Only 14% of players won a game on easy or higher difficulty according to global Steam achievement statistics.

Obviously you need to know what you are doing if you hope to survive on the planet Auriga! Let's try to increase those stats shall we.

I want to regroup in a single guide a lot of information that took me several hours to gather from different sources and I thank all the people who published the info that helped me get started.

2 years ago I tried to run this game on what I thought was a high end 32 bit OS. I think the minimum specs on the steam store page are too low for this game.

I experienced ''endless'' frustration (pun intended) and out of memory errors and crashes.

On a modern 64 bit system it runs as smooth as silk with 2560x1440 resolution. The interface allows you to get large text so you don't have to strain your precious eyes. Not a single crash except for the tutorial and it seems it is a known issue.

Just make sure your game resolution settings match the native screen resolution otherwise some parts of the image may be outside the screen borders.

I read that if you set details to ''fantastic'' it enables (forces) 8xAA which can decrease overall game performance so I chose the video setting just below that and it looks great to me.

Now you may think you are a genius because you are sooo good at Civilisation or other strategy games but for your first games please choose ''easy'' difficulty level, not normal or higher. Thank me later. If you are new to strategy games there is a setting even easier called ''newbie''. I know its not very flattering for your ego but only you and I will ever know and the important thing is to learn the game and have fun doing it. This is not Dark Souls where enraged people are expected to hurl their controllers at the monitor.

Settings: normal game (300 turns) normal world size should be fine. To spice things up you can choose random planet type so you may end up on a massive single continent or an island or one of a few large land masses. If you are stuck on an island you have to research shipyard building and your settlers and military will be able to embark on water. Don't worry there are no sea monsters on Auriga. (unless you buy the DLC for those)

EDIT 2021: Now I play EL on Linux POP_OS, with Steam Linux client installed, and with Steam experimental Proton enabled and it runs beautifully at least as well as it did in Windows.

There are 3 factions I would recommend for new players.

I chose the Vaulters (illustrated above) for my first game. They have a science advantage and have a shot at a science victory. Their marines are an amazing range unit and with proper gear they can shoot the enemy before it gets close enough to hurt them. They can get by with a small army and teleport from city to city that they own, even across the sea as long as they have a holy resource activated. (see resource section) Mezzari are a different skin of vaulters but have the same properties.

Wild Walkers are often recommended to new players because they have amazing forest advantages and if they set up their cities in forests they have amazing industrial output early in the game. They can grow and expand very fast.

Broken lords have been described by some as broken in the sense they are too good because they have amazing income generating skills and you can buy buildings, military units, heroes. Some people say that when you are rich you can do anything...

Other factions:

Necrophages: insectoid units that feed on corpses, they have an agriculture penalty but they use corpses for food and every 8 corpses (killed villagers, roving armies, rival troops) gives them a food stockpile they can use to grow their cities fast. Their ranged unit infects enemies with a parasite that resurrects enemies as zombies and creates huge armies. They have a way to deal with unhappy cities: create happiness by killing one population unit! They get even more food from conquering local independent towns and a city with 3 vassal towns in its territory plus a necrophage provincial governor can grow HUGE. Their units also poison fleshy enemies doing poison damage to their hit points every turn. If you have necros as your neighbors beware. Kill the bugs before they grow out of control. Unleash the inner monster.

ADDENDUM 2024: Suggested army composition: 1 Proliferator, 3 necrodrones, 4 foragers + Necrophage hero with heal army perk outside your territory. The proliferator will create 1 to 3 battleborn from the dead enemies each battle and create huge armies of poisonous bugs. The battleborn serve as cannon fodder but become unkillable as your army grows in power. You kill everything you meet to grow your army. No parley. You use the food stocks from corpses to grow your biggest cities. Prioritize industry. In winter just transfer workers to food production to avoid population loss. Last game I only made 1 settler. Initially you may have to sell some of your battleborn until you can generate enough dust to support your army.

