Welcome New Players! This guide is to help any of you coming from Sid Meier's Civilization V or a similar game to Endless Legend. When I first started playing EL I expected a game extremely close to Civ V with fantasy elements since that was what I got from other games. Instead I found something with depth and charm that I hadn't expected. I made this guide (with help of course) in order to help ease the transition for anyone else jumping in from Civilization. When more in depth information can be found I generally link to either another guide that I think is well thought out or to the wiki. The wiki is not always complete so I'll only link to it when I think there is sufficient information there.

Lets start with what you see right when you first create a game. You can leave most of the settings alone for now and mess with them when you feel like it. Most of them are self explanitory like game speed and difficulty. Remember that you can hover your mouse over almost any selection for more details.

The main thing you have to know about before starting is picking your faction. There are less of them than in Civilization but they are generally more unique and each one plays quite differently from each other. In Civ each civilization has a Unique Ability and some unique units/buildings. In EL each faction has a main trait that defines how they play and a series of smaller traits that give bonuses and penalties. Some of the factions have unique technologies that they either start with or only they can learn. Each faction also has its own art style, military units, and quest/storyline. I'll talk about these in later sections.

You can also create custom factions. Each one starts with one of the main traits from one of the default factions which determines their military units, main play style, and aesthetics. After that you can choose traits, each worth a specific point value, from a list up to a given point limit. Highly beneficial traits are worth more points while penalties are worth negative points. Some pretty overpowered or useless factions can be created this way.



Note: The Mezari are a reskin of the Vaulters given to people with the upgraded edition of Dungeon of the Endless. Don't worry if you don't have them.

FISDI is the acronym for the main resources in Endless Legend. For the most part they are similar to the resources in Civilization.

Food grows the population of your cities just like...food...does in Civ. I don't think you'll have too much trouble with this one.

Industry allows you to build things in you cities. It is functionally the same as production in Civ.

Science advances the technological prowess in your empire the same way as in Civ.

Dust is the currency of Endless Legend. It is similar to gold in Civ although it has somewhat wider usage than gold since it also powers the "magic" in the Endless Universe.

Influence has a similar purpose to culture from Civ but acts in a much different manner. Both influence and culture are the key for one of the more peaceful victory conditions but are still very useful even when being more of a warmonger. I'll talk about Influence later in "Diplomacy" and "Empire Screen" sections.

Your capital is going to be your most important city for a while so you need to pick a good location. However, a good location in EL can be quite a bit different than in Civ. The first difference you might notice is that the map is split up into different regions. Each region is only allowed to have ONE city in it. When you found a city in a region the entire territory of the region is considered yours. If you hate being forward settled by rapid expansionist civilizations then this system will be make you very very happy.

When you select your settler and hit the "settle" button a translucent model of your city will appear where your mouse is. If you leave your mouse there for a few seconds then it will also show you how many of each resource that city will get from it's starting location.

A city gains all of the resources on all of the tiles surrounding it and bonus resources on the tile it sits on (food for the city tile is actually reduced by 1). Unlike Civ you do not assign the population of the city to work specific tiles around the city. They instead provide MORE resources in addition to the exploitation on the tiles around the city . A city also receives any Strategic or Luxury resources it sits on even without building a tile upgrade so long as you have the correct technology researched. Certain tiles also have extra resources on them called "anomalies." In a way this is similar to Natural wonders in Civ except much more common and (usually) without the happiness bonus.



Expansions for your city are called boroughs or districts and can be built on tiles next to your city center or other districts. I'll talk about city expansion more in the Empire and City Approval section. Since expanding your city requires physical tile improvements it is to your benefit to build in a more open area of your region. Also keep in mind that you cannot get resources on any tiles outside of the region so try not to found your city on the edge of the region.

A quick note: When building things in your city DO NOT BUILD the item called "Salt the Earth." It razes your city and gives you a settler. If you build your city in a poor location then this can be a useful option early in it's development but if you accidentally build it later then you will lose a lot of your progress.

Just like Civilization, Endless Legend has both Strategic and Luxury Resources, however they work in a slightly different manner.

When you reach certain tech eras, the Strategic and Luxury resources of that tier will become visible. Researching the corresponding technology (one for each tier of luxury and one for each tier of strategic) will allow you to build an "extractor" tile improvement so that you start harvesting that resource. City tiles (centers and districts) also count as extractors and will automatically start collecting resources as soon as the proper technology is researched.

