Dawn of Man Best Starting Location

Best maps and starting locations are the flat ones in Dawn of Man. Simply because you want to fit your buildings without issue. Placing buildings close and in an organized manner is very good for both workload and for pleasing the eye. Of course, you need a lake or a river that is close to your settlement as well for fishing, mud collecting, and drinking. All that being said, what is the best map and best starting location in Dawn of Man?

In vanilla, it’s the Forest River location in the Continental Dawn map. Because it’s the flattest, most beautiful landscape you can grow a settlement. But you can get a much better flat settlement space from custom scenarios like Flatlands, Medium Flatlands, Happy Farmer, Flatter Map Mod, Chesapeake Bay Survive, Caledon, and Khandalar.

Here is my ranking for top 10 best starting locations in Dawn of Man:

1. Flatlands (Scenario map.)
2. Medium Flatlands (Scenario map.)
3. Happ Farmer (Scenario map.)
4. Flatter Map Mod (Scenario map.)
5. Chesapeake Bay Survive (Scenario map.)
6. Caledon (Scenario map.)
7. Khandalar (Scenario map.)
8. Forest River (Continental Dawn – Vanilla)
9.  (The Northlands – Vanilla)
10.  (Ancient Warriors – Vanilla)

Dawn of Man Maps

Maps in the Dawn of Man separated by their difficulty. Meaning, easy maps have long summers, short winters, less raiders, and most amount of flatlands. Well, hard and challenging maps are the opposite.

Let’s break down three Dawn of Man maps from easiest to hardest and rank their starting locations.

Continental Dawn

Grow and evolve your settlement, from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age.

About 12,000 years ago the last glacial period had just ended. This made most of continental Europe a lot easier to inhabit, human populations thrived, and the Neolithic revolution started.

1. Forest River: Most flat landscape in the entire game. Perfect location to build big settlements with big populations.
2. Lake Valley: Extremely good flat spot circled by mountains and a lake. Can expand settlement to the side via narrow path.
3. Mountain Lake: Third most flatlands.
4. River Fork: Nowhere to expand.
5. Merging Streams: Nowhere to expand.
6. Twisty River: Nowhere to expand.

The Northlands

Grow and evolve your settlement in a harsh environment.

In the northern regions, long winters, short summers and sparse resources made survival a lot harder, and only the most determined humans could thrive.

1. Mountain Confluence: Lots of flatlands and a river fork. The best location in The Northlands map.
2. Frozen Valley: Medium flatlands, can expand to the second settlement via narrow path.
3. North River: Small starting area, can only expand crossways through river.
4. Chill Lake: Not much to do, small amount of flat space and nowhere to expand.
5. Twin Lakes: Worst starting location, small area to settle, nowhere to expand.

Ancient Warriors

Develop your settlement in a hostile environment.

In some regions, the lack of resources and overcrowding resulted in violent conflicts between the human populations.

1. Plains of Conflict: Flattest space, can expand freely.
2. Canyon of Slaughter: Flat and can expand freely, just one tier above Plains of Conflict.
3. Blood River: Surrounded by mountains.
4. Blood Lake: Not really flat but not as bad as Blood River.