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Before I begin, a few terms need clearing up: "Gear" means Equipment, "Sect" means Faction/Clan, Shifu are fellow sect members, Retainers are followers (similar to Shifu but more limited), Abilities are used out of combat, Skills are used in combat, Moves are different attack types provided (and required) by Skills and "Vigor" means Endurance - the amount of punishment you can take before fainting.

On the Meridian screen: "Acupoints" are the nodes with symbols on them (circle, square, triangle), Inner KungFu (IKF) are perks enabled by activating acupoints in sequence, which require Chi to be activated. IKF also enable Chi of the Sun/Moon/Venom/Harmony (not to be confused with "Chi"), which grant damage bonuses to skills.

"Return to Karma" means Reincarnate, which is why you're required to make a new character when doing so and can't reincarnate into your existing children.

Yes, it's confusing. Translations will be improved in future patches, but with experience you'll learn what's what without too much difficulty. I'll provide more translations below.

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1. Markers placed on the map show up in normal view, making navigation much easier.

2. Good items to hotbar are curative "Contraptions" (furniture), ailment medicine, Black Robes, Broken Bowls and a City Guardian for Enlightenment Stones. The Bamboo Mat restores Vigor after a fight, which should be replaced later with a Spring (faster and also heals several ailments; can be used to speedfarm Physique Karma). Furniture can be picked up using "Recycle". Black Robes are for sneaking, Broken Bowls for begging. Vigor consumables are best used from the inventory menu to consume multiple at once.

Somewhat useful options are a Cage to turn NPCs into Retainers, a Beast Fence to grab your Ferret and Snake's fertilizer, various crafting furniture (including the Bookcase for quests) and a Zheng to give NPCs various buffs.

3. Material amounts gained from mining, woodcutting and the like are determined by "Material Efficiency" (material gains) from equipment, while attack damage determines how quickly the object is destroyed without increasing gains. Therefore, it's best to have a low-damage Meridian setup specifically for gathering - you have 3 tabs for different setups.

4. I recommend starting your own sect as joining another doesn't have significant benefits other than emptying their storages for free (you'll be rich soon anyway), and building your own sect with settlement is very satisfying.

Temporarily, the devs appear to have chosen to use a workaround for sect production: Most gains are automatically delivered to the Warehouse as "tax", though sometimes you'll find a few spare items being produced properly as well. These remain in the production/gathering building. According to dev messages they're working on this.

5. You can join the Da Nei Guards (police) and also be in a sect, but only if you join the Da Nei first (possible bug). Joining lets you hunt down bounties and use Da Nei weapons without angering them. Females can join right away, males need to have their "baby" removed, either through groin-kicking or by clicking on your character with a sword equipped, then choosing Interact > Return to palace. Keep the "baby" (an inventory item) as you may want to reattach through a Leechcraft 6 NPC (usually a clinic manager) if you decide to have offspring.

6. Auctions should always be entered as you'll find rare equipment, Chi items, treasure maps and other goodies. Add your own items to sell them quickly. Check which items you want beforehand, then use the 3x button to speed things up - you'll have 5 seconds (normally 15) after each bid to bid higher. Keep your eye on the "highest bid" line and the cursor over the bidding button to ensure you win. Exit the auction when done; items you've added are still sold and purchases are added.

7. Dismantle equipment using the Loom or Forge, which provides materials including Silk and rare metals. You can chop trees to make wooden weapons, then dismantle them for Red Copper and Refined Iron. Logic.

8. Building your Miniworld is an interesting mechanic. For immersion I recommend grouping tiles by ground type, such as (from north to south): Snow, Plains, Swamps, Deserts and Volcanoes. One type in the middle surrounded by different types can cause you to run out of space. For accessibility it's best to put your settlement in the center of the map; worth keeping in mind when determining the order.

When placing a lake tile, look at the icon to determine which ground type it has. Note that the ratios are (very) roughly: Grass (4), Snow/Sand (2) and Lava/Swamp (1).

