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A step by step guide to starting Ironfell

“A terrible incident has thrown you back through time into the past.
 You must rebuild your empire, trade for resources and defend your people.”

After you have registered and signed in you will see your Safe Home Valley.

Nobody can enter this realm, build here, or hurt you here.

Click and drag anywhere to look around.

You begin with a single Explorer.

To move him... click on him, and then click on any of the highlighted cells.

Explorer moving

Right-click (on Android press and hold) on your Explorer to open his contextual menu.

This tells you about him. What actions he can do and what he can build.

Try building a Wood Shack on grass next to him.

Contextual menu

Everything you build costs resources (food, wood, iron, etc).

In the top right corner of your screen you can see how much of each resource you have.

  • Food comes from Farmlets (which are built by a Farmer).
    Each Farmlet gives you 60 Food at a random time each hour.
  • Wood comes from Trees. Woodcutters cut down trees to gather wood. You can set them to auto-gather wood for you. Trees are renewable, so after 12 hours trees will grow back.
  • Iron comes from Iron Deposits. A Miner can build a Small Mine on top of an Iron Deposit, then the Small Mine will give you 60 Iron at a random time each hour until the iron has all been used up.

You'll find out about the other resources later in the game when you need them.

Wood Shack Miner

Click on your Wood Shack and build a Miner.

Miners can build small mines and dig tunnels to new realms.

Miner Iron Deposit Small Mine

Click on your Miner, and move him to your Iron Deposit.

Iron Deposits can be hard to see, look around carefully, there will be one near you.

When he's there, click on him, choose "Small Mine", click on the Iron Deposit.

Now you have a Small Mine. At a random time each hour you will earn 60 iron from your mine.

Wood Shack Woodcutter Tree Tree Stump

Back at your Wood Shack... build a Woodcutter and move them near a tree.

Right-click on the Woodcutter, select auto-gather.

He will now automatically walk around and find trees to chop down.

And the trees grow back! They are a renewable resource, so it’s okay to chop them down.

Click on a tree stump to see when it will grow back.

Wood Shack Farmer Farmlet

Food comes from Farmlets.

At your Wood Shack build a Farmer and get him to build you a Farmlet.

Each Farmlet earns you 60 Food a random time each hour.

Safe Tunnel

Explore though the Safe Tunnel in your home valley. This tunnel connects to another large safe realm, one where there are other real people playing.

Move your view through the tunnel by clicking on it, and selecting "Travel Through".

Move your people through the tunnel, by getting them to stand on the tunnel.

There are 4 tunnels that you need to know about,
each takes you to a different type of place.

  • Safe Tunnel Safe Tunnel are found in the foothills of mountains, these underground passageways lead to nearby secluded valleys, which have already been explored by others. From your Safe Home valley, these always take you to the Safe Public Lobby realm. Anywhere else they lead to a randomly selected Safe Public realm that already exists.
  • Conquest Tunnel Miners dig twisting Conquest Tunnel through mountains ranges, behind enemy fortifications and into dangerous realms already discovered by others. These always take you to someone else's dangerous PVP realm.
  • Risky Tunnel Be the first to explore through Risky Tunnel to new dangerous realms. These risky tunnels can be dug through mountain ranges to undiscovered realms, where unexploited Iron Deposits await you. These always take you to a brand new, unexplored dangerous PVP realm.

The realms you can explore come in several flavours:

  • Private (safe)
    Only the owner can build or move units into this type of realm.
    Every user’s home valley is set to private.
  • Public (safe)
    These are safe public realms, anyone can move or build here, but nobody can attack.
  • PVP (player vs player)
    These realms are dangerous, anyone can move, anyone can build, and anyone can attack anywhere in PVP realms. These realms typically have more resources than the other types. More risk more reward. You can safely look into these realms, they are only dangerous to the units that you move into them.
  • Policed (player vs player)
    Insided Policed realms... anyone can build, move or attack. Except the owner/creator of the realm can not be attacked, they are the police and they are invincible within this realm. Only the owner of these policed realms can build tunnels and stone circles.

Points of Interest (bookmarks)
When you get lost, you can jump back to your Home by using the Points of Interest panel. Open it by clicking on the third red arrow button in the top left corner of the screen. In that panel you can save interesting locations you find so you can quickly come back to them.

Chat
Talk to other players using the chat window. Open it by clicking on the red arrow buttons in the in the bottom right corner of the screen. The top chat panel is just for the people in the same realm as you. The bottom chat panel is for everyone playing everywhere. Talking to other players is a great way to find out new things and get help.

If you want to read more, here are some links with more information.

Thankyou for playing, I hope to see you in game :)
davidc,