The commander's field guide · Era One
How do you take a distant city without starving your army? Turn discoveries into tools, keep delivered provisions within reach, and bring an army that can hold what it takes.
READ THE ERA ONE GUIDE Watch the earlier full-game match →A public demo download is not yet available. This guide describes the local Era One release candidate, not an announced public release.
Your first campaign
You can finish a campaign entirely within Era One. Later eras are previews, not a route to stronger units in this demo. Start with Chill if you want room to learn: its rivals do not declare war, but they still defend themselves if you declare it.
Found on suitable land, choose a city priority, and queue production. A farm helps growth; a Warband provides a capture-capable defender. Learning adds research, but keep an eye on the city's food balance. The first production choice is the active queue item, not an untracked order.
Flintknapping opens Slingers; Bowyery adds Archers. Trapping opens Javelin Hunters and leads to Weaving for supply. Click a future art to queue its unmet prerequisites, then add other useful arts. Read each completion card for its immediate reward and the next queued project.
Scout a passable road, establish a forward camp, and wait for delivered stock. Move several formations together with researched ranged support. Warbands can capture cities; the ranged units cannot. Rest in supply before another push, and protect the caravan rather than sending it alone into hostile ground.
The default demo enables Conquest and a 150-turn Score finish. Conquest requires the rival's last city, not just its capital. Mastery is an optional setup choice: only when enabled does finishing all 12 paid Era One arts win that race. Otherwise, keep playing within Era One after completing research.
The Hearth is the free foundation. These are current gameplay effects, not promises of later-era buildings.
Weaving changes the march
A Supply Caravan costs 16 production. Select it, choose an owned source city, then click discovered, passable land for its camp. It returns to the source, buys provisions when needed, delivers and repeats.
24maximum cargo
48maximum camp stock
4provisions per gold
1provision per ground formation per upkeep
Friendly cities supply first; camp provisions serve formations that need them. Only delivered stock counts. A full camp stops unnecessary purchases. Terrain affects delivery time, so the next-stop estimate and remaining stock matter more than straight-line distance.
Read the selected unit's status
Supply follows a legal, discovered route to an owned city or a stocked forward camp. It is not a straight-line circle or a count of movement points. Only delivered provisions support a camp's reach.
| Route to supply | Status | Recovery and risk |
|---|---|---|
| 0–4 route tiles | Supplied | +5 HP normally; Rest gives +15 HP, or +25 HP with Herbal Lore. Rest refills ammunition. |
| 5–6 route tiles | Strained | No supply damage. +5 HP normally; Rest gives +10 HP, or +20 HP with Herbal Lore. Rest reloads half the ammunition capacity, rounded up. |
| Beyond 6, no stock, or no clear route | Isolated | No healing or reload. Two isolated upkeeps are safe; the third and later cost 10 HP each. Attrition stops at 1 HP, but combat can still kill the formation. |
Do not ignore a paused explorer. Stopping auto-explore does not move the unit back into supply. Check its warning and arrange recovery before continuing turns.
Keep the first foothold. Founding or capturing a city extends supply. Occupation still affects a captured city's production and economy; keep a garrison for recovery.
More troops need more provisions. A long round trip may not sustain your whole army. Add capacity or move the source closer before reserves run out.
Stay within this era. Markets, Spearlines and combat ships belong to later eras. Dugout Canoes do not let combat formations or Supply Caravans cross water.
Archive · earlier full-game build
This is an earlier full-game recording, not an Era One demo playthrough. It uses retained rules 15, advances beyond Era One, and predates Supply Caravans and the new research rewards. Its later-era units and downloadable saves are not available in the Era One-only demo. Use the current guide above for the demo.
Enable captions for strategy reminders when watching fullscreen.
Press play or choose a chapter. Use the fullscreen control to read the in-game command cards closely.
On-screen actions will be explained here as the match plays.This is an accelerated, scripted replay of one complete match, rendered by the actual game—not stock footage or a simulated animation. Every command is checked against its recorded state. Repetitive menu navigation is condensed and discovery/first-unit ceremonies are auto-dismissed; movement and battles use the game's normal presentation. Loading frames are trimmed. The recording is silent; the synchronized notes and transcript provide the explanation.
Earlier recording · rules 15
Found your capital. Use Expansion to create a settler party, then move it to a useful forward site. Scout passable corridors around mountains. Stage troops within supply reach while the next base is being established.
Gather multiple capture-capable ground formations before declaring war. Use the forecast to avoid attacks that destroy your attacker. Concentrate attacks, clear defenders, and commit a surviving melee formation to the city.
Bowyery unlocks Archers; Bronze Casting unlocks Spearline. New research only matters militarily when it becomes trained reinforcements. Bring replacements from your cities and rest depleted formations where supply can reach them.
Earlier recording · after-action review
This earlier rules-15 campaign wins on turn 68 after capturing all three rival cities. The player takes zero supply-attrition damage. It trains 24 formations and loses 13 in combat. Those losses are disclosed because a useful guide should teach judgment, not hide the cost of a victory.
Three founded cities formed the approach. The first capture extended supply. Continuing research made Archers and Spearline available, and reinforcements carried the final attacks.
The opening is too melee-heavy. Train researched ranged support earlier, instead of waiting for casualties to create space in the army. Rest and reload before committing again; don't confuse replacement production with good preservation of experienced units.
This is a reproducible Easy example, not a universal build order. Different terrain, difficulty, opponents and saved campaign rules require different decisions.
Archive downloads · full development game only
The Era One demo cannot load these older rules-15 saves. They belong to the earlier full-game recording, not the current demo. To practice the demo, start a new campaign from its own main menu.
Use a full development build that supports retained rules 15. Quit that game, copy guide-start.epochsave into its campaign-save folder, then reopen it and choose Saved campaigns → Strategy guide start. Do not put it in the demo's save folder. Keep personal saves and never overwrite another file. A custom EpochSaveDirectory launch uses the directory you selected.
Need the full action history? Download the command record above; it contains the turn and verified state hash for every accepted command.