OK first off, you've probably already played the tutorial. There's a whole tutorial. Go play it.

Did you win? Of course you did, the tutorial is basically idiot-proof.

Did you try playing a real game and got completely lost because it wasn't on baby mode? Come and stand by my fire, you naive niceling. I'll teach you how to be a liquorlord gremlin the likes of which God has never seen.

I love God, by the way. Without God, we wouldn't have this game, or demons, or a computer to play it on, or brains to play it with. Have a sense of humor about things. Nobody actually gets hurt in this game. Keep your demons contained and virtual, kids.

OK, so you got through the tutorial. Here's a little nugget they left out:

You can seek tribute more than once per turn.

That nugget is so vital I'm typing it again in all caps because in case you took so many blows to the head from demons that you skipped the very first tip I gave you:

YOU CAN SEEK TRIBUTE MORE THAN ONCE PER TURN.

Got it? Good. Got orders you don't know what to do with? Seek tribute. No idea what to do next? Seek tribute, buy time. Either you can do something awesome now, in which case sure, do it, but if you can't, seek tribute so you can do something awesome later. Don't settle for doing something mediocre now, that's just going to waste your tribute and you'll get your skull forcibly penetrated by demons later on because they didn't waste theirs.

"BUT AMPHI, THERE'S AN ORDER PENALTY IF I DON'T SEEK TRIBUTE FIRST"

Nobody cares. The only time seeking tribute is bad is if you could do something that gets you more tribute.

Let's do a bit of math. As a Baronex on turn 1, you get to draw 4 tokens and keep 3. This means you're keeping 3 tokens, likely 2 worth 2 and 1 worth 1, for like 5 'tribute'. "BUT AMPHI THERE'S FOUR DIFFERENT CURRENCIES"- silence, demon, lest the metal will strike you down to the ground. Early on you don't care what kind it is. Committing to one of the four early on is only good if you know exactly which of the four is best to commit to, and you don't know squat yet so all of them are equally potentially good.

Now if you extort your neighbor, you'll get three random demand. Maybe the good stuff, maybe just a dinky little 1-er. Your neighbors make dumb moves sometimes, can't be helped. You'll probably get around 4 'tribute' total across the 3. You'll probably get less from this demand than you would if you just sought tribute. Why? Because sometimes, your neighbor will refuse your demand, and so you'll get zilch *and* lose Prestige for your efforts. (More on Prestige later, for now the liquor demands I talk about tribute) Why will you lose Prestige? Because on turn 1 you won't be able to succeed at whatever Vendetta you take on.

Now when you can take four tokens later on in the game, it's probably better, especially if you Seek Tribute with your first order and you can effectively make good on a Vendetta in case they back out. Also, they've had time to stock up on tribute and spend their awful singles doing mediocre stuff because they're bad at this and should feel bad, so you're more likely to get 7-10 'tribute' for your trouble.

Tribute. Do it first every turn, unless you absolutely need all your orders to do other stuff. I know the urge to E X P A N D is strong. If there's a Place of Power you can reliably wreck with your opening legion, sure, go do that... with your second order. Seek Tribute with your first.

OMG I'm a needy pissbaby and I clicked 'Done' and now I'm LOST

wait nevermind I just got a turn's worth of INFORMATION.

Read your messages. Read them like it was a functioning media outlet in a functioning democracy and your democracy was at stake. Soak em in. Doomscroll those bad larries. Then think of how you could ruin their day. Let the liquor guide you.

What's Astaroth doing? Sending a legion to a Place of Power? Rad, that means they're not spending as much on tribute. A well-timed theft could send them nearly bankrupt and unable to buy better stuff.

Is Mammon not doing anything? Probably extending Chains of Avarice everywhere like a fat greedy nerd instead of seeking tribute or taking a Place of Power. Watch to see if anyone bites, then steal from them in a round or two after they've used that trumped-up tribute action a buncha times. Maybe send someone to thump his lame early legion and bully him.

Is Lilith being weird again? She's probably gathering a pile of tribute to improve her Deceit, which means she's going to blow it all on random rituals that mess with folks. Good for a thumping or an early theft to snake her stuff away before she can blow it on high Deceit ranks.

In general, people's early moves will telegraph their strategic intent. Most demons are selfish, shortsighted little trashlords who pick one thing and stick to it until it doesn't work. Be the reason it doesn't work. Be the chaos gremlin you know you can be. Stay different. Let the chaos guide you, change your tactics as soon as an opportunity opens up, then change again.

Generally, if you can disrupt one demon very early on, that demon is now the Designated Cory/Trevor. Hit em up for smokes, insult them, just ride them every chance you can because they're never going to get better if you just never let up. Do it right and it's free stuff city.

So you've had a couple turns, sought some tribute, and doinked someone over most unrighteously. The liquor is flowing through you, and you're thirsty for more.

