RimWorld

RimWorld

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Empire Mod - Comprehensive Guide
By Dark Luminary
A comprehensive guide for anybody who just started using the Empire mod or is already a Rimworld Superpower.

Please keep in mind that the mod is in active development, therefore everything is subject to change.
I'm doing my best to keep up with updates.
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What is this mod you're talking about?
The Empire Mod allows you to create your own Rimworld faction with multiple settlements on the worldmap, that support your colony both economically and military.

These settlements are a good way to spend all that silver that you dont need, giving you even more silver or other resources in return.

Check it out here: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2006535182
Getting Started - The Basics
There are no research or other requirements to start using this mod, so technically you can start creating your own colonies right from the get go.

The only barrier to becoming a Rimworld Superpower is silver.

Your first settlement will cost you 1000 silver, though i recommend having around 5000 on hand to upgrade your settlement and build the appropriate buildings.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The silver needs to be in a Stockpile zone or it wont be considered available for use!

Let's Get Building! - Settling Your First Settlement
In order to get started click on the "Settlement" Tab in the right lower corner of your taskbar.

This will bring up the Settlement UI.


I would recommend using the "Actions" Button first as its here where you can set you tax delivery map.

After you have done that, head on over to the "Colonies" Tab and click on "Create New Faction".


This will allow you to set the name, title and icon of your new founded faction.
On the right side you get to choose two factions traits, that will give you certain buffs, though note that some of these traits also come with negative effects.

Once you have done that you'll see that the "Create New Faction" button is now a "Create New Colony" button

Clicking on it will bring you to the worldmap where you can now choose where you want to place your new settlement:
There are two main considerations you'll want to take into account:

1. Resource Production
Your main consideration will of course be the type and ammount of resources that the new settlement can produce.

The nine types of producable resources are: Food, Weapons, Apparel, Animals, Logging, Mining, Research, Power and Medicine.

The Production Stats are influenced by both the Biome and the elevation.
Below you'll find a full table I made that shows what Biome / Elevation is best for what resource.



Note: Roads and Rivers do not influence resource production.

2. Distance and path from the new settlement to your settlement
Both the distance between the two settlements and the terrains that connects them determines the "Travel Time".

This Travel Time affects how long it takes for your settlement to be built initially and how long taxes take to arrive at your base.

Note: Researching Transport pods will max Travel Time at 0.5 days, no matter the distance or terrain.
Making Money - Taxing Your Settlements
Now that you have build your own settlement and spent your precious resources on it its time to get something back.

In order for your settlement to turn a profit it has to start producing first.
To do that go back back to the "Colony" tab and click on the name of your new settlement.

This will bring up your colony specific interface.

On the right side you can assign individual workers to different resources.

Keep in mind that every worker costs upkeep. That upkeep cost goes up, the more workers you have assigned. The "Total $ Profit" tells you how much silver you'll get or have to pay during the next tax cycle.



Silver or Resources?
By default all your settlements will give you silver regardless of what resource they're producing.
To change that you can check the "Is Tithe" column for that resource.

This means that the obtained resources will be given to you directly instead of being counted as profit and given to you as silver.

Here for example I put all available workers into mining and turned on tithing.
Because im not getting any profits Ill have to pay my settlement 1000 silver, in return im getting whatever resource they mined for me. Also since the last update there is a small cog next to the tithing checkmark. Clicking on that will allow you to choose what resource your settlement is producing.

You will find very quickly that your basic settlement is quite limited in its ability to give you a huge ammount of resources. In order to change that you can shift your attention to the left of the colony interface and start constructing some buildings.

These buildings cost silver and will help your settlement in different ways. From giving you more workers, to making workers cheaper, giving you more taxes or improving the resource gathering rate for a specific resource. Your basic settlement will start out with three building slots but can have up to eight when upgraded. A slot will be unlocked by reaching lvl: 2/4/6/8/10



Let's talk about upgrading your settlement. With each level it will cost more silver but in return you get extra workers to assign to your resources. It will also give you a military level wich we will discuss in the last section of this guide.


Getting the taxes
After your settlements have been billed their taxes you'll be informed via a blue letter. Once that happened you can go to you settlement tab again and click on "Bills"
Here you can pay or get your taxes. If you have to pay silver because you have a tithe set up (as seen in the picture), clicking on "Resolve Bill" will take the silver right from your stockpile. At that point the settlement will send you the resources over (same for silver).

The time till these arrive depends on the traveltime. You can check the "Events" tab to see when the taxes will arrive.

It is recommended that you put down a "Tax Spot" wich can be found in the Misc section of the architect menu. That way the taxes appear on that spot. Edit: You can now set the delivery option of the taxes in the mod settings.


