Hi Folks. I started playing the game recently and had quite some fun but also some problems with the game. I would like to share my questions and thoughts. Feel free to answer or comment on things. Maybe we can build a beginner guide (sorry for my bad english, its no my mothertongue)



Impressions



In general

I like the game alot. The tutorial is helpful for beginners altough a voice output woud've been nice. The factions are unique in playstyle, this gives the game a good replayability. Soundtracks are coherent and a few more would be even better. The game runs fine only encountered one error message.



Hints and Tips



In general

- Before starting with a new empire read their traits(you can see this also ingame pressing F1 right next to the portrait). It will give you a idea how the faction is meant to be played

- Before placing your first city look for a good starting point depending on your faction (e. g. broken lords = dust) and powerful anomalies.

- Snowball effect is really strong in this game. A good start will often result in fast/exponential growth.



Research

- research language square first for exploring(some factions already have it - playing Necrophos? dont need it - just eat it ).

- queue up things that increase your needed resources depending on your faction (empire mint, mill foundry, public library, ...)

- reach new eras faster: 1) research things you think are necessary for your gameplan in the current era.

2) research stuff from prior eras(they will cost less) until you reach the new era you want.

3) repeat



Explore your land

- after building your first city you should explore your land further with your hero +2 starting units

- parley with minor factions and do their Quest if possible - why? you will get 1+ per minor village for your city

- sometimes you will get Quests you won't finish in time ( make peace treaty) if so dont waste your time on it.

- Use your movements points efficient - while following a Quest loot all ruins on the way, talk to new minor factions, ...



Building your city up

- focus on buildings that increase your needed resources for your chosen faction:

- overall food and industry, dust for broken lords, influence for cultists

- science is not that important early on cause you will struggle to build all the stuff in time

- Focus on getting new workers fast so you can build new districts from which you get the local resources



Expanding vs. approval

- try not to expand too fast

- building new cities will result in a -25 malus in production(or approval) / -10 from new districts

- you will need to research sewer system, central market to keep the happiness up

- at some point you need to boost your approval(or other things) with luxury resources, the costs increase per city

- further the costs for buffs from the empire plan also increase per city

- if you are near 40~ approval wait until you research sewer system, ... before expanding further

- 80 + approval = expand!



Victory Conditions & suited Empires



Score Victory (all empires)

- The player with the highest Points wins at the end of a game

- only happens if no player was able to achieve another victory condition



Elimination Victory / Supremacy Victory

- Necrophages are suited well with the unit Proliferator allowing you to have hugh armies and new units for free. Which will allow you to keep fighting

- Cultists played heavily on early influence & conversion can have massive armies early on but will get weak in lategame.

- Roving Clans cannot start war directly but u can still use Mercenary Corps for example



Expansion Victory

- Cultists cannot expand therefore cannot achieve this victory

- Broken Lords have difficulties expanding on certain terrains like Grasslands because they cant produce food



Economic Victory

Broken Lords are build around Dust and the perfect empire for this victory followed by the Roving Clan.



Brokenlords - Buyout at Era III

- Place your cities always desert terrains with rivers and/or lakes (for Aquapulvistics)

- Setting rivers and lakes to many at the pregame menu will make it easier for you

- focus on industry and dust early on

- buy new workers with dust asap, spread the worker count even among cities

- produce settler in cities with low worker counts, making it more efficient

- key research: focus on trade routes, dust +, happiness + and influence/army

- Make sure you have enough influence to activate +25 % Building buyout reduction on cities at the empire plan

- with the research Prisoners, Slaves and Volunteers + empire plan you have - 50 % on buyout!

- start moving all workers to dust after finishing dust depository (era III) and start buying out all things you build

- make sure you have heroes with dust efficiency in your cities and keep on focusing research and building dust upgrades

- from this point on your income will grow phenomenal



I played with against 7 Ais on hard diff with normal speed. I struggled in the early game because the AI was aggressive and i had to use my dust to heal my troops instead of building workers :/ . But after finishing Dust Refinery and Dust Depository and with - 50 % buyout i startet gaining momentum. i finished the game at turn 207 with 38 k dust per turn.



