To start playing, pick a tile to settle in. The tile can't be occupied by another civilization, and must exist -- it can't be a blank tile. Thus, no civilization can start on the first turn, as there are no land tiles created yet.
Then, pick a name, and pick a color that is not in use to highlight your name. Highlighted names are important as they help me find your actions in the thread.
You may also pick a trait for your civilization. The trait is one simple word describing what your civilization is good at. For example, "Farmer" or "Warrior". Your civ will get a small bonus related to your trait.
An example of civilization creation:
Name: Grognor Federation
Trait: Alcoholic
Starting Tile: C6
At start, you have 5 generic workers. Each worker can perform, at most, one action a turn. Multiple workers can be combined to perform one action, such as, "3 workers forage for food on B3".
You are allowed to take actions with your workers on your first turn.
Every turn, you must include your Civilization name, preferably highlighted in your color, before you list your actions. All actions that take place in a tile must have the tile specified. Thus, "1 worker forages for food" will not work, but "1 worker forages for food at A2" will.
An example turn:
Grognor Federation
1 worker prays to Blarg
2 workers research pottery
2 workers forage for food at F5
Some typical actions you can take are:
- Forage at a tile. At the beginning, you can only forage for Food. Other resources might become available, depending on what you have researched. If no resource is specified, it is assumed to be Food.
- Research a technology. All technologies require multiple "labors" to complete. The amount needed depends on how advanced the tech you are trying to get is, and you will not be told in advance how hard it is. If I deem a tech too advanced, I might give you research into a less advanced tech instead. When a technology is completed, I will tell you what the effect is; it might not be what you expected!
- Pray to a god. This will normally add 1 FP per worker to the God's FP pool.
- Attack a civ at a tile. Consider carefully before you do this. Most likely you will need to prepare yourself by researching technologies before you can expect a positive outcome doing this.
Civilizations can now hunt! Workers must be armed with some kind of weapon to hunt. Example order: "1 worker hunts at A1 with 1 crude spear." Hunting does not reduce efficiency of foraging taking place in the same tile. Fishing can also be done at tiles with water, such as rivers, swamps, beaches, or mangrove forests. Workers must have a spear or some kind of fishing tool.
Note that, with the technologies available to you at game start, you can only perform actions in your starting tile, and in tiles adjacent to your starting tile.
Some actions require "labor," which refers to the labor of one generic worker. Thus, an action that requires 3 labor to perform should be worded as, "3 workers action at whatevertile." For some actions that require lots of labor, such as building a farm, the required labor does not necessarily need to be spent all on the same turn; thus, a big project such as a farm, if it's been researched, could be built over several turns.
Civilizations have a stat called "Logisitics," which refers to the number of actions you can take a turn.
You can't take more actions in a turn than you have Logistics for. If you attempt more actions than you have Logistics for, I will ignore the excess actions you listed. Remember that multiple workers can be combined in one action. At start, all civilizations have a 5 in Logistics.
Housing:
All civilizations start with the technology "Primitive Buildings" researched, which gives them the ability to create primitive houses in their settled tile. Civilizations start with 10 primitive houses in their settled tile. Civilizations must have enough housing in their settled tiles to house all their workers. If they don't have enough, bad things will most likely happen. There can't normally be more than 10 houses in a settled tile.
Food:
Food is a very important resource. Civilizations start with 10 food. At the end of every turn, one Food is consumed for every worker in your civilization. If you don't have enough food to feed your workers, bad things will happen, among them starvation and the death of your workers. 3 Food can be spent to create one worker. Newly created workers can't work on the turn they are created.
If a traumatic event happens on your settled tile -- for example, a god creates an active volcano there -- you might be given the option to relocate to a new tile. Uprooting your civilization this way will have serious consequences.