IMPORTANT NOTE:
1. The spot can be placed indoors without problems as the taxes dont appear via droppods.
2. ALL taxes, including animals and food will appear on that spot so be wise in choosing its location.


Special case Research and Power
You will find that both the research and power resources have no option to tithe them. Thats because these resources are handled a bit differently. One thing remains the same however and that is the need to go to the bills menu and resolve the taxes once they're due.


For research you will then immediately be given the research points. Note that these points wont be directly applied to your current research. They will be dropped into a pool and can be used by clicking on the "Actions" button in the main menu. That means you do not have to have a research project qeued up when you receive the research points.


For power you'll need to construct a "Faction Power Generator" from the Power section in the architects menu. This is where produced power will be sent to. The power will be given to you during the duration of the tax cycle (5 days)
World Politics - Setting Up Policies And Traits
In addition to the individual improvements you can make to your settlements via upgrading the settlement or constructing buildings, you can also set up Policies and traits that affect your faction as a whole.

It is free to set these up and they give some nice bonuses so theres no reason not to do it.

In order to set these up you have to head to your faction tab and click on "Overview".

You will find, that in the beginning only Level 1 is available to assign. The rest require you to level up your faction first. You do that by:

- Starting new settlements (10xp),
- Using your faction to raid successfully (5xp),
- Capturing enemy settlements(5xp),
- Have settlements at the end of each tax period (1xp per settlement)

To level up you'll need
Level 2 = 100 xp
Level 3 = 400 xp
Level 4 = 550 xp
Level 5 = 700 xp

To Arms - Setting Up A Military
Each settlement has a military score. This score can be increased by upgrading the town, constructing certains buildings or adopting certain policies.

This score has 3 distinct effects or uses.

1.Defending your town
From time to time you town will be attacked. You will be informed about this via a red letter. The text in that letter will tell you how strong the enemy force is.

If your own military score is high enough the defense wont be a problem and nothing bad will happen. An unsuccesfull defense however can result in that settlement loosing buildings or even a town level. Furthermore it will result in lower Happiness, Loyalty and Production for a while.

This is of course quite annoying when you have a settlement thats just starting out. You are however able to send your military from a different settlement to support the settlement thats being attacked. For that reason it is recommended that you have atleast one settlement with a high military score. In order to send your military to a different settlement click on the attacked settlement on the worldmap and choose "Defend Settlement" where you'll have the option to change the defending force.


Note: There is atleast some RNG involved here. I've had cases where I was able to beat a lvl 8 attack with a lvl 6 military force and vice versa.

2.Attacking settlements
Just like other factions can attack your settlements, you can attack theirs.


If the attack is successfull you will get some items as loot.

3.Supporting your troops

Since the last update you are able to create custom squads wich you can call in via droppods to support you in a dire situation. Let's look at how that works.

To start creating your armies click on "Military" under the faction tab.


This will open up a new window with three tabs at the top. You have to go from the right to the left here. Start by clicking on the "Create Units" tab. Once there clicking on the "Select A Unit" button will allow you to create a new soldier.


From there you can start customizing your new soldier. To equip your soldier simply click on the labeled equipment slots. The game will show you a list with possible items you can have in that slot. Keep in mind that the availability of certain weapons or armors is dependend on research or Techlevel. E.g. to give a soldier marine armor you need to have researched it yourself.

The more and the better items you equip the higher the "Equipment cost" to field that soldier will be. More info on that later.

To create different soldiers just click on the "Select A Unit" button again wich now shows the name of the unit youre making. You can edit your soldiers at any time.


Once you have created all the soldiers you want its time to put them in formation.
For that go to the "Create Squads" tab. Again click on "Select A Squad" to create a new one.

From there you'll see a 5x6 grid in wich you can place your soldiers. In order for your armies to be supported by a village they need to fit within the equipment cost. The equipment cost is determined by the military score of the village you want to assign your squad to.

For quick reference check here:
Military score = Maximum Equipment cost
0 = 500
1 = 1.000
2 = 2.500
3 = 5.000
4 = 8.500
5 = 13.000
6 = 18.500
7 = 25.000
8 = 32.500

You can also set a village as a reference point for the equipment cost. For that simply click on the "Set Point Ref" button on the right.



Now that you have your armies you have to assign them to a settlement. For that go to the "Designate Squads" tab. Find the settlement that you want to assign your squad to and click on "Set Squad". From there you'll get a list of all available squads. Click on the one you want for that settlement. If the equipment cost is to high for the military score of the town you wont be able to.

Note: You can assign a squad to multiple settlements.