9. The Kungfu Tournament automatically invites you once a week. Beware fire-based douchebags who can destroy equipment with Nirvana Saber; either defeat them in the first round or counter their moves. The tournament can be won by defeating 15k Vigor opponents, though alternative reasons to place the tile are inviting powerful Shifu, begging (also through your Monkey) and building a settlement, as it features large open plains and a unique structure.

10. "Verbal Duels" (VDs; debates) allow you to down enemies (reduce Vigor to 0), increase admiration, resolve enmity, prevent battles and cause special effects via craftable arguments. There are many language errors here: The arguments used in debates are also named VD, "Mouth Cannon" also means argument, "Saliva" means "eloquence" (persuasiveness), "mouth" can mean either argument or eloquence and so on, but it becomes comprehensible with experience.

Debates can be won with a solid strategy, depending on which arguments you've unlocked (viewed in the Abilities screen).

Witty Barrage can win most early arguments as it's easily unlocked and somewhat powerful. It creates useless Case for Yourself arguments, which slowly remove themselves. Beat Around The Bush can raise the power of argument types around it for the rest of the debate.

Another good tactic is to use Perseverance to remove Nonsense and other cards without an effect, so you don't have to remove them, and then remove the Perseverance instead (removes are limited).

Tactful Guidance (2x Persuade, 1x Recount Tale) is likely the first truly powerful argument you'll unlock. It can be "farmed" easily using Honeyed Tongue, which creates Persuades automatically, after which you only need to add one Recount Tale. Better options do exist, like Agree to Disagree, though it works best if you have a single one. Heart To Heart also has potential (gives +100 admiration). This is not an exhaustive list, but plenty to win all debates with max rewards.

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1. To get the most out of the Meridians screen: First, get enough Chi. Start with a quintuple (5x) stat boost by connecting to a nearby acupoint with five different lines from the Inner Elixir Field (IEF, the red dot). The remaining open node next to the IEF will be your endpoint. If you have enough Chi, keep in mind that filling every node (including empty ones) heals inner wounds/ailments, so try to fill everything.

From the 5x acupoint, start unlocking the most important IKF for your build. After finishing an IKF, stop and look at the IKF list - some decent ones will be nearly or halfway done, so finish those. Repeat. After finishing roughly half of the acupoints, check the IKF list to find the best and finish them.

With Meridian Shift Pills (MSPs, which change acupoints) this process is way easier. Also note that the Primordial Chaos IKF unlocks more nodes, which is a must for optimal Meridian builds (I got it from a Millibeast Sect Elder).

2. MSPs and Chi consumables are easily farmed by killing exotic animals and can be found in many shops - especially at clinics.

3. Besides an optimal Meridian build, the best ways to gain combat strength are Chi of the Sun/Moon/Venom/Harmony, which provide massive bonuses to skill damage, and maximizing the amount of moves you get in a turn, which lets you spam more skills and perform counters.

Choose two move types to specialize in: One main and one secondary. More dilutes the move types while just one gets you countered. Check your skills list to find good main/secondary combinations; you'll want the best skills which synergize, such as "performs 2 fist moves" combined with fist skills, and of course the best "Chi of the" types.

4. Wave Palm (skill) uses Chi to deal massive damage once per battle, increased indefinitely via Chi consumables. Can be performed as soon as battle begins for an instant kill. It's currently overpowered enough to be an exploit.

Wu Dang Pure Yang (IKF) has a similar function, except it's a passive rather than a skill, with damage scaling off of energy (increased via Chi).

5. The best equipment attributes are +Attack% to your main/secondary move types, Counter Resistance, -% Damage and uniques, like the Divine Hat's improvements to Technique (50% more combo moves and combo versatility) or Golden Arachaea Spider robe (-50% damage).

Full Material Efficiency is best for a gathering setup. The -(element) Stacks are useful if you don't have the Ice/Fire/Venom Physique karma yet, but only when exploring an environment with 30 elemental weather stacks as seen on the map.

Use a personal storage to keep multiple equipment sets for yourself, best placed in your private residence.