When you start harvesting resources they are added to your stockpile.

Strategic Resources are used to upgrade your military units and build certain buildings. Unlike early strategic resources in Civ, strategic resources in EL rarely become useless since all units can use them they can always be sold or traded. Some later buildings also use large amounts of early strategic resources so always be on the lookout for regions with more. There are a total of 6 Strategic resources. Two are revealed in eras 1, 3, and 4.

Luxuries can be activated for bonuses from the Empire screen. Luxury boosters require a a certain amount of the luxury (that increases with the number of cities you control) which when consumed gives a bonus (such as +50% Influence on cities) and some Approval (happiness) for a set amount of time (10 turns on normal speed). If you have enough of a resource then you can keep this boost active indefinitely. Unlike Civ, it is useful to have quite a lot of the same Luxury Resource since only one copy of the resource gives happiness in Civ. There are a total of 15 Luxury resources with 5 being revealed in eras 1, 3, and 4.

Your "Approval" rating has the same purpose as Happiness in Civilization, it stops you from expanding too much, too fast. Your main Approval level is called the "Empire Approval" while each city also has its own Approval level, the "City Approval." The Empire Approval is the average of all of your City Approvals weighted by population.

Your Approval level ranges from 0 to 100 with levels at 0-10, 11-39, 40-60, 61-89, and 90 -100. At the highest level you get a +45% bonus to FISD while at the lowest you get a -70% penalty. The Empire Approval determines your bonus to Science and Dust while City Approval gives bonuses to Food and Industry. More detailed information can be found on the wiki page:
http://endlesslegendwiki.com/Approval

Each city starts with 60 base approval and has it then reduced by your "expansion disapproval" which is determined by the number of cities you control. Each additional city district you build will also reduce approval until you start getting level 2 districts. For a more complete guide to City Expansion and it's effect on approval see Shacksm's excellent guide:
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=320130366

Certain buildings will give you increased Approval in cities and certain techs will reduce expansion disapproval. Activating Luxury Resource boosters also gives Approval for a set amount of turns with the largest bonus from "Wine" which gives only approval and no other bonuses. One tier of the "Empire Plan" (later in the guide) also gives approval.

In general science works the same way as in Civ. You pick a tech you want to research, add science every turn based on your output, and when you have enough you gain access to the bonuses that the tech provides.

The main differences come in the form of the tech map. In EL you have access to all the techs in your current era with no prerequisites. Each tech requires an increasing amount of science to complete the research. Unlike Civ, techs do not go down in research cost the more players research them. After researching 8 (9 with expansions due to extra techs added) techs of one era the next era unlocks. So era 2 requires 8+ era 1 techs, era 3 requires 16+ techs from eras 2 or 1 and so on. There are 6 eras in total, each one gives you access to the next tier of basic weaponry for your units.

Just like in Civ, Diplomacy is a major part of getting ahead in the game. Making deals with the other factions gives you good advantage.

In Civ, the default state between you and other factions is Peace. You can't attack each other and you can't enter eachother's territory. In EL the default state is called "Cold War." While in this state you can freely attack each other in neutral territory and can enter the other factions' territory. Keep in mind that if you enter enemy territory they can attack you BUT you can't attack them.

After researching the required techs, you can ask other factions to either be at peace with you or to form an alliance. When in either of these states you can propose trades for techs and resources. Alliance allows more options and increases the cost of war between your two factions.

Proposing anything in diplomacy costs Influence points. You can send "compliments" and "warnings" to reduce the cost of proposals for a short time. Compliments reduce the cost of positive proposals such as peace. Warnings reduce the cost of negative proposals such as closing borders or declaring war.

As a quick side note, closing borders for a faction forces all their units out of your territory if they are annoying you.

Minor Factions in Endless legend function somewhere between Civ V's Barbarians and City States. All of the Minor Faction Villages in a region are of the same minor faction. If left alone they spawn roaming armies that will fight yours and and siege your cities. Thankfully you do not have any workers or missionaries that they can capture unlike the barbarians in Civ.

You have several ways of dealing with minor faction villages:
1. Kill them - Pacification by force!
2. Bribe them - If you have the Language Square tech you can pay them money to pacify them
3. Parley - Again, with Language Square you can get a quest from the village which if completed will pacify all the villages in the region.