When you want to use your armies simply click on the "Deploy Squad" button. Once you have done that you can choose the landing spot for your soldiers. (If you have transport pods researched. If not theyll walk in from the edge of the map.) During combat you can directly command the friendly units.

Keep in mind that once you used a squad it will go on cooldown before it can be used again.
(If you have the same squad in a different settlement you can still call it in from there)


4.For when the guns are needed - Fire support
In adittion to friendly squads you can also request fire support in form of mortar bombardement from your settlement.

For that however you need to have constructed an artillery outpost.
With that done you can head back to your military menu and click on "Create fire support".

Here you can add individual shells, choose the order in wich they arrive and decide how accurate you want your fire to be.


With that done you can call in that specific strike with the "Order fire support" button from your main military screen.


Some Stuff - Some Random Notes
1. You can call in Traders from your faction for free via the Comms Console

2. If you dont want your towns to be attacked by enemies, then you can go into the mod settings and disable it.
Game On Fire - Technical Stuff
One important thing to note and the reason I made this section is that you shouldn't disable this mod while you're in the middle of a save. It will break and you wont be happy so don't do it.

Adding the mod midgame is fine.

Mod compatibility

There are three known mods that will cause problems:

1. Real faction guest

2. Faction discovery
Personally I've not had any problems with this mod but your mileage may vary.

3. Tech Advancing
Causes problems when trying to apply reseach points to a tech as it will only work with techs of your current techlevel.

-----------------------------------------------
Apart from these the game is pretty well integrated with other mods from my personal experience. Modded weapons (Weapons+, Contractors arsenal, Project Armory, Vanilla Weapons expanded) can all be equipped by the soldiers when creating your own army and drop as part of the tithe. Modded animals (Alpha Animals) can also be used by the soldiers and are regular part of the tithe as well.

Please report any bugs you find here: https://discord.gg/f3zFQqA
Also keep in mind that the discord is the MAIN PLACE FOR TECHNICAL SUPPORT!
Expand Your Horizon - Mods For The Mod
Here Ill be listing expansion mods for the Empire Mod. Keep in mind that I dont guarantee that these mods work perfectly or at all. For troubleshooting of the expansion mods go the respective mod site.

1. Goldminermac's Empire: Security And Defense
-Adds 4 new defensive buildings

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2098043661

2. Goldminermac's Empire: Expanded Resource Buildings
-Adds 8 buildings that enhance resource production

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2097864612

3. Goldminermac's Empire: Psychoid And Smokeleaf
-Adds 4 new buildings that allows your settlements to produce drug plants and drugs.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2098901912

4. Goldminermac's Empire: Dastardly Machinations
-Adds 6 new buildings for warcrime lovers.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2109199665
Thank You
Thank you very much for reading this.

I hope I was able to help you get into this awesome mod.

Please keep in mind that this mod is in active development wich means that things are subject to change.
79 Comments
LarsSvengard 23 Oct @ 5:56pm 
:| yeah
astro2111 13 Oct @ 3:22pm 
:I boyo the amount of power people has with this. you can make the game more harder than it already is with makeing one faction. and i love it :D
Dark Luminary  [author] 31 Oct, 2023 @ 12:44pm 
@tanyafilina its been a while since ive used empire but back then it wasnt. It only caused some problems when trying to apply some techpoints so if you arent getting that kind of output it should work just fine
tanyfilina 31 Oct, 2023 @ 12:11pm 
Hello! Thank you for this guide, it helps a lot! I couldn't understand even how to create a faction, it's not intuitive at all. Do you know if the incompatibility with Tech Advance is critical? I like this mod a lot.
Coolguypugman 27 Jul, 2022 @ 8:04am 
Ok duly noted, thank you for the help.
Dark Luminary  [author] 27 Jul, 2022 @ 7:40am 
@Coolguypugman There is a starting trait allowing you to cut taxes for improved happines, there are also buildings wich increase happines, some even daily. Also some events like drug trade increase happines. But to my knowledge all of these involve waiting.
Coolguypugman 27 Jul, 2022 @ 7:11am 
I know I probably won't get a reply to this but, Is there anyway to get settlement happiness up other than waiting?
Dark Luminary  [author] 12 Dec, 2021 @ 12:06pm 
As it happens I had rimworld running ^^. But yeah np you have a nice day/evening too.
Jobe 12 Dec, 2021 @ 12:05pm 
Wow very fast reply, thanks for helping me clear that up! You have a nice day/evening.
Dark Luminary  [author] 12 Dec, 2021 @ 11:55am 
@Necromantic you can click on the column name to sort by different attributes. Clicking on "settlement" will sort by full name. So you could have the full names be a,b,c and so on and the short name (wich gets shown in the list) the actual name you want to use.