Even though Anvil Empires is in pre-alpha stage, this fictional land living through early middle ages won't show you any mercy. You will face many challenges on your way to dominate Calligo. This guide will help you to join a settlement or start your own!
Note: Currently, Anvil Empires Pre-Alpha tests will last anywhere from 6 hour sessions per day, to a persistent 120 hours over 5 days. Ultimately, however, the game will evolve into a 24/7 persistent world. If you wish to see how it will work, check out Foxhole, another game of Siege Camp. We also have a starting guide for Foxhole.
Before signing up for the Pre-Alpha you should be asking yourself which of the following categories you fall under:
1) I am joining the Pre-Alpha to get a first glimpse of what Anvil Empires will be like
2) I am joining the Pre-Alpha to have a new "fun" game to play regularly
3) I am joining the Pre-Alpha to help the development team test out new ideas and provide feedback
If you fall under 1) or 2), then you should not join the Pre-Alpha at this stage or you will be significantly disappointed in the experience and you will not be a productive tester. If you fall under 3), then it's appropriate for you to join the Pre-Alpha as your contributions will be valuable. Please read our latest blog post for details:
― Markfoot from Siege Camp (on Anvil Empires Official Discord)
Even if you don't think you are fit for Pre-Alpha, you can wishlist Anvil Empires on Steam and check it again when it's released.
How to join Pre-Alpha?
If you want to help the development team test out new ideas and provide feedback as development continues, you can simply sign up for playtests on Steam. Sign-ups are currently only open just before a test starts, so it's recommended to join the Anvil Empires Official Discord Server for announcements when sign-ups are active.
Bugs and Feedback
In order to gain access to the bugs and feedback channels in the Anvil Empires Official Discord Server you can link your discord and the game to gain a Pre-Alpha role.
Click the "Claim your Pre-Alpha Discord Role" button on the in-game main menu
Finish the authentication steps.
On the Anvil Empires Discord, click the Server Name and then Linked Roles.
Link your account and you will automatically be assigned the Pre-Alpha Access role
Once you have the role you should be able to see the feedback channels.
Controls
Basic
WASD Move
Left Shift Sprint
Left Ctrl Climb
Space Push
LMB Action
RMB Aim
R Equip Primary
F Equip Secondary
1-9 Inventory Hotkeys
E Use/Interact
V Drop Item/Open Gate
Q Mount
MMB+Mouse Rotate the Camera
CTRL+Scroll Up/Down Zoom and zoom out the Camera
UI/Menu
Tab Inventory
B Build Menu
U Upgrade
M Map
Z Disable Build Snapping
Space Center Map
Enter Open Chat
T Push to Talk
O Cinematic Mode/Hide HUD
How to play/spawn
Calligo, current Pre-Alpha Map
Congratulations! You opted in to help developers by testing their game during this very early Pre-Alpha stage. The development team is waiting for your valuable feedback and suggestions. Now, keep an eye on Anvil Empires Discord Server and wait for the next test to start. After servers comes online, launch Anvil Empires and click Play.
You will be prompted with an Alliance selection screen. Currently only available alliances are Remnants and Ancients, a third alliance, Pagans will be introduced later on.
Note: Currently, the only differences between the alliances are character aesthetics and spawn locations. Remnants spawn in the north, and the Ancients spawn in the south.
After deciding on your alliance, you should see a world map with campfire icons, these are wild spawns and are locations you can select to spawn on before you're part of a town. Select one of them and spawn into Calligo!
Homesteads and Towns
Homesteads are your primary location for building and progression, while towns act as regional hubs allowing trading, storage and processing of more advanced construction materials.
If this is your first time in Anvil Empires, you will have easier time by joining an existing homestead. Press M to open the map and check for any already established towns, you will want to build or join a homestead with one nearby. They will be identifiable by a town name and one of 3 tiered town alliance icons. If you've joined right at the start of a new test its possible you won't see any towns yet. Over the next 30 minutes you should see new towns being founded by others on your alliance.
