How i play this game
Since i always play singleplayer, i decided to do another fresh start with the enhanced edition. Dificulty set to barbaric.
Create my character, do a bit of leveling and some journeys to get started plus some basic iron farming + a horse from the jungle entrance.
I raid the darfari cage locations until i find some good starter thralls(Fridda, some tier 3 crafters).
Farm a bit more materials then i destroy everything, move all important mats to my horse and thralls and move to the highlands.
I do the cage farm again between Liams watch/new asagarth and another camp nearby and already got a cimmerian berseker, a shieldwright and some other crafters.
Now i build my city in the highlands and we will see from there.
This was my most enjoyable playthroughs, didn t know the northern cages actually HAVE a higher chance of named thralls. You also get hardened steel and star metal if you have a dismantling bench.
In my last playthrough i struggled with purges to get some decent thralls. Not worth it. For those asking i don t like to club and enslave people.