6. The best Karma to unlock are Pristine Birthright, Noble Scion, Beast Tongue and Ice/Fire/Venom Physique, in that order.

Talented makes learning skills/IKF easier but stops being useful quickly, especially if you have a chest full of books. Bear in mind that Fire/Venom Physique can cause knocked out NPCs to die (this normally also happens in damaging weather areas).

Ailments caused by Blind and Disabled Yet Resolved (broken leg) can be healed at any clinic.

Ill Fate and Affectionate are negatives so there's no need to get them, though not bad enough to avoid either. Unimportant karma are Wondrous Manifestation (just a random IKF, not unique) and Restricted (worthless treasure map).

Ominous might be interesting for a warring playstyle, making as many enemies as you can to boost your damage, causing a constant state of war with your neighbors.

7. The best rewards from tile challenges are main/secondary damage bonuses. Prioritize these, but don't sweat it if you waste a few before you've decided on which damage types to specialize in.

8. The main use of elemental stacks is to synergize with skills, such as Arctic Palm inflicting 2 cold stacks and Snow Melting Sword dealing damage for each. Cold lowers enemy move numbers with enough stacks and doesn't accidentally kill knocked out enemies.

Heat and Poison deal minor damage over time. Feeding knocked out NPCs poison is currently the best way to assassinate without major repercussions (~100 elemental stacks will kill a freshly knocked out NPC).

Concealed weapons can inflict decent numbers of cold debuffs using regular weapon moves with the "concealed weapon causes cold stacks" equipment and the Art of Transformation skill (changes all moves into concealed weapon).

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1. When you find 10k+ Vigor NPCs, befriend them. You'll want a list while inviting Shifu into your own sect. They're usually sect Leaders/Elders or Da Nei Guards.

2. Use Interact > Get Bio to optimize or ruin an NPC's build (equipment/skills/meridians). Clearly an exploit unless used on Shifu/Retainers. Beware that you'll face the strongest characters in a tournament.

3. Shifu/Retainers can be made incredibly powerful. Use your sect's Kungfu School to rapidly teach them skills and IKF, "Get Bio" to equip equipment which synergizes with their skills, then use the Meridians tab to increase their stats further. They can also be fed Chi pills/food by knocking them out first (this game is fantastic).

You won't need to activate their IKF, though they can get 5x stat boosts from Meridians. Retainers can be added to your sect to learn Kungfu rapidly, then removed - they'll still be Retainers. Oddly, NPCs can be turned into Retainers by imprisoning them.

4. NPCs' "Identity" (profession) and personality traits determine their behavior. For example, a Miner standing next to a knocked out animal will ignore it while a Hunter will tame it. You could theoretically take your Shifu/Retainers out for a taming run using this knowledge. Note that changing profession requires the NPC to be a friend or lover, while personality traits are modified through craftable debate arguments.

5. Becoming friends/intimate with NPCs, teaming up with them or learning their skills/IKF/abilities requires "Admire" (admiration), which is gained in many ways:

• Gifting items (up to 500 value at a time, of which 10% is gained in admiration) or a house
  
• Overkill in battle and choosing mercy (fast if you're more powerful; look for the skull icon)
  
• Assisting via quests
  
• Healing them (even if you caused the injuries)
  
• Talking about their favorite subjects (also grants Ability XP up to Sage (lvl 6), even when you lack the requirements)
  
• Healing their allies
  
• Verbal Duels

When done you can knock them out via battle to loot their equipment, items and regain any quest items you gave them - an exploit since admiration gains aren't revoked. Gifting 500 coins a few times is fastest. Note that you can use number keys.

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1. Click on your character to access the Manage Retainers menu. Use it to summon followers which got stuck and other useful options. Great if you don't have Beast Tongue, find a special animal like the Big Monkey and can't find your regular Monkey. Use the menu to release the Monkey, then tame the Big Monkey.

2. Animals which have special variants are the Monkey, Chicken, Dog, Boar and Wolf (shown in the image above, except the special dog). Beware that NPCs can tame knocked out animals as well, and they're quick.

