Dawn of Man Walkthrough

Dawn of Man is an extremely elaborate survival sim, which takes place in the prehistoric era, spanning over 10,000 years. This walkthrough guide will help you create your personal civilization, successfully taking you through the six eras, beginning with the Paleolithic Age and finishing with the Iron Age.

Note that to successfully progress through Dawn of Man and eventually finish the game, you mustearn knowledge points and unlock technologies.

Dawn of Man official artwork

Table of contents

Essential Controls and Menus

Before you’re able to effectively survive through various eras and build a decent settlement, you need to become familiar with the most important controls, menus, charts, and stats in Dawn of Man. Here’s the breakdown of these essential controls in the game:

The Beginning of the Journey

Your journey begins in the early Stone Age, starting with seven prehistoric humans and three tents for sleeping and storing your items. The very first thing you need to do is create a work area for collecting sticks. Note that you can assign workers to this task by pressing the “7” key on your numpad, and you can switch between the work areas by pressing the “+” or “-” keys. Since you will also have access to a crafting area, use wooden sticks to craft your first Wooden Spear weapons for your hunters.

Then, press “H” to select your hunters and send them out to hunt prey. Once they return from the hunt, press the “B” key to open the building menu and spare 4x Stick to craft the Skin Drying Rack, which you should place next to a fishing spot. This should allow you not only to increase the amount of raw fish but also grant you 5 KP (knowledge points). This will be enough to unlock your first tech in the Tech Tree, which should be the Food Drying tech.

Techs menu in Dawn of Man Walkthrough

Earn Knowledge Points

If you’re wondering how to earn more KP in Dawn of Man, then here’s how you can achieve this by:

Note that you’re able to always check the progression of your knowledge base by pressing the “8” key on your numpad.

Starting settlement in Dawn of Man Walkthrough

Expand Your Settlement

Once the summer sets in, prioritize gathering nuts from the nut trees, as these will ensure a higher income of meat and fish. Once you have a surplus of fruits and berries, set up more fishing areas, as well as Skin Drying and Food Drying Racks. Once you start producing more food and skins with the help of these, start building more tents, which will attract even more humans to your camp, effectively increasing its population.

This will allow you to increase the number of your hunters, which you should send out in groups of two to hunt more wild animals. Don’t attempt to hunt such predators as bears, lions, or wolves so early in the game, but focus on bison, boars, and deer instead. The two best types of animals to hunt are mammoths and woolly rhinos, as they give 2 KP each, whereas all other animals give just 1 KP. However, you’ll be able to encounter these wild animals only in the Neolithic Age.

Early settlement in Dawn of Man Walkthrough

Era 1: Paleolithic Age

The first era is characterized by the level of your progression not only in terms of how well you managed to establish your village, but also which technologies you’ve unlocked by this point. Here’s a list of the most important technologies that you should unlock on the tech tree:

If you see that morale levels of your population decreases, then it would also make sense to unlock the Spirituality tech, which establishes totems in the village. But do this only if you have enough KP, as you’re able to boost morale by other means, such as reducing the workloads, giving your populace better weapons, avoiding long trips, and others.

Gathering wood in Dawn of Man Walkthrough

All in all, to successfully complete the Paleolithic Age of the game, you need to have all the early techs unlocked and your village should include the following:

Era 2: Mesolithic Age

As soon as you accumulate 14 KP, you’ll be able to unlock the Pottery technology, which starts the second era — Mesolithic Age. Start by assigning three workers to the nearest source of water to collect and store water in clay pots.

Note that at this stage you’ll be experiencing raider invasions, which means that you need to improve your defensive structures, but you’ll also encounter some travelling traders visiting your village. Be sure to take advantage of these encounters and purchase rare goods and technolgies from them, and even trade your surplus items to them.

The Mesolithic Age of the game grants access to five more technologies, where each one requires 7 KP and previous technologies to be unlocked. Here they are:

Lastly, this era could be a good time to start domesticating dogs, which can be unlocked as the Dog Domestication tech. The dogs will help you immensely to scare away the invasion raids, which will only get more frequent as the years pass by.

Era 3: Neolithic Age

If you managed to unlock the Cereal Processing and Leather Processing technologies, then you’ll be able to unlock the Cereal Domestication tech, which effectively begins the third era of the Neolithic Age, which is the final stage of the Stone Age.

This age also brings a more balanced way of existence to your population, shifting from a pure gatherer-hunter survival strategy to one that involves a more agrarian approach. Here, it’s highly recommended to not overload your plantation workers, farming cereal grains on patches no more than 5×5 or 7×7.

There are also many more technologies that you can unlock during the Neolithic Age, and here’s the best order of unlocking them:

Era 4: Copper Age

If you didn’t skip Stone Polishing in the Mesolithic or Neolithic ages, then you can unlock the Copper Smelting technology, which initiates the end of the first three Stone Age eras and sends you straight into the Copper Age.

This era is much harder to survive in, as the climate change means less farming and more animal domestication. But you can also use copper to smelt new tools and weapons, which opens up a lot of new prospects regarding hunting and defenses.

There are only six new technologies available during the Copper Age, and by this point you should have enough knowledge points to unlock them all:

Era 5: Bronze Age

Just as before, the Bronze Age is initiated by unlocking the Bronze Smelting technology, which allows you to smelt copper and tin into a bronze alloy. This in its turn opens the way for bronze weapons and tools to be crafted, which are much more durable.

Of course, to be able to fully embrace this era, your population must focus on mining lots of copper and tin from their respective mines. you’re able to move ores in baskets using donkeys and store them in rock piles instead of tents or warehouses, which is way more economical.

The Bronze Age also offers seven new technologies to be unlocked, including:

Era 6: Iron Age

Lastly, to complete the game and begin the final Iron Age, you need to unlock the Iron Smelting technology. Note that once you do this, all of your copper weapons and tools will be immediately devalued, so keep this in mind.

The Iron Age is characterized by the appearance of the iron weapons and tools, as well as improved production of supplies. There are only five technologies left to unlock during this era:

That’s everything you need to know on how to complete the Dawn of Man walkthrough. For more guides, check outCrime Scene Cleaner WalkthroughandAura Kingdom Impact Tier List – Best Classes & Eidolons.