How to Beat Forest Pass

The mine does not open to keys; it opens to dynamite — the bandits' own supply. Larry, freed by your pickaxe in the opening, is the ally who helps put the explosion where it counts. The chain is the game quietly rewarding the mercy of the first hour. Hans and his bandit crew take a dim view of all of it.

The Forest is the first area that is genuinely hostile ground rather than a project site: bandits on the roads and hostile zombies between the trees — the Bloated Zombie among them. Ranged answers do real work here, which is the zone's standing lesson. A Barracks squad turns a dangerous walk into a routine patrol. Bring one.

• Reunite with Larry early in the chain — the dynamite plan runs through him.
• Secure the bandits' dynamite supply rather than improvising at the mine mouth.
• Bring a four-strong Barracks squad; bandits shoot back and Bloated Zombies do not fight fair.
• Keep a spare pickaxe in the wagon — the mine runs are pickaxe work once the door is open.

The Forest Mine becomes a standing resource site, and the forge tallies are the long-term receipts: Bronze Age wants 100 bronze ingots and Iron Age wants 100 iron. Smithing mastery — 17 nodes, 4,450 red points — is the workers' inheritance that makes the forge half-automatic. Feed the mine labor through Work Zones like any other chain. The Forest stops being a frontier the day the ingots start moving.