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There's a mod called something like "Tribal Rimworld" which sets all the factions to tribal instead of high tech. It doesn't affect YOU, but you can just opt not to use any of the higher-tech weapons, if you want to have a more low-tech game. I used it in one game to make a world where a bunch of cannibal tribes were at war. It was pretty fun, though VERY hard, since you have to rely heavily on deadfalls and hallways for defense, since you can't use turrets or rifles or anything.

It's a nice little hidden valley in the mountains with only one way in, a big open area with lots of crop fields, and the colony dug into the mountainside.

That makes me want to start a new colony in such a place!
Don't forget the screenshot!

I got REALLY lucky with the valley I ended up in. Not only is it locked away and nicely secure, but there were FOUR geothermal vents in the valley (and another one right beyond a narrow section of mountain, so I could easily tie it into the grid). So the moment we got to geothermal power our power problems were over forever.

Here's the base: https://imgur.com/a/bdKh5
And here's a longer shot of the valley: https://imgur.com/tWNSQYl

One thing I've also been trying lately to be more organized is to use storage cabinets to hold resources, food, etc, rather than just a collection zone. I use the StackXXL mod (and a bunch of others) so I can stack things larger than normal, as it made no sense to be able to only stack food 10 high, steel 75 high, etc, considering how large each of those spaces is supposed to be. Mostly because I was tired of the pawns stacking items haphazardly all over the place. A large storage area might have 3, 4, 5, or more stacks of a single item, even if the stacks weren't full, and it bothered me. A cabinet forces them all to be in one spot (well, two) due to the priority of the cabinet. And I can set one to critical, one to important, one to preferred, and one to normal, so they'll always stack things in descending order, making it easy to see at a glance how much I have, without having to have the huge expanded resource list on the left.

Link in my sig to my mountain bases, i tend to put up a temp base outside the mountain while I dig but I always like things looking neat and organized.  I see the disorganized messes that other people make and shake my head.  of course, everyone should play how they like, but it just seems bizarre to me when things are mess looking.

I like mine to be tidy as well. I'll have to take a screenshot of my current moutain valley when I get home. It's a nice little hidden valley in the mountains with only one way in, a big open area with lots of crop fields, and the colony dug into the mountainside.

I had Sappers open an Ancient Structure and die by the mechanoid guards, but they took my chance to recruit the spacers in crypto sleep.

I had something similar happen to me the other night, but not as enjoyable.

My new colony fended off an early raid (distress call so we saved the person), and the raiders started to retreat. However, one of them decided that his path of retreat needed to be directly through a mountainside, so he started digging. And he popped open the ancient danger, which spawned the hives and bugs. Greaaaat. Since the colonists were all injured from the raid, they couldn't run out and deal with it immediately.

Finaly healed up the next day, and ... raid. A normal one this time, not a distress call raid. Damn it. So they barely fended that raid off, the main gunner having been knocked down and really badly hurt in the fight. So she had to heal up for another day. Cue hives spawning additional hives.

I tried a bunch of ploys to deal with them, but the bugs were just too numerous and the colonists were too few, and not enough firepower. So I had to give up and reload. Boo.

I tend to enjoy building mountain bases, since I like forcing enemies into narrow valleys to make it easier to pick them off (setting up switchbacks and planting trees between the walls to slow the enemy down and spread them out), and I like the temperature regulation of being under a mountain. Means less need for numerous heaters/coolers during warm and cold seasons.

My bases are typically built in a vaguely similar fashion, with a kitchen/dining area and attached coolers, crafting room, med lab, and bedrooms forming a three-sided square, with a "courtyard" between them where we can load up caravans, have traders hang out, a prison dug into the mountainside off a bit away from the base (easier to deal with breakouts), etc.

The buildings are all dug into the edges of the mountainside, so I can put windows looking outside in several of the areas, while the bedrooms tend to be dug into the mountain. Sometimes I'll make a large "complex" underground, with 3-space wide hallways (2-space in the bedroom areas) so that if an infestation happens, I've got nice, long killways that the bugs have to travel down and my colonists can set up to shoot.

One of my "themed" colonies was a military base on an alien world, which had a much different layout. Barracks, all straight lines, wide paths and killways, etc. Was a fun build.

Yeah, just had a big raid come through last night (about 30 tribespeople), but between the switchback I built to stagger them out, and the gunbox setup combined with my colonists with ARs, we cut them down pretty fast. Got a nice pile of bodies for my psychopath cook to chop up into kibble.

Planted a huge hay field out in the valley as well, and since I'm playing with "climate cycle" turned on, this latest winter ended up being really mild (never got below 45), so didn't have to worry about it snowing.

Now I just need some more muffalo!

As far as the animals eating hay vs kibble, yeah, I don't know of any way to force them to eat one or the other without simply putting the kibble out of reach. I'll experiment with it a bit and see if I can come up with something.

Neat, a lot of stuff I didn't know about taming animals. Good read.