If villages are pacified in region you control you get several bonuses from them. For each living village or rebuilt village you get one free worker for your city (does not count toward population). Also if you have the villages in your region pacified you can pay influence assimilate them into your empire. Each faction has its own unit that can be built after assimilation and a passive bonus that scales with the number of pacified villages of that faction you have in your empire. So it is a good idea to settle in regions that have more villages of factions you have already assimilated. You can assimilate up to 3 minor factions. The first is available at the beginning and the following 2 are unlocked by techs.

For a deeper look at Minor Factions check out this guide:
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=376629473&searchtext=combat

The empire screen provides an overview of everything going on in your empire. Here are the basics most of which is fairly obvious or has been covered:


Faction - who you are (obviously)

Treasury and Influence - your Dust and stored Influence

Approval - Empire Approval Level

Assimilated Minor Factions - Minor factions you have brought into your empire

Strategic and Luxury Resources - your stored resources

Stockpiles - Stockpiles give you a set boost to Food, Industry, or Science. They can be built after researching the proper tech or bought in the marketplace

Trade Routes - Trade routes give bonus Dust and Science due to internal and external trade. They function quite a bit differently than in Civ. All you have to do is research and build the proper building and they will be allocated automatically to maximize output. No micro involved! See Shacksm's superb guide on them for more information: http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=316741234

Empire Bonuses - A summary of every bonus on your empire if you ever need it.

Empire Plan - The empire plan gives bonuses based on what you plan to do for the next set number of turns. You pay influence points to activate tiers of the empire plan depending on what you want with the 4 directions being Military, Science and Industry , Exploration and Expansion, or Economy and Population. The wiki has a good in depth explanation of the Empire Plan: http://endlesslegendwiki.com/Empire_Plan

Unlike Civ V, EL has a set of tasks called the quest system. Quests give good bonuses to those who complete them. Each faction has a long multi-stage quest which if completed results in you being poised to win. The rewards for this quest line tend to be really strong (heroes and tech come up a lot) so it is recommended to do at least some of the faction quests even if you are not going for the Wonder Victory or Quest Victory. Normal quests can be found by searching ruins or parleying with minor factions. Their rewards tend to be not as good as the faction quest but are generally still worth doing.

Heroes are strong units that provide good bonuses for your empire. They gain experience and level up gaining new abilities. Each level gives them a new point to spend in the skill tree. There are three sections to each skill tree labeled "Faction," "Common," and "Class." All heroes share the common tree, all heroes of a particular faction share the faction tree and all heroes of the same class (Infantry, Ranged, Support, Flying, Cavalry) have the same class tree. A hero can be assigned to either an army, letting it fight and giving passive bonuses to the troops or to govern a city which gives passive bonuses to a city and lets it fight during a siege. After being assigned to an army or city the hero becomes locked and cannot be assigned to another area for a set number of turns. Each hero can also be equipped with different weapons, armor, and accessories which give it bonuses. Be sure to equip them with gear that benefits what you intend to do with them.

New heroes can be bought from the marketplace after researching the proper tech or gained from quests. You start with one hero for your faction but it is to your benefit to purchase heroes from other factions in order to help specialize you cities.

Heroes cannot actually die in combat. As long as you win (defeat all enemies) in battle your hero will resurrect with low HP. If you lose all units or draw then your hero becomes wounded and cannot be assigned to anything for a certain number of turns.

Unlike Civ V, Each faction has its own units. Each one has 3 units. One you start with and the other two are obtained through tech. In addition to this you get the unit of any minor factions you assimilate. Units from other minor factions can be bought in the marketplace.

Units become stronger by leveling up and equipping weapons and armor. The main unit "blueprint" can be revised and upgraded so that all future units are automatically equipped. Current units can be retrofitted for the cost of the upgrade while within your territory.

If you hate the "1-unit per tile" of Civ V then rejoice! It is not in EL! There are no Civ IV deathstacks though either. There is a "1 army per tile" limit in EL. Each army can contain 4 units or more with the proper techs (and one hero). Each city has a Garrison that is the same size as your max army cap plus a few respawning "militia" units that are mostly cannon fodder for your defense.


The army screen lets you see an overview of all the armies you have in the field and lets you revise your unit equipment designs.



A quick side note: You can equip your settler with defensive armor or accessories that increase movement to protect them if you are okay with the increased cost.

Also with the proper tech, armies entirely made of mercenaries (units bought from the marketplace) can be turned into privateers which can attack anyone without a declaration of war and do not display the faction that controls them. They also automatically raze any cities they capture.

