"Well its pretty much just "shit out 4 settlers fast but not too fast, go industry, if u can't do dust. Max empire plan”"

- Kariomaster

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Once you've read this guide, you will be able to play Endless Legend at a Beginner's level. You will also now be able to understand the content in the other Beginner level guides.

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Expansion timing:

• Make at least 2 Settlers in Era 1 and early Era 2, and as long as your empire happiness is above 70%, you can continue making Settlers. You can actually queue up 1 Settler in every city queue and just build them over time using overflow industry (to avoid the Food penalty).

Hero leveling:

• Hero leveling is a combo of parlaying, completing quests, ruin searches, fighting quest armies, and fighting villages with bad quests. I almost always invest 47 Dust to give my hero +1 movement. With Ranged and Support heroes you need to learn how to kite while minimizing the damage you take. With Infantry heroes you need to limit test to know what battles you can solo and what battles you can't solo. If you want to take less risk, pair 1 unit with your hero so that if the unit survives your hero will revive with Last Stand.

Improving Military vs Economy:

• Use your Industry city to train at least 2 stacks of military units as the bare minimum defense force between Era 2 and Era 3 after you finish your Canal Locks. If no Industry governor options then just buy any Cultist hero and use them as a temporary Industry governor until a good one pops up.
• Not every improvement is created equal. Sometimes you must delay less important improvements for the sake of preparing at least 1 full strength battalion for defense.

Scouting:

• You should basically be negative on Dust income until Era 3 Dust techs. Buy and produce as many Flying units as you can (as early as Era 1) and put them on auto-explore. During Dust Eclipse you can easily make 1k-2k Dust plus some loot and quests from your scouts auto-exploring.
• About auto-exploring not working for you, I'm not really sure why that happens, maybe you could practice making scouting decisions quickly so that you can maximize them even without auto-explore.
• About scouts getting attacked before they can move, try to up 1 or 2 movement points before the end of the turn and spam the move order arrow as turn rolls over.

Advantages of War:

• War allows you to grow your empire much faster compared to growing your empire peacefully.
• You capture high quality enemy cities for yourself and deny the cities from them.
• You gain access to new resource extractors.
• You can trade crappy or unwanted cities back to enemies in exchange for Truce, some free techs, resources etc.
• Speed up your win condition

Disadvantages of War:

• You have to deal with temporary happiness issues because gaining Ownership of captured cities takes time.
• Your Empire Plan and boosters cost more.
• You risk other empires allying against you to defeat you.
• It takes significant resource investments to build a strong military force.
• You lose trade routes with previously Peaced neighbors if they become your enemies.
• Enemies will perform negative spy actions against you more regularly.

How to wage War strategically without sacrificing a good Empire Plan:

• Go to war right after setting an empire plan (e.g. Turn 40).
• Activate Dyes.
• Go on a rampage and take lots of high population cities.
• Move those new cities population to Influence.
• On the 9th turn right before the next Empire Plan you Truce trade the cities you don't want to keep back to your enemy in exchange for techs, resources, and other things.
• Congrats, you just leveraged your enemies' population to boost your own Empire Plan as well as boost your empire with new techs, resources, and you still got to keep their best cities.
• Now go do the same thing with the next enemy and the next enemy until you win.
• Use Roving Clans governors with Feet on the Street skill to speed up Ownership recovery.

An explanation of how the 5 main resources, FIDSI, contribute to the growth of your empire:

• Food, Science, and Influence are 3 crucial resources that your empire requires to continue functioning and growing.
• However, Industry and Dust are the resources that allow you to execute on and actually take advantage of the benefits from the other 3 resources, FSI.
• You need Industry, Dust to realize the benefits of Food, Science, Influence. You also need Food, Science, Influence in order to continue increasing your Industry, Dust. For most factions, if you want your empire to continue growing, you cannot neglect any of the 5 resources.

Food: Food provides you with population which is a flexible source of income for the other 4 resources, IDSI. In the early game, population contributes the majority of your Influence. For most factions, Food is what allows certain cities to specialize in the production of 1 or 2 specific resources (e.g. Industry city focusing on Food and Industry).

Industry is straightforward, it is what allows you to build shit. You have Industry? Nice, your game will probably be pretty smooth. You have no Industry? You are now sad and need to figure out how to catch up. It is very difficult to continue increasing your Industry if you neglect the other 4 resources.

Dust is also pretty easy to understand, it is what allows you to buy shit. Dust is the most flexible resource because it can be used to do many things. Whether or not you have good Industry, Dust will help you accomplish your goals, stay ahead of your opponents, or catch up to your opponents. If your RNG feels like shit and there isn't a good Industry governor, just buy some scouts or Dust governors and pivot into a Dust and buyout strategy. Instead of waiting for things to build, you can just buy them out for instant builds.

Science is the resource that unlocks new exciting benefits for your empire in the form of passive buffs, new buildings, new units, new weapons and armor, and more. You need to continue growing your Science income throughout the game because technology cost increases with each new technology you learn or acquire. Science opens doors for the potential of growing your other 4 resources, FIDI, and Industry and Dust allow you to turn that potential into real benefits.

Influence is often elusive and difficult to understand for new players. Influence is more difficult to make than FIDS but extremely important because it is used in Diplomacy and your Empire Plan. Diplomacy is the way you establish relations and boundaries with other empires and exchange resources, information, and technologies. Without Influence, you may not even be able to Declare War to invade the guy who is winning the game. The Empire Plan is a collection of incredible passive buffs to various aspects of your empire such as your military, economy, and scouting ability. You always need to be planning ahead to make sure you have enough Influence to spend on your next Empire Plan so as to maintain and acquire new passive buffs for your empire. Without Influence and without a good Empire Plan, you are literally handicapping your empire and throwing your game away.