Thea: The Awakening is a very neat genre-busting game with a fairly good tutorial (and better, a tutorial that you get loot and experience for stepping through). However, given the depth of many aspects of the game, it's difficult for the tutorial to cover everything of importance without being intrusive or getting in the way of your gameplay. I took some notes for myself as I was learning the ins and outs, used some of it to answer friends' questions, and thought maybe I should share what I've learned with other new deities. I hope it's useful....

1) You get one or two save slots, depending on whether you've enabled saving. The first, and the only one you always have, is an autosave which you can't control. This is an automatic feature in the game, even if you turn saves off, you'll always be able to load the autosave (although you'll never be quite sure how far back in time it will send you, and it may just send you back to the beginning of the present turn). If you've enabled it, you also get access to one (and only one) save slot to manage yourself, which you can freely save to whenever you like.

2) If you start a new game, any save slots from old games are removed.

3) Especially for Level 1 deities, it doesn't make a truly huge difference which one you pick. Don't worry about it. As they level up, the differences tend to magnify, but by then you'll understand more completely what the differences mean.

4) Note that several events, including the main story and the deity-specific quest-line, can be very different depending on which deity you choose. This choice may also limit your options as to the end-game scenario.

5) There are two ways to win, not three. Completing your deity's divine quest doesn't win the game. You can win by completing the storyline and reaching one of several endings, or by building a mighty (relatively) civilization, meeting three of four victory conditions. Two of these conditions are fairly difficult, and two others are very difficult.

1) The game may look like a 4X, but it's not a 4X, and if you play it like an Endless Legend or a Civ, you will struggle. First and foremost, you will only ever have one settlement. There are no settlers, and no expansion. Also, the borders of your settlement will not change, ever, no matter what you build (a watchtower can improve your visibility, but not your borders). The resources that exist within your settlement's borders are the only ones you will ever have immediate access to, without sending out an expedition to do some remote gathering. You'll always start with access to at least one food and fuel item, but the quality of those items may vary, and they can greatly impact the difficulty of your game. For instance, you might start with access to only coal as a fuel source. Since coal takes a long time to gather relative to something like wood, this can really slow your progress early on.

2) The Create and Split Expedition buttons are very prominent in the interface, suggesting that you should be using them often. Some players may disagree, but I believe they should be used very sparingly, at least until you've really got a handle for Thea. The larger an expedition or settlement is, the safer your people are. It does you no good to create a new expedition specifically for the purpose of gathering some cool new resource, if splitting your forces makes any group sufficiently weak, such that it can't defend itself. And speaking of defending yourself,

3) The difficulty of the encounters in the world will ramp up as time passes, at a rate established in your difficulty settings. You can adjust these at the beginning of the game.

4) Wandering monsters seem to move mostly at random, and may or may not attack you even if they begin their turn right next to your settlement or expedition. However, if one group of baddies attacks you, that does seem to signal others to pile on and attack the same group or city. Be careful when you're surrounded, as your opponents will mob your expeditions or your settlement. As a small blessing, they will attack one after the other, rather than joining forces.

5) It is possible for multiple bad guys to stack on a single tile. This makes it hard to discern how many skulls each has, so be careful if the skull count looks overlapping or otherwise unclear. Bad guys can also sit atop treasures, quest locations, and monster lairs (whether those are the same monsters in the lair or not).

6) In order for your expeditionary force to attack something on a tile, it uses all of the movement points it would normally use to reach the tile. However, regardless of whether you win or lose the encounter, you will not actually move to that tile - you'll still be where you started.

7) If you think you've completed a quest or story event, but the location is still marked on your map, that almost always means there's something else you can do there, either by choosing a different option while there, or doing something else first.

8) Resources are all over the map, but you can only see and gather the ones that you have unlocked on the research wheel. You can craft or build with any material you possess regardless of research progress, but you are only able to see and gather them on the map if you've researched them. Generally, the best stuff tends to be further from your settlement, but there are exceptions. It's not uncommon, for instance, to find dragon leather or ancient wood very close to your settlement... but you won't know for sure until you research the material you're looking for.

