Need help: Tips for PEACEFUL players

I am more of a peaceful player than an aggressive one. The first tip I would give would be right at the beginning to choose to be collect not lead. Secondly I have found that you must still work on defences to keep the aggressive players away or at least hurt them if they attack. Thirdly it is very easy to go for the high culture buildings, but you need to keep developing huts or houses to keep building times to a minimum and continue to develop resource areas so you have the resources needed. Finally, the biggest thing that restricts development is slow research, so you must keep increases research points by developing your shrine and progressing to library.

A couple of tips off the top of my head. Though they are just my personal opinions, so I guess you should take them with a grain of salt or something.

#1 Upgrade huts pretty often. And the more active you're playing the game the more you should upgrade huts. The time difference can seems small at first, especially during the stone age where you can only get up to 50% speed reduction max compared to 200% during classical. but it can add up pretty quickly if you can build a bunch of stuff pretty often.

#2 Build your defenses accordingly, Scout out the nearby area and see if any leaderism players are nearby, if so try and get some towers (I suggest 4-5 if you play often) up pretty fast(before newbie protection wears off if you can) as level 1 watch towers cost no population so you can build them without worry, and later on 8-10 towers with a little backup on collectivism is enough to fend off all but the strongest stone age attacks.

#3 Try and make friends. While you can try and solo your way though the game. Having friends who can help out with building/send you some spare resources if you ask nicely can really help at times where you would just be stuck waiting otherwise(just make sure you return the favor at times :P). Getting into a good alliance can also do similar things though I think other people would explain the pros and cons of alliances better then I would.

Well that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Hopefully other players will post better info later on.

A lot of good points covered already, defense, culture builds. But also, since this is a MMO they also need to know pushing another hero's border can cause conflict.

Placing a town on another hero's border to push and steal a global resource like horses. etc, is an act of aggression.

I have encountered this a few times already and the player did not understand why aggression was a reaction to it.

Placing a town on another hero's border to push and steal a global resource like horses. etc, is an act of aggression.

This is a great point. "Collectivism" and "Peaceful" are not synonymous.

#2 Build your defenses accordingly, Scout out the nearby area and see if any leaderism players are nearby, if so try and get some towers (I suggest 4-5 if you play often) up pretty fast(before newbie protection wears off if you can) as level 1 watch towers cost no population so you can build them without worry, and later on 8-10 towers with a little backup on collectivism is enough to fend off all but the strongest stone age attacks.

Would definitely agree with this one. Luckily I built a Level 5 Palisade and placed 5 towers, one of them at Level 4. As soon as my 7 day truce wore off I was attacked by someone with an army size of 34 units and lost nothing to them. No resources lost, no units lost, no damage to my town.

So definitely build the defences up.

I'm still trying to find a good balance.  Thanks for the tips on the huts, I'll keep leveling mine up.  

 I prefer more peaceful play.   The trick is the Tech tree, especially since one choice can take a while before you can choose another.    I wanted all the great things like wheels and supplies and horses.    I thought all the fortifications, etc. were there to appeal to the leaderism groups.  After reading more forum posts I realized that I NEEDED to get Fortification, and sooner than later.    I recommend getting it fairly early just in case.   A few towers can make a big difference.

I am a bit paranoid about resources, I want to expand fast enough to get those horses, foxes, etc before my neighbors do.  So I have to balance expansion and defense.   The forum article on culture=expansion was helpful.  Ingame hints that more culture will make you expand would be useful, even if you aren't told exactly how much.

I haven't made any towns yet, so I'm not sure how they affect expansion, other than you are limited by special resources 3 per town.  

I'm looking forward to joining an Alliance and making friends.  

I would like some ideas about what gives experience for my player.  Just questing?  Expanding? Building? Being attacked?

I'm enjoying the game so far!

Speeding up research:  Upgrading the resource plots also increases research speed.

#2 Build your defenses accordingly, Scout out the nearby area and see if any leaderism players are nearby, if so try and get some towers (I suggest 4-5 if you play often) up pretty fast(before newbie protection wears off if you can) as level 1 watch towers cost no population so you can build them without worry, and later on 8-10 towers with a little backup on collectivism is enough to fend off all but the strongest stone age attacks.

Would definitely agree with this one. Luckily I built a Level 5 Palisade and placed 5 towers, one of them at Level 4. As soon as my 7 day truce wore off I was attacked by someone with an army size of 34 units and lost nothing to them. No resources lost, no units lost, no damage to my town.

So definitely build the defences up.

Defense is the best offense.  I was attacked, and my defense eliminated the entire invading army.  Multiple towers - sorry I didn't learn this sooner.  Bulat could mention that you can build multiple towers when he gives his instructions.