3. Feeding animals their favorite food, up to 100 per day, increases their stats dramatically. Their favorites are: Horse/Boar (Wild Grass), Monkey/Poison Frog (Pinecone/Plum), Chicken (Worms), Ferret/Snake (Eggs), Dog (Bone/Poo; be careful with the poison stacks) and Eagle/Wolf/Fire Lizard/Black Serpent (Meat). A properly upgraded group of animals is powerful.

4. Their roles: The Horse and Eagle are the best mounts, the Chicken generates eggs, the Snake can covertly lockpick and poison sleeping NPCs, the Ferret pings when treasure is nearby, they can all be used in combat and non-exotic animals generate poo (fertilizer).

5. To tame exotic animals which can't be tamed normally (Poison Frogs, Fire Lizards and Black Serpents), use Soultaker's Song followed by Ordeal Sigil (sword skills). Use your gathering Meridian tab to prevent killing them.

Yes, you can fly around on a dragon. Sadly it'll severely block your view, making the Eagle a better mount. A gorgeous settlement guardian though.

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1. Anything built snaps to the elevation right below your character's feet. You can run into weird placement issues because of this but also solve them by moving, even if slightly.

2. I recommend building a sizable private residence (house) for yourself with lots of empty space (~10 empty foundations) right next to your sect's Warehouse. You can manually place crafting furniture as you unlock them, which prevent having to run through your settlement while crafting. You'll also want to place a few Fields, either for growing naturally or using fertilizer spam for instant gains.

3. Scrolling through building components/furniture is awfully slow (probably a bug). (Right-)click and drag instead.

4. An efficient yet immersive house design has 6 foundations (Lamp, Bed, Crate, perhaps a Screen), though a gamey design can have just 1 (empty outhouse) or 3 (Bed). Building housing next to job buildings prevents workers from roaming and wasting time or strolling into dangerous areas; just make sure the right worker has the right house. Working NPCs don't seem to sleep in their houses much (they sometimes loiter around it), though I expect that to be patched at some point.

5. You can gift houses to any NPC. To dismantle a house owned by an NPC, buy it and select "Rebuild" (dismantle). Destroying an NPC workplace outside your sect causes them to rebuild it.

6. Besides the residence, building types differ by requiring specific "Facilities" (furniture). Shifu can be assigned to work there.

A quick rundown of unclear building types: "Residence" is unrestricted and can be gifted to NPCs, "Village" means Farm, "Coward Hut" means Woodcutter, "Hunter" means Animal Farm, "Peripheral" means Furniture Set (no building), "Fabric Shop" means Weaver, "Langya Pavillion" means Crafter and "Hall" means Palace.

7. Blueprints which have an uneven number of tiles in either direction are placed differently on the grid than they were originally built. Either keep their grid size even or just ignore this.

8. The best thing you can do for your settlement's look is designing nice buildings. Most efficient is a minimal square foundation with a small door, but for aesthetics consider putting big doors on Warehouses, Smithies, Weavers, Temples and Palaces. A 2-tile hallway to the big door looks great.

Roof shapes depend on foundation layout and change drastically based on build direction as they're not 4-way symmetrical, but the roof stays the same when rotating a blueprint. Notable tricks are removing one or two foundations in the middle of a long wall or breaking up corners.

9. Though indoor looks matter, outside looks determine the overall aesthetic of your settlement. It may be a good idea to build based on how the outside will look (especially the roof). You can even use buildings as walls, either with with a flat roof or a gigantic triangle on top.

10. Outdoor furniture can be placed inside and vice versa. Nothing screams "lavish palace" like an indoor spring, while City Guardian shrines are great outside decorations.

11. It's a lot of work to keep track of the various building components, so this list of unique features might help the budding builder:

• Foundations: Red Wood has an ornamental wooden railing, Brick and Wood has wooden pillars and Tile has a flower bed.
  
• Single doors: Green Brick Door has marble, Hinge Door has an awning and Bird Door has diamond-shapes.
  
