Some seeds of the game are better than others. In this guide I will explain what to look for at the beginning of each game run and how to chose your best starting wizards.

At the beginning of the game you can chose 2 starting wizards (up to 3 in easy mode). They can specialize in one school of magic (level 3) and have two supporting schools (level 2 each). Each school accelerates certain actions of the wizard. This choice is very important as it will affect how efficiently you develop the school, especially in its early stages.

1. Faction of the Wizard
There are 3 factions to select your faction wizards from (cult and shattered cannot be chosen as starting wizards).

• Humans - Largest mana reserve
  
• Wolfkin - Easily finds food, can sleep anywhere
  
• Vivified - Boosted Health Points

• Food acquisition is easy and early game penalties for eating uncooked food are negligible. Building sleeping cots is the first thing you do att he begining of the game. Both of those make Wolfkin a poor starting wizard choice.
  
• Boosted HP makes Vivified great first-row, combat wizards.
  
• Humans big mana pool allowes them to make trips to mana shard less frequently what allows them to do more work with less time consuming breaks for mana recharging, It can also be useful in combat.

Altogether Human wizards are the best choice for starting wizards as there is not enough combat at the beginning of the game to justify choosing a Vivified wizard.

2. Magic Schools and their usefulness at the beginning of the game

Leveling in each school allows completing certain actions faster, since some of them are more frequently required at the beginning of the game. Additionally, some activities can be only compled mid/late game making them completely useless at the start.

Fire - Cooking, Hunting, Destruction
Water - Alchemy*, Cleaning
Darkness - Quilting*, Warding*, Cover*
Nature - Harvest, Tend, Chop, Wands
Earth - Construct, Crave*, Mine, Repair
Light - Charge*, Research
Air - Assemble, Paint*, Haul

*-activities not available at the start of the game

Most useful starting schools ranked:
1. Nature
Wood and berries are the fundamental resources in the game. Farming is a main source of ingredients and production of wands is crucial for the recruitment of new wizards throughout the game. Easily the most usefull school in the game.
2. Earth
Mining is a time-consuming source of rock an iron. Construction is fundamental throughout the game and repair skill can be a game-saving skill in cases of attacks on school. Easily one of the most rounded and useful skills.
3. Fire
Fast cooking is important in ensuring high levels of constitution among the wizards very soon in the game. Hunting allows aquisition of key resources and helps in school defenses from pests. Destruction isnt the most important skill as it is not performed that frequently.
4. Light
Light school accelerates time-consuming research. It becomes very handy early on.
5. Air
Air accelerates hauling and accelerates assembly of the furniture. Allowing hauling of big amounts of resources can reduce time wasted on journeys but becomes less important later in the game.
6. Water
Water speeds up cleaning and healing. It becomes more important the more you fight in the underschool.
7. Darkness
Darkness improves quilting - the skill of production of automated helpers later in the game. Absolutely useless early in the game. Important skill later on.

3. Recommended Choice:

2 wizards:
1. specializing in Nature (lvl3), secondary skills: Fire/Water (lvl2) - main activity tending plants and collecting wood, later also cooking
2. specializing in Earth (lvl3), secondary skills: Light/Air (lvl2) - main activity research and collecting rock/constructing school/assembly of furniture.



3 wizards:
1. specializing in Nature (lvl3), secondary skills: Fire/Water (lvl2) - main activity tending plants and collecting wood, assempy of furniture, later also cooking
2. specializing in Earth (lvl3), secondary skills: Nature/Air (lvl2) - main collecting rock/constructing school/assembly of furniture, supports tending plants
3. specializing in Light (lvl3), secondary skills: Water/Air (lvl2) - main activity research and hauling/cleaning.


Example starting party.

For reasons only known to the creators of the game, to reach the starting settings desired by the players it takes using the re-rolling mechanism (fortunately the variations are not particularly unique and the results can be achieved in only few minutes of clicking).

NOTE:
Fire lvl3. skill will be quickly required for cooking slob. It is advisable generate fire wands first and have fire school wizard hired as soon as possible.

Different features like hills and valleys can be found on each side of the school. In some locations they occur closer, in other further away from the entrance to the underschool. In general, the further they are, the easier it is to plan and manage the construction of the school. If the hill/valley are not immediately visible when the fog disperses after first ritual, it means that the location is preferable - hills/valleys are furthest possible.


Good starting location - no hills/valleys on each side of the school.

After the selection of the wizards in order to take advantage of their skill sets it is important to set their priorities right. Ensure the skills they specialize in (darker squares) have higher priority and the others are disabled.


Example priority setting.