- Anvil Empires how to play: Pick a faction, claim an auxiliary avatar, and spawn in a town keep
- First income: Use the bounty board in the keep to earn silver with gathered items
- Early crafting: Make a flint knife (2 branches + 1 flint) to hunt boars and harvest trophies
- Survival: Watch your hunger bar and rotate food types to avoid starvation
- Progression: Recruit named avatars at the recruitment table for higher skill ceilings
Getting Started: Faction, Spawn, and Your First Avatar
When you press play in Anvil Empires, your first decision is faction selection. There are three factions available, and apart from aesthetics and starting territory, there is no functional difference between them. The critical part: you are locked into your chosen faction for the duration of an entire age (or test). If you have friends playing, coordinate so you all join the same faction.
After faction choice, you pick a town to spawn at. Hovering over town icons shows how many avatars are available at each location. Left-click a town icon to open the avatar selection screen, hover the auxiliary avatar icon to check skill levels (always level 1 for every skill), and left-click to claim it. This only sets your starting location — you are never bound to that town.
Video Highlights:
- Faction choice is permanent for a full age, so coordinate with friends
- Hover town icons to see available avatar counts before spawning
- You spawn inside the town keep with a tutorial panel on the right side
- The tutorial walks you through bounties, crafting, hunting, and storage
Once loaded into the world, you spawn inside the town keep with a tutorial panel on the right side of your screen guiding your first steps.
Your faction choice locks you in for an entire age. Friends in different factions cannot play alongside you on the same side, so decide together before committing.
Essential Controls
| Action | Key | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Open inventory / crafting | Tab | Hover icons for recipes and costs |
| Interact (boards, benches, keeps) | E | Prompt appears bottom left |
| Open doors and gates | V | Get close first |
| Sprint | Left Shift | Drains stamina quickly |
| Aim / look ahead | Hold Right Mouse | Useful for spotting branch bushes |
| Attack / gather / eat | Left Mouse | Context-sensitive |
| Equip / stow item | R | Uses main hand slot |
| Open map | M | Faction town icons show as shield with crossed swords |
| Build menu | B | Fire pit and other structures |
Scroll up to zoom the camera in, and hold the scroll wheel to rotate the camera — essential for navigating keeps that have extra structures attached.
Earning Your First Silver: The Bounty Board
Bounties are the primary early-game income method in Anvil Empires. The bounty board is located inside the town keep — walk up to it until you see "Press E to use bounty board" and open it. Each bounty lists a description, estimated difficulty, required items, and the reward.
You do not need to select or accept bounties. Simply show up at the board with the required items and click the coin stack icon behind the matching bounty to collect payment.
Bounties requiring multiple items pay a multiple of the singular reward. One wolf tooth pays 12 silver; three wolf teeth pay 36 silver.
First Bounty Walkthrough: The Boar Tusk
Craft a Flint Knife
Press Tab, hover the flint knife icon in the crafting menu — it costs 2 branches and 1 flint. Gather flint from small stone piles (left-click to gather) and branches from tall branch bushes. Beware: gathering with zero stamina yields nothing.
Equip the Knife
Once crafted, the knife appears in your main hand slot. Press R to equip it; press R again to stow it. Left mouse performs a slash attack.
Hunt a Boar
Approach the boar from the side or back without sprinting so you start with full stamina. Keep attacking until it keels over. The boar fights back, so expect to trade hits.
Harvest the Carcass
Stand over the dead boar and left-click repeatedly to cut it up. Holding the button drains stamina and makes harvesting less effective. Right-click the loot icons (boar meat, boar tusk) to transfer them to your inventory.
Claim the Reward
Return to the keep, press E at the bounty board, and click the coin stack behind the boar tusk bounty. Your purse gains 8 silver.
| Starter Bounty Item | Source | Reward |
|---|---|---|
| Wolf tooth | Hunt wolves | 12 silver each |
| Boar tusk | Hunt and harvest boars | 8 silver |
| Branch / flint bundles | World gathering | Small silver payouts |
Town Facilities: Storage, Workbench, Workshop, and Repair
Your avatar's inventory is limited, and death by wildlife can drop your belongings. The town keep offers several key facilities every new player should use.
Town Keep Storage
- Private storage: 5 silver rental, 31 slots
- Extend rental: +5 silver per extra day
- Expired items move to public storage
Workbench
- Craft armor and gear beyond inventory recipes
- Example: crude leg armor costs 1 flint + 2 fiber
- Fiber comes from berry bushes (also yields berries)
Workshop & Repair Bench
- Produce intermediate resources (wood planks, copper nails)
- 1 malachite fragment = 6 copper nails
- Repair bench fully restores an item for 1 copper nail
Tool Durability and Mining
Tools have a white durability bar next to them in your inventory. When the white runs out, the tool breaks and is destroyed. To mine malachite (green rock piles shown on the map and compass), craft a pickaxe from 3 branches and 2 flint, equip it, and left-click the node until it shatters. Press E over the dropped pile to collect the fragment.
