The last, as-of-now most difficult predefined map in Pioneers of Pagonia, Dangerous Hills lives up to its name. This island introduces the last of the enemies you can encounter while building a settlement, and it's a dangerous one indeed. Tread cautiously, and stock up on your Silver Swords. You're gonna need 'em.
Getting Started
Dangerous Hills starts off relatively nice, with a wide, open space for establishing yourself, plenty of trees to harvest, and a starting rock pile off to the north. You shouldn't have any trouble setting up a satisfactory little settlement for yourself, and you can quickly expand things by setting up Guard Towers. That said, hold back on expansion on this map. If you go too far from your starting point you'll draw too much attention, and baddies will cripple your economy - and steal all your units.
If you expand to the northwest of your settlement, or at least explore in that direction, you'll find your first neutral faction. Once again, your goal here is to befriend the locals. Before we talk about them, however, we'd better address the hordes of enemies looking to make your life miserable.
Werewolves and Moon Glens
If you wander too far north from your starting point you'll come across this area's new enemy: Werewolves. Centered around Moon Glens, Werewolves are ferocious attackers that will go after anyone who comes too close. If a Werewolf grabs a unit - say, an Explorer - it will bite them. The unit will then enter the Moon Glen, returning moments later as another Werewolf. Combat units have a chance to fight, though they also turn into Werewolves if they lose.
Werewolves, similar to Spectres, don't move from their Moon Glens, except to go after any units who come too close. Keep your units away from the Werewolves as much as possible, and set yourself up for Fearnaughts, via an Adventurer's Guild. Their Silver Swords, made at Weaponsmiths, are much better suited to quickly wiping out packs of Werewolves. Sending anyone else will likely result in a losing battle for your side.
In addition to Werewolves you have the two usual problems in Bandits and Thieves. If you head far enough west you'll find a massive concentration of Bandit Camps, and if you go too far east or north you'll run into a number of Thief Camps. In either case you'll trigger a massive influx of raiders who will steal all of your items and make your life miserable. Hold back on vast expansion until you have plenty of military units who can deal with constant raids. Disabling your Guard Towers / Garrisons (top-right corner of the menu when you click on the building) will prevent your Guards from getting too greedy with your borders. Then you can choose a direction, get rid of all the threats that way, then turn around and go after the other side of the map.
On previous maps you could get away with using all of your materials on weapons. This time, make sure you build a Mint and a Treasury. Invest your Copper Ore into Copper Coins, so your units are receiving a nice bonus to their combat scores, and exploit Iron Ore for making weapons. Advanced Soldiers will go a long way towards keeping your borders safe, especially with the bonus from the Treasury.
On very rare occasions Spectres will float down from the north, past the Werewolves. They will scare a few units and then go home. If you have Fearnaughts for dealing with them, great; if not, don't worry too much. Their excursions are rare.
Befriend All Factions
There are two factions whom you need to befriend to complete Dangerous Hills. Both of them are clearly troubled by Werewolves, the same as you, and want to cut in on your anti-Werewolf fear. For this reason you should leave the Objectives for later, when you've dealt with the majority of this map's threats.
Ironview Crossing Objectives
Situated northwest of your starting location, Ironview Crossing has three requests that will force you to do some expansion and traveling. Once of them is quite unfortunate, given the enemies on this map, and you may want to skip it.
- Deliver Goods (+5% Friendship per item, up to 40%). Ironview Crossing wants you to use a Smelting Works to forge 20 Silver Bars, then trade them via your Trading Post. Silver Bars are very important on this make because of all the Werewolves, so, yes, this is the Objective you may want to skip.
- Complete Boar Statue (+80% Friendship). There are two Grand Boar of Fortitude construction sites, and you need to envelope them in your territorial boundaries, link them up to your settlement via roads, and complete them with your Builders. You'll need 40 Stone and 40 Iron Bars to finish construction. The two statues are in the following locations:
- North of your settlement, on a rocky cliff overlooking the Werewolves' dens. You'll probably want to take out the Werewolves before you risk going after this construction site.
- East of the Forgemasters' settlement, and more or less directly north of the mountain where the Werewolves live.
- Supply Outpost Village (+30% Friendship). There's an Outpost Village in the northwest of the map, and they want 57 Firewood and 29 Rabbit Meat. Getting the items is simple; getting across the map is another matter. You'll need to extend west, take out the cluster of Bandit Camps, and then extend north along the edge of Ironview Crossing to make a path. Connect the Outpost Village with your settlement via a road to send the items along.
Forgemasters Objectives
A little ways north of Ironview Crossing, the Forgemasters can be a bit of a pain to reach since you need to be more careful of the Werewolves. Their conditions for friendship are not that difficult to complete, but, again, they will draw on your stockpiles of Silver.
- Increase Population (+70% Friendship). The people of Forgemasters want you to increase your settlement's population to 1,000 or more. Add more Cottages / Residences, and make sure your people are supplied with a Tavern / Tavern Tables / a Marketplace. Not that difficult to achieve.
- Supply Curious Bazaar (+70% Friendship). Forgemasters wants you to supply a Curious Bazaar that's way in the north with some items: 41 Torches, 10 Silver Blades, and 23 Light Armors. These items are needed to make both Rangers and Fearnaughts, and given how much both units are useful on this map you should hold back on this Objective until the very last minute. Once the Werewolves are out of your way you can extend north, along the sides of the Forgemasters' settlement, then veer northwest. Connect the Curious Bazaar to your settlement via a road to send the items along.