• Big doors: Big Grid Door is see-through, Big Double Doors has lamps on the sides (combines well with Red Wood foundation), Big Green Brick and Big Hinge Door have awnings, Big Bronze Door looks like a fortified barn/industrial door (also true for the small version to a lesser extent) and Daquan looks lavish.
  
• Windows/walls: Grid is open for a terrace-look, Removable Window is dark wood and Gold Casement Window has large glowing screens (great for a clinic IMO).
  
• Roofs: Simple Tile is a fancy single roof, Double uniquely has a smaller top roof, Wooden Tile has sloped angles, Green Tile has a thin row of windows and Liuli is very tall (combines well with Daquan).

I've posted a gallery of screenshots[imgur.com], complete with building components used. Perhaps useful as examples or inspiration.

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1. Some info about the main quest. No story spoilers but you may prefer to find out by yourself: The main quest ends up changing the world drastically, which you can undo by heading North across the sea. This gives two options: Either "Free Roam", which clears the world changes and lets you come back later, or return to karma and make a new character. This unlocks two additional character slots in the main menu, and the new character can always choose the first as a parent (potentially making the Noble Scion karma unnecessary).

The new character can also go here for an additional objective. Alternatively, fly your Eagle straight into the beam of light's base to complete the story (displays the final dialogue, after which you can free roam again as the quest is unfinished).

2. When starting a new character/descendant, store all your items somewhere in a Miniworld, including Kungfu books of skills/IKF you've learned (use a Bookcase) and the million gold needed for the Pristine Birthright Karma if you have it. A dedicated storage world might be useful, though I personally prefer a persistent world across characters for immersion.

3. The game currently has several poorly balanced mechanics. You can get more enjoyment out of it using the following restrictions:

• No "Geomancy" (thieving) - easy
  
• Not using battle/mercy/knockdown for free admiration - easy
  
• Not using Wave Palm or Wu Dang Pure Yang - medium difficulty
  
• Depending on taste, learning skills/IKF only from books - hard

When using the last option, find books for sale in sect Training buildings. You'll still need to learn Abilities from NPCs, like Taming or Weaving. Non-sect skills/IKF aren't found in book form, including Primordial Chaos, so you can either choose to learn those from NPCs or go full hardmode and not get them, which makes even the Kungfu tournament difficult on a first character. You'll likely need unique gear to beat it.

As a bonus, not thieving or learning from NPCs prevents the worst tedium. Now you'll actually have to do some honest work, like woodcutting/mining to pay for your first skills or defeating Da Nei Guards for lategame gold farm. I recommend abiding by these restrictions even on a first game; you'd be surprised at how good the game becomes as a result.

4. If you've been playing while using the mentioned exploits, I recommend starting over as follows: Backup your saves from the "C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Local\HMS_00" folder (this is also where you'll find your building blueprints), then start the game and choose "Delete All Data".

5. When using the Delete all data button, only the characters are deleted - existing saves and blueprints remain. Likely a bug, so make sure you backup your saves before using the button as this may be patched! Afterwards you can use different save slots to character-swap as the main menu will display the last character loaded. I'm not yet certain how this interacts with multiple character slots.

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A few questions I still need answered, which I'll then add to the guide:
1. What's the difference between "Release Commission" and "Orders" (R screen)?
2. As a general question, does anyone have information on the really bad translations, like food/medicine grabbed from Da Nei Guards (Three Gods, Overlord, Uranus)? Anything else you had to research/test would be useful to add.

A few acknowledgements:
- Thanks to titanopteryx for information on AI behavior and not being able to feed consumables to sleeping NPCs
- Thanks to 102beagle102 for information on Wu Dang Pure Yang
- Thanks to Graporb13 for information on map tile numbers
- Thanks to Awkward Crying for information on removing a male character's "baby", and pointing out that joining the Da Nei while already in a sect causes you to leave it

Lastly, I found TMKF via Youtuber SsethTzeentach, so I thought it only fair to link his channel - a great source for obscure games like this one and politically incorrect comedy to boot.