Update:  Version 1.1 is now up on the Nexus (and pasted below).

Update:  This is now on the Nexus. http://fallenenchantress.nexusmods.com/mods/1876/?  http://www.nexusmods.com/fallenenchantress/mods/1876/?

So I'm creating a mod to add a lot of tips to the loading screen.  I've got a bunch already, but I'm very much open to suggestions on what to add.  These should be geared both towards new and advanced players alike, so I would like to see things that you were confused about when you first started playing, things you didn't discover until your 3rd or 4th game, or things you had to go asking about in the forums to learn about.  You do not have to write your suggestion out as it would be included in the mod, but you can instead say "You should include something about..."

Here is the contents of the mod, so you can both see what I've got so far, and also so you can use it before I upload the file to Nexus (I want to get a few more suggestions before putting it up there).  I would also like to offer this to Stardock to implement into the game, as most new players aren't going to go get this mod, but it would be very helpful to them.

If you see anything wrong, please let me know.

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<Topic>GameplayTips_General</Topic>

<!-- MAGIC -->
<Text>Your faction has a single mana pool which your sovereign and all of your champions tap to cast spells. Any mana gained will go into this one pool, and any mana spent will be drawn from it as well.</Text>
<Text>Essence allows enchantments to be placed on cities, and also allow certain improvements (such as the Cleric) to be built. Some benefits increase with the number of essences. You can put one enchantment on a city per Essence it has, but you cannot put two of the same enchantment on it.</Text>
<Text>City curses do not occupy an Essence slot, and can be thus be cast on cities full on enchantments, and also on cities that have no Essence.</Text>
<Text>You can remove enchantments from cities and units through the Enchantments tab on the Ledger. You can also remove enchantments from cities in the city detail window, by clicking the x on the enchantment's icon.</Text>
<Text>If you have too much mana maintenace and your mana per season is negative, you can go into negative mana. If this happens, all your enchantments will be cancelled.</Text>
<Text>When casting the Spell of Making, your sovereign will unable to move for 10 seasons. If your sovereign dies before finishing casting, the spell is canceled.</Text>
<Text>Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison, and Magic damage are not reduced by armor. Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Poison are reduced by their respective resistances.</Text>
<Text>Spell Resistance is your chance to resists spells, which either reduces the damage from the spell by half, or ignores the spell entirely. Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Poison Resistances reduce the damage taken from those sources (100 resistance renders you immune to that damage type).</Text>
<!-- originals -->
<Text>Mana is the expendable source of magic for your faction. All your Champions and your Sovereign spend mana to cast their spells.</Text>
<Text>When your Sovereign or Champions level up you can increase the spells they can cast by selecting traits in specific schools of magic.</Text>
<Text>The fog that hangs over the world hides many secrets - none more desired than the Elemental Shards. By encompassing a crystal within your territorial control, shrines can be built to reap the magic within, resulting in a damage multiplier to some spells and increased mana generation for your Faction.</Text>
<Text>Spells come in two major disciplines, each with their own benefits. Tactical spells, once mastered, can be used on the battlefield to boost your forces or destroy your foes. Strategic spells are designed to be cast on the main map, targeting settlements, armies, and even molding the landscape to your design. </Text>
<Text>Some spells have mana maintenance costs, meaning they will require additional mana every turn to keep active. It's important to be mindful of these turn-by-turn costs in order to keep your most important spells active.</Text>
<Text>Essence is the blue tile yield, it determines how many enchantments your city can have. You can see how many enchantment slots a city has free on the banner that floats over the city on the world map. If your city can support two enchantments and none are used there will be 2 empty slots over the city's name.</Text>
<Text>When you discover a technology you get a portion of that tech's research cost as 'Knowledge'. Warfare techs provide Warfare Knowledge, Civilization techs provide Civilization Knowledge and Magic techs provide Magic Knowledge. This Knowledge can be traded to and from other players and provides free research in the category it came from to the player who receives it.</Text>

