How to play the sheep

• The first 40 seconds
• The door
• Surviving alone
• Leap and Shear
• Who outruns who
• Hiding
• Rescues
• The last minute
• Mistakes
• Beginner and advanced

What should sheep build first?

You start with 15 gold and earn 1 a second. The wolves sit in their den for the first 40 seconds, so you get about 55 gold of building before anyone can touch you, and the den is in a corner, a long run from where you start.

First buy: a Windmill

A Windmill costs 32 gold and grinds 0.3 gold a second, so it pays for itself in 107 seconds. Built the moment you can afford it, 17 seconds in, it leaves you with 28 gold of building by the time the den opens instead of 55, and over a full round it earns you about 105 gold more than it cost. The catch is its 120 health: a wolf breaks it in 2 bites. Put it where your walls will be, not out in the open.

The next 30 seconds: Hedgerows against something solid

Build your fort against rock, trees or the forest at the map's edge. Wolves can't chew those, so every tile of cliff is a tile of wall you never pay for. Water is not a wall: wolves swim.

The cheapest strong wall in the game is the Hedgerow: 7 gold for 360 health. It goes in at a quarter strength (90) and grows to full over 60 seconds, which is exactly why you plant it now, while nobody can bite it. A hedge planted in your first half minute is close to full when the pack arrives. Planted in a hurry with a wolf beside it, it breaks in 1 bites.

Before the den opens: close it, and keep change

Fill the last gaps with Straw Houses (3 gold) and Hay Blocks (2), leave one door, and keep a few gold in hand. The first wall the pack chews is the one you want to upgrade on the spot.

The one-tile door

A sheep fits through a gap one tile wide. A wolf doesn't: it is 0.9 tiles across from its middle, so it needs two. A fort with a one-tile door lets you walk out to rescue a friend and walk back in while the pack has to chew.

• Don't stand in the doorway. A tag lands when a wolf's middle is within 1.32 tiles of yours, so a wolf pressed against the door can still reach a sheep standing in it. Stand a step back.
• Face the door away from the den and toward the pen in the middle of the map, so your rescue runs are short.
• Brick the side that faces the den. Wolves walk round a fort when the walk is short and chew through it when the walk is long. The wall they meet first after a long walk is the one they will chew.
• A second door is an escape hatch. When one wolf camps your front door, the back one is how you get out.
• No wall is safe from a potion. A wolf with a 25-gold Potion of Strength breaks any farm in one bite, Brick House and Big Barn included. A thick wall still costs the pack a potion per hole, so two layers beat one.

While you place a farm, the ground shows where a wolf could reach you: green is safe, red is not. Use it on the door before you trust it.

Can one sheep survive alone?

Yes, but not by out-walling the pack. Two wolves chewing one small fort will get in. And when a few sheep face a lone wolf, the wolf gets stronger: with more than 3 sheep for every wolf, the pack bites harder and runs faster, so a lone wolf against 5 sheep bites 2.8 times as hard. The sheep that last the round alone keep the wolves slow and busy:

• A Beehive stings the nearest wolf within 7.5 tiles every 1.6 seconds and slows it 45% for 2.2 seconds. The sting lasts longer than the wait between stings, so a wolf chewing near your hive moves at 2.2 tiles a second the whole time, well under your 3.6.
• Scarecrows look like sheep to wolves until a wolf walks right up to one. A couple placed far from your fort send the pack the wrong way at the start of the hunt.
• The dog joins 15 seconds after the den opens, runs to the sheep in the most danger and barks wolves back.
• Leaving is allowed. When the wall is about to go, Leap out the far side, shear and run. A fort is a place to be, not a place to die.

When to Leap and when to Shear

Leap Space

Jump up to 3.4 tiles toward your cursor, clean over farms, every 10 seconds. It is your way out of a fort that is being breached and your way past a wolf in a narrow lane. Save it when a wolf is close: a Leap you spent on getting somewhere faster is not there when you need to get away.

Shear E

Your fleece grows 2 points a second up to 100. From 40 you can shear it: one wool bale for every 25, so a full coat gives 4. Each bale builds a Wool Wall C for no gold, and at 225 health a Wool Wall is tougher than a Straw House. Shearing also makes you 15% faster for 15 seconds.

So shear a full coat for walls when you are safe, and shear early only when you need the speed right now.

Snares and the Watchtower

Snare R

10 gold. Drop a rope trap at your feet. 0.8 seconds later it is set, and the first wolf to step on it is held still for 1.25 seconds. Wolves can't see it until they find it. You can have 2 set at a time, 10 seconds apart, anywhere but the den and the pen's ring.