My current colony is really flourishing right now, with 15 colonists (started with the single rich explorer), a huge colony tucked away in an easily-defended valley in the mountains, tons of farming, and a huge valley next door for grazing. I had a couple of muffalo self-tame, so I've been trying to breed them, and running around trying to tame a few more each winter when some come wandering in.

I just realized that all that grass is going to go away when winter hits, though, so this guide reminded me I need to make a TON of kibble, or plant a huge field of haygrass.

In seriousness, here's the latest update from Twitter:

"A18 still developing! Swamp biomes, caves, named world features (oceans, ranges, deserts, etc), new art description tales, new plants, &more"

Neat! Swamp biome sounds interesting. And caves. And I wonder if we can rename the world features.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

I had a couple of deaths last night that were kind of silly. But it'll require a story!

A trade caravan had just showed up on the map, and was wandering towards our base when I got the "manhunter pack incoming!" warning. I looked over at it, and ... it was about 25 labradors. Luckily, they were on the opposite side of the map from the caravan, and seemed content to just run around in circles barking at the wall between two big hills.

So I kept an eye on them, and went back to work. Traded some stuff with the caravan, and then they started to head out. Apparently at that point the giant dog-pack decided "hey guys, there's more stuff over there! We can go AROUND this wall!" So the whole pack starts running along, barking madly, straight for the caravan. Shit.

The colonists grab their weapons and start sprinting out to try and help the caravan, who gets cornered in a valley near the exit of the map, and just SWARMED by the dogs. They all get savaged horribly, while my colonists try to shoot the dogs and save the caravan. Unfortunately there were just too many dogs, and several colonists suffered heavy injuries as well, though no deaths. Yet.

We dragged the wounded (including two members of the caravan who didn't die) back to the base to patch them up. Blood EVERYWHERE. I'm frantically trying to find beds for everyone, as the hospital wasn't set up for that many wounded at once (silly me, thinking 6 hospital beds would be fine for a colony of only 12 people). It's like herding cats, as people keep getting up and wandering around, despite their massive injuries.

Then I see a "colonist needs rescue" message pop up. Crap, did someone pass out? I click on it, and see the colony's geologist passed out about a half-mile from the colony. Apparently, despite massive bleeding, she decided "hey, you know what? I'm going to go pick up that random boulder on the far side of the map, even though it's not marked to be hauled!"

So I grab the janitor (she's not good at anything except dumb labor, but she's got jogger, so she's quick) and have her sprint to try and collect our wayward geologist. She gets there before she bleeds out, grabs her, and starts hauling ass back to the colony. The geologist is going to bleed to death in about 3 hours. It's a good 90m or so run back to the base, so it's going to be really close.

I kick some of the other colonists in the ass to get them to finish fixing people up (because, you know, having a snack is clearly WAY more important than putting a bandaid on your friend who's gushing blood), and then see the game drop into combat time. Oh what the hell NOW!?

I look around, and then with dawning horror realize that the janitor, who was dragging the geologist back to the base, is under attack by a wolf. Apparently all that blood made it smell like lunch time. So the poor janitor is staggering along, getting repeatedly mauled, while two other colonists start running out to save her. They manage to get there and kill the wolf before it kills the janitor, though she's bleeding and down. So the two of them grab the geologist and the janitor and start running back towards the base again. The geologist has about an hour before she bleeds out, which MIGHT be enough time to get her into the medbay and patch her up quickly if we do it fast.

Just as they're getting to the tunnel that leads into the colony...

RAID!

4 drop pods land right at the front door, and out spill some mechanoids. Right in front of the two that were carrying the janitor and the geologist back to the base.

Explosions, pulse fire, and a few metallic "ping!"s later, all four of them were lying dead on the ground. The victims of a horrible conflux of random events.

So I sighed, shook my head, and reloaded the last save. Hmph.

I refuse to play without using Prepare Carefully. I love setting up specific colony ideas, so I want to set the people up with specific skills, traits, etc, rather than a bunch of randos.

Other stuff I use is the one that allows a trading spot, plentiful forests (cause I love having huge forests of trees), expanded prosthetics, and a bunch of other random ones I don't remember offhand.

Early on you definitely want to work on infrastructure. The first few raids that will pop up are really easy to deal with, generally. A few well-positioned rocks, using trees for cover, walls, etc, are enough to fend them off with minimal damage. Even a single turret is a pretty big investment early on, as you have to have a lot of spare power, materials, and such.

Some of the groups of enemies chasing refugess can be pretty hilariously large. In one game I set up the planet as being absolutely crawling with cannibal tribes (had the scenario start every NPC with a 100% chance for Cannibal trait), and have it pop up a refugee every quadrum or so. As we got larger, the pursuits started turning into something out of a movie.

The last one was this poor naked girl fleeing for her life being chased by literally like 60 tribals. Luckily our colony at that point was very well-defended, with a killbox-from-hell set up on the coast, which forced enemies to slog through water as well as over rocks, slowing them down immensely). The heroic colonists were positioned behind a fire-wall and sandbags, and just tore the tribals apart with their charge rifles.

Ended up capturing about 10 tribals, and selling most of them off as slaves. One ended up joining us.