My current empire, early on in an attempt at a quest win, in both rendered and cloth map formats:

 

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Reduced 91%Original 600 x 480

My current empire, early on in an attempt at a quest win, in both rendered and cloth map formats:

 

Reduced 91%Original 600 x 480

Reduced 91%Original 600 x 480

Funny screenshot. I call it "my spider farm":

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Quoting MxM111, reply 11Funny screenshot. I call it "my spider farm":

Awesome shot, lol!

 


Quoting MxM111, reply 10
Did you report your first screenshot as problem with the border bug?
Not only is my first screenshot an example of the border bug, it's an example of how alt-tabbing out and back (to start Fraps, in my case) can remove the city overlays!

 



Quoting katalist, reply 8
What do you like to research first and what do you like building first in a new city?

That depends entirely on situation and strategy, which is something that I really like about Elemental (even though there aren't that many different strategies that function correctly yet).  In the screenshotted game I think that I researched into the combat tree for fast equipment (imperial shortsword, since I wanted a shield for defense), then went heavily into the domination techs to maximize my access to quests and goodie huts (I was using an Adventurer+Tracker combat sovereign for maximum loot collection).

Building priority is always dependent on my resource situation, but usually a Moneychanger is a high priority early-game building (though a Labor Pit is critical for the starting city).  I actually didn't build a farm for quite a long time in the screenshotted game, since population growth was almost irrelevant to my strategy (though I did ultimately get most of my cities to level 3 for their respective specialist buildings).

I finished that game in a questing win on turn 188.  Here's a shot from my last save, just before finishing the forge quest; city overlays are visible, showing their production specializations, and my sov's ending stats (no ring/amulet abuse) are also visible in the interface bar at the bottom:

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If you look carefully in the upper left, you can even see where I terraformed up a landbridge to get to the forge around Tarth's territory (marginally easier than conquering them).

Here is "Doggy" giving me some information about Adventurers deeds. I thought it was pretty hilarious. What a nice pet!

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I doubt you'll find him doing this in your game as he is from testing my "Abilities and Traits Mod" which adds a dog companion acquired by a trait.