9) The only way to gather resources on the map that are outside of your settlement's initial borders, is to camp between turns with an expeditionary party. Camping always costs one movement point, so you'll need to save one if you want to camp. Not all potential camping spots are connected to resources, and not all resources can be gathered on a single turn (dependent upon the gathering skill of your expedition members). You can camp for multiple turns without moving. It never costs movement points to break camp - only to create a camp.

10) There is no way to cross water. You cannot build boats.

1) Always leave your settlement defended. I'm sure some would disagree with me, but I recommend resisting the urge to leave a skeleton crew guarding the settlement, so that you can have more or more powerful expeditions. If the settlement goes down, you lose. It's not attacked often, but when it is, it can really catch you off guard, especially if you've been moving your best equipment to your expedition and leaving the farmers back home with training swords.

2) With this in mind, no matter how tempting it may be, don't move all of your warriors out of your settlement and into your expedition, unless you're feeling really confident in the abilities of your workers to defend the settlement. In the early game, your settlement is usually fine if you just have one warrior defending it alongside the gatherers and craftspeople, but that will ramp up as the game progresses.

3) Watch that Manage Supplies window. By default your settlement will eat and burn any food or fuel they get. You may not want them to eat that rare exotic fruit your expedition just brought in, and you absolutely, under no circumstances, want them to burn the ancient wood you found! I suggest you uncheck the "Allow use of new items" option for both food and fuel, so that you don't have any unfortunate accidents eating up or burning through your rare resources.

4) In most 4X's, you accumulate research every turn through your settlements. This, however, is not a 4X. You automatically accumulate zero (0; no) research. To earn research points, you have to either complete events on the world map (story events, quests, defeating monsters, etc.) or craft or construct things in your settlement. The only really reliable way to research is thus to craft and construct. It doesn't particularly matter for the most part what you craft or construct - on the screen where you choose ingredients, you'll see a number telling you how many research points you'll earn for the crafting/construction, after it is complete (you don't earn them bit by bit along the way - only when you finish). Cooked foods generally don't provide any research points, though. If you have nothing to craft, at least try to craft some clothes, provided you have some extra string or leather lying around.

5) You can gather or craft multiple items (or batches) in one turn. For instance, if you have 120 gathering points towards wood gathering, and it takes 60 gathering points for one bundle, you will receive two bundles. This stacks infinitely, but you can only have five people working any one resource or craft job, and all except the first contribute only half of their development points to it.

6) Most crafting and construction jobs require three materials: a primary material, a secondary material, and a catalyst. You can't craft or build anything without all three. There are icons for each of them - for instance, to build a cabbage patch, you are shown that for the primary material, you need 25 wood or 25 sandstone. The picture always represents the lowest-tier material that can be used, but that does not indicate that this is the only material that can be used. Even if normal wood is shown, you can use other types of wood, like elven or dark wood. Any rock can substitute for sandstone, and any form of leather can substitute for the basic stuff. Usually using higher-level materials leads to superior crafted items and constructions. There's a huge difference, for instance, between a sword that uses regular wood for its primary material, and one that uses ancient wood.

7) The exception to this rule is catalysts. Catalysts never have any impact on item / construction quality, so you should always use the most plentiful and common catalyst you can. This becomes difficult when crafting things like artifacts, which only accept coal or diamonds as catalysts.

8) The very best material, generally speaking, is moonstones. I never saw them on the research wheel, and thought that the only way to get them was through quest rewards; turns out I was wrong, and they're actually hidden at the end of the rock path. Just below moonstones on the equipment quality hierarchy are ancient wood and mithril, which can be found on the research wheel.

9) When you use jewels to craft (Amber, Topaz, Malachite, Ruby, or Diamond), the process works a little differently in that the item will receive a random bonus, but you don't get to see what that bonus is until the item is complete. Some of these bonuses are better than others, but it's a crapshoot. Diamonds can provide an awful lot of extra damage, ranged or otherwise, to an item, but they might also provide a much less useful stat boost.

10) There is no money in the world of Thea (you will find gold, but it's just another building material). The most valuable resource is arguably people (or, more broadly, individuals who are aligned with your deity, as some might be beasts), and there is no reliable way to get more of them. Cabbage patches and pastures can attract different kinds of individuals to your settlement - babies and adults, but also elves, dwarves, demons, goblins, and beasts. Experiment with different building materials to find what you can attract. There are achievements for attracting different types of characters, too.

