Your First Ten Turns

You start with your capital already founded, carrying your kindred's star, and a small starting stockpile. Income is zero until your first structure completes — so the opening is about getting there fast.

Turns 1–3: tend the inner ring

Tap a highlighted tile next to your city to tend it. Tending costs action points by distance — 1 AP in the city's inner ring, 2 AP one ring out, 3 AP beyond that — so the inner ring is where your first points go. Each tend does four things at once:

• claims the tile into your borders (and auto-builds a road to it),
• grows your city — population is literally the number of tiles the city tends,
• reveals the tile's subtype — the crafting ingredient it was hiding (grain? stone? timber?),
• and sometimes discovers a special resource — iron, horses, herbs — hidden until that moment.

With 3 AP per turn you can tend up to three inner-ring tiles a turn. Tend tiles of one terrain family first (all field, all forest, or all hills, whichever your city sits in) — you are collecting ingredients for a recipe, and recipes don't mix families.

Turns 3–6: craft your first structure

Once you've tended three tiles of the right subtypes in the right shape, the game offers a structure: a Granary on grain fields, a Quarry on stony hills, a Lumber Camp on timber forest. Building the basic tier costs just 1 AP and starts your income — +1 of that family's resource per turn, forever.

Don't wait for a perfect higher-tier recipe in your first few turns. Any income beats no income. The +2 and +3 tiers (a Mineshaft needs an ore tile, a Well needs a water-vein field) will come as your tends reveal the rarer subtypes.

Turns 6–10: the second city

A settler costs 3 AP — one entire turn of your kingdom's will — and no resources. Recruit one as soon as your first structure is up and walking distance to good land is short. When founding, look for:

• a different terrain family than your capital, so your second city collects a second resource and a second recipe family;
• room — cities want a fat ring of tendable tiles;
• wild star fragments nearby. If you can ever tend a star fragment, drop everything and do it.

From here the rhythm repeats: tend, craft, found. Spend every action point every turn. An unspent point is a turn of your life given away.

A word on soldiers

You probably don't need any yet — but you are not safe forever, and armies take time to raise (see Raising Armies). A single militia (6 food) standing in your capital is cheap insurance once your stockpile allows it.