Combat takes place on a separate board laid over the main map. Each of your armies can participate in one battle per turn. At the beginning you select where your units start and a set of basic tactics which are "offense," "defense," and "hold position." Positioning such as nearby friendly units, forests, and higher elevation give you a combat boost. Combat lasts a total of 6 rounds. Each round you can give attack orders and gain reinforcements from nearby armies.



When in combat your attack is compared against the enemy unit's defense. This determines your percentage chances for critical hits, fumbles, etc. Your actual damage output is based on the damage stat. Health is pretty self-explanitory. Initiative determines unit attack order.



Cities provide an extra challenge. Before you can attack a city, you must put it under siege. stops the owner from getting resources from region except for ones inside of the city itself. When you attack a city the city's fortification value is added to the health of every nearby unit with the same owner of the city. When sieging a city, the fortification value of drops every turn based on the strength of your army. If the fortification value reaches 0 then you start to damage any units garrisoned in the city. If you can capture a city without sieging (such as if it only has militia) then the you keep the current fortification value making it harder for the original owner to take the city back. You cannot raze the city for a number of turns after capturing it unless you use privateers.

The marketplace is exactly what it sounds like. If you can't make deals with other factions then you can use the market place. With the proper techs you can buy/sell Strategic Resources, Luxury Resources, Units, Heroes, and Stockpiles. Keep in mind that it follows supply and demand so the more items sold on the marketplace, the lower their prices drops.

Endless Legend has two different seasons, summer and winter. Winter halves the movement of your units and reduces the production of FIDSI on your empire. Each successive winter adds another penalty so the later the game goes, the worse the winters become. Every hero can learn the ability "Cold Operator" which negates the effects of winter on the army or city they currently lead. The counter in the bottom right corner of the UI gives a range of turns on either how long until the next winter or on how long the current winter will last.

There are 9 different Victory Conditions in Endless Legend.

1. Score - the same as in Civ, after a set number of turns the faction with the highest score wins.

2. Wonder - complete the faction quest and then construct the wonder in order to win the game.

3. Expansion - control 80% of the regions in the game to win an expansion victory.

4. Supremacy - be the last faction in control of it's original capital to in a Supremacy victory.

5. Elimination - be the last remaining faction to win an Elimination victory

6. Scientific - research 5 of the 6 era VI techs in order to win a Scientific victory

7. Economic - Generate a certain amount of dust to win an Economic victory. This value changes based on game speed and number of players. You do not need to have it all in your treasury at one time, just meet the minimum amount generated over the course of the game.

8. Diplomatic - Accumulate a certain amount of diplomatic points from being at peace and alliance over the course of the game. Again the amount of diplo points needed varies depending on number of factions and game speed.

9. Quest Victory - After completing your faction quest you obtain access to the 5 part victory quest. It is fairly difficult and completing it will win you the game. Note: It is almost always easier to go for the wonder victory at this point if it is enabled.

Overall I find them to be less interesting than the Victory Conditions in Civ V but you can't have everything you wish for. You can check how close everyone is to each kind of victory from the empire screen.

The Guardians expansion added a number of changes to the gamplay which I'll summarize here:

1. Great Deeds - These are a race between players. 2 more become available each era (not including the Legendary Building) and each can only be achieved by one player. They give a large bonus that lasts the rest of the game. They can be viewed on the tech screen.

2. Legendary Buildings - These buildings are equivalent to World Wonders with the addition that they also cost a tile around your city similar to a district (without the approval penalty). They can only be built by one player per game and you get a refund if you don't finish before another player. The first is available at the start of the game and each successive one is available when the first player reaches the next tech era. Completion can be viewed on the tech screen.

3. Unique Buildings - Similar to the National Wonders in Civ V, one of each of these can be built per empire. Doing so requires a specific tech that was in the game previously (e.g. the food specialty building was added to the Seed Storage tech.) and usually adds a large FIDSI bonus per population to the city. These can help cities missing a specific FIDSI or specializing in one.

3. Global Quests - Events that happen to all players. Similar to things such as the World's Fair in Civ V, you can participate or not but you get bonuses based on how well you do.

4. Guardian Units - Guardian units are massive one unit armies (cant be in normal armies) that cost lots of resources AND a need an open tile near a city to be built. Each one is formidable in combat and has unique in and out of combat abilites. There are five: Dust, Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. Each one becomes buildable after reaching a certain tech.

The Shadows expansion includes a new race, "The Forgotten" and an espionage system.

