Crownhold First Hour Checklist

Use this checklist on a fresh Crownhold save or after a prestige that dumped you back to a two-flag keep. It is the Getting Started guide as boxes, with pointers into How to Play when a line needs a paragraph. Keep the prestige planner closed until a monument exists.

Opening gold

• Click the keep until the first click-power upgrade is affordable.
• Buy click-power ranks until they are expensive relative to idle or until they max.
• Expand at 150 gold. Do not hoard 149.
• Confirm the fog actually receded and the keep gained a visual tier.

Idle engine

• Raise population in small batches.
• Assign peasants; wait until idle gold beats a single click.
• Buy Royal Coin Collector ranks that pay back in seconds, not minutes.
• Expand again when the banner is cheap relative to idle.

Knowledge and stone

• Staff the monastery (~10 scribes as a first block).
• Buy Crop Rotation until fields jump.
• Staff laborers; buy Reinforced Tools.
• Unlock gold mines when stone allows.
• Skip extra villages if the next banner or court wants the stone.

Mid-hour systems

• Build or ignore the royal court based on stone (see walkthrough).
• Put a scholar in the university slot (gold research default).
• Unlock wood harvesting; confirm laborers now tick wood.
• Rank Improved Forestry before panicking at the harbor.

Safety

• Do not confirm “end run” unless you intend to prestige.
• If the book opened by accident: Escape, Resume, or title Continue (controls).
• If tooltips stack: same Escape trick.
• Steam Cloud is on; still save anytime if you about to experiment.

Optional harbor peek

• Buy a few expedition ships, then trade ships.
• Reveal one country and complete its first deal.
• Stop if wood is zero — go back to the guild, not the map.

When every box above is ticked, you have completed a honest first hour. Next destinations: trade and exploration or how to prestige. If the checklist felt too easy, that is the genre. If it felt opaque, read buildings for panel names. Launch notes if you are still wondering whether the game is out (it is, 17 August 2026).

If you fall behind the clock

Ignore the “hour” if wood harvesting is still locked. The checklist is a sequence, not a speedrun. A slow forestry unlock is still a successful first session if you did not accidentally prestige. Conversely, hitting the harbor at minute twenty with zero crop rotation is a failed sequence even if the clock looks heroic.

Park this page beside controls when panels misbehave. A stuck tooltip can make you think a box cannot be ticked. Escape, then tick. If you take a break, Steam Cloud should hold the save; still hit the in-game save if you are about to close a laptop lid on a long idle.

Print or copy only the Opening gold and Idle engine blocks for a friend who just bought the game. The harbor peek is optional on purpose so new rulers do not drown. When they ask what to buy with prestige, hand them the prestige planner instead of this list.