Beginners' Starter Guide to Grepolis

This is a beginner's guide for players who start out in any of the worlds of Grepolis. It gives you the first ideas of what you can and should do and how to do it. It will help you getting your first steps behind you easily and helps you understand what the adviser quests are trying to teach you. To get your head around all of this, Grepolis gives you several days of beginner's protection.

With many thanks to Grepolis player MothersShroom who collected the data and wrote the original post.

Build your city

It is important to make sure that your city is safe before doing anything else. Make sure you have a combination of swordsmen, archers and hoplites. They should make up at least 200 units combined. Try to build your wall to at least level 20 and add a tower. If you have all these things your city has become defensive against those that attack new players on principle. You also need to work on your warehouse and harbor.

Attacking

Never ever send an attack with swordsmen or archers. Always attack with Attacking Land Units (ALU) / Offensive Land Units (OLU) [both are used by Grepolis players to mean the same thing]. These units include slingers, hoplites and horsemen. If you are attacking a city on another island, you need transport ships to get them there. You must escort them with Light Ships (LS) or risk losing all.

When you're attacking another city always attack with ALU/OLU and light  ships, if your attack includes a Colony Ship (CS) or a LS nuke try protecting the attack with a spell (any positive spell will do; it stops the enemy from casting one of his spells). Spells can be cast from any temple and any god.

Supporting 

When supporting cities, always send Defensive Land Units (DLU). These include swordsmen, archers, hoplites, and chariots for land defense, and biremes and triremes for sea support. When sending support, the more you send the better are the chances to hold that city.  Remember to leave at least 100 swordsmen and 100 archers at home to defend your own city.

Culture Points and City Slots

Culture points (cp) are needed to open up city slots. Slots enable you to get more cities. The overview of how many cp and slots you have at your disposition can be found in the Agora. (You can find any building in the city overview by hovering your mouse over them; to open, click.) The blue bar at the top of the Agora window shows how many culture points you have and how many you need to gain the next city slot in white script on blue. The amount of city slots you have are displayed in the top right hand corner of this page. For example, if it says 1/4 this would mean you currently own one city out of a possible four and therefore are able to colonize or conquer a further three cities.

There are four main ways to collect culture points:

1. You can attack others, the bandit camp, and island quests. This will give you Battle Points (BP). You can trade 300 BP for a victory parade. The button can be found in the Agora menu inside of your city. This is the main way to accumulate culture points. You can also acquire BP by being attacked in one of your cities or when supporting other cities in defense. If supported cities are attacked and your support is assisting you will receive BP, too. All of the above depends on enemy units being killed in the process.
2. Performing Theater Plays. This requires a theater and an academy at level 30 together in the same city. The theater play has to be paid for in resources and will last for a long time. I don't recommend this, as the theater takes up the building space you need for the tower.
3. Organizing Olympic Games. This requires gold and an academy at level 30 and lasts for even longer than the theater play.
4. Organizing City Festivals. This requires resources and an academy at level 30 and lasts for several hours. (As to 2 and 3; long is not a positive description.)

Getting More Cities

There are two methods on how to gain a new city. You can either found one by colonization or you can conquer one.

Colonizing

The easiest and safest way to gain another city is to colonize. This requires a colony ship and some defensive units plus transports to defend your new city until the city can defend itself. Once your ships and troops are ready, choose a free anchor point on an island and select colonize (at the very start of a world, these anchor points are only available on islands without farming villages; I strongly recommend not to build one of your first cities on a rocky island). Once your ship has landed, you will have to wait 24 hours for colonization to be complete. The new city has adequate buildings and shows 940 points, much better than your first city, but no winner.

If two players choose the same anchor point to go to, the one who sends his CS first will get it. The one that comes after gets a screen message on a red bar telling him that this anchor point has already been taken and that he can't send his CS there. There is no chance of sending out a CS to colonize and then either lose it or have it sent back when you colonize. You need no research of conquest to colonize.

