Starting as an Emperor

This page contain information about a feature that has two versions. To read about the old version, go to Starting as an Emperor/OldVersion. For more information, go to the Building Update page.

When you first enter the world of Shores of Hazeron you alwats start alone. However if you don't want to be alone you can easily join a friend on his/her world or have him/her join you on your world by teleporting. You can also join an existing empire if an official in it will give you an invite.

This page describes what to do when you start on a new world without any cities or outside help.

Tribal Age

Your new avatar comes into existence in a small native village, located on its randomly chosen homeworld. It is usually in daylight and your homeworld is a habitable world that has never been explored or visited by any other avatar in the game. It does also offer you a wide abundance of resources and materials, such as food, animals, plants, etc., you need to survive. However, your naked and weak avatar and your home world could not be farther away from reaching to the stars or even being called an empire.

Wild animals will ignore you while you are inside the village. However, if you leave the village, to look around your surroundings, the wildlife may attack you. If you die, you will respawn in the village.

Targoss

Shortly after your arrival in the village, you are being greeted by Targoss, a tutorial NPC, who will begin to speak to you, giving you a basic introduction into the game, as well as your first quests to master. Targoss is always of your race, so don't be surprised, if his appearance is different, if you later decide to make a new avatar of a different race. Besides a basic walk-through, Targoss does also give you a torch - an invaluable tool as soon as sun sets and darkness takes its place.

Press F4 or click the backpack icon to examine your inventory. Besides the torch, given to you by Targoss, you start with a piece of paper containing a message from Haxus, the game's creator, and a basic knife.

Your Knife

Your knife has two functions: It can be used as a weapon to injure or kill animals, NPCs, or other avatars, and it can be used to skin animal carcasses, which are dropped, when an animal is killed. The function can be selected by using the scroll wheel. Be careful to select the second function when skinning carcasses, or you will destroy the animal carcass instead of skinning it!

By default, information about the tool you currently have selected is at the lower right of the screen. When the weapon function is selected, you will see this icon:

The number "20" means the nominal damage of this weapon is 20 hp, which is fairly low for a weapon.

The spike below the number indicates the type of damage. In this case, it is piercing damage.

When your knife's skinning function is selected, you will see the following icon:

Skinning an animal carcass is done by attacking the it while it is laying on the ground, this will produce a morsel of animal meat, a piece of leather, and a bone.

Your Torch

Your torch serves only one main purpose: to provide you with some dim light at night, allowing you to explore you surroundings, without having to walk around blind. The torch may however also be used as a weapon, smashing it on the enemy. Needless to say, that such use of the torch is not really effective. You should generally use the torch for lighting only and refer to other weapons, such as a bone or your knife, if you are really looking to kill someone.

The rise of your Empire

So far, your avatar is nothing more but a naked guy or girl, booted on a wild and unknown - though beautiful - world, residing in a camp of natives. Needless to say, that you are very far away from going to the stars and expand to other planets and systems. So far, the moon, you see lighting up the sky at night, is merely a distant object - going there nothing more but a dream. There is a lot of work ahead, so you better get started.

Creating your Empire

The very foundation to become an empire, is to have a symbol to rally under, a flag. The flag must be handcrafted in order to create an empire. Luckily you can do this using the resources you can forage from your environment.

So your first goal should be to look for the materials needed, to craft the flag. This does however include multiple steps. To make your flag, you need:

• 1 Textile
• 1 Sewing Needle

In order to make textiles, you will either need:

• 1 Leather
  or
• 2 Plant Fiber

Leather is gained by killing animals (or even citizens). Once killed, they will drop an animal carcass, which can than be skinned with your knife, in order to obtain the leather. plant fiber can be foraged from certain plants.

To get a sewing needle, you will need to find either a bone or a log. Again, the bone can be obtained, by skinning an animal carcass or by handcrafting one from the animal carcass. The latter option will consume the carcass, without giving leather. A log can be obtained by foraging some types of trees and plants.

You can use the overhead view, by pressing backspace. Once in the top-down view, press \ and Shift + \, to cycle between the different views, until the organic resources are shown.

Inspecting the flag recipe.

With all the materials in your inventory, you are now ready, to craft your flag. This is done from the Gear window, which can be opened by either clicking the little backpack icon in your menu, or by pressing F4. Then click on the top-left button, with the two hands on it, which will bring you to the Handcraft window. Now, do the following:

1. Select the appropriate sewing needle recipe from the drop-down list
2. Click the make button
3. The component will be consumed in exchange for a sewing needle

This has solved the first problem. Now follow the same steps, to make textiles. Be sure, to use the right option, to make your textiles (either leather or plant fiber, or the button will be grayed out, as you lack the materials, to handcraft.

With this done, you have all you need to make your first flag and begin your reign. Select the flag from the drop-down list and follow the same steps as above, to get your work done. Again, it should just take some seconds, and the new flag will appear in your inventory.

Once textile and sewing needle is acquired.

To find out more information about handcrafting and making a flag, please refer to the Handcraft page.

Note: You have likely noticed that everything you need to make a flag can be made from a single animal carcass. A long time, it has been somewhat a tradition, to kill Targoss, in order to obtain that carcass. However, updates to the game have made Targoss defend himself, possibly killing the player. It is up to you, whether to take that risk, or look for another option.

Warning: Do not attack your villagers, in order to obtain materials. This will change their stance towards you to hostile, causing all of them to attack you on sight.

Start of Civilization

The first step to start a civilization is the construction of buildings; houses, farms, mines, workshops and so on. But to start any construction you first need construction materials.

Press Backspace to enter the top-down view and use \ and Shift + \ to cycle through the different overlays. The first thing you will need to find is stone or wood.

Once you have found one of the basic construction material resources, open your Construction (F11) window, by pressing either F11 or by clicking on the icon with the small orange construction sign on it. Now, in the building menu, select the Manufacture category at the top, and then select either the mine or logging camp depending on your choice. It is important to select a small building blueprint, bigger buildings cost a lot of materials and you currently have none. Place the building in and area that has the resources.

Hint: Recommended building blueprint for a mine is the "Quarry by Haxus". It is very cheap and quick to make.

Material Foraging

With the construction site of your first building down, you need to collect a few construction materials manually. This is done by foraging the stone or wood needed.

Go to the construction site and open the Building (F10) window. A construction tab will show what is needed to construct the building.

Hints and Tip

• Place all buildings, using the top-down view. This does make planning, placement and organization a lot easier, especially because you can also see the natural resources, helping you to position your buildings.

, where you are close to required resources such as ore, minerals and oil. Most of the resource icons shown on the map are easy to interpret. Don't worry, if you do not find all of your resources at once, or if some of the resources are farther away from you. Once your city is founded, it will quickly expand, so that even harvesting resources far out, is no longer a real problem.

Once you have found the right position, open your Construction (F11) window, by pressing either F11 or by clicking on the icon with the small yellow construction sign on it. Now, in the building menu, choose the top icon, which shows the big flag on it. This does allow placement of the town square, essentially founding your city.

Next Chapter

This begins the Rise of Civilization. The ultimate goal of your civilization is to develop space travel and spread your race into the galaxy.

Next chapter: Building Your First City