- Anvil Empires early access currently runs a pre-alpha build where systems change rapidly between tests.
- Faction choice is locked for an entire age, so coordinate with friends before picking one of three factions.
- Bounties are your first income: deliver items like boar tusks to the keep's bounty board for silver.
- Recruit named avatars at the keep for higher skill ceilings than the default level-1 auxiliary avatar.
- Food variety matters: eating the same food type twice in a row is blocked, so rotate berries and meat.
Getting Started in Anvil Empires Early Access
Anvil Empires early access is currently in a pre-alpha state, meaning the developers at Siege Camp are iterating quickly and mechanics may shift between playtests. When you first press Play, you are immediately asked to choose one of three factions. Beyond aesthetics and starting territory, there is no functional difference between them—but your choice is locked for the entire age (test period), so coordinate with friends beforehand.
After choosing a faction, you pick a spawn town. Hovering over town icons shows how many avatars are available there. Clicking one opens the avatar selection screen where you claim a level-1 auxiliary avatar. This only sets your starting location—you are never bound to that town.
Video Highlights:
- Faction selection locks you in for a full age
- Bounty board basics and your first silver
- Crafting a flint knife and hunting your first boar
- Renting storage, recruiting avatars, and cooking food
Once you load into the world of Caligo, you spawn inside the town keep with a tutorial panel on the right side of your screen. The tutorial walks you through bounties, crafting, and gathering—everything you need for your first hour.
Because the game is still in pre-alpha, development moves fast. Features described in this guide may already work differently by the time you play. Treat every system as subject to change.
| Setting | Default Key | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Inventory | Tab | Open inventory and crafting menu |
| Interact | E | Use boards, keeps, workbenches |
| Open doors | V | Open gates and doors |
| Sprint | Left Shift | Run faster, drains stamina |
| Map | M | View world map and town icons |
| Equip/Stow | R | Draw or put away main-hand item |
| Build menu | B | Place blueprints like fire pits |
Earning Your First Silver with Bounties
The bounty board inside the town keep is the primary early-game income source. Press E near it to open a list of bounties, each showing a description, difficulty, required items, and the reward. You do not need to accept a bounty—just show up with the items.
| Bounty Item | Reward (Single) | Reward (x3) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wolf tooth | 12 silver | 36 silver | Hunt wolves |
| Boar tusk | 8 silver | 24 silver | Hunt boars |
| Bundle items | Stacked payout | Multiplied | Varies per bounty |
Your first crafting task is a flint knife: two branches and one flint. Flint comes from small stone piles in the wild; branches come from tall branch bushes. Check exact material costs by hovering the item icon in the crafting menu (Tab).
If you run out of stamina while gathering, your action fails entirely—you will not collect a single branch. Wait a moment to regenerate stamina before clicking again, and never sprint while approaching a boar so you start the fight with full stamina.
With the knife equipped (press R), approach a boar from the side or rear and left-click to slash. Kill it, then left-click repeatedly over the carcass to harvest. Do not hold the button—continuous cutting drains stamina and reduces efficiency. Right-click the loot icons to transfer boar meat and the boar tusk into your inventory, then return to the bounty board to collect your silver.
Town Facilities: Storage, Workbench, and Repairs
Every town keep offers essential services. Walk to the center of the keep and press E to rent private storage—5 silver for 31 slots, with 5 silver extending the rental by one day. If the rental expires, everything inside moves to public storage.
| Facility | Location | Cost | Function |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private storage | Town keep center | 5 silver/day | 31 slots, protects items on death |
| Workbench | Town, up the stairs | Materials | Craft armor and gear |
| Workshop | Town | Materials | Intermediate resources (planks, nails) |
| Repair bench | Next to workbench | 1 copper nail | Fully repairs one tool |
| Recruitment table | Keep, across from bounty board | Varies | Recruit named avatars |
The workshop produces intermediate resources. Wood planks come from logs, and copper nails—used for repairs—require a malachite fragment. To mine malachite, craft a pickaxe (three branches, two flint), find the green rock piles marked on the map, and equip the pickaxe to break nodes apart.