Roving Clans



Diplomatic Victory = Drakken + AIs

- focus on industry / influence / food early on.

- research diplomats Manse asap

- make peace with all AIs - making compliments first will reduce the influence costs (around turn 50 ~)

- focus more on research until you get Hospitality Den

- meanwhile expand and control the AIs mood in the diplomacy view. They should be Trusting or better blood brothers

- forge alliances with all AIs and keep the status "blood brothers" up with gifts. this will also reduce the chance that they will end the alliance



i played with Drakken and it was rather simple. With 7 AIs on normal speed and diff. i finished the game at turn 183.



Wonder Victory

You have to complete the main quests in the game and ultimately build a Wonder to achieve this victory. Every empire is capable of achieving this victory. The wonder con only be build in one city and depends on your industry output. The main city is often more productive because they only that one main city and more workers thanks 2 Conversion.



Scientific Victory

- soon -



Questions

i still struggle with some things maybe you have the answers



1) Diplomatic victory: answered!



2) conquest win: does this ever happen? if you more than 80 % its more likely all your enemies are dead) it should be 60 % or so



3) AI too aggressive?

i played several games with 4 AIs (easy and normal). If the AIs spawn next to each other it is likely they that 1-2 AIs die before turn ~30.



4) rock - paper - scissors to strong in early game?

One game the AI started next to me and sieged me 40 turns in. The AI had the perfect counter units for mine. (coincidence?) I needed 8 units + militia + hero to kill the AI which had 1 hero + 4 units

i think thats also the reason why some AI die so early



new Question

5) Is the cultist wonder more expensive considering that the main city from the cultists is often more productive compared to other empires?



hope you like my tips and pls write if you have some answers!

greetz Theraton

1) I haven't tried a Diplomatic victory yet, but if I succeed I'll let you know how I did it. Don't forget though, you do earn Diplomatic points right from the beginning of the game. You get 1 point per other faction no matter what their status. You get 2 points for each faction you're at official peace with, and 4 per ally. So you don't have to wait for a faction to be an ally to start gaining points. Quick example, if you played with 5 other factions in the game all the way to Turn 300 without ever going to Peace or above, you'd have 300 x 5 = 1500 diplomacy points just from that alone.



2) "conquest win" = Expansion Victory. If there's 40 regions total, you need 32 of those to win. As long as at least one AI controls its capital and any of the 8 remaining territories, you win an Expansion Victory. Elimination Victory is much harder, because you have to wipe out all of the AI controlled regions without taking all of their capitals (Supremacy Victory) or 80% of the regions first. Elimination Victory is really tricky (impossible?) if you don't turn off Expansion and Supremacy when setting the game up.



3) It's true that the AI plays some factions better than others, especially Drakken and Ardent Mages. It seems like the AI tends to follow the same large-scale strategy plan with all factions, which works great for some and horrible for others. Also remember that Cultists only ever get one region, so if they lose that one region, that's it, they're out. If an aggressive faction like the Necrophage starts next to a Cultist, that Cultist probably won't last long. If you see an AI wiped out as early as turn 30 (which is nuts by the way, I've never seen this, even on Hard or Serious), then it was probably a Cultist who got wiped out.



4) There are definitely some units that are a great counter to others, but each faction tends to have its own rock, its own paper and its own scissors, just in different Eras. It can take some time to figure out which faction's units are strong, and which faction units can be skipped entirely and replaced on the battlefield with a minor faction unit. In the case of you losing 8 units to the AI's 4 units, it's hard to say without seeing the battles go down, but it could have been your battlefield tactics and decisions, a large difference in gear and levels, or as you said, just a bad match up between unit types.



Make sure to keep poking around here for guides and tips and also check out the Steam page for this game, it has some decent guides as well. When I was new, I started out getting stomped by the AI in this game on Normal, but now I only play on Serious, and plan on tackling Impossible soon. It can be done, it just takes awhile to learn the game and what works and what doesn't. Good luck out there!