Ahem ... search these Forums for "Gilmoy"

Briefly:
0. Welcome to the game! There is a lot going on, starting right from Turn 01!
I shall not overwhelm you with everything.

1. Experiment, read everything, build everything once, try every luxury booster once.
Learn how things move, how to drag pop around (and why), how to explore, fight, etc.

2. Carefully read the tech tree.
Amplitude's idea is 6 finite Eras (of 9 techs each, to enter the next Era).
There is a Mainline Tech Path that strongly encourages / supports a War around Era III.
(It's because Era II, bottom half, is 4-6 critical war techs. It's the same for all factions.)

3. Wiki! (It's always Fandom)
https://endlesslegend.fandom.com/wiki/Endless_Legend_Wiki
You don't need to read every page. It does tend to spoil a bit of the mystery.
But keep it as a reference.

Some big-picture game tips:

4. EL is a finite race to Go Win the Game. (Same as in any other 4X game)
It's not really a sandbox game where you build peaceful and happy, like Stardew or Disney.

5. EL is, at heart, a wargame.
For the first 30 turns, it can feel like One City Sim.
Do it right, and the next 30 turns are like Five City Sim, With Walking.
Then the last 60 turns are like 20 Army 8 Navy shogi, with some city chores.

All unit stats make sense only in tactical combat.
Much of the game's economy is to fund your armies. (Upkeep costs are real)

6. The geometric solution to the city-layout problem is the 2xN stick city.

7. Do your Faction Quest, whatever it takes, whatever it asks.
Faction Quest chapter rewards are sometimes ok, sometimes OP in your favor.
Go get them.

8. In tactical combat, prefer to fight in manual mode. Learn it, master it, love it.

• Ctrl-right click to Really Go There (in initiative order), shown with white arrow
  
• Alt-right click to Really Target That, shown with red arrow
  
• Combine these into a { Ctrl, Alt } pair to go-there and shoot-from-there
  
• Combine these to target self with own special: { Ctrl-sidestep, Alt-upon-self }.
  This is how you heal self, or your Skoros casts his Acceleration on himself.

9. Assimilate a healer minor faction, and learn how to heal during combats.
Free healing is OP in your favor, in every RPG/4X/roguelite that has it, including this.

10. You may wish to research Era I Language Square first, to unlock Parley action.
Parley with every minor faction village you meet, and they'll give you 1 quest each.
Do their quests to Pacify them, and for bonus loot, which can be game-changers.

Memorize the set of all village quests
There's "only" about 200 of them, inevitably you'll have seen them all once each.

11. Zoom in at least a few times, and enjoy the lovely graphics.
It's state-of-the-art for 2014!

And finally:
12. Jump in and play! Learn by playing.
IIRC, there is a Tutorial.
But anyways, move stuff around, click End Turn, watch everything, ask more questions.

The UI can take an hour until you train your eyes to not be bewildered.
Hint: In lower-right corner is a toggle button for tile FIDS symbols.
I usually click that off, because seeing FIDS everywhere all the time is overwhelming.
But sometimes you need it for pan-out deep-think planning. Then click, think, click.

This is awesome thank you :)

Few more questions if that's ok. Are there any factions you would say new players should avoid or are all of them good to pick early on?

More of a statement rather than question but I'm getting the feeling this game is one where "You lose in a horrible painful way but you've learnt a few things. Restart do a little better next time, lose again ect until you've gained enough knowledge from defeat to at least not ♥♥♥♥ super hard"

All factions are interesting.
Each faction has unique units, techs, and faction quests, which makes them totally different.

• Maybe don't start as Cultist (nor Mykara from Symbiosis).
  EL is a game of many cities.
  But Cultist's faction gimmick is Only One Big City.
  It's fun because it's such a contrast.
  
• Roving Clans cannot declare War. (But that's easy, just go annoy an AI.)
  
• Kapaku (from Inferno) gets 0 Food from normal tiles (including sea).
  It must volcanoform land to create tile food. Eagerly learn that chore.

Other than that, play every faction at least once, and do their faction quests.
It's like reading 9-11 completely different adventure novelettes.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Arma:

You lose in a horrible painful way ...

No, it's not a roguelite. It's a serious game

It's actually rare that you'll lose a game outright.
More likely, you'll think: oh, so that's why not, I'll do it differently next time --
Often, you'll think: yuk, Necrophages, I wonder what it's like to BE THEM --
And then pause your current game, and bang out a quick restart with new settings.

You have infinite save/load, so you can juggle 5-20 different games, in parallel.
You don't have to win or lose a game all the way to the end.

Do try to pace yourself through Era I, into Era II.
Then you can race vs. your previous best time, and seek efficiency.

Also, every game start has a completely new set of terrain anomalies to exploit.
Try, build, see how it looks, then reroll, try again, etc.
That part never gets old.

Honestly your answers get me more hyped to play. Thanks :D

Diposting pertama kali oleh Gilmoy:

Just wanted to say we've been playing some more. 2nd run seems to be going better. Having a ton of fun thanks to your advice. Been sitting on 1 city at the moment as that seems to be working out well. Not sure exactly when one is supposed to get a 2nd one but for as long as this is working happy to keep at it. Might expand later on :D

Learn your empire plan tiers.
Every 20 turns (i.e. on turn 20, 40, 60, etc.), you may buy an Empire Plan.
Each plan lasts 20 turns, until you buy the next one.
Plan tiers give empire-wide benefits.

Plan tiers cost Influence per city you own. N.B. this is what your +Influence is for.
This drives your city expansion rate. You want to settle on exactly 20, 40, 60, etc.
The cute trick is to pipeline them: { turn 20*k for some k, buy empire plan, settle city }.
In that order, so that you get maximal plan benefit for the previous interval's cost.

Then your go/no-go decision is about 6 turns before that, for build + walk time.
Around turn 12, start pondering the looming decision.
Around turn 14, <yoda>go, or go not.</yoda>

Try several combinations:

• turn 14 no, turn 34 no, turn 54 no, see where you are
  
• turn 14 no, turn 34 yes, turn 54 no, compare
  
• turn 14 yes, turn 34 yes, turn 54 yes, are you stronger by turn 80
  
  This should profitably mess up your games and headspace for several hours of attempts
  Relish the mayhem, and play for long-term growth.

Awesome :D So far my friend somehow summoned a fire giant (We think by failing a quest) that I had to end up killing with my army although one of my little got turned into burnt toast in the effort.

Overall really fun and thanks again I'll pass this info onto my mate so he's aware too