Gameplay guide

Manual

The game's French, English, and German manual is available on the Internet Archive.

Controls

• left-click a single building or unit to select it or click and drag to form a selection box to around multiple units
• ctrl-click units from a menu to select a subset of them
• With a unit selected, move the mouse or use the arrow keys to orbit the camera
• With a unit selected, left-click the ground, a location on the map/minimap, a building, or unit to send the selected unit there and/or assign them to it
• With a unit selected, press space to enter first-person view and use the arrow-keys to move the character and right-click to exit first-person
• With no unit selected, left-click the ground to move the camera to that position
• Press tab to switch to the map
• Press enter to view the technology progressions for each leader

Gameplay

Each level is comprised of multiple territories which can be captured by placing characters near its grailstone. Once captured, all NPCs which spawned in that territory will be allied with the leader who captured it with the exception of special progression NPCs which will remain neutral. Each territory will include a handful of citizens, an engineer, explorer, and military leader. Citizens will not be assignable until a house has been built for them. Each territory and its inhabitants are bound to a specific technological age (ex wood, stone, etc) which limits what buildings can be constructed within it and what its engineer, explorer, and military leader are capable of.

In addition to the inhabitants of each territory, there are two to three NPCs within a level which have the skills needed to progress a civilization to a new technological age. These NPCs are neutral and will only help one leader at a time. Each NPC will require that the leader has reached a minimum technology level and that they build them a structure requiring many resources from their current age. Completion of the structure will either result in the leader unlocking to the next technological age or moving the player to the next level if no more ages exist for the current level. The specific NPC required to advance the player to the next age can be found and brought to Burton by talking to one of the allied explorer NPCs for the player's current age (aka to advance to the stone age, Burton needs to talk to one of the wood age explorers allied with him). Explorers will not be able to find the target NPC and return them to Burton if they are on a different island unless the explorer and Burton are in a land or sea vehicle together.

To advance technological levels, the player must construct a laboratory and a workshop. Players must then assign an untrained citizen to the workshop to train other citizens as scientists. Those scientists then need to be assigned to the laboratory where they can research the next technological level in exchange for resources. Once a technological level has been reached, it cannot be lost.

While the player controls Burton to complete these goals, two other hostile NPC leaders will do the same elsewhere on the level. Like Burton, these leaders will capture territories, research technological levels, and seek out the special NPCs to advance them to the next age. There is no penalty if another leader reaches the maximum technological age for level or captures all territories.

Unlike many games, killed NPCs and leaders will instantly respawn in their original territory with no penalty; however, trained NPCs will lose their training when respawned.

The game includes an HTML guide in the River directory of the installation with more details.