<!-- SETTLEMENTS -->
<Text>When settling a tile, only the yields on that tile are used by your new city. The surrounding tile yields are disregarded.</Text>
<Text>In addition to the selected bonus, cities gain a bonus to production, research, and gildar every time they level up, based on the city type. They also gain additional resident defenders (except at level 4).</Text>
<Text>Population is used to produce Pioneers, which can make new cities and outposts, and also to level up cities. You can gain a bonus to Growth (up to +3) by keeping your food production much higher than your population needs.</Text>
<Text>Cities that are not producing anything have a zZZ icon next to their portrait in the Empire Tree.</Text>
<Text>The number of red dots next to a city's portrait icon indicates how many units are stationed in it.</Text>
<Text>When manually placing city improvements, select the improvement you want to build, then in the map view, click where you want the improvement to be built. New improvements must be built adjacent to existing improvements, and cannot be built on swamps. Improvement upgrades simply build in the same spot as the improvement that’s being upgraded.</Text>
<Text>Cities will not lose levels from a decrease in population.</Text>
<Text>Cities that do not have their zone of control connected to your capital city (the one your sovereign settled) suffer an Unrest penalty. Cities' zones of control can be connected by expanding their borders with improvements, and also by making outposts.</Text>
<Text>Every city you control increases Unrest in all your cities by 3.</Text>
<Text>Cities built next a forest can build a Logging Camp, which increases production. With advances in Warfare technology, the Logging Camp can be upgraded to provide even more production.</Text>
<Text>If a monster conquers a city, it will raze it.  After the city is razed, the tile yields around it will return, but that tile itself cannot be settled again.</Text>
<Text>"Materials" are the base multiplier for production. Each city has a certain amount of materials usually decided by the yields of the tile it's built on (but can also be increased by enchantments or clay pits). Production is increased by a base number multiplied by the number of materials.</Text>
<Text>"Grain" is the base multiplier for food. Each city has a certain amount of grain usually decided by the yields of the tile it's built on. Food is increased by a base number multiplied by amount of grain. Food is both a cap on population, and a modifier for Growth.</Text>
<Text>Outposts, unlike cities, can be built on any traversible terrain except beach. They do not produce anything, but they do give you a 2-3 square zone of control around them, allowing you access to distant resources. Outposts can also be upgraded, although the upgrades are actually built at the nearest city.</Text>
<!-- originals -->
<Text>Not only can your champions gain levels - so can your cities! Instead of experience, city levels are gained based on their population. There are five different levels, each with escalating benefits and unique buildings to construct.</Text>
<Text>Specialization is important. Resources are linked to a given settlement, so a civic-minded leader will maximize output with special improvements.</Text>
<Text>When your Sovereign or a Champion is within friendly territory, be sure to check the local shop to see what goods are available. A faction's shops will sell any equipment they have access to. Keep an eye out for special equipment that would normally not be available to your people.</Text>
<Text>While your Sovereign is able to found your first city, you will need to train Pioneers to found future settlements.</Text>
<Text>Keeping a champion stationed in a city lowers the city's Unrest by 5%. Sovereigns and Champions with the Administrator trait lower it even further.</Text>

