Thank you for all the responses and explanations, but... Jesus, I feel like I'm in an economics class. And I could never get my head around even the parts of economics that they called "basic" and "introductory." I'm still completely lost on the lobbies and groups and votes. I mean...
Completely.Maybe I should be asking more specific questions.
How can I tell which groups (lobbies?) are on which side? I know that if one of them proposes a vote, I can click on the info thing and check their details and it will say it there. But what about at other times? When I click the "interests" button, it just lists the groups with the areas they are concerned with, nothing about influence or court.
How can I get groups to be more or less powerful? The only interactions I've seen so far are to approach one of them to cash in favors or offer gifts, approach them before a vote asking for favors (I always get rejected so I never have any favors to cash in), or, on the rare occasion I actually have favors, I can use them to decide their vote on something (although I don't know what the vote actually does so I never do this).
When votes take place, it always says it will help one thing and hurt another. But the results of the votes are always one of a few things: group X gains merit, group X loses merit, X of (my side) have left / switched to the other side (I've almost never seen it the other way around), I lose Arkhe, the economy goes down (I've never once seen it go up). I don't see how these things are related, how to predict what a vote will do, or, in any case, how I can make a difference. What kinds of votes will help my faction? How can I tell when a vote will help me, and how can I make a difference to the outcome of that vote?
EuchreJack says immigration is generally a polarizing vote, but in my experience, immigration of my side consistently goes down, and quickly. My side seems to decrease with every turn, and I haven't discovered a single thing I can do about it. Over hundreds of turns, I've only seen the opposing side go down a handful of times. Presumably I'm overwhelmingly outnumbered from the start with absolutely no power to change things.
And when you say I need to use strong units to fight strong units... Where do I get strong units? I've figured out how to save revanents and add them to my group, but I don't know how to make them strong. (And I think I remember reading somewhere that you can get units from elsewhere, but... where?) I set them to train but I have no idea how strong that makes them. Is there any chance the "character sheets" for your followers could have the math done on them? As in, instead of showing the base numbers and their XP and leaving the player to try to calculate the new numbers, couldn't you just show the actual numbers? Maybe like Current(Base) or something? I'm really quite mathematically challenged and when I look at it the way it is now, the numbers just swim and morph and I have no idea what I'm looking it.
Obviously I'm interested in the game and I like it (and I hope I don't come off as being whiny or anything, just trying to figure things out), but I'm still lost and confused. It seems that when you start as an outcast, not only do you start with absolutely nothing, but you also start with a time limit. If you don't manage to gather up your resources and get rich fast enough, then it doesn't matter how well you do, because once the timer goes DING you lose anyway, because your faction has lost all its members. Again, I understand that starting as an outcast is meant to be difficult, but since the wandering and survival are my favorite parts of the game, it would be nice if it wasn't completely impossible to win this way. At the moment, it seems to be. At the very least, could the timer be slowed down a bit on outcast mode? If my faction is losing 5-40 people every turn, my time limit is really pretty short, all things considered. I mean, I often end up stuck at a lighthouse for 50 turns, gaining weariness every turn and waiting for a chance to escape. I can't imagine it being possible to win like this, no matter how lucky I get. If there weren't the pressing time limit, I wouldn't mind - it would be a lot more fun. But as it is, it seems to be completely futile and useless to even try, which makes it tedious after a while.
EDIT: For example, in this situation, the Edelweiss Conglomerate is loyal to the court, but according to the text that came right after this, this proposal would greatly benefit influenced immigration if passed (I am stalwart in this game). I see that my options are to approach one lobby looking for favors (I tried, and they rejected me for being philanthropist, as always happens). Why is this lobby the one I can approach? And where can I find information about them? I can only see info about the Edelweiss Conglomerate. Finally, the second option, to push my case for 0.1 merits (which is all I have)... What does that mean? What does that do?