Tips

• Any allied NPC or building can uncover the fog of war
• You can skip the intro, cutscenes, and credits by left-clicking
• Save often! The game is prone to crashing on modern hardware particularly when attempting to capture a hostile leader's territory
  • When sieging, it's recommended to position your troops just outside the territory and save before entering to avoid travel times in the event of a crash
  • If crashing occurs frequently during a particular siege, try staying away from the grailstone until as many buildings as possible are destroyed
• If an engineer or citizen becomes stuck while carrying resources to build something, cancel construction of the building by right-clicking it in the engineer's menu
• Laboratories and scientists for a particular age are not needed once all of that age's technological levels have been researched so it is best to re-train them and destroy the laboratory
• Vehicles can be ordered to new positions like NPCs even when nobody is riding them
• Be aware that Burton will not be capable of moving once an explorer begins leading an NPC back to him
• Enemy NPCs will not defend themselves while trying to capture a grailstone
  • A single citizen or warrior placed near a grailstone you cannot yet claim will effectively prevent any other leader from claiming it by killing them before they convert it
• Warriors with ranged attacks are almost useless against moving enemies as they cannot attack without reaching a minimum distance which they will never reach if being chased
• Untrained citizens can be assigned to help with constructing buildings
• Building more houses than there are citizens in a territory will not grant extra citizens but it will create a buffer preventing citizens from immediately becoming unassignable when a house is destroyed
• Some portions of the river, particularly in level 2, are actually traversable by the player without a vehicle
  • Explorers will not cross the river on foot to reach an NPC/Burton even if it is technically possible
• Depots have a maximum storage limit
• You can quickly send a character to the grailstone of a territory by clicking the territory in the minimap
• You can place buildings from the 3d view, map view, and the minimap
• Explorers, engineers, and military leaders will remain allied to whichever leader captured them first regardless of who owns their current territory
  • This can result in hostile NPCs infinitely respawning near a liberated grailstone so it is best to either lead them away without killing them or placing guard towners immediately near a captured grailstone
  • You can send the engineer or military leader from a different territory of the same age you own to a liberated territory if its NPCs are still hostile and you need to build there
• An NPC which is helping another leader cannot be found by the explorer nor will the explorer be able to find them if Burton, the explorer, and NPC are not all within the same continent
• NPCs which are helping another leader will sometimes become stuck and cannot be engaged; however, this can be fixed typically by killing all enemies near the NPC, killing the NPC, capturing the adjacent enemy territories, and saving/loading the game
• It does not matter where a buildings required by an NPC to advance to a new age is built nor does it matter if it is destroyed after construction
• When units leave the boundary of a territory, they will be removed from that territory's list and added to the new territory's list
• Each resource deposit will eventually run out
• Only untrained citizens can be assigned to a workshop to train other citizens
• Workers are required to build vehicles or equip soldiers
• Buildings can be started even in mid-air so long as they are not obstructed by another building and touch even a thin spire of ground

General strategy

This strategy has been found to work on every level of the game:

1. As soon as you capture a territory, immediately send Burton to the next territory you can and continue managing the other territories as he does this
   1. Once Burton claims all feasibly close territories, have him wait at your least protected territory's grailstone to defend it until you have researched enough to enter the next age
2. As soon as you capture a territory:
   1. have the engineer and any unassigned citizens finish a store and send the explorer and military many to the grailstone to defend it
   2. With the first store built, begin assigning citizens to the store while having the engineer construct enough houses for every citizen
      • Be sure to not build too close to the grailstone as you'll need to put watchtowers around it later
   3. As citizens become allied, put as many into the first store as you can and once it's full have the rest help the engineer
   4. If this is your first territory for an age:
      1. Once the last house is built, have the engineer build a workshop, laboratory, and civil port in that order then have them wait at the grailstone
      2. As soon as the workshop is built, assign one citizen to it and have them make four scientists
      3. As each scientist finishes training, send them to the laboratory and complete research
      4. As soon as all research completes, remove the scientists from the lab and convert them to workers
3. Once all research for an age completes:
   1. Immediately send Burton and the closest explorer for the current age to the NPC needed to advance them
      • You may need to wait for a boat to built in the next few steps if the NPC is across the river
   2. Have the military leader build as many watchtowers adjacent to the grailstone as possible followed by an armory last
      • With most ages, 8 towers can be built adjacent to it
   3. Meanwhile have one worker go to a civil port and build one or two of the largest available ships
   4. Once the ship is built, send 3-4 workers to the armory and convert any citizens not gathering resources into the most advanced melee class and have them guard the grailstone

If you need to siege an enemy territory, send about seven melee soldiers to destroy as many houses in the territory as possible to reduce the number of NPCs fighting you. Then have them destroy guard towners near the grailstone and leave them near it to protect Burton.

Additionally, immediately capturing every territory on level 2 adjacent to the hostile leader starting positions will effectively soft-lock them. They will be incapable of advancing technological ages or capturing other territories making the level trivial.

Trivia

Every level has a neutral NPC leader named Loga. Unlike other leaders, Loga will not attempt to claim territories nor will they move or attack unless provoked. Loga will appear as a white dot on the minimap typically somewhere near the map's edge. Loga is a reference to the character of the same name from the Riverworld book series.

When assigning an NPC to a vehicle, the NPC and vehicle (even if it is empty) will move toward each other.