<!-- UNITS -->
<Text>Use the Tab key to cycle through armies that have not used all their movement yet.</Text>
<Text>Your armies that can still move this season have a green box around their portrait in the Empire Tree (on the left).</Text>
<Text>You can see individual units from armies and cities by clicking the + on the portrait for it in the Empire Tree.</Text>
<Text>When designing a unit, the cost you see is for each person in the unit. Multiply that by the number of people in the unit for the total cost.</Text>
<Text>"Ruffians and Monsters" become stronger as time goes on, and can even add new units to their armies.</Text>
<Text>Lairs will regularly spawn new wandering ruffian and monster armies until they are conquered. Conquering a lair will get you a special item and 1 fame, but there is sometimes an advantage to leaving them be.</Text>
<Text>Your sovereign and champions can trade items with each other when they are next to each other or in the same army. The Trade button will be present when this option is available. All champions in a city must be selected in order for them to trade with each other.</Text>
<Text>You can sell unused items to a shop when you are in friendly territory.</Text>
<Text>Moving units through a city does not cost any movement points. If you choose to manually place city improvements, you can make your city into an expressway.</Text>
<Text>You can tell what equipment slot an item uses by mousing over it and looking at the tiny icon in the tooltip. Not all champions have the same equipment slots, but the standards are Head, Arms, Chest, Legs, Feet, Main Hand, Off-hand, Mount, and 4 Trinkets. Two-handed weapons say that they are two-handed, while one-handed weapons do not.</Text>
<Text>Your army size is limited to 5 units in the beginning, but can be expanded to 9 by researching various technologies in the Warfare and Civilization tech trees.</Text>
<Text>Regular units level up as well as champions. When a unit levels up, it gains a bonus to Accuracy, Spell Resistance, and Hit Points. Also, the amount of health regeneration a unit receives each season is equal to its level (double if stationed in a city). Some racial abilities improve with level (such as Spark).</Text>
<Text>When training new units, keep in mind that the more powerful the unit is, the higher its wages are.</Text>
<Text>Units have different Wages. A unit's Wages are deducted from your gildar at the beginning of each turn. If you do not have enough gildar, units may abandon you. Champions always cost 1 per turn, but other units have varrying wages. Specially acquired units often have 0 wages, making them more desirable.</Text>
<Text>Numbered traits stack. For instance, if your champion has both Leadership I (+5 Accuracy) and Leadership II (+10 Accuracy), you would have +15 Accuracy.</Text>
<Text>You can design custom units, which allows you to choose what equipment and traits your newly trained units will have. In the city Train menu, click Design to access this. New units you create will then be available to train.</Text>
<Text>Units set to Explore do not consider their surroundings when moving. They will walk right up to a powerful monster and get killed by it. Explore is basically a death sentence for your unit.</Text>
<Text>Having your Sovereign stationed in a city reduces its Unrest by 10. Having a Champion stationed in a city reduces its Unrest by 5.</Text>
<!-- originals -->
<Text>Keep your troop roster updated as new technologies are learned and new equipment unlocked. Better armor, weapons and accessories will keep your forces from becoming dragon-fodder on the battlefield.</Text>
<Text>You can specify your troop designs to automatically upgrade to the best weapon or armor available if you don't want to deal with making a new unit type every time you unlock equipment.</Text>
<Text>Feeling lost? Check out the Hiergamenon in the top right corner of the main game screen for tutorials, tips and breakdowns of everything in the game.</Text>
<Text>Find yourself using the same spells and abilities in battle? You can hotkey abilities in tactical combat for easy access on each of your units. To do so click the hotkey icon next to them in the spell or ability list and select any slot on your hotbar.</Text>
<Text>Splash damage hurts everyone around the victim, except the attacker. It will damage the attackers allies so choose your targets carefully.</Text>
<Text>If an enemy is vulnerable or resistant to your attack you will see that displayed in the bottom right hand corner when you mouse over them. Bringing a variety of attack types and using them against the appropriate enemies can be the difference between victory and defeat.</Text>
<Text>The maul ability allows the monster to continue attacking its victim until it misses. Be very careful around creatures that have it.</Text>
<Text>Dark Wizards may look helpless with their low attack and defense, but they aren't. Be sure to examine any special abilities a unit has before you attack.</Text>