Roving clans are experts in commerce. They are not able to declare war on the other factions. They can win an economic victory. If they want to wage war they have to wait until some other faction declares war on them or they must research the tech allowing privateer armies which can attack other factions but do not fight with the flag of a faction and this is not seen as an act of war. (other factions can also play dirty and attack their own allies with privateers without consequence)
You may be playing the game and you researched the market tech but you are unable to use the market to buy resources, heroes, mercenaries or sell items for profit. This is not a bug, it's a feature. It's the fault of those guys. Market ban: so infuriating. You can give in to the odious blackmail and bribe them with resources, currency, tech or whatever else you can give them to make them unban you or you can wipe their faction off the face of Auriga. Decisions, decisions...

Drakken: dragon race that are masters of diplomacy and can win a diplomatic victory. They know every other faction's starting location on the map. They can force a truce if they are attacked. You may need a privateer army if you want to attack them. Why not befriend the drakken in early game and give them a few things in the diplomacy interface so they exchange maps with you and now you know where all the other factions are located!

Cultists: tired of managing many cities? well join the cult. They only have one single city. No need to research trade or diplomacy. They can not settle new cities. They can only raze cities instead of capturing them but they gain resources and science from razing. Converting minor factions villages gives them all the resources of the central hex and surrounding hexes. They grow a massive fortified city. Put every population in the influence column. They must destroy their opponents evenly to prevent an expansion victory. They must destroy the roving clans quickly because a market ban will really hurt.

Ardent Mages: Edit 2024: It took me a while to understand how to play this faction, but when I did, I found them awesome (but probably not for beginners) Initially, they are glass cannons. They do amazing damage but have low damage resistance. They evolve into a formidable fighting force able to use a battle spell to stun lock enemies in the center of a hex and the surrounding hexes for 1 turn while tearing them apart with the infantry and flier units and doing AOE damage with their ranged unit to one single target and adjacent enemies.

Their flier unit is awesome: fast, brutal, high damage unit, it lays an egg if mortally wounded and regenerates after battle if the egg is not destroyed by the enemy. Imagine the enemy must choose between trying to kill all the HP of a non-combating egg instead of your living units!

They use pillars: Research unlocks Science pillars in Era 1 (and defense battle spell) , Influence pillars Era 2 (And the AMAZING BATTLE STUN SPELL), Dust pillars era 3 and damage battle spell (as if you needed that at that point) , Food pillars Era 4 + regeneration battle spell. Pillars also have 3 tiers of power unlocked by research (Arcana Levels) that make them more powerful. The first 2 tiers are unlocked by research and the third tier is unlocked by the faction quest. THE FACTION QUEST #5 THE SECRETS OF DUST UNLOCKS THE WINTER VERSION OF PILLARS (COLD ENGINEERING). You can see by yourself the effect of pillars on cities by zooming in, toggling on the FIDSI button (right lower corner below end of turn button). Last game, I captured a huge Cult city and cast several dust extraction pillars around the city (Arcana Level 3 Pillars which cover 2 rings of hexes around the central pillar instead of the default 1 ring) I wish you had seen how the amount of dust exploded with each pillar cast and the overlapping effect of 2 hexes around each pillar. The highest Dust value on a city hex was 81 and on a water hex 39 ! I used to wonder about pillar usefulness, not anymore. Even the normal pillar will produce their resource in non-city, non-exploited hexes as soon as you cast them and you can view this immediate effect if the FIDSI button is on as soon as you cast the pillar.

Strategy for the ardent mages: Science and dust are your first priorities. Getting Era 2 INCANTATION OF ENERVATION (STUN BATTLE SPELL) and enough dust to cast it in battle will greatly help your troops before they reach their full potential. Also you need influence to get a decent empire plan. You will be starved for food. Deal with it.

Heroes for Ardent Mages: Vaulter heroes with long range 4, combined with 3 or 4 ranged Ateshi zealots is amazing (they actually extend the range or your ranged units by 1). Add one melee Telsem warlock, one sister of Mercy for melee or heal support or another fast melee unit such as cavalry from another faction to keep the enemy busy while your ranged units rain down AOE death on the enemy. The ranged units use the weapon that slows the enemy on hit. (and combined with the stun spell, they can't do much harm to your troops).

It seems Steam limits the content of each section, so here is the rest of my guide on the ardent mages.

My favorite heroes for Ardent mage armies are Vaulters with Range 4 applying to the amazing ranged Ateshi Zealots.

