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v1.0 · checked 2026-09-18
Beginner guide
Before turn one: the one rule that shapes everything
The map is divided into regions, and a region holds one city. That single constraint explains most early advice: you are not choosing where to put buildings in open space, you are choosing which regions to claim and how completely to develop the ones you hold. A city begins with the tiles immediately around it and grows outward with investment until it covers the region.
Your first turns, in order
- Finish the tutorial rather than skipping it. The studio reworked the tutorial during Early Access, and it is the fastest route to the systems you will otherwise discover by losing a campaign.
- Read your faction before you read the map. The six factions do not share an opening. The Kin of Sheredyn are built to develop and defend, and are the most forgiving start; the Last Lords buy population with Dust and have no Food economy at all; the Aspects claim ground by spreading coral rather than by settling it.
- Place the first city for the region, not for the tile. Because one city holds a region, the question is which region you will be able to fill, and which resources sit inside it.
- Decide what your first districts produce, deliberately. Diamonds of districts convert into Dust, production, science or influence. Production compounds into everything else; influence compounds into territory. Pick one and mean it.
- Expect the monsoon, and plan the Tidefall after it. Every few dozen turns a monsoon covers the world in storms, and the end of the monsoon season brings a Tidefall: the shoreline recedes and new land, resources and routes appear. Land that was unreachable can become reachable, including as a route to someone you could not previously attack.
- Clear minor factions inside your territory rather than admiring them. They spawn units and attack; the community's consistent advice is to deal with them early rather than tolerate them.
- Decide about your neighbours after the first Tidefall, not before. The map you are looking at is not the map you will be playing on.
The choices that are expensive to undo
- The region your capital sits in. A city cannot be relocated, and a region cannot hold a second city.
- A district's output type. Districts that produce one resource can be upgraded later, but converting a region's economy mid-campaign costs the turns you spent building it.
- Your faction's relationship with its own special resource. The Last Lords and the Necrophage are the clearest cases: playing them against their grain is not a difficulty setting, it is a different game.
- A game speed chosen carelessly. Game speed options added in The Gathering change mechanics, not just pacing, so a speed picked to make the campaign shorter also changes what your decisions do.
Easy to miss
- You can reach the resource extractors from a camp's focus view and buy them directly, which is faster than hunting tiles on the world map. The same view highlights only buildable resource tiles, which the city view does not.
- The strategic map shows resource sites as their own icons, though luxury-resource icons are faint against some terrain.
- There is no naval gameplay at all. Oceans are not a system you are failing to unlock; they are geography that changes. The studio has confirmed the game contains no naval technologies.
- There is no in-game encyclopedia. Reference material is external by design.
- Observatories and other fraction-specific structures have placement rules worth reading before you build them, and some of them stop working during monsoon seasons.
Early Access habits to discard
| Habit from Early Access guides | Why it is wrong now |
|---|---|
| Open with maximum expansion, because the map is small and the AI is passive | Territory grew 30% in December 2025, and the AI both upgrades units and expands much better than it did at launch |
| Budget luxuries with the old flat cost | The booster cost model was recalculated; the old maths no longer produces the right target |
| Follow a Necrophage economy plan written before December 2025 | That economy was retaken in The Gathering |
| Assume the AI will not punish an undefended border | The studio's own AI work was specifically aimed at making the AI apply more pressure |
| Copy a turn-count benchmark | Turn counts only mean something alongside the game speed, which is now selectable |
Two starting recommendations, and why they are safe ones
If you want the gentlest introduction, the Kin of Sheredyn are the faction the studio itself describes as excellent for beginning to explore the game, because they engage with every system while being forgiving. If you want the most unusual economy, the Last Lords replace Food with Dust entirely, which changes how you value regions and city placement. Both are playable in the current demo, so you can test either without buying. Details: /factions/kin-of-sheredyn/ and /factions/last-lords/.
Sources read for this page
Every source this page was written from, checked 2026-09-18.
- Reddit — EL2 factions so far
- Hooded Horse press release — The Gathering multiplayer update
- Steam discussion — luxury resources / booster cost
- Reddit — is there a way to see luxuries and strategic resources
- Amplitude official blog — Last Lords Spotlight
- Amplitude official blog — Kin of Sheredyn Spotlight
- SteamDeckHQ review and Steam Deck performance section
- PlayStation Store listing
- Xbox Store listing
- Amplitude official blog — All you need to know (launch FAQ)