<!-- COMBAT -->
<Text>Double-clicking on a unit in Tactical combat will bring up its detail view. Do not do this while units are moving.</Text>
<Text>Banshees are immune to physical and poison damage. Don't attack them unless you can deal fire, cold, lightning, or magic damage. They also cast Horrific Wail, which deals a lot of damage to all of your units, but can be countered.</Text>
<Text>Wildling Shamans, Banshees, and Dark Wizards all have spells that deal a lot of damage to all of your units. Be especially careful when confronting them.</Text>
<Text>Most tactical (combat) abilities that do not have a mana cost have a 5-turn cooldown. This means that once you use it, you will not be able to use it again for 5 turns.</Text>
<Text>The chance to hit with attacks or spells caps at 97%, and bottoms out at 3%. This means that there is always at least a 3% chance that you will miss, and at least a 3% chance that you will hit, no matter what your accuracy or spell mastery are.</Text>
<Text>If you have multiple champions in the same army, combat experience will be divided evenly among them. Any non-champion, non-soverign units in your army will get the same amount of experience regardless. Altarian Henchmen, however, are treated like regular units in this regard.</Text>
<Text>"Swarm" does not actually cause your surrounding units to attack your target, but rather to distract it, lowering its defense, so your attacking unit can deal more damage. Swarm also provides an accuracy bonus, so a surrounded unit is easier to hit.</Text>
<Text>The likelihood of "ruffians and monsters" to attack your armies adjacent is proportional to how much more powerful they are than your army. Weaker armies will usually be attacked by stronger monsters, so try to avoid them.</Text>
<Text>Defense reduces the damage units take from physical attacks, however defense has diminishing returns. The more defense a unit has, the less benefit it will gain from additional points in defense.</Text>
<Text>When a unit has been knocked prone, attacks against that unit have a 100% chance to hit, regardless of the unit's stats.</Text>
<Text>Activated melee abilities are immune to counterattacks, and will not hit the wrong target due to Clumsy or Beguile.</Text>
<Text>The spear's Impale ability can be used to strike a unit 2 tiles away even if there is not an enemy adjacent to your unit. Target the tile between your unit and the target after activating the ability, even if one of your units is in that tile (the attack will not damage your unit).</Text>
<Text>If you find that you are unable to command your units in tactical combat, enable autoplay in the upper-right corner. Once your active unit moves, disable autoplay using the same button. Normal combat will resume.</Text>
<Text>Mounted and Large units cannot be knocked prone. This makes them immune to abilities like Bash.</Text>
<Text>Cleave is a melee ability that can be used by ax-wielders. It hits your target, and any other enemy units that are adjacent to both you and your target. It will hit up to 3 units in a line, or in a corner.</Text>
<Text>When using an Area of Effect (AoE) attack or spell, each unit that would be affected has an individual chance to dodge, resist, and/or receive a critical hit.</Text>
<Text>Melee enemies will almost always attack units that are adjacent to them over potentially better targets that are further away. Ranged enemies will usually pick the weakest target, regardless of what's next to them. Ranged enemies tend to prioritize ranged targets over melee targets.</Text>
<Text>Abilities that immobilize a unit (such as Web) also reduce its Dodge to 0. Attacks against that unit still have a chance to miss, but Dodge is no longer a factor in it.</Text>
<Text>In combat, if a unit does not take an action other than moving, it is considered to be "defending" and gains a bonus to defense. The default bonus is 5, but shields and other things can improve the amount of defense gained when defending.</Text>
<Text>Spell Resistance only helps against spells and magic abilities. It does not help against magical attacks, such as from a Fire Staff or Lightning Pike.</Text>
<Text>In combat, units with a higher Initiative will take their turns before units with a lower initiative, and will also get more turns over the course of the battle. For instance, a unit with 20 Initiative will get twice as many turns as a unit with 10 Initiative.</Text>

<!-- RESOURCES -->
<Text>Your Tax Rate determines how much gildar you collect from your cities. Improvements such as the Merchant will not yield any gildar if your tax rate is set to None.</Text>
<Text>When your borders expand to Life or Death shards, they convert to Death shards if your faction is Empire, and they convert to Life shards if your faction is Kingdom.</Text>
<Text>Fame allows you to recruit new champions. When you have enough Fame, two champions will present themselves to you, and you can select one of them. Fame can be gained from completing quests, conquering lairs, and building certain improvements.</Text>
<Text>Crystal allows you to equip your units with more powerful equipment, but can be exhausted quickly. It is often best to make units that use more metal (aka iron) than crystal if you intend to make many units.</Text>
<Text>Metal (aka Iron) and Crystal are both resources (not to be confused with Materials) that can be used in providing equipment for trained units. Crystal is typically used for magic equipment, while Metal is used for non-magic equipment. Crystal is also needed to make some buildings, and is generally more valuable.</Text>
<Text>Horses and Wargs are both mount types. You need them as a resource (from stables and kennels) in order to train mounted units, however you do not need them as a resource in order to purchase mounts for heroes. They can also be traded to other factions for gildar, knowledge, or other resources.</Text>
<!-- originals -->
<Text>Be careful when raising your tax rate, as it increases the Unrest in your cities. Unrest reduces the amount of production and research your cities generate.</Text>
<Text>Be mindful of where you build your cities. The amount of Grain available to a city impacts how much food that city can produce, and therefore how large it can grow. Likewise Materials impact a city's production, making cities with a lot of Materials great for building expensive improvements or advanced troops, which will take longer in cities with fewer Materials.</Text>
<Text>Resources gathered outside city walls become prime targets to your enemies and wandering creatures. Guard them with soldiers to keep them from being destroyed and losing the resources they provide.</Text>
<Text>Make sure to build improvements on the wild resources near your cities to reap their benefits.</Text>
<Text>Building a shard shrine on a shard you control will increase the power of some of your spells in addition to providing you with mana every turn.</Text>