Necrophage heroes are great for ardent mages food cities and can heal armies between battles but they are a bit tricky to level because the most useful perks are on different sides of the tech tree.

I found the Ardent Mage governors excellent for governing science cities. In battle, they move too slowly to hit enemies and mostly buff their own units. They may get a great battle staff but rarely hit enemies with it.

Influence cities: Cultist governors

Industry cities with forests: Wild walker governors

I find Broken lords, Roving clans, Drakken heroes not as useful for Ardent mages. A Broken Lord hero I got from a quest made a great tanky melee unit and fine army leader.

FIGHT ALL YOUR BATTLES MANUALLY WITH THE ARDENT MAGES. DO NOT USE AUTO COMBAT. READ MY GUIDE SECTION ON BATTLES AND WATCH THE LINKED YOUTUBE VIDEOS.



I hope you will enjoy the Ardent Mages as much as I did. They require finesse, attention to details, city placement and development, ability to adapt to different situations, map layouts, strategies and proper use of pillars. I found the following victory conditions to be easiest to achieve: Supremacy, Score, Quest, Wonder, and the hardest Influence, Dust.

I highly recommend their faction quest because it adds very useful steps to help your progress.









DLC FACTIONS:

You may see 3 factions that are on the bottom with a light gray veil and nothing happens when you click on them. You need to purchase 3 DLCs: Shadows (Forgotten) Shifters (Allayi) Tempest (Morgawr) I read very good comments on those expansions and it would seem they are worth it even at full price.

Now it is time to found your first city. There is not much time. your funds are running low and it is best to found the city in the first or second turn.

The bottom right corner has a little grey tab with a center logo of 2 superposed hexes; this allows you to toggle the FIDSI of terrain hexes on or off.

The upper left corner of the screen shows a series of icons : Empire, cities, research, quests, academy, armies, diplomacy, market. (noticed market is grayed out becuase it hasn't been researched yet. You will use those icons a lot.

A city base production is the total of all 7 hexes. Population just adds to the total depending on their role. City production consists of food, industry, dust(currency), science, influence. FIDSI
When population increases you can drag and drop population units to the proper city slot to increase the FIDSI component you want to prioritize.

Only one city can occupy a region.

A city produces military units or buildings. You mostly focus on buildings that will boost your FIDSI and units that will help defend and conquer.

Exploration of ruins and temples is important to find dust and quests and special rewards.


Minor factions must be pacified by force or diplomacy to prevent them from producing roving armies and for the benefit they give you when you annex them in the city build queue. Also they give you a special military unit for each minor faction and your empire can assimilate a maximum of 3 minor factions once you have done the prerequisite research.


Faction quests can lead you to a faction victory by building a wonder. Side quests can yield luxury or strategic resources, dust or great weapons for your heroes that will turn the tide of battle. The quests greatly add to the game's sense of wonder and discovery.
Just have a look at this beauty!









































City growth
For every 2 new population growth a city can produce a borough (district) this is a concept that really confuses new players. (for necrophages 1 district/1 population)



A new district is level 1 and produces -10 approval due to expansion but +15 approval on becoming a level 2 district when it is surrounded by 4 other districts built around it. In the example above, the 4 blue hexes in the center are level 2 giving 4*15=60 approval and the 4 yellow hexes around them are level 1 districts giving minus 10 approval each 4*-10= minus 40 approval. So the district layout in this example is 60-40=20 approval for this city.

[Edit] *
This math may be a bit wrong, as player Bob pointed out in the comments section below, it would seem that a level 2 district has a net +5 happiness effect ( you substract the -10 malus from the +15 bonus )

As in real life happiness is important and happy workers produce more and grow your cities faster. You have to pace your expansion with your ability to keep happiness at an acceptable level. Captured cities take a few turn to settle down and become productive.

Sources of happiness:

• Luxury items (activation in empire screen)
  
• Empire plan
  
• Borough placement
  
• Buildings (Sewers, Central market, Arts council, Imperial news network)
  
• Some minor factions
  
• Ritual sacrifices of population
  

Strategic resources are needed to equip military units and make advanced buildings. They can be traded in diplomacy with other factions or sold off in the market if you have a large surplus.