A white bar next to each tool shows its durability. When it empties, the tool breaks and is destroyed. Repair proactively at the repair bench—one copper nail restores a tool to full condition, and one malachite fragment yields six nails.
For armor, gather fiber and berries from berry bushes (red berries on green shrubs). One flint plus two fiber makes crude leg armor at the workbench; right-click the finished item to equip it in its armor slot.
Recruiting and Managing Named Avatars
Auxiliary avatars start with every skill at level 1. To progress faster, recruit named avatars at the recruitment table inside the keep. Six candidates are available at a time, each with randomized skill ceilings and one highlighted specialty.
Fitness Avatar
- Longer sprint duration
- Better odds of surviving fatal blows
- Great for scouts and travelers
Melee Avatar
- Equips better armor and melee weapons
- Higher melee damage
- Frontline combat roles
Specialist Avatar
- Ranged, blacksmith, logging, mining, or hunting
- Ranged deals more weapon damage
- Blacksmiths need less anvil work
Avatars come in three ranks: apprentice (all skills level 1), journeyman (some higher starting skills), and master (all skills start high). You will not know exact levels and ceilings until you pay the recruitment cost.
Deposit Your Items
Before deploying, move everything from your auxiliary avatar into private storage. Switching avatars drops all inventory items on the ground.
Deploy from the Keep
Open the town keep menu, find the stationed avatars panel, and left-click your named avatar to deploy into it.
Review Your Skills
Press Tab and hover each skill to see how it works and how to improve it.
Feed and Station
Put food in your inventory, then use the "station avatar" button. Stationed avatars consume food to avoid starvation and recover health and stamina over time.
Stationed avatars slowly starve. Hover them in the keep menu to check recovery progress and time until starvation, and redeploy periodically to restock their food supply.
Food, Hunger, and Cooking
Your interface shows hunger, health, and stamina bars. An empty hunger bar causes starvation; an empty health bar means death. Eating replenishes hunger and regenerates health over time, with different foods offering different satiation values.
| Food | Type | Quality | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw berries | Berry | Low | Easiest food, weakest benefit |
| Blood berry field bar | Berry | *** (high) | Cooked in fire pit |
| Hog's leg | Boar meat | High | Cooked from boar meat |
The key mechanic is food-type variety: after eating a berry-type food, you cannot eat another berry-type food immediately. Rotate between food types—berries, boar meat, and others—to keep your hunger bar topped up consistently.
Fire pits are built outside town borders using three branches. Press B, select the fire pit blueprint, and place it in the wild. Hold left-click to construct it, then press E to open its menu.
Add fiber as fuel—it burns for about a minute. Retrieve cooked food promptly: leaving it in an active fire pit reduces its quality over time. A perfectly timed dish comes out at three-plus quality.
First-Hour Checklist and FAQ
Work through these milestones in your first session to build a solid economic foundation:
First-Hour Milestones:
- Choose a faction matching your friends
- Complete the boar tusk bounty for first silver
- Craft flint knife and pickaxe
- Rent private storage at the keep
- Craft crude armor at the workbench
- Recruit your first named avatar
- Build a fire pit and cook a meal
Q: Does my faction choice matter in Anvil Empires early access?
Factions differ only in aesthetics and starting territory—there is no functional difference. However, your choice is locked for an entire age, so make sure friends who want to play together join the same faction.
Q: How do I earn silver as a new player?
Bounties are the main early income. Check the bounty board in the town keep, gather or hunt the requested items, and deliver them. Multi-item bounties pay a multiplied reward, such as three wolf teeth paying triple the single-tooth price of 12 silver.
Q: What happens if I switch from my auxiliary avatar to a named avatar?
Everything in the auxiliary avatar's inventory is dropped on the ground when you deploy into a named avatar. Deposit your items into private storage at the keep first to avoid losing them.
Q: Why can't I eat another berry after just eating one?
Anvil Empires uses a food-type rotation system. After eating a berry-type food, you must eat a different food type, such as boar meat, before returning to berries. Plan your cooking to maintain variety.
With silver income, private storage, repaired tools, a recruited avatar, and a food rotation plan, you have everything needed to survive and contribute to your faction in Anvil Empires early access. Watch for pre-alpha patches that may change these systems.