They remain useful in the winter as their walking speed is the highest, and you won’t be running a lot in winter with no areas to graze.A quick charge out and back into your walls will remove them. Your archers suck at hitting greed that clumps too close to your wall.
The bear is my personal favorite and the reasoning for this is below.They produce 3 coins every time they graze and this is incredibly helpful. The Unicorn is a good mount for early-day island establishment.Useless and a straight downgrade in winter. The Stag runs faster in the forest which is good for early game but as you start clearing the trees, this becomes less useful.Bear in mind winter never ends once it has come. Building farms therefore may be justified so as just to pack as much money as possible for those winter days.Your only opportunity to get money is with the Treasurer in your town center. All the crops will wither, and all hunting will stop. For example on Day 50 ish on the 5th Island. Winter comes at different times for different islands.Having a ballista hermit with me saved my crown so many times on Island 5 which had no Archer or Builder statue. What structures will be available on which island is random? You need to make sure that when you go to another island, you’re prepared for any eventuality.I never really used the Armoury hermit for the extra knight until the later islands where you would need to send as large a force as possible to destroy portals.Place it on the nearest tower position behind your front line, and it will maximize its damage. Floaters will just grab your engineer and you will have lost a recruit. The ballista tower is great because, unlike the catapult, the Breeders can’t throw the bolt back.I almost lost on the 5th island because I forgot the Bakery hermit and the vagrant camps were very far away from my base. They can make the difference between winning and losing. They live in little huts somewhere on the island, so make sure you find them. Hermits and their towers are very useful: A boat can take anywhere from 3-10 days to get to the port, depending on the size of the island and the number of trees in the way. Clear any portals, including the cove portal, so your builders can get to the port safely.It will be pushed at a much slower speed through the forest than open ground. Clear the trees in the way of the boat.Make sure you have 3 idle engineers to avoid wasting time. 3 Engineers will push the boat to move it at max speed.This will be the tallest side of the boat. The Boat will face in the direction of the port when you initially spend the gold coins to construct it.