Welcome to Elvenar! This guide is for the brand new player. I know when I first started I had a lot of questions, so I am hoping this will help. Feel free to ask questions below and I will update this guide as needed.
Forums: You can't ask questions if you can't log into the forums! So first things first. In order to access the forums you need to go to your email and look for your FORUM PASSWORD. That is different than your game password. It was sent in a separate email. If you can't find it, send support a request for a new one. You won't be able to use your game password to log in here.
Overview: Elvenar is a city building game where you manage resources and build a city of your choosing. You have to balance population with culture and have enough coins and supplies to buy these things. It is a strategy game of decisions! So many options lie ahead! But before you can start your city here are some basics:
Controls: The controls for sounds and music and scrolling in and out as well as a link to the forums and advanced settings can be found in the lower right hand corner under the little gear icon.
Icons: Don't worry about memorizing all this! If you hover your mouse over the icons they tell you what they do.
On the top of the page you have icons showing you the number of builders you have, your population, culture, culture bonus, knowledge points, coin storage, supply storage and diamonds. (CAREFUL with your diamonds! They are rare and when you run out you must spend real money to get more. You do not need any more diamonds to play the game than you start with, but they will make progress faster if you choose to buy them.)
On the bottom center of the page are four icons. Buildings, research, world map and inventory. There is also a yellow sell button ($) and a move button above those. (CAREFUL when you sell a building. You cannot get it back once sold. You can rebuild from scratch, but whatever progress you had in that building is gone.)
Diamonds
You do not have to buy diamonds to play this game. They make your life easier, make the game faster, and they will get you really cool culture buildings that you can't get otherwise, but you do not have to spend diamonds to play! I'll go into more detail later.
What do I do first?
Residences
Build a residence.
There is a helper on the left side of the screen that will guide you to start the game. The first thing he says to do is to build a residence. So let's do that.
Click on the builder icon (the lower left icon). Then go to the residence tab. Click on the residence button and a hand a grid will appear. This will allow you to place the residence where you want. You can put the residence anywhere on that grid. Before you can build a residence it must be connected to the main hall (that big building in the middle of your city) by a road.
You can find the roads (called a footpath) under the same builders tab. You can add as many footpaths as you want, but they do take up space and space is a premium! You will want to plan carefully where you paths go.
After you have placed your house a green check mark will appear next to your helper. Click on him and then click Finish. You will get your first quest bonus!
What next?
Workshops
Build a workshop.
The next thing your helper has you do is to complete a quest to build a workshop. That too can be found under the builder tab. But wait! You say the workshop option is greyed out? Yes. First you must get to the research tree and unlock the technology that lets you build a workshop.
Click on the research tab at the bottom (the thing that looks like an open book). Once the research tree is open you see a tab for a workshop. Click on the blue icon and open the tab. A screen pops up and shows you that you need knowledge points in order to open that tech.
Knowledge Points
What are knowledge points and how do I get them?
You get knowledge points by being experienced of course.
When you start the game your knowledge bar is full of 10 knowledge points. Look at the top of the page and you will see 10 glowing yellow little rectangular boxes. (Under your city name Sproutville). That is a full knowledge point bar. When you use, each one of the boxes ticks off.
After every hour you will get one knowledge point to fill up your bar again. See, all that time you are spending here is gaining you knowledge!
You also get one knowledge point when you negotiate or fight an encounter.
How do I clear tabs in the Research Tree?
Once you open the workshop tab you see a completion bar to show you how close you are to completing the task. Under that are three tabs. The first one has a little book with a 1, the second has a book with a 3, and the third tab shows you it will take 135 diamonds to clear that tech. You DO NOT HAVE TO USE YOUR DIAMONDS FOR THIS. That is just an option.
You can also clear that technology by using your knowledge. This tech takes 3 knowledge points (kp) to clear. You can put in 3 kp at once or one at a time. That is why you have two tabs for your knowledge points. The first tab will always be so you can put them in one at a time and the second tab is so you can complete the tech all at once.
Let's do this first one the long way. Click on the 1 tab on the left and you will see the completion suddenly gets 1/3 full. Click on it again and put in the next kp. Now you are 2/3 full. Click on it a third time and voila! You have completed this technology. Congratulations. Now let's go back home and place your workshop. Use the house icon at the bottom of the page to return home.
Build your workshop
Now that you are back home, go to the builder icon (bottom left) and click on the workshop tab. Just like your residence, move your workshop next to a road and place it down. Your quest helper on the left will give you another green check mark. Don't forget to collect that reward by clicking on him and hitting finish!
Start beverages (or How to produce supplies in your workshop)
Your helper will now tell you to start your first production in your brand new workshops. Click on your workshop and a tab pops up. You can choose to make lots of different things here: beverages, simple tools, bread, advanced tools, basket of groceries, and a toolbox. This can be a bit confusing here...although it says you will be making these items, you never actually get those things. What you get from the workshops are supplies. If you choose beverages in 5 minutes you will get 4 supplies. Those supplies will be added to your supply total at the top of the page next to the hammer icon.
If you choose to produce simple tools, you will get 11 supplies in 15 minutes. If you choose Bread you will get 29 supplies in 1 hour. As you start to see, the shorter production runs yield more supplies over time, but you have to be there to keep collecting! Only you can decide what is the best for you to get supplies, but it is good to keep your workshops busy.
Now that you have started your beverages, your quest helper will reward you. Go collect that reward!
Next on the agenda....
Have 4 Residences.
Your helper is telling you that your city needs to grow. Remember how to build the residences? Click on builder, then residence, then place 2 more residences next to roads. If you have to move the buildings to get them next to the road, click on the yellow four direction icon on the bottom right. This will allow you to grab a building and move it around. You might choose to keep those buildings close together to save room.
If you don't want to squish things together, build another footpath from the main hall and place your new houses next to that road. As soon as your new houses are built your helper will give you another reward.
Quests
Once you have reached this point you will see TWO helpers on the left side of the screen. One gives you a storyline quest that will always help guide you in the next thing to advance your city. That helper does not give you an option. Either you do the quest or you don't. When you complete that quest you will get a reward.
The other helper is more flexible. He (or she) gives you options. You can choose to do that quest or you can decline it. If you click decline you get a message that says once you decline the quest it cannot be reversed and asks if you are sure. For the very first part of the game it is VITAL that you do all the quests that you see otherwise you won't have enough coins and supplies and goods to go very far.
After the second chapter or so you can start to pick and choose those quests. I will update this when I know where you can choose. These quests are on a loop. If you hit decline enough times they will come back around. These are your resource quests. Use them to get coins and supplies. Choose which quest you want to do or decline a quest that might take too long. These are your option. (In the very first stages of the game, I am not sure what happens if you click decline, but after a few rounds of those quests, they are on a loop.)
For now, let's just do what they both want us to do. The declinable quest helper wants you to collect coins. By now, your houses may have a coin floating on top of them. That is your rent from your tenants. Your workshops will also have floating coins above them. Those are your supply productions. Get your coins first to satisfy the quest. If you get confused as to which building is which, hover your mouse over them and it will tell you what is a house and what is a workshop.
Your next quest from the storyline quest is
Have 3 workshops.
If you aren't out of room already on your road by now, you will be. So add a road and then add another workshop.