After you've selected where you want to spawn, use the nearest available wild spawn on the map. Once spawned start running towards your desired target location, as you run you should be looking for early resources such as Branches, Berries, Fibre and Flint, it is especially important to collect Branches which you will need to build a Homestead Keystone and start a homestead if none are available to join.
Currently the only way to find homesteads is to run within range of them, revealing their icon on the map. If you arrive at an existing homestead its recommended to ask around if they're looking for players, or if there are any Homestead Bed you can claim.
Joining a Homestead
In order to join a homestead you need to find the Homestead Keystone and use E to interact with it. Once the homestead UI has opened look to the bottom buttons menu for the request homestead join button. Someone from the homestead will need to be online nearby to be able to accept you into the homestead. They can also use this menu to invite any nearby players.
Once you've joined a homestead you will need to also claim a Homestead Bed. This will need to be built inside one of the homesteads buildings. Claiming the bed follows the same claim pattern as the homestead. The bed will change colour from white to blue once claimed.
Starting a Town
Towns are regional hubs that allow for the creation of a Town Marketplace for selling goods to other players and a Town Workshop for crafting advanced building materials. They also allow the creation of Foundation Walls for building a castle around the towns central keep.
Starting your own town is no small undertaking and requires multiple people nearby to place the starting blueprint. If you still want to start a town your first task is to scout around the map looking for a good location, pay attention to nearby resource mines or animal dens and select a location with enough wood for the future town.
To setup a Keep you will first need to construct a Caravan inside a Homestead, and then move the caravan with a Horse to the location you want to build the keep. You can then use the deployment button on the caravan UI to select the structure you want to deploy, in this case the Keep.
Take note, the player that pledges first to the Keep will become the interim lord. The lord will have the ability to build within the town's radius, be able to withdraw the silver stored within the Keep, and be able to demolish any structures within the town radius which will refund the full cost of the structures.
Basic Systems
Woodcutting
Trees in the world can be cut down using axes. The Flint Axe is the first axe you craft that will be able to do this. Craft your axe, run up to the tree and press LMB to swing your axe.
After a number of hits the tree will fall in a direction away from you. This will drop logs onto the ground for you to collect. Run to the logs and press V to pick them up, as a Large Item you can only carry one at a time. These logs can now be carried to a Resource Stockpile for storage or directly to a Sawbuck.
Logs placed into the Sawbuck can now be split via an axe into Wood Planks or Branches. The cut selection can be changed by interacting with the Sawbuck and using the selection arrows.
Hunting
Hunting Animals is a key part of gathering Resources. With many crafting recipes requiring items gain from hunting. Resources dropped by animals come into four main items.
There are two main groups of animals, passive and aggressive. Passive animals include the Rabbit, Deer and Chicken. While the main aggressive animals are the Boar, Wolf, Dire Raven and Bear with some having two versions, either normal or elite. Elite versions of animals will often be larger, and having a different colour than the smaller, more normal versions. They will also do more damage, have more health, but drop more resources.
Once an animal has been killed it will drop a husk that must be skinned with the correct tier of Knife for the animal in order to gain its resources. See each animal page for specifics on which knife can be used to skin each animal. Skinned animals will then drop a collection of resources on the ground to be collected and transported back to your Homestead. A Hand Cart can help here when transporting a large number of pelts.
The general rule for crafting is to take your gathered materials and place them into the crafting structure you want to use. Currently the two primary crafting stations are the Workbench and the Advanced Workbench for tools, weapons and armour. Other structures also exist for their own tasks.
Building
In Anvil Empires, building is accomplished through a blueprint system. To start, open the build menu by pressing B (default). This will bring up a row of tabs, each containing various structures or vehicles that can be placed and constructed. Hover over an item to view its description and any build requirements, which typically include the tool needed for construction. While lower-tier structures can often be built with just your Hands (no tool), most structures require a Hammer. The most common hammer, the Flint Hammer, can be crafted at the Workbench.
