TFM: The First Men Beginner’s Guide: Basics and Features

by Lordtoto01 / Game Guides, General Guides / 23 Feb 2022

Become a god and lead humanity through a vast world filled with dangers and obstacles. Create your own Adam and Eve; inject ideas into their minds and watch as they unravel a new world. One that offers character-driven gameplay, party-based exploration, and real-time combat with tactical pauses.

The vast, uncharted world contains a wealth of lore based on Abrahamic faiths. Discover new territories, build settlements, and reshape the ancient terrain to your liking (thanks to TFM’s infinite replayability). The beginner’s guide will assist you in taking your first steps into this complex new world and building an empire unlike any other.

Goals and Objectives – Understanding the Basics of TFM: The First Men

Goals are based on different regions, and in Demoria, your objective is to kill one of Svetlana’s shardkeepers before year 40.

The characters act entirely on their own, and you cannot control them directly. You can inspire them to do certain activities and influence their civilization to progress in a specific direction.

The game starts with a primary settlement (Yardrem’s Experiment), where you control five characters (experiments).

You can track the progress of your experiments and manage your settlement using the five operation panels on the upper left side. Each panel has two parts, the Operation Panel, and the Entity Point.

Operational Panels – Each panel shows different information. They are Character, Possessions, Relations, Traditions, and Bragging Rights.

Resources & Entity Points – Experiments automatically collect points from activities. There are 5 entity points in TFM; Prosperity, Industry, Influence, Unity, and Amenity.

Note: Scroll down for more info on Panels and Resources.

Introduction to Characters and how stats work

Settlers gain XP by performing tasks such as collecting rocks and food, picking up sticks, and so on in order to level up.

They also accumulate path points from traits and activities. Once they level up, you can spend 100 points to inspire them to take on a life path.

There are two types of paths to choose from:

Wild Paths – Generates random paths based on your settlement’s assets and character traits. These change every time you spend Path Points.

Color Paths – Specific paths tailored to selected character traits. They do not change when you spend points, but more gets added as you inspire a character along a certain path.

The path you choose should be determined by the stats visible in each of the characters’ panels. You should choose paths that correspond to each settler’s highest stat points.

There are five in-game stats: Age, Body, Mind, Heart, Soul, and Self.

If a character has a strong Heart, you’d want him to be a fighter/warrior/hunter or someone specializing in combat.

Characters with high Body are supposed to be farmers who can work the land, gather resources, and plant trees much faster compared to regular settlers.

High Mind characters are destined to become crafters and builders who can construct different structures.

High Soul characters are ideal for becoming priests and religious leaders.

Characters with a High Self stat have combat modifiers, so you’ll want to boost it in settlers with a high Heart.

For instance, if you pick the Melee Training Dummy path, the settler will be inspired to invent a training dummy that will help him train and become stronger.

When the energy bar for a stat reaches zero, the character receives a fatal trait and loses one stat point, and the energy bar is reset to 100.

Fatals are represented on stat blocks by blood markers, and a character dies when that stat reaches zero.

Stat-specific traits are listed to the right of the stat icons.

Each stat affects two different modifiers:

Body – Stride (modifies movement speed, below 100% means immobilized) and Resistance (modifies incoming damage)

Mind – Wit (modifies skill cast speed, above 100% means instant skill cast) and Perception (modifies sight radius and combat engagement radius).

Heart – Haste (modifies action speed, above 100% means instant action) and Power (modifies outgoing damage).

Soul – Moira (Modifies trigger chance of all traits) and Insight (modifies durations of traits applied by friendly sources, higher means longer).

Self – Rigor (modifies the chance of interrupting an enemy’s action; interruptions occur after a skill is cast on the enemy to reset their action timer) and Fortitude (modifies the durations of traits applied by hostile sources, higher means shorter duration).

A brief intro on operational panels

Character Panel – Lists all the characters of your settlement with detailed information on their total path points and stats.

Possessions – Consists of ready-to-build doodads and constructions. You can place some items (buildings, trees) on the map and give others (slingshot, clubs) to the settlers.

Relations – Displays a list of all known entities in the region, along with your relationship to them.

Traditions – List of traditions that help you progress your civilization. You have to unlock them with Unity points.

Bragging Rights – Bragging rights are special perks granted to all settlers of the same genetics (Shadowborn, Waterborn, Earthborn, Lightborn, Fireborn). Some perks like Mastery apply to all humans.

How resources work and how to collect them

Prosperity – Represents the settlement’s basic needs for food, shelter, and other necessities. You earn it by completing Body related activities such as planting trees and gathering seeds. You can also spend 100 Prosperity points to make a female settler pregnant.

Industry – It is the sole resource required to craft buildings or items and is necessary to execute any crafting attempt, whether it is a ball of clay, a lump of iron, or the legs of a dead Ent. Industry is usually collected by processing items through buildings or by discovering raw resources in the world.

Influence – It displays your position on the map as well as your relationships with other entities. Influence is usually gained when a character or a party performs courageous deeds.

Unity determines a settlement’s fate and progress. By spending unity points earned from Shrine and Lorekeeping activities, you can unlock new Traditions.

Whenever settlers collect enough points, you can choose one of the many traditions from the Tradition tree. Choose a tradition and click on the stone to unlock it.

Amenity – When developing a plan, keep your characters’ happiness in mind at all times, and make a list of everything that will assist you in accomplishing this. You can earn Amenity by participating in Bonfire activities, and you can use it to unlock Bragging Rights.

Learn to fend off threats in your settlement

You can gain or lose reputation with other entities you have met. Hostile characters attack you on sight and are shown with red outlines, while Neutral characters are yellow and Friendly characters are green; they don’t attack you.

You can move towards a hostile character and attack by right-clicking on them.

You can attack a neutral character by right-clicking and pressing the Ctrl key at the same time.

Characters use different skills in combat. They engage their targets with auto-attack skills, which is the first skill in the character panel. If you want the character to use another skill, simply select it with the left mouse button.

When a character enters combat, the Action bar on top of their head begins to fill up. When the bar is full, they perform a skill, after which the bar is exhausted and starts to fill up again.

When a character’s endurance reaches zero, they gain an Unconscious trait, which makes them prone, and disables all senses and abilities. You have to win the fight to save an unconscious character.

Parting thoughts

TFM is unlike any game you’ve played before, and although it has a high learning curve, it shows a lot of potential. The game is still in its early stage of development, so a lot of the info might change in the future. Hopefully, you’ve found this guide helpful, and let us know if you’ll are interested in more guides (updated) in the comments below.

Lordtoto01

I’ve loved games ever since I was a child. I like playing them and sharing my feelings with other like-minded individuals. I started off writing as a hobby, and a few years later, my love for games is still as lively as ever and I intend to spread it throughout the gaming community.
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