Thea II does not need to be rushed. It looks like a game where you are rewarded for taking risks and getting things done quickly but that isn't really the case. Survival is better than nearly all risky rewards. It's more fun to take risks and you won't learn the game without taking risks, so let's face it, you're still going to take risks. Despite that, err on the side of caution and if you can wait, do wait, at least until you can be confident of winning.

The big implication here is that you don't need to rush the lightbringers and divine quests. You can take time to settle into an island, explore the landmarks, do all the faction quests, and get the ally benefits. You should still keep busy just don't rush into things you can't handle. When you finally get to the main quests they will probably be quite safe.

The foreign islands can be very dangerous when you first land so again, take it easy, explore the safer parts and don't rush into danger. Walk away from the worst enemy lairs. Enemy groups can spawn and move 3 spaces so try to stay that far away. Try to leave a movement point at the end of your move so you can backtrack if you run into danger.

If you always try to rush through the game as fast as possible you'll get short of people, short of research, short of materials, and so on. Spend time to ease forward more comfortably and stuff will naturally accumulate. You might even find perfect opportunities coming your way through blessings or weather bonuses. Take it easy.

When you complete challenges you can sometimes get stat improvements and blessings based on how you solved the challenge. If you want to build up characters focused on strength you can opt for physical solutions to challenges.

You often get better options and better results in challenges based on your domains. This means if you follow your domains the encounters will drive up the stats that match your domains. This gives a simple outcome: play a warrior god very warlike and play a magic god very magical. The chosen should have a race or profession that suits the god's domains. It sounds obvious but if you try to do something different it will result in a messed up chosen!

A good character has big stats that match personal attack skills, plus a useful support skill for the times they can't attack. That's pretty much it. These personal skills are the way to beat the challenges where you can't use equipment. They are the basis for beating all challenges. You can repeatedly change equipment but the character skill development needs to be consistent through the game.

The way to take on a variety of challenges is to have a variety of specialised characters rather than each character raising a variety of stats. If a character can use one stat to power attack skills on different colours (physical, mental, magic) that's even better but each character should have one thing they do well. Simple is good. Most characters get their skills from their class, and classes mainly use one or two stats, so that's generally where a character specialises.

The bonuses offered on level up are related to what the character already has, so a specialised character is likely to remain specialized and an averaged character is usually stuck being average. This means it is hard to repair a character who has the wrong focus or no focus, making it even more important to keep each character focused on a simple path.

Looking after kids and giving them an easy time is a key to success in Thea. They move slowly so find them a pet or armour with +1 move. Give them extra faith from armour or buildings so they can survive the high winds. Don't ask them to stand in combat and instead use support skills and summons.

When kids grow up they will be offered a choice of professions based on their stats. These stats can be boosted by a kindergarten, pets, and items so you can push kids into growing into the classes you need. This lets you get the variety of characters needed to fight a variety of challenges. For example, a magic user is really useful so give a girl a pet cat, try to raise her mysticism, and see if she can grow into a witch.

Kids retain many of their skills and stat bonuses when they turn adult so getting them up a few levels will also make them a lot better as adults. So keep the kids busy earning experience. An armoury can give a trickle of xp to kids in the village.

The foundations of a character are the skills so equipment is needed for the things the skills cannot do. Personal skills generally don't defend well so armour is important equipment for everyone in battle. If a character has a big stat but no matching personal skill they can obviously use a weapon based on that stat. A character with low stats will never have strong attacks so equip them for support and utility. A character already with big attack skills might not need a weapon for that so they have all options open on their equipment.

In general, on the first island you can do a lot with looted equipment. Big crafted physical armour will make things easier when stepping up to harder challenges, as will armour generally. Once you can bring in better materials from other islands the craftable weapons really start to make a difference and a complex choice of items becomes available. However most characters will still want to expand on their strengths. You can create a warrior that can attack on magic but will they actually have the right defence to be useful in a magic battle?

When you travel, try to take some herbs (faith healing rituals), a spare boar (in case you find a child), and plenty of spare cooked food (for trades and payments).

Keep using the ritual to upgrade tiers on your village idol. Push it up to full power.

Encounters become much safer if you can run to an allied village for healing before the end of turn.

Talk to faction patrols. They just keep giving you experience.

Use a fast lightweight boat to travel to other islands and a moon bridge ritual to get back. It takes some research but it is worth it.