11) You can construct up to ten buildings in a settlement. You can have duplicate buildings, and you can always tear down one to make room for another. All building effects stack unless you're specifically told otherwise (such as on the watchtower). So not only can you have multiple cabbage patches, but you arguably should.

1) With few exceptions, you're always going to want an expedition out doing something - exploring, pursuing quests, camping and gathering, and/or removing hostiles from the vicinity of your settlement. Beyond the potential for loot, this keeps you earning experience and research points, and thus (hopefully) keeping up with the steadily increasing world difficulty.

2) You particularly want warriors in your expedition, and you will want a gatherer or three as well. Craftsmen are trickier to consider - there's no crafting in expeditions, so at first it seems like there's little reason to bring them along (especially since you want lots of crafting happening at your settlement to keep that flow of research points coming). However, craftsmen tend to be smart, and they tend to learn skills that can be very useful in non-combat challenges like Social and Sickness.

3) As in point 3 for managing your settlement, watch that Manage Supplies window. At the default settings, your expedition will happily eat and burn all of that rare food and fuel they find. You probably don't want that to happen.

4) Fuel is usually not a problem for your expeditions, since 1 wood is always enough for 1 turn, and wood is very plentiful. Food can be more challenging, especially for large groups. Make sure you bring enough food with you to keep your group fed as far as you'd like to go, unless you're specifically planning on stopping and gathering at a lot of food-rich points on the map. Cooked food weighs significantly less than regular food, but requires crafting and multiple ingredients. I usually bring enough for at least 20 days at first, and ramp that up as I start exploring further out.

5) Most events on the map involve choices, and usually include a choice to run away. If things look like they're getting over your group's head, this isn't necessarily a bad idea, as your people are somewhat fragile, and it's usually hard to get more.

6) Choices written in blue font on any event are often unique choices that you don't always have. If you see a blue choice, you may be seeing it because of a particular aptitude or skill of one of your people, or because of something you've already experienced in your game, or because the specific deity you selected has planted the idea in your head. Blue choices are usually (but not always) beneficial.

7) In a fighting challenge, "Armor" determines your hit points, whereas your "Shielding" stat provides a shield that the enemy must batter down before they can get to your hit points. A character's shield replenishes in each new round of the card game (even if it's destroyed in round 1, it will be back in round 2). Ranged damage does not add to the damage you do in fights; rather, it provides the "Support Ally" tactical ability, and is also of use in hunting challenges.

8) Knowing what skills are used for different challenges can be critical, but the interface doesn't exactly make finding this information easy. The defensive skill (HP) for every challenge is Health or Will (with fights being the only exception, where your HP is your armor). The offensive skills are usually what you'd expect, with some exceptions: for instance, Hunting uses Gathering as its primary offensive skill, and Tactics uses Intelligence (instead of Tactics, oddly). You can always find out exactly what skills are relevant for a challenge by using the filters on the charater interface, which can be accessed from the equipment screen, or the inventory one while you have a character selected. The filter buttons are on the lower right of the screen, just to the right of a character's stats. You can use that to have the game only display stats that are relevant to a chosen challenge.

9) If you see an enemy group on the map, and you move onto their spot, you will have choices as to what to do with them. Beyond fighting or running, you may have choices to talk to them, hunt them, sneak up on them, use tactics to separate them, or poison them, based on your skills and what types of enemies you've encountered. If they move onto your spot, on the other hand, you get no choice. You have to fight them or forfeit the challenge. Often, especially with sentient opponents like goblins or raiders (and even moreso with dwarves), the non-fighting challenges are a lot easier than the fighting challenges (although they may result in less loot).

10) When you have the computer auto-resolve a challenge, it seems to do so with markedly average strategic efficacy. That is, if you have a good handle for the mechanics of the card game and some level of knowledge of what you're up against, you can probably outperform the computer. If you don't know what you're up against or how the fight will go (for instance, it's your first level 2 hunting challenge, and you're not really sure how tough the challenge will be), it's possible that the computer can outperform you.

