in the discussions tab of the original mod, I talked about the nonexistence of a so-called "getting started" guide, a simple way to approach setting up Empire for beginners, and then wrote my own in a slapdash way to the best of my abilities. for the sake of people like me, who are discord shy, I'm reposting it here, along with some quality additions by Latex Santa :) the only "qualification" this guide has is that one of the mod authors at the time said it was pretty spot on

I am by no means an expert at Empire, am actually pretty mid, and found myself referencing my own guide as I've completely forgotten everything I knew, so I probably can't help if you have questions. sorry! in that case, the discord is almost certainly your best bet. there's also a wiki if you're truly as reclusive as I am

Originally posted by JACK:

I've played a little more and gotten the hang of it at least enough to keep myself MOSTLY afloat, so in case anyone else is looking for this I'll share my basic approach. please note I'm still a beginner and you'll probably still have better and more sound advice going to the discord like the esteemed dev recommends :) also note that of course this is just ONE approach, but this advice is geared for rubes like me who are trying to find ANY footing and are too stubborn to just go approach someone for help in a chatroom, hahaha

• tithe is when you get resources from a settlement. tax is when you get money from a settlement
  
• when assigning workers to a job, look at the number on the top right and just keep clicking until that number goes down instead of up. I'm pretty sure that's only true if you want profit (so if you're desperate for steel, for example, you could take a bigger loss in exchange for assigning more workers to getting you steel) but don't quote me on it
  
• first settlement somewhere temperate, focus on military with a little wood or animals to help offset costs. this will defend your other settlements. I think that decision is under the military button on that settlement's page (it says something like automatically defend settlements) but click around a little
  
• pretty much all of this is about clicking around a little. or, again, asking for help, which I can readily admit would be the sensible and mature option
  
• second settlement focus on cash flow. desert mines are good for this. this is also where you're going to send any prisoners you don't have space for, but make sure they're all or mostly healed before you send them off unless you REALLY want rid of them. it's your choice whether to work them to death or keep them around (you can decide that from the prisoners button on that specific settlement's page), and pretty much depends on how many prisoners you regularly take to replace them. prisoners basically function as additional workers that you can assign before the number on the top right goes down instead of up. the second settlement helps to offset the costs of the first settlement once the wood or animals can no longer keep up
  
• third settlement you can start getting fancy and tithing what you want, or go for more cash flow
  
• if you aren't sure of what you're doing, focus on traits that forgive military failure or increase military strength. I want that roads trait too man but we can't build roads if we're getting our cheeks clapped by the pink ibex coalition or whatever
  
• if you want to tithe a settlement, it will be the NEXT tax cycle. like, they have to finish the order they're working on, deliver it, and THEN they'll work on getting you your tithe. you can adjust the timing of this a little with the resolve bill button on the bills screen but I'm still getting a feel for that mechanic
  
• I don't know what happens if your settlement hates you and I'm scared to find out have a nice day
  
  hopefully most of this is correct and a testament to the ingenious design and intricacy of the mod that I was able to learn it by experimenting! thanks!

Originally posted by Latex Santa:

This is pretty much what I did, except I would pair up settlements, one tile distance from one another - one money-making TOWN, and another settlement called a FORTRESS, specialized for military power. I, too, would select military traits useful for defense, and set the FORTRESS' military forces to protect the TOWN automatically. Then I would upgrade the two in parallel, and add maybe one economic building to the FORTRESS to help offset costs.

I would only ask for taxes, and re-invest the money into my settlements. When I earned enough, I would found another pair, one tile distant from the first two. The idea being, that military forces from multiple FORTRESSES can respond against any one enemy incursion and crush them with sheer military power.

The temperate forest biome was the best one to set up in, since you could build economic buildings specializing in exploiting timber (wooden logs production) and animals, and there were several such buildings available for both resources, ending up with very good production in both products.

I really miss playing with the Empire mod, since I really enjoyed "painting the map" with my own settlements, and treating my actual player-controlled colony as a capital and elite offensive force.