Conquest of a city

This can seem a little complicated at first but it really isn't. Remember, you must have a Colony Ship (CS) and conquest researched in the Academy plus a free city slot (check in the Agora). It is advisable to have your CS built and ready to go when you start out on your adventure.

• First, choose which city you wish to conquer, judge whether it is possible for you or not - is the current owner in an alliance etc.
• Send a spy to see what there is in units defending the city. After the espionage is done and you know how many land and sea units there are, you need to empty it by sending a variety of attacks until the city is clear.

• Revolt worlds only: The last attack you send needs to be a revolt attack - in the window from which you send an attack, be sure to click the blue revolt icon at the foot of the box that looks like a face. I recommend that you send every attack as a revolt attack to make sure you don't forget.
• Revolt worlds only: When a revolt attack is able to kill all land units, the blue revolt starts in the attacked city. This will last for 12 hours. You will see the blue revolt icon when you go to the arrow icon at the top of your main screen to the left. It will tell you how long you have to wait for red revolt to start and by hovering with your mouse, what time that is.
• Revolt worlds only: Once the 12 hours period of the blue revolt has ended, the city will enter into red revolt that will last for a further 12 hours. It is during this 12 hour window you need to land your CS to land. The CS has to be accompanied with supporting troops and Light Ships to land. Again, all land and sea units in the city must be killed for the conquest to be successful.
• Revolt worlds only: CS is the slowest of all ships and therefore can take a long time to travel to its destination. Make sure you send it in plenty of time even if you have to send it earlier than the red revolt has started or blue revolt has even been stirred up.
• Revolt worlds only: Send a few attacks while your colony ship is travelling in case the city you want to conquer has recruited new troops or ships. You have to try and keep the city clear of units.
• Revolt worlds only: Timing your attacks is very important and crucial for a successful conquest. Make sure you have worked their timing out properly; try and get you colony ship to land at the beginning of the red revolt so avoid anyone else stealing it from you; land clearing attacks as closely as you can before the CS landing time.
• Revolt worlds only: Once your CS has landed and at least 1 of your land units has survived any leftover enemy units in the city, it is yours.

• Conquest worlds and Hyperborea: Once the city is cleared of all land and sea units, you can send in and land the CS (or it can be the last of a waves of attacks all timed to arrive closely together).
• Conquest worlds and Hyperborea: Once the CS has landed, a timer is started. The time on this timer differs from world to world. While time ticks, attacks can lift the siege. It is therefore important to bring in as much support as possible to keep the enemy from reclaiming the city.
• Conquest worlds and Hyperborea: Once the timer has run out and you still have at least one unit plus the CS alive, the city is yours.

• Ghost cities in all worlds: Ghosts in all worlds work as if they were in a conquest world (see above).

There is one thing to be wary of. When you plan your attacks from your own cities, you can mix and match. If one of your attacks arrive after your CS has safely landed, the units will have a quick beer and then return home. There is no damage to your units stationed in the city and none to the attacking ones. But if a fellow player in your alliance makes the same mistake, his attack will do all the damage an attack does.

Alliance Forum Activity

Keeping up with alliance forum activity is very important. It is your link to how and what the other members of your alliance are doing. It enables you to see if someone is being attacked or needs help to revolt or conquer. If you yourself are being attacked or want to revolt or conquer, then you can alert other members of the alliance to aid you by posting it in the forum.

Publishing Reports

If you wish to show your own attacks to other members in your alliance, or if you wish to show attacks on your city then you can post battle reports in the alliance forum or you can send them by personal message. Here is how you do it:

1. Go to your report inbox by clicking on Report in the menu on the left hand side of your main screen
2. select the report you want to post
3. click "publication" in the lower right hand corner
4. click publish
5. open the correct alliance forum tab or message
6. click on the icon looking like a scroll just over your message or post writing box
7. paste the report into the box (Ctrl+V)
8. click send

More reading for beginners:
Building your first city
Farming villages in Hyperborea