Dear Ariella New Player Guide

Dear Ariella, What do we do?

The dilemma of the new player often referred to as a "Newbie". After three tales of playing I will attempt to give some helpful hints to help you get started and continue in your everyday life. Good luck my fellow Egyptian as this is a wonderfully complicated game and enjoyable socially. Our Egyptian slang will be in ().

Love thy neighbor is a good virtue and keeps you from getting poked with sharpened sticks.

Where shall I live?

Take your time! Don't rush into it at the first place you land. Yes, everyone is rushing around doing things like ants in a kicked anthill. But patience is a virtue also.

A polite citizen of Egypt will ask the current residents if it will be encroaching into their camp to live there. Always clean up after yourself the 'Newbie' beginner machines like your small distaff, brick racks, flax combs.

Chariot Stops (cs) are not up and running at the beginning of the game. There is a University Tech that will need donations so we citizens can repair them. They are the transportation network in the game, instantly transporting you to different regions.

Consider that papyrus planting (pappy) must be done along the Nile. This makes living by or near the Nile a good choice for compound (cp) building.

Good components for you home sweet home. Good wood-giving Trees (Bottle Trees give 5 wood each for example), water, mud/sand (for bricks), silt (for firebricks) nearby. Put up your F3 map (you can stretch it out way out on the bottom right corner). Look for the green grass areas.

If you speak a language other than English there are communities that set up that speak mainly one language like French or German that might be handy to live in or join their guild for ease of play.

What's the best way to set up camp?

Time saving building ideas.

Build your compound right up against water. Why? You will be building many machines inside your compound. You can place kettles and other machines needing water so you can stand without moving and use those machines without running back and forth to a water source. Stand where the fish or water icon appears in the top left, overload yourself and cook away in your kettles. No running back and forth filling jugs up.

Build your compound so it is over mud and sand where you can stand and see both those icons at once. Then build your camel pen up against that side of your compound. Camel pens are straw storage. You will be building brick racks to make tons and tons of bricks and firebricks (fb). Permanent brick racks are best built where you can stand in one spot, grab mud and sand and also straw from your camel pen. Overloading yourself is a time saving feature.

Build your Glazier Benches over sand so you will not have to move to use those machines.

When building beehives (apiaries) and serpentariums (cobra pits) try using /crowd to check to see the crowding percentage. The less the better for a queen bee to settle in or cobras to slither in. Try for 1% crowding only which is a good 30 coords from any other buildings. Crowding also affects how quickly beeswax and honey production renews. You must Take the honey and beeswax out for it to renew again also. Higher Speed keeps less bees from escaping. Another reason not to build compounds (your camp) too closely to others.

Universities, Schools, Techs, Skills...what's the difference?

Universities have Technologies (tech) that we must all donate to so we can learn new things. Once a Technology is opened then it is free to all citizens of Egypt. But Technologies are expensive so it is each Egyptians duty to donate materials (mats).

Universities also provide Tests and Principles for each of the seven Disciplines as time goes by. To open a Test for all Egypt someone must Demonstrate and provide the necessary materials. That Test then shows up in System for you to get it IF your are high enough in level.

Schools have Skills you can buy. Schools also provide the same Principles (or starter tests) for the seven Disciplines.

To see which Tests and Disciplines are open click the gold pyramid in the top left of your screen.

Both Universities and Schools have avatar level requirements to be able to add the Technology or Skill under your Skills tab. So be careful to check the wiki and NOT ruuuuun before you know if you are high enough in level.

To check what level you are and what you can currently buy at a School or obtain free at a University, click the clipboard icon.

Teach what you know! Once you have learned a Technology from a University, you can teach it to other players. Learn from your buddies. You may teach or receive a lesson once every 5 minutes. You may only teach or receive only one Technology at a time. Social gatherings like digs are excellent times to do this.

Picking up the pace on bricks and boards and flaxing

Boards...build several wood planes in a circle so you can stand in the center of them. Let's get rid of the chat popups, shall we? Click yourself then Options then scroll down to Notifications then choose "Use the Chat area instead of popups for many messages so it doesn't obscure your view when the stone blades break.

Next let's learn to minimize the chats so we can use hotkeys. Options->Chat-Related->Scroll to Minimize->Choose both options in there so you can also see your buddies talk.

Second, we need to enable hotkeys for things. Options->One-Click and Related->Go ahead choose Make Tab like a Mouse (you'll need this to save your clicker finger), Enable hotkeys on Brick Racks (we'll get to that in a minute), Enable hotkeys on flax, plus any others you'd like.

Last, minimize chats by hitting Enter. Hold down your P key (not just click) and swipe your cursor in a circle around all the wood planes. Voila! Tons of boards in a few seconds. It's also a good idea to have a bunch of stone blades on you to Repair.

Bricks....build several Flimsy Brick Racks. Since you can carry only 500 Items, 225 Mud plus 150 Straw plus 75 Sand is a good plan for a set of bricks at one standing. It is good to have extra Boards in your inventory to replace the brick racks you lose. Hit Enter to minimize chats. Hold down the B key and swipe over the Flimsy Brick Racks to quickly make many. When the bricks turn white, hold down the T key to Take them all up as you swipe over the whole lot.

Wassup with this Acro thing?

Acrobatics (acro) is a Test from the University of Body. Your avatar gyrating in 28 different odd ways (eventually). You will receive one Move to begin with that you can click another player to offer to teach your acro move to.

Look in Main and see what type of teacher you are. If the other player is your Master it means that you WILL either 1) be taught a facet of that move or 2) you will Follow if you keep trying. If you Follow then you will not be taught a facet by that other player.

In order of most likely to teach a facet: Master, Great, Pretty Good (pgt), Last Resort (lr), Blur. Make sure to tell the other player which teacher they are to you.

It is advantageous for you to list in your Info (click yourself, then Utilities, Edit my Info) the avatar name that was YOUR Master or Great teacher. You will at first need to teach 7 facets to pass Principles of Acrobatics. Then you need to teach 7 more. Until you teach 14 facets you can only learn 1 facet of any move from any one player. After that point you can contact your Masters and Great teachers to retry the moves so you can learn a second facet from them. You will also now be able to learn 2 facets of the same move from any one player.

The little Acro icon in the upper left will tell you when you can acro again since you tried.

Expedition Sites....Waypoints...Which is Which?

First you need to set your Home Location by standing in the spot you want as home. Click yourself->Navigation->Set your Home Location.

Second, go buy Exploration Travel at the School of Harmony for 2 Leather. Then find the closest Expedition Site so you can set it as "Make this my Expedition Site".

Now you can warp back to your Expedition Site for less cost than if you set a Waypoint at your home. Once you get to your Expedition Site you can choose to warp home from there (at a less cost than if you Waypoint home). So save on Travel Time by using Expedition Sites.