Getting started

This is a beginner's guide to a first match of Dawn of Embers: setting up your kingdom, gathering, housing and raising a first army. The controls quoted here are the ones the game's own tutorial (Mission 1 of the Story campaign) teaches.

The game is in development. Steps marked (unconfirmed) have not been checked against the current build; please confirm or correct them, citing the build you played (see How to contribute).

Where to start

If you are new, start with the Story campaign: its first mission is the tutorial and teaches one of each thing (a Calling, Discipline points, gathering, a building, a unit). The early missions give you enough resources to build everything they ask for, so you can never get stuck. Afterwards, practise in Skirmish against a Very Easy or Easy AI. See Game modes.

1. Set up your kingdom

Before you build anything, make two choices that shape your whole game:

• Choose a Calling, a specialisation for your kingdom, such as faster gathering, stronger melee troops or faster building. In a match, press C to declare it.
• Spend your 20 Discipline points. Press U to open the skill window, place your points across the six categories, then press Save. Saved points cannot be taken back for the rest of that game.

2. Look around and select

• Select a unit by clicking it, or several by dragging a box around them.
• Move the camera by pushing the mouse to the edge of the screen, or with the arrow keys.
• Give orders with the right mouse button. What a right-click does depends on what you click: a resource to gather it, a construction site to build it, an enemy to attack it, open ground to move there.

3. Gather resources

You start with a Town Hall and a few villagers (five by default) (unconfirmed). Villagers gather; everything else is paid for with what they bring back.

• Select a villager and right-click a tree to gather wood.
• Right-click bushes for food.
• Right-click stone or gold to mine it.

A villager carries a load back to a building that accepts it, then returns for more. The Town Hall accepts everything. Camps built near a resource accept that resource and shorten the walk:

Camp	Accepts
Woodcutters Camp	Wood (trees)
Mining Camp	Gold and stone
Gatherers Camp, Farmers Camp	Food from bushes
Hunters Camp	Food from hunted animals

Gathering food that grows also yields fibre, and hunting also yields leather. See Resources.

Tip: each tree, bush or other target has a set number of working spots. The closest units take them and the rest move on to the next target, so sending a large group at one tree spreads them out by itself.

4. Build houses

Every unit takes up population, and you can only have as many units as your built houses (and your Town Hall) have room for. When you are out of room, new units cannot be trained.

• Open the build menu, choose a House, and place it near your hall. A villager builds it.
• To build anything else the same way: place it, then select a villager and right-click the construction site.
• F1 to F4 switch between the build menu's tabs.

Tip: build the next house before you run out of room, so training never stops.

5. More villagers

The Town Hall trains new villagers. More villagers gather more at once, and an idle villager gathers nothing.

6. Your first army

• Open the build menu's Military tab, choose the Infantry Training Grounds, and place it. Have a villager build it.
• Select the finished Infantry Training Grounds and train a Swordsman.
• Select your soldiers and press Ctrl+1 to make them control group 1. Press 1 at any time to select that group again.

Other military buildings train archers, cavalry, siege engines, ships and mages. See Buildings and Units.

7. Explore and attack

• The map starts hidden by fog. Select a unit and right-click into the fog to explore.
• To attack, select your army and right-click an enemy unit or building.
• A player who loses every unit and building is eliminated. You can also resign.

8. Pillars

Later in a match a Pillar may rise somewhere on the map. You are told that one has appeared, but not where, so you have to scout for it. Mages standing near a Pillar charge it, and a charged Pillar unleashes its element for the side that charged it. See Pillars for how charging works.

See also

• Game modes
• Callings and Disciplines
• Resources
• Buildings
• Units
• Glossary