your first hours
Six steps from an empty shore to a working economy.
Open towns in the menu and choose create capital. You pick the map coordinates yourself, so look over the map first and settle somewhere you like.
Go to towns and click your new town's name. At the start there is only a town hall and a small stock of resources, so your first job is getting more coming in.
Resources come from dedicated buildings. Each faction names them differently — these are the Empire's names.
Build the Grain mill for crop, the Lumber mill for lumber, the Stone mason for stone and the Iron foundry for iron.
Finishing the Grain mill alone will not raise your crop. Crop is produced by Farms, and the Grain mill is where farms are managed.
Open the Grain mill and you will see four or six plots, depending on what the map rolled for your town. Choose Upgrade Farm x to level y. When it completes, your crop production rises. Do the same at the other three resource buildings.
Gold is not produced — it is collected from your townsfolk. Set your tax rate in the Town hall.
But high taxes lower morale, and low morale lowers every other resource you produce.
Morale is the percentage of your listed production you actually receive, and it is shown next to your resources in the town view.
At 50% morale a town produces only half its stated rates (gold aside). Balancing taxes against morale is the heart of a healthy economy — and the thing that decides how fast your empire grows.
Watch out: Watch your crop rate. Every building and upgrade adds population, and population eats crop. If the rate turns negative your town starves.