Your ability to belittle and abuse your lessers is limited by two things: Your Rank, and your Orders. You got rookie numbers in both, and you want to pump those up as fast as possible.

Sure there's some strategy where you stay Low Rank and try to leverage that to your advantage. We're being grimy little pissbabies tho, and that means pulling rank as soon as you possibly can.

Once you rank up, you can demand even more stuff from other demons. DO IT. You want an excuse to hurt someone, the stuff is just a consolation prize for not getting to mangle a foe between your unbrushed teeth. Demons don't make alliances or friendships, there's no reputation score that permanently goes down, there's no heart meter that goes BLIP BLOOP BWAHHH every time your enemy has a sad.

Sometime around turn 2, take a look at your Powers. You don't immediately care what they do. You care about which one is near 4 and what that needs.

DON'T spend those resources on other stuff. Unless it's Souls. You're ripping through those like a deductible in a cancer ward.

DO spend not-those resources on other stuff. Say you're closest to getting Deceit to 4. That needs DARKNESS. Don't spend Darkness on anything except leveling up Deceit. DO spend Flames and Blood on legions, Praetors, Artifacts, whatever gets your motor going.

Tribute you don't spend is waiting to be stolen. Tribute you don't spend is power you're not earning, legions who aren't fighting, Artifacts you're not Artifacting. Same goes for Prestige- if you've got a big pile of it, it's both putting a target on your back and not helping you pull Rank.

Once that one's at 4, get the next one to 4. Then you'll have more Orders than you can shake a dead cat at, and that means plenty of room for Activities. Stuff like Rituals to ruin people's lives, Schemes to ruin people's lives, and Insults galore. You can think about all that stuff now that you've got a solid economic base to wage your reign of Grime with.

Pick someone and make their hell even more of a hell. Pick the same demon you picked earlier, if you ruined their day at an early turn. As long as they have Prestige, you can keep picking on them for fun and profit. If they don't have any more Prestige, just take their Places of Power. Then, extort a Praetor or Artifact from them. You don't need to take everything, you're not trying to be a Dominus Demonus Rexicus. Take the easy C, let their reformed legion come back and then punt it off the map again for funsies. You'll get promotions which you can use to punt them off again next time.

If, for some reason, you forgot the earlier steps (maybe a memory issue from all the demon kickings), you might not have an obvious, easy target. Here's where Prophecy and Deceit are your friends. Dark Augury to find someone whose weakest power is Deceit. Then, use Deceit rituals to loot their vaults, pilfer their Artifacts, and just absolutely ruin their life. Once they're broke and treasure-less, use the stuff you stole to build legions and Praetors and start demanding the last ragged scraps of their tribute. Either they give it up, and you're rich now, or they don't, and you start taking over their stuff with the legions you bought with their other stuff. Capitalism!

The game starts to end at 50 unless people do nutty stuff like taking Pandemonium. I'm no strategy expert, I'm a grubby little gremlin and the liquor decided achievements are for nerds with perfect attendance. I don't have the attention span, so I gotta start thinking about the end around turn 40. Make a reminder. Stick a Post-It on your monitor. If you don't have any Post-Its, draw a note in Sharpie on the monitor so it doesn't wash off when you dust it.

Around turn 40, you really gotta think hard whether you want more Schemes or not. Most take like 20 turns to remember to figure out, longer if you watched too much TV as a kid. Maybe forget about Schemes unless you're real close to one. If you can time it out to get it done by 50, cool, otherwise forget it and do something else fun with your time.

Same for Ranks- maybe stay where you are, getting a higher rank past 40 probably won't help you recover the expenditure in time.

So yeah, take a hard look around Prestige-wise. Either you're ahead and sitting pretty, or you're behind and someone else is ahead of you. If they're only ahead because nobody messed with em, start messing with em in serious. If they're only a little ahead and they're stronger than you in every way, maybe mess with your Cory & Trevor until they have no more Prestige left to lose. Take the easy way out, it's called the easy way for a reason.

Around turn 50, you can start writing checks your gluteus demonicus can't cash. Reject Demands, spend any unspent tribute. Try to end turn 55 with absolutely nothing in the bank account and all your legions wounded from grabbing stuff. No idea what to blow money on? Praetors, Artifacts, and Legions are all worth Prestige. It's like buying points!

Remember this works both ways- if you humiliate someone on turn 54, they'll probably just laugh in your face.

So yeah, game over man game over. Either you won, and you can now gloat over your friends, or you didn't but at least you made someone else miserable in the process. Maybe the real demons were the friends we made along the way. Maybe it's Maybelline. Keep your horns hard out there and tell me every single thing I got wrong in the comments so I know how improbably foolish I am on the internet. Otherwise I'm just gonna think I nailed it and the disease will continue to spread.