<!-- DIPLOMACY -->
<Text>Trade treaties increase gildar gains for both factions by 10%. Economic treaties create a road between both factions' capital cities, and send caravans between them, which increase the capital cities' gildar production by 10%.</Text>
<Text>In the Faction Power area (upper-right), you can click on any faction to open up the diplomacy window for them.</Text>
<Text>Enemy armies do not benefit from roads within your zone of control. Likewise, you do not benefit from roads in enemy territory (including wildlands).</Text>
<Text>Offering tribute to another player will help improve your standing with them, making them less likely to declare war on you. This still works if your income is 0 or less, and you aren't actually giving them any money.</Text>
<Text>Having an active treaty with another player will improve your standing with them, making them less likely to declare war on you.</Text>

<!-- MISCELANEOUS -->
<Text>Clicking on an event in the Event List on the right will take you to that event's location, and will also remove it from the Event List.</Text>
<Text>To delete a custom-made sovereign, right-click it in the character selection screen. This will not delete any custom factions.</Text>
<Text>Empire and Kingdom factions have more differences between them than just Life and Death magic. They also have some different improvements and technologies, recruit different champions, and the mages have two different summoning traits.</Text>
<Text>The Character Outlines option draws a thin black line around the edge of characters, which uses more processing power, but also make units stand out more in the Strategic view.</Text>
<Text>When creating a new custom sovereign, you can also create a new custom faction. In the Create Sovereign window, click New next to the faction selection. Do this before customizing your sovereign, as your customization will be reset upon saving your faction.</Text>
<Text>When creating a new custom sovereign, you can also choose its starting equipment from a select list of items. To access this, go to Appearance > Equipment. Some equipment choices are more powerful and cost 1 point to select.</Text>
<Text>Roads are built automatically between cities and outposts after researching Trading and Economics. Roads can also be built by Commanders, and by Mancer units with the Road Building trait.</Text>
<Text>Some quests let you look at what you would go up against and then come back later. Some do not. Be careful.</Text>
<Text>A quest received from a camp or inn may be labeled a low difficulty level, but that does not mean that the enemy you face will be just as low of difficulty. Often, the enemies you will face are one level higher.</Text>
<Text>Some improvements have the same name as others, such as Monuments and Stables. Even though they have the same name, they do different things. For instance, Stables built on Wild Horses gets you a horse every other season. Stables built at an outpost increase your movement speed around that outpost.</Text>
<Text>The Event Log is a list of things that happen between turns on the right of your screen. If you click on an item, it will take you to that event and clear the entry from the log, allowing you to deal with everything that happened. Entries for enemies in your territory will only clear if all the enemies are removed.</Text>
<Text>At the top of the Event Log, you will have an entry for enemies in your territory if there are any. Each time you click on it, it will take you to the next enemy in your territory. This is the best way to find out who's in your territory.</Text>
<Text>Clicking on the minimap will take you to the location on the map that you clicked on. This will not work, however, if there are too many items in your Event Log, as the Event Log will then overlap the control area of the minimap.</Text>
<Text>If using the Binding faction trait, building shard shrines will give you units with no wages. If they die, a new one will spawn at the shrine a few turns later. If you upgrade the shrine, you will get a more powerful version.</Text>

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