This is my second alpha. I have found so much is left unsaid. I am often asking myself  'why did that happen?'. Like when my hero leaves her town why does culture drop by 19?  How does the petroglyph help speed up the tech tree? Sometimes after I have used the petroglyph the tech finish time has increased. Perk points. Never knew anything about them til after treasuring hunting was introduced, and the bigger digs needed higher perk points. Why if I have a neighbor bordering against me does my expansion not just head out in a different direction? Rather than staying in a square type formation.  I am sure the players that have played since the beginning had the same questions  but it really leaves the new players at a disadvantage in game play.

In the beginning, I wasted time just playing around and solving puzzles and investigating my surroundings.  Once I realized I could not count on never being attacked, I got busy with towers (5 total, with one level 5) and Palisade (at Level 8 working to 10), as well as amping up production and storage and huts.  Am trying to develop a reasonable defense army of hunters and braves and witch doctors.  One of my collectivism neighbors is agreeable to an alliance when we get to Mission 5.  When I earlier chose Herbalism tec, later I was not sure I'd made the right choice, but I'm ok with it now.  Close to achieving Hovel level for archers' training for towers.  That's as much defense as I want.  Much more interested in continuing to develop more Culture and their perks.  Seems my plan for now. Don't think it's possible to do without some defense, what with the encroaching of Leadership neighbors.

There are just so many tips I would give them but I think I covered some of the possibilities in the slow time suggestion thread. Same for lead players. so I will not comment there. If you really want more I will think about it again.

My recommendations are 5 level 5 towers as soon as possible and make sure your stash covers your resources so they cannot be stolen so easily.   Add more towers later but that is a good start.  Also resources increased quickly because they affect research which took me quite a while to understand.   Use the monsters to get your level ups for your hero and if you need a quick culture boost to get some horses, etc.  you can use culture perk with your hero but add other culture method as soon as you can because you don't want to leave your hero in one town all the time.  Make friends of your neighbors,   Not all leaderism people are aggressive.   Some only have leaderism hero's to help protect others who need it.  Talk with others in whatever alliance you are considering to see if there ways of doing things are compatible with the way you want to play the game.   Others have already mentioned many of the other things here. Try things out first before asking how to do it especially in the beginning just try it.  If it is still obscure many of us do not mind answering questions.  So ask but try not to put spoilers in common chat as some dislike that a lot.   One last thing language is important.  Please try to be polite even when you are angry or upset,  because the nicer you are the less enemies you will make.  Have fun remember it is a game!

Good responses here! Lots of helpful information for the new players. One thing I will add, it is easy to get upset with this game when beginning if your neighbors are already 3x your size and not "friendly". This does not mean that they are mean people, it means they have been here long enough to have been attacked multiple times and are protective now of their territory. Some may share information easily, others may not! My advice when starting, read the forums while building your town as Zweistein suggests. When you come across a word or action he says that you don't quite understand, go to the forum and read up on it and what others have suggested, then if you still don't understand, ask! This is easy to do when waiting for resources to build up.

Using the common chat may cause some conflict as some are referred to as "spoilers" and we have all been there! There are many peaceful players in this game, many really nice people that are willing to help with information and/or resources. I like the new player that asks for help in common but does not say what it is, that way the older player uses "private messaging" and can help immediately. One last suggestion, if you do end up starting and are close to a really big player who is not friendly and attacks often...delete your hero and start over! Create a new hero, then if you have any items in inventory that have an "e" above them, you can transfer them to new hero then delete old one and just start over. 

Any way you choose to play, have fun! It is after all...a game  :)

one suggestion, please add somewhere in the tutorial, information on perks and how to apply them.  I had no clue about them until a nice player advised me where they were.

This is good because I've been playing for a couple of weeks and have no idea what perks are.

Know that you will be attacked if you have resources that others want. Don't think you can just build culture and expand without any defense. Even if your neighbors are peaceful if you expand and take their resources or land they will get upset with you. They then can ask a Leaderism player to retaliate for them. Explore your surrounding areas, if you have a neighbor that is leaderism and growing, delete your hero and Try again. But this is not a peaceful game. I learned that a long time ago. 

I have no tips that haven't been mentioned before. So far, I started with one hero between a few 'big' players. My other hero has more space on the world map, so it's easier to get acces to horses etc. But with my first hero so far I haven't been aggresively bothered by others. Had a few attacks and lots of plunders, but as soon as your defense is up, it stays with plundering and an occasional attack that gives you a chance for gaining some experience points. I've noticed that if you communicate nicely, most players are very polite and will not bully you if you don't 'ask for it'.

I do though have a question. With the current amount of neighbours and how close they are to me, it's almost impossible to grow without stepping on someones toes. It's not my goal to steal their land but I do like to expand because at the moment there are no strategic resources in my domain and I would love to have one or some. Will the worl map stay this way or will it give more space in the future?

I think Berserker mentioned that players were placed closer together then normal this alpha to help speed up testing for the new war victory mechanics they added. Need to wait for a dev to answer that question to make 100% sure though.