Cold is more noticeable in this world, early on I find its necessary to have little warming huts close to where I'm working. Once I have full set of furs its not so bad.
There were no cat tails near me in the beginning. I didn't find them until the second summer when I traveled south. By that time leather production was up and running and the baskets were not needed.
2 harvests possible if you water some. 3 with a greenhouse.
The only seeds I found before traveling south were Rye and Parsnip.
Food still lasted plenty long once processed and in storage, 10 or 11 months if sealed. But it was tough to get it in the cookpot before it rotted.
-25% Forestation opened up the woodlands just enough. They are still dangerous but you don't need to hack your way through them all the time.
I think surface drifters are better as an environmental feature of weirdness, rather than a challenge to be overcome. Fewer encounters actually makes the effect more pronounced . These settings reflect that well.
Mods are: Black powder guns and crossbows. I'm not big on arcade style combat, the harder hitting ranged weapons are a nice way to mitigate but not remove it.
Sail boats, round sun and moon, and long lasting firewood. Its nice to have the fire burning all the time and the additional requirement of pitch seems to be a good balancing point.
Oh, and tombstone, which creates a skeleton with my inventory on death so I don't have to rush back to it. I loaded this up on my trip south when I realized that I was stressing getting killed and loosing my inventory.
Next time I'll keep everything the same but turn landcover down to 50% and install the Rivers mod.
What are your settings?