The holy resource for vaulters and mezzari
Notice the yellow one with the number 210 and a partial yellow halo. This is the holy resource chosen and activated by the vaulters. (glassteel) You can activate it by clicking on it in this screen if it is bordered by a yellow rectangle. It allows them to teleport their armies between cities and may increase the potency of weapons, armor, accessories made with it. (needs confirmation)

Other factions can only activate luxury resources, not strategic resources.Spices (the star with #99 in the orange rectangle) is currently activated. It grants +50% food and +5 approval in each city. Another luxury in a yellow bordered rectangle #128 can be activated this turn if you need its bonuses now.

2 other luxuries are currently active # 138 and 160 and are seen in-game as having a clockwise rotation of the yellow halo.

A certain amount of resources are consumed each turn when activated and last until they run out for strategic ones or 10 turns for luxuries. After that you must reactivate the booster by clicking on it and it takes an amount of 10 +5 per additional city of a given luxury resource to reactivate a luxury resource booster. ( 2 cities= 15, 3 cities=20 etc) If you run out and have enough dust, you can buy more in the market. The cost of boosters scales with the number of cities in your empire.

Notice the maximum number of minor factions (3) have been assimilated and you can mouse over them for info on their units and bonuses.

Click the status button on the right lower screen to compare your score to your rivals' and make sure you don't lag too far behind.



Now let's check the empire plan. That is where the last I of FIDSI comes into play. (Influence) That's the purple star in the game. Every few turns you can change your empire plan by stretching out the web north, east, south or west. The north side increases military, east science and production, south vision approval movement food, west economy.

The more influence you have, the better empire plan you can afford.

You can run a simulation of the empire plan at any turn to figure out how many influence points you need for the next one, check how much influence you produce each turn and maybe move some population into influence in some cities to reach your goal.

Influence is also useful for diplomacy, trade proposals, declarations including war, assimilating minor factions, converting minor factions (cultists) espionnage (shadows) and Drakken who can force truce, peace alliance with other factions.

You need to unlock 9 techs per era to unlock the next era. Each era uncovers new strategic and luxury resources on the map and better weapons, buildings, army size, diplomacy options etc.

You can always go back to a previous era if you forgot to research essential tech. I will not cover each tech but I will give you some tips on some of the research I found useful. But remember you will have to prioritize your research to tailor it to your factions' strengths and weaknesses and your personal style of gameplay.

Initially you will go for research into food and industry for most factions. Always research strategic resources and luxury. Increasing army size and faction-specific military units are a must. Trade routes are simply amazing and if you have continents a coastal city will give you a port creating trade routes overseas. Water transportation can be skipped if your map is a pangea.

Each era tech costs more science so your research must be increased accordingly.

I have not researched fortification technology for vaulters and necrophages. The necrophages' cities grew so big they got fortification bonuses from boroughs! I fought the wild walkers in winter with heavily fortified cities and it took almost forever to capture them so they have some use but they will not save you if you are weak.

I wondered about stockpiles, era4 buildables seem more efficient and industry stockpiles are said to help the wonder victory by redistributing production between cities.

Technologies only active in the summer become less useful in endgame because winters are longer and more frequent.

I think level 1 weapon and armor research can be skipped because era 1 has so many useful techs that you will unlock era 2 just from those.

If you manage to survive to the final tech era:


Just don't be a bad sport if your opponent gets it before you! (actually some players complained on forums that the AI cheats and uploaded a similar graph of of the enemy suddenly acquiring the army to end all armies) Mwaahahahaha

During my first game I had not researched the dawn guard and the titan for the Vaulters and had not researched the magic weapons and armors and had no concept of the holy resource so many buildings were unbuildable, much research was inaccessible due to the lack of strategic resources.

Do not let this happen to you!

Research all the extractors and exploit all the strategic and luxury resources on your territory. Expand and colonize and conquer, whatever it takes.

Go to the upper left icon for armies. Click on the icon of each military unit available. Click EDIT.


Now equip your military units with the best items available!

In early game you only have a settler and a basic unit. You have to research your own faction units and assimilate villages into your empire to access their units. If you hire mercenaries from the market you will be unable to upgrade their gear.

You only have 1 minor faction slot for your empire initially.

