 will be about this new Bee Tech and maybe a bit of Secondary Settlement, and then Update 19 will be about the fully working Secondary Settlements. I am very cognizant of how much time this is taking and appreciate your patience once again!
I will endeavor to not get distracted by any other shiny things until the Secondary Settlements are complete.
I am going to get back to work on this now. :)
Andrew (Blorf) Hume MinMax Games Ltd.
Clanfolk is 50% off during the Hooded Horse October Publisher Sale. Clanfolk is a colony sim set in the Scottish Highlands. Harness your environment to survive - fish, gather, hunt, and farm as you prepare for the winter. Build an inn, trade with other clans, have children, and marry them off - live life and prosper across the generations. Hooded Horse October Publisher Sale
About
This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Clanfolk, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Clanfolk statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.
FAQ
Browse related Steam game intelligence pages and categories.