How to unlock Fellwood buildings

The most-clicked Steam thread after launch is not a review bomb. It is “How do you unlock Mages and Engineers?” Fellwood shows you a left plateau full of portraits, lets you buy axes immediately, then hides the rest behind a mix of gold, acorns, and prestige. This page is the unlock logic we can document without pretending every node has a published recipe. Pair it with the Buildings Hub for what to staff after a portrait lights up, and with How to Prestige for the shop that actually holds the keys.

What is available from minute one

HQ and the Sawmill are not optional flavor. HQ plants trees. The Sawmill cashes logs. An axe building is the intended first attacker. Demo recordings then add Archer, Ballista, Fire Wizard, Ice Wizard, and Electro Wizard as gold and population allow. You can place multiple attacker types, and you can stack buildings on the same slot — a trick that saves the cursed back row for people who insist on putting Fire Wizard where the drag-aim cannot pull back far enough. Read Attack Buildings and Wizards before you fill every slot “because they exist.”

The store page says 17 buildings. The demo greys out a large block. The full release still greys out Mages, Engineers, and several HQ / mill toys until prestige progress says otherwise. If a portrait is locked, clicking it harder is not the solution.

Prestige tiers are the real gate

The prestige shop has five tiers. Lower rows buy quality-of-life: start gold, acorns, pull range, rerolls, starting workers. Later rows and “greater” combat nodes (greater ice shard, expanded blast, chain upgrades) sit behind spend thresholds. Players who maxed a live building panel still could not buy the decorative node until the shop admitted they had spent enough points. That is why this unlock guide refuses to print a fake gold cost for Mages. The honest answer on day two of launch is: progress the prestige shop, then check the plateau again.

Some building upgrades also want acorns rather than gold. Axe lines hide weighted / keen / deadly-aim style nodes behind “buy the previous row N times.” Fire wants kindling and blast radius. Ice wants shatter. Lightning wants chain and charged bolt. Ballista wants pierce chance that sometimes only exists on manual fire. Those are upgrade gates, not building unlocks. If the building exists but a bottom node is dark, spend acorns on that building’s own tree, not on a fifth decorative pine.

HQ, trees, and “why is this still locked?”

HQ is where you plant and later evolve trees (five acorns on the evolution the playthroughs show). Evolution raises log value and can add double-log chance. Extra trees are a trap if you cannot hit them. Extra HQ nodes that look like housing or engineer benches are the kind of thing Steam users are poking at in “stuck” threads. If HQ scrolls like the Sawmill and the two bars feel glued together, that is a UI complaint already on the board — not a missing unlock. Controls covers the scroll and the level-up box that used to eat clicks.

Engineers, from the name and the mill fantasy, are the likely late automation / construction staff. Mages are the likely late spell roster beyond the three wizards. Until Allerton Apps posts a public tech tree, treat both as prestige-gated roster additions, not as secret clicks on a rock. When a patch names them, Patch Notes will get the line item. Until then, do not trust a random “stand in the river” rumor.

What to do while you wait

1. Keep prestiging on a schedule from the Prestige Planner.
2. Spread damage. Additive math means a camp with axes and ice and a ballista outruns a shrine to one portrait.
3. Staff Collectors and Sawmill so the wait is not a starved mill.
4. Shoot clovers during Events so luck is high when the next portrait finally opens and you want rare cards immediately.
5. Check Achievements — names like Advanced Artillery and Many Hands are progress breadcrumbs even when the plateau is quiet.

Sibling pages: Getting Started for the buildings you can buy today; Active Abilities for manual fire on whatever you just unlocked; Links for the Steam discussions if you want to read the Mage thread yourself. This wiki will not invent an XP number that the client does not show.