You can have infantry, cavalry, flying, range, support and you will find what works best for you through trial and error. With era 2 and 4 research you unlock 2 more army slots each time bringing the total army maximum size to 8. Necrophages can have more with resurrected zombies called battleborn but this is very expensive to maintain.

I will give you my personal favorites so far: Justiciere from sisters of mercy, an awesome infantry unit, very fast very high initiative, they heal and bless each other each turn and do incredible damage with proper equipment and hero perks. Tetike, from Jotus villages, an orcklike ranged unit that can rain down arrows on par with vaulters marines. Ended fron the haunt villages are immune to poison and strike fear in the hearts (or whatever organ they call it) of necrophages. I tend to avoid the big brutes with high life, damage, hit points but very slow. Those could be useful as tanks to protect weak ranged units though.



You could also choose Justiciere just because they look so awesome and that would be a reason good enough for me.

But seriously in the image above check out the available resources. You see the Vaulter's holy resource glassteel (155) is currently activated but I only have only 14 of the pink resource. Production costs in the lower right corner is 18 of that resource. Problem? Nah. I just equip the new model of Justiciere with items from the purple hyperium strategic resource of which I have 99.

Now just take a good look at the stats of the justiciere and imagine what that unit would do with a ring of lifestealing and and a ring of regeneration. Let your imagination run wild...

RETROFIT

Now that you have figured out an awesome build with weapons, armor, talismans, rings etc your new unit will be called Justiciere 3 and a higher number with each change or upgrade. Do not forget to upgrade the existing built armies you already have by clicking the retrofit button in the world screen army. If you lack the resources to upgrade the whole stack, upgrade the highest level or best units first individually. (Units gain XP and levels from battles) With enough dust you can buy the missing resources from the market.

Heroes needed
















The image above should convince you of the need to assign heroes to your armies. Heroes must be equipped with the best equipment you can afford. Use the academy button upper left corner. You inspect, equip and assign/unassign heroes to armies or garrisons and choose their perks when they level up and the best heroes add a lot of punch to your armies.

A hero can be used as a city governor to bring amazing advantages to your cities. Governor perks are usually on the right side of the hero perk screen and military hero perks are usually on the left. Take your time, mouse on each of the perks and plan the career path of each hero. If you have a governor hero in a city at risk of attack make sure you have a city garrison and that the governor has the highest level of weapons and armor. Governors must have accessories that increase city production instead of boosting army stats.

Who makes the best governors?

Necrophage = fantastic food bonus
Ardent mage = fantastic science bonus
Broken lords = fantastic dust bonus
Wild walkers = fantastic industry bonus
Cultist = everything

There are some players out there who aim for a peaceful victory by economy (roving clans) or diplomacy (drakken) or science (vaulters) or questing. Nothing wrong with that. But maybe the other factions won't share your ideals and this portion of my guide shall help set them straight.

First make sure you have full stacks or units with the best weapons armors and accessories and a well equipped hero assigned to lead the army. Retrofit obsolete units as discussed previously.

By default each faction is in cold war with each other. This means that any faction can enter any territory and attack any army or be attacked without trigerring a war. But it takes a declaration of war to lay siege and capture a city. If someone wanders into your territory you can strike first and ask questions later. Don't expect to be welcomed with open arms in other territories. Through the diplomatic screen you can close borders and the other faction will be unable to enter unless they declare war.

If you are attacked you can retreat but you lose half your hit points and the next attack is a big defeat unless you can outrun the opponent with a fast army or retreat on a water tile if you have researched water travel. I read you can't be attacked on a water tile. But there is a form of naval battle if the other army has a boat it can sink your boat. I noticed that embarked units have lower hitpoints and seem more vulnerable but my naval experience is quite limited at this point. (during naval battle the 2 armies split into individual boats that shoot arrows at each other but the stats of all units are lower on both sides) Maybe initiative or ranged units play a role i'm just unsure at this point.

When you meet an enemy unit you can click on it to see what units it has and the total number of hit points that army has and compare it to yours but that is a bit misleading. One army may have a lot of hit points and big strong units but if you have archers with high attack and initiative they will be dead arrow cushions before they can reach the archers especially if they are protected by tanky infantry.