11) A red drop on an individual's icon indicates that the individual pictured is mortally wounded, and will likely die soon. Mortal wounds emerge if too many hit points are lost (you cannot lose health in any other kind of challenge). It is possible to be hurt and lose hit points without receiving a mortal wound. HP recover naturally and slowly over time, or more quickly if the individual camps between turns, or stays in the settlement.

12) A mortal wound is an emergency that generally demands your attention, as you don't want your people, beasts, and demi-humans to die. Camping (or remaining in a settlement) significantly reduces the chance of death after wounding. The medic skill is somewhat rare, but arguably the most important for expeditions, as it can drastically reduce the chances of mortal wounds triggering death. Medics start out with the skill, sages can gain it, and other classes can very rarely gain it upon leveling up. Some very valuable equipment - particularly accessories made with rubies - can provide the medic skill.

1) Your people gain experience as a unified whole, and will all level up at the same time. When they level up, they gain a point or two in a single skill drawn from a random pool, weighted to skills relevant to their class. You can't directly control what skills they get. Experience is earned by completing any event or defeating any enemy group (but not by gathering, crafting, constructing, moving, or simply allowing time to pass).

2) Regardless of how many men and women you have in the settlement or expedition, new children only appear when triggered by a cabbage patch. Any child you have in your settlement has a very small chance to become an adult each turn. There is no necessary or automatic time-lag behind this; it's a random event. It is entirely possible to find a child in a cabbage patch during one turn, and have that child turn into an adult on the next turn! It is also entirely possible to rescue a baby with your expedition, and then have it become an adult member of the expedition on the next turn. Just consider it a miracle blessing from your deity....

3) When an individual joins your settlement, they come with their own (usually poor) equipment. When a child grows to an adult, they start with no equipment.

4) You can always destroy or dismantle any item carried in your settlement or by an expedition. In the settlement there is rarely a reason to destroy anything, as you never run out of space. In an expedition, as there is a limit to what the expedition can carry (based on the number of individuals in the expedition and their strength scores), you may find yourself destroying wood or other rather common materials to make room for the better loot. Dismantling an item will give you a portion of the materials it would have taken to build the item, not counting catalysts. Especially in the early game, dismantling can be a good way to get rarer materials quickly. Additionally, dismantling will generally reduce the overall weight carried by an expedition, as the partial components are pretty much always lighter than the full and finished product.

5) Swords, one-handed or two-handed, always provide shielding, making them excellent all-around choices and best for fragile units. Axes have superior damage, but provide no shielding. Blunt and piercing weapons have below average damage, but provide the blunt and piercing effects (the usefulness of which has been debated - try them both, and draw your own conclusions). All piercing weapons are two-handed.

6) Any individual can equip any item, so long as they have an open slot for it and it doesn't weigh more than they're capable of carrying. There is nothing in the game stopping a level 1 peasant gatherer from effectively wielding an ultimate 2-handed moonstone warhammer.

7) The most valuable skills tend to be the ones used in fights (like damage and armor) and those for the common challenges like social (especially in the late game), hunting, and stealth. Challenges like Hex are quite rare. However, having characters with skills like magic and folklore can open up many new opportunities in the game that you would never otherwise encounter.

8) Since your settlement doesn't move, and since when enemies move onto your space you have no option other than to fight them, the people in your settlement will not get options to resolve conflicts by talking, hunting, stealth, etc. As such, the usefulness of related stats for individuals in your settlement is limited. However, there will be events and challenges that will arise within the settlement specifically that may call for them. So they're not useless - they're just nowhere near as useful as they are for expeditionary forces.

9) Just so you understand the risks and rewards, if bandits steal a particular item or resource from you, don't count on ever getting it back, even if you hunt them down.

10) Dwarves tend to be tougher than their skull-count would indicate. This is due to the high quality weapons and armor they carry, loaded with mithril. If you can beat them or win them to your side, the payoff tends to be huge.

11) At all times, both in this game and in real life, it's helpful to remember an acronym, "WWMDD?" That is, What Would My Deity Do?

I hope all that's helpful for someone out there. Feel free to contribute your own tips below, or correct me if I'm wrong on anything. Thanks to nicolefou for pointing out where moonstones were on the research wheel - I've played and won several times, but hadn't managed to find them.