The Forgotten are unique by the fact that the cannot see or collect science. All tech must either be bought with dust or stolen from other factions. Their units all have stealth and can dual wield one handed weapons.

Stealth renders the unit invisible to all other factions so long as they do not have detection and are not on a space adjacent to the unit. Camoflage works the same way but only in forests. All units in an army must have stealth/camo in order for the army to be rendered invisible.

Espionage:
All cities now have a new stat called Security. This is a percentage that affects what will happen when a spy performs an espionage action in the city. They can be "undetected", "wounded", "killed", or "captured" in order from most to least likely to happen. Undetected spies remain in place. Wounded spies take damage. Killed spies are disabled and returned to your academy. Captured spies must be ransomed from the enemy faction.

A spy can infiltrate any visible enemy city as long as they are not on assignment cooldown and you have some small amount of influence. While in the city the spy gains "intrigue" based on their spying ability and seniority bonus (from completing spy actions). Once a required intrigue level is met (1 - 5) you can pay influence for the spy to perform an action that effects either the whole empire or the specific city. For example, at Level 2 intrigue you can reduce the population of a city by one. At level 3 this becomes 2, Level 4 becomes 3, and Level 5 becomes 4. The intrigue level is then reset.

A city can also perform a "spy roundup" which increases Security and searches for spies at the cost of a large percentage drop in Industry for a few turns.

The expansion also allows a new action called Pillaging. You can use an adjacent army to pillage enemy extractors and other non-city buildings (such as watchtowers). When you start a meter begins being filled and a notification is sent to the player you are pillaging. If the meter fills before you stop pillaging or before the other player kills your army then the other player loses the benefits of that building for a set number of turns and you gain them. You also gain dust from this action.

The Forges of creation free update added steam workshop mod support, a number of AI enhancements, external map editor support, Guardian Killer units, the Sisters of Mercy hero, and a few other small bits and pieces.

At the same time small paid DLCs the Lost Tales added new quests and Echoes of Auriga added new tracks to the soundtrack.

Here are some extras that I wasn't really sure where to put:

-Ocean Travel-
I generally don't think about Ocean Travel since I usually play on a map with no ocean. However you should know that with a certain tech you can embark your units and send them across the ocean. There is also a tech for sea trade routes. Currently there is no naval combat however this is something that many people on the Amplitude forums have voted for in a recent poll

-Mods-
There are currently basic modding tools for EL but I do not know much about it. Some knowledge of XML is pretty much required for modding. Here is a link to some of the better mods for the game from the Amplitude forums.
http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?41802-Mod-Shopping-Mall
The Forges of Creation updated added new mod tools for those interested AND integrated steam workshop support so feel free to get modding.

-Multiplayer-
Those of you interested in MP should know that YES! There are Simultaneous Turns! Currently there are some bugs for MP but I do not know the extent of it. If you get the error that the game has desynced, just warn everyone playing that you are going to hit the resync button which sends everyone back to the lobby and reloads at the beginning of that turn. As of this writing, the first expansion for the game is about a month away a few weeks away (delayed for more testing and polish, was supposed to be out for the free weekend originally) but Amplitude has stated that ONLY THE HOST needs to have the expansions for all of the players in the game to use them in order to avoid splitting the community. Guardians Expansion was released April 29th 2015, Shadows Expansion was released September 2nd, 2015. Forges of Creation, Lost Tales, and Echoes of Auriga DLCs were released Nov 19, 2015.

Here is a short and general list of things in CIv V that you won't find in Endless Legend:

Culture/Tourism - Influence has a similar purpose but functions in a completely different manner.

Social Policies - The empire plan could be considered similar to social policies.

Great People - There are no Great People in EL, Heroes serve a completely different function.

Spies - There is no espionage in EL currently. Added in Shadows Expansion

Wonders - As of the time of this writing there are no wonders that can only be built once in the world. However, some of these are supposed be added in the first expansion. There are equivalents to national wonders already, which can be built by each person once. Equivalent added in Guardians Expansion

Religion - You can't found and spread a religion in EL.

Civilopedia - Unfortunately there is no in game guide to all concepts. Hopefully this is added in later update.

Thank you for taking the time to read this guide or at least skim it for useful information. I would appreciate any feedback from the community about what needs to be added or corrected. I plan to add more screenshots in the future as well as links to more compete guides and wiki information.

Also thank you to Shacksm and Khaibit whose guides I linked earlier, their guides have been quite helpful.