To initiate combat move your army next to the enemy and with your army selected right-click on the enemy. The first screen shows a circle that visually estimates your probability of success. You are then taken to a combat arena. During the first phase you place your units, with cavalry and infantry in front, flying units on the sides and ranged units in the rear. When you place your units remember you get bonuses for high ground, forest tiles, and being surrounded by friendly units and penalties being surrounded by enemies. Don't be scared about losing your expensive hero. The last stand perk will ressucitate a dead hero at the end of battle if your army wins! Wounded units fight at full strenght even with 1 HP. Last one standing wins.

Now let's get nerdy and try to understand those numbers shall we.


It shows battle stats of the vaulter hero vs a daemon to help understand the attributes.

Life: Hit points
Attack: probability to hit
Initiative: The units with the highest initiative move first. In the upper section you see 2 infantry, 1 titan 3 marines 1 demon will move/attack before my hero
Speed: how many hexes a unit can travel in combat
Defense: probability to block an attack
Damage: base damage if attack hits that is modified by status effects (demon has a defense bonus on forest hex and you see the little tree icon under the stats) and morale which is increased by number of allies around you or decreased by numbers of enemies around you.

The lower screen shows attack success odds:
20% chance of a critical hit doing 238 damage
100% chance of a normal hit doing 159 damage
0% chance of blocking for decreased damage of 80
0% chance of a critical block resulting in 0 damage

You can set army stance and individual unit stances to: offensive, hold position (will attack enemy that comes near may be good for tanky units protecting ranged units), or defensive (I read this can be unreliable, confirmation needed)

After battle units heal over time, faster in your region, faster in city tile, faster near observation towers that you own.

I found the following video well made and informative and brilliantly nerdy.

You tube battle video by SB:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwyrpkE88l0

The next video by Arealfloodadvisory is also very well made and taught me some things I didn't know when I started making this guide!

The video shows how you can reorder which reinforcements will arrive first and that you can uncheck a reinforcement like a settler to prevent it from rushing like a crazy kamikaze into battle!
You can hold R click before going into battle to examine the battlemap before battle.
You can move your unit with a right click and hold control to queue the order to attack a target once the move is completed! WOW I wish I knew that before.

About strategic resources, titanium gives more attack and damage, glassteel more initiative, next tier adamantium extra defense, palladium extra initiative, finally mithrite extra defense and hyperium extra attack damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0zp3lp9-Fo


Army orders



In the lower left corner there are 6 possible army orders icons starting clockwise from the upper left:
Compass icon = autoexplore
Hero + medal = send hero to academy,
Shield icon = sleep,
Stacked cubes icon = teleport (only vaulters only in cities only with holy resource activated)
Helm to helm icon = transfer unit to adjacent army or empty tile, game will prompt you to choose destination,
Helm to capitol icon = transfer unit to garrison if on city square

You can select more than one unit to split from a stack by holding shift or control and clicking on additional units. Then click on ''new army'' then click the transfer icon to transfer to an empty tile or a nearby army that has enough room. Army limits apply to transfers.

I had so much trouble with this in my first game.

Siege

Now we conquer:

To start a siege just stand near a city and activate the catapult icon which will start a rotating animation.



Notice 3 of my armies are sieging the city of Ildyea. The city icon shows 19 population, 9 defenders inside, 454 fortification (tower icon) and each turn loses -212 fortification due to the siege.
The first wood legion has 88 damage to fortifications each turn ( broken tower icon) which is cumulative with the other 2 armies for a total of 212. It has 4935 HP, 0 moves left this turn and 4 tile sight.
Retrofit is grayed out because it can only be done in your territory.
When fortification reaches 0 defenders lose 212 HP each turn and may die but they will probably attack soon before that happens.
If I were to attack now, my army would need to do 454 damage to the 9 defenders before damaging their HP and you would see a white bar above their health bar in the combat screen. That's kinda hard to do in 6 turns so no.
Once fortifications reach 0 or a low number or you see 0 defenders inside it is safe to attack.

After winning the battle click the army attack icon to take possession of the city.

Triumph !

Breaking a siege

If your city is under siege try to bring nearby army for reinforcements in the region being attacked. Click on city, click select all units in garrison click new army and place it on a hex near attacking army to attack it. If an extra army can attack the invader from the outside, the garrison can join the fight.

Explore a lot to scout nice areas to colonize.