A destroyed tool cannot be recovered. Check the durability bar regularly and use one copper nail at the repair bench for a full repair — far cheaper than recrafting.
| Facility | Location | Key Function | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bounty board | Inside keep | Turn in items for silver | Free |
| Private storage | Keep center | 31 safe slots | 5 silver/day |
| Workbench | Town | Craft armor and tools | Materials only |
| Workshop | Town | Intermediate resources | Materials only |
| Repair bench | Next to workbench | Full item repair | 1 copper nail |
Avatar Recruitment: Upgrading From Auxiliary
All auxiliary avatars have skill level 1 in everything. To progress, recruit named avatars at the recruitment table inside the keep, across from the bounty board. Press E to open the panel showing six recruitable avatars. Their highest skill ceiling is shown as an icon, and rank indicates starting skill levels.
| Avatar Type | Key Benefit |
|---|---|
| Fitness | Longer sprints, better chance to survive fatal blows |
| Melee | Better armor and melee weapons, higher melee damage |
| Ranged combat | Better ranged weapons, higher ranged damage |
| Blacksmith | Less work needed at anvils to produce items |
| Logging / Mining | Reduced stamina cost while gathering |
| Hunter | Easier movement around wildlife without being attacked |
Ranks follow the classic progression: Apprentice (all skills level 1), Journeyman (some higher starting levels), and Master (all skills start high). Exact levels and ceilings stay hidden until you pay the recruitment price shown under each icon.
Recruit at the Table
Ensure you carry enough silver, left-click the avatar at the recruitment table, and review their revealed skills. The avatar is stationed in the keep.
Store Your Items First
Deploying disbands your auxiliary avatar and drops everything in its inventory on the ground. Deposit valuables into private storage beforehand.
Deploy From the Keep
Press E at the keep center, find the stationed avatar panel, hover to check stats, and left-click to deploy into it.
Manage Starvation
Stationed named avatars slowly starve. Deploy as the avatar, load food into its inventory, and station it again — it will consume that food automatically while recovering health and stamina in the keep.
Clicking OK on the deploy confirmation instantly disbands your auxiliary and scatters its inventory on the ground for anyone to loot.
Food, Hunger, and Cooking
Your interface shows hunger, health, and stamina bars (top left). An empty hunger bar means starvation; a depleted health bar means death. Eating replenishes hunger and regenerates health over time, with different foods offering different satiation and regeneration values.
The key mechanic is food type rotation. After eating one food type (shown by a small icon under your stamina bar), you cannot eat that type again for a while — but other types remain available.
| Food | Source | Quality Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Raw berries | Berry bushes | Easiest to get, lowest benefit |
| Blood berry field bar | Cooked in fire pit | 3+ quality if removed promptly |
| Hog's leg | Cooked boar meat in fire pit | Strong hunger and health restore |
Cooking in a Fire Pit
Fire pits are built outside town borders using 3 branches via the build menu (press B, food category). Walk up to the blueprint, hold left mouse to construct it, press E to open its menu, then:
- Right-click ingredients from your inventory into the fire pit
- Left-click the recipe icon in the center to start cooking
- Right-click a fiber into the pit as fuel — it ignites and burns for about a minute
- Remove finished food promptly: leaving it over a live fire degrades its quality
A single fiber provides just enough fuel to cook an entire hog's leg. Since berries and boar meat are different food types, you can alternate between blood berry bars and hog's legs to keep your hunger bar topped up indefinitely.
Beginner Checklist and FAQ
Complete these milestones in your first session to build a strong foundation in Anvil Empires.
First Session Goals:
- Choose a faction matching your friends
- Complete the boar tusk bounty for first silver
- Craft a flint knife and pickaxe
- Rent private storage (31 slots)
- Craft crude armor at the workbench
- Recruit a named avatar and stock it with food
Anvil Empires is still in pre-alpha, and development moves quickly. Exact recipes, prices, and mechanics described here may change between builds.
Q: How do I start playing Anvil Empires?
Press play, choose one of three factions (you are locked in for the entire age), pick a spawn town, claim an auxiliary avatar, and follow the tutorial panel that appears on the right side of your screen inside the town keep.
Q: How do I earn silver early in Anvil Empires?
Use the bounty board inside the town keep. Gather or hunt the requested items — such as wolf teeth or boar tusks — return to the board, and click the coin stack icon behind the matching bounty to collect your reward. Multiple-item bounties pay a proportional multiple.
Q: Can I switch factions or towns?
You cannot switch factions until the current age ends, so coordinate with friends before choosing. Your spawn town, however, only determines where you start — you are free to travel anywhere in the world of Caligo.
Q: Why can't I eat another meal?
Anvil Empires uses a food type cooldown system. After eating one food type, indicated by an icon under your stamina bar, you must eat a different type — for example, switch from berry-based foods to boar meat.
Q: What happens when I deploy into a recruited avatar?
Your current auxiliary avatar is disbanded and removed from the world, and everything in its inventory drops to the ground. Always deposit your items into private storage in the keep before deploying.