Once you select an item from the build menu, a blueprint version of that structure will attach to your cursor. Move the blueprint to your desired location and click to place it. If the location is unsuitable, an on-screen message will notify you of any issues with the placement.
After placing the blueprint, you'll need to gather the necessary resources to complete the structure. When you approach the blueprint, the required resources will be displayed. Ensure you have these resources in your inventory, then hold down LMB to start building. If the structure requires a hammer, make sure it’s equipped in your hands.
Food is an essential necessity in the game. Your character has a hunger bar that will gradually decrease over time. Your level of satiety caps your maximum health and stamina. That is, your health and stamina decrease along with your satiety and cannot increase above your satiety level. It is therefore important, especially in combat, to keep yourself well fed.
In order to eat, find or cook an item of food. Open your inventory with Tab. Now just click on a cooked food item in your inventory and it will switch into your primary tool belt slot. Press Tab again to close your inventory and R equip your primary item, which in this case should be a food item. Press LMB to eat.
Pro-tip: You can also press the 1-9 keys to equip items from your inventory without opening it with Tab.
The most basic food item in the game is the Bloodberry Field Bar. You can craft it from Berries at the Firepit. The fire pit consumes a fuel such as Fibre or Branches to cook your berries. Once you have eaten, you can not eat the same type of food again for some time. Maintaining a variety of food sources is therefore important to make sure your satiety bar is high. More advanced food types like Trencher Bread, Boiled Cabbage and Grilled Whitefish require an Oven or a Hearth to prepare, respectively.
Food quality, which is displayed by the number of greenicons on top of the food item, affects how much the food item will satisfy your hunger and regenerate your health and stamina. To achieve the highest quality of food, which is three greenicons, you must retrieve the food as fast as possible from the cooked slot of the Firepit, Hearth, or Oven. Leaving the cooked food in that slot with fire still burning in the cooking station will result in the item degrading in quality and eventually turning into ash.
Advanced Topics
Mining and the Underworld
Mining can be categorized into surface mining and Underworld mining. Surface mining involves searching for small ore deposits scattered across the surface of Calligo. This method typically yields simpler materials like Malachite Fragments, Cassiterite Fragments used for producing bronze as well as smaller quantities of Stone Off-Cuts.
There are currently two types of animals you can tame: Horse and Donkey. In addition you can lure, but not tame, Chickens. To tame horses or donkeys, you first need Equine Feed. You can craft it at the Mill from Cabbage Seed, which you can acquire either from harvesting Cabbage or by gathering it from the ground, as it is a naturally spawning resource like Branches. Once you have equine feed, you need to find a horse or donkey foal. These can be found wandering around in the wild. If you have equine feed equipped in your hand, the foal will start to follow you once you are close enough. You can then lead it to a Food Trough. If there is enough equine feed in the food trough, the foal will start eating from it, and after a few minutes it will grow into a full-sized Horse or Donkey. Horses can be used to travel quickly in the world or to pull a Resource Wagon or a Caravan. They are therefore useful for moving larger amounts of raw materials like Rock Slab over longer distances. Donkeys can be used to power a Power Mill. Tamed animals can be placed inside a Stable when not in use. If there is equine feed and water in the stable, the animals will eat from it. Horses and Donkeys must be kept fed or they may starve to death. To manually feed a horse or donkey, equip equine feed into your hand and press LMB on the horse's mouth while standing in front of it. Your character will crouch and the equine feed will be consumed. Each equine feed restores roughly 30% of the animal's hunger bar.
Your Next steps
Once you have a handle on the basics of resource procurement and homestead and town progression, you can start to explore other areas of the game.
A video guide made by Freerk. Please keep in mind this video guide was prepared for a quite outdated version of the game so it might not be 100% accurate on every topic.