Building a city on anomalies can yield approval bonuses along with the other anomaly bonuses.

Consider using specific heroes and city locations to specialize some cities (for example a city in a forest with lots of industry combined with a wild walker hero governor with industry boost and industry artifact or a city with lots of science and a vaulter or ardent mage hero governor and a science artifact) get to know your heroes there are interesting differences between them.

Expand as much as possible while keeping disapproval manageable

Remember population is power

Retrofit obsolete armies and equip the best gear possible

Faction quests are fun, they reveal game lore and give you very useful buildings and items or heroes. But when doing them keep an eye on your empire management priorities.

When producing settlers, no food is produced so you can move all the food workers to industry to produce them faster. Equip movement enhancing gear on settlers for faster colonization. Clear the region of hostiles before colonizing, pacify villages. Have your settler army unit as a separate army from your scouting army. If an army gets into a battle be sure to uncheck the settler unit from reinforcements otherwise it will enter combat and commit kamikaze suicide! Don't ask me how I know.

A city borough also serves as an extractor if located on a resource.

Dust: don't be a miser and hoard the stuff. Spend it like there's no tomorrow because there may well be none for you tightwad. You need heroes, governors, buildings, units and you need them NOW. But keep a bit for winter you never know...

It is a very nasty thing to siege a city in winter. Do it to others before they do it to you. Stong chance of economic collapse.

Just when you start getting comfortable with this game it still manages to surprize you. Today Jan 21, 2017 I just got a new side quest called day or awakening. It requires searching lots of ruins with blue haloes and the conclusion unlocks a new hero Eslek Tarosh of the haunt faction that becomes available in the academy and in the marketplace for future games. Like all haunts he is a flyer and immune to poison. Great for fighting against or with the necrophages. Chain lightning! It also unlocks the endless day achievement. From what I read it is a yearly anniversary event from January 21-25 that was introduced in 2015 to celebrate the anniversary of Amplitude studios. Pretty cool eh?

I found the vaulter's titan unit very tanky and invulnerable but not very useful because it is too slow to hit enemies during battle and cavalry can easily charge behind it and waste your archers. Also I found it caused a game freezing bug during battle and I had to reload the game several times and finally place it behind my units and order it not to move in order to complete that battle. I will not be building a titan again ever and instead will use a minor faction infantry or flyer for vaulters. Please let me know if the devs ever fix the titan, I did like the massive damage it produced when it did manage to land a hit.

Edit 2024: The titan has been fixed. It is awesome. It hits like a Titan. It blocks melee units near your space marines. Properly modded with T3 Dust items or better, it strikes fear in your foes. The Dawn guard modded with T3 dust items is also great for rushing behind enemy lines and killing enemy ranged units. It needs the Regeneration 3 accessory for survivability. Sisters of mercy Justiciere have great synergy for their healing ability. (Select the healer, target an injured unit for healing by right clicking it and you will see a green arrow targeting the injured unit)


Well folks that's it for now, I will try to update this as I gain game experience. I hope you will also become fans of this amazing game.


If you found my guide helpful please upvote it so others will see it too and please also upvote my Steam review so others can find my guide on the store page.

I am just a fan and not affiliated with any company.

I am sure this has stumped a few people...

You are the roving clans. Your faction cannot declare war. But your faction quest requires you to capture or destroy a city in enemy territory. The other factions have all finished their own faction quests.

Only one answer: research privateer technology!

You can only buy the units available in the market and they are really lame. I tried to build an experimental unit and sell it in the market and buy it back but it does not work.

Also you cannot have a hero with mercenary units.

You have an action button to convert units to mercenaries (only inside your territory)
The icon is a helm with a semi-circular arrow to a demonic icon as illustrated below.

They cannot be combined with regular units.

Mercenaries cannot capture a city, only raze it for industry stockpiles.

Highest score at turn 300 on normal
Expansion: conquer 80% of regions
Elimination: you killed every other faction
Economic: 555500 dust on normal duration and area
Diplomatic: 3000 diplomatic points on normal duration and area
Science: research 5/6 techs in era 6
Supremacy: last faction in control of its original capital
Wonder: complete your faction questline and build a wonder
Quest: Complete the victory quest that starts after your faction quest