Drop one on the line you run, a few steps ahead of a wolf chasing you straight: it runs onto it and you are gone. Drop one just outside the pen on your way to a rescue and the wolf guarding it is stuck while you pull your friend out. A wolf that walks slowly near a snare spots it, a ward sees the ones round it and a Howl finds every snare within 12 tiles, so a snare left out in the open for long gets found. A found snare still holds a wolf that steps on it, but wolves can see it and go round.

Watchtower F

12 gold and 150 health. Once it is built your whole flock sees everything within 15 tiles of it (less at night), and it rings a bell when a wolf comes into view, so nobody gets caught by surprise on that side. Build it on the den side of your fort, behind a wall: wolves know it is your eyes and chew it down. You can have 2.

Who outruns who

Speeds in tiles a second, straight from the game:

• A sheep runs 3.6, or 3.89 within 5 tiles of another sheep (the flock is 8% faster).
• A sheared sheep runs 4.14, and 4.47 in the flock.
• A wolf runs 4, 5.8 while it Sprints, up to 4.4 at night, and 2.2 while bees are on it.
• A Shepherd runs 3.75. Each pair of Swift Paws adds 0.6, up to 5.2 for a wolf with two.

The line that matters: a sheared sheep outruns a wolf that hasn't bought Swift Paws. A Sprint still catches you for two seconds, so run toward your door, not just away.

Hiding in bushes

Step into a bush and wolves lose sight of you. The bush rustles every 2.4 seconds, a wolf within 1.8 tiles sees you anyway, and a Howl shows every sheep on the map for 3.5 seconds, bushes included. A bush is a place to wait out a chase, not a home.

Wolves left with nothing to chase catch a scent: after 6 seconds with no sheep near, a wolf sees the nearest sheep for 1.5 seconds, with a trail of amber puffs pointing at it. An amber ring round you means a wolf has your scent: move. A sheep in a bush, or within 4 tiles of its own Shadow Shed, gives off no scent.

How do you rescue a sheep from the pen?

A tagged sheep loses every farm it built and becomes a spirit in the pen in the middle of the map. Touch it, within 1.3 tiles, and it is back in the game and safe from tags for 3 seconds. A spirit still earns 0.5 gold a second and can ping its team for help.

• Both teams can always see the pen, and nobody can build within 8 tiles of its middle. A rescue is a run, never a wall.
• Go in sheared, from the side away from the wolf. Shear on the way, touch, and Leap out.
• The sheep you save runs first. It has 3 seconds of safety and no farms, so it heads for your door while you cover it.
• Watch the Howl. A pack that just howled can't do it again for 60 seconds. That is your window to cross open ground.

Go deeper: spirits and rescue has what a spirit can do and when a rescue is worth it.

The last minute

Night falls for the last 60 seconds. Wolves get up to 10% faster, wolves see 25% less far and sheep see 20% less far. Wolf bots go all in before dark. This is where a fort that held all round falls, so:

• Go into the last minute with gold in hand, and upgrade the wall they are on instead of building a new one. An upgrade keeps the wall standing while it gets tougher.
• Don't start a long rescue in the dark unless it's the last spirit in the pen and your team needs it.
• If the wall goes, Leap and run. The clock only needs one sheep standing.

Five mistakes that lose rounds

• A fort with no door. It's safe until it isn't, and then you have no way out and no way to rescue anyone.
• A Windmill on the outside. 2 bites and it's gone, with all the gold it was going to make.
• Straw everywhere. A Straw House is 170 health for 3 gold. A Hedgerow planted early is 360 for 7.
• Standing in the doorway, inside the 1.32-tile tag reach of the wolf outside it.
• Spending everything before the den opens. The first wall they chew needs an upgrade, and that takes gold you kept.

Beginner and advanced

Your first rounds

• Play the sheep tutorial once. It takes about two minutes.
• Play on Easy, wall in against rock, and leave one door.
• Go back for one friend in the pen each round.

Once you're surviving

• One Windmill as soon as you can afford it (more grind half as much each), then upgrade it to a Grain Mill (30 gold, 0.9 a second) once it is behind walls.
• Buy Long Reach (20 gold) and build from up to 5 tiles away, so you can repair a wall from the inside.
• A Beehive behind the wall they chew most, and a Scarecrow or two on the way from the den.
• Play on Hard. Hard wolves ward fort doors and find Shadow Sheds.