Basic Citizenship Guide
Feel free to format this for ease of use.
Written by: Meng
For those who are new to A Tale in The Desert, you should take the time to read through this as it will clear up alot of questions you will have. First off I would like to explain the basics, ATiTD is a game based on the economy and development of Egypt. To put it blatantly, there is no violence whatsoever... I will repeat, NO VIOLENCE, just because we give you a knife... doesnt mean you are going to kill somebody. Now that thats out of the way, I would like to say Welcome to the ATiTD Beta!
Basic Movement:
Your basic movement within the game is quite simple, Left click to move, Right click to stop. The mouse wheel can be used to zoom the camera in or out. To move the camera, move the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen.
Controls
To interact with an object of person simply right or left click them to gain access to the interaction menus, you can also click yourself to gain access to your own menu options. To gather some resources, like slate, mud, or sand, click on the associated icons in the upper right corner of the screen. There are other resources, e.g. wood, that are gathered by clicking on the objects that contain them, e.g. trees.
F Keys:
The F keys can be used to shortcut certain actions within the game.
F3: Toggles the map.
F4: Toggles compass.
F5: Toggles General Purpose Cam.
F6: Toggles Explorer Cam.
F7: Toggles Builders Cam.
F8: Toggles Dueling Cam.
F9: Highlights the previous chat box.
F10: Highlights the next chat box.
F11: Toggles friends list.(press twice to only view online friends)
Helpful things to know(type in chat window):
/clockloc -Displays Time and Coordinates on screen
/ts -Displays Timestamp in chat
/time -Displays time(in game hours) in Main chat window
/chat *playername* -Starts a private chat with player
/tell *playername* *message* -whispers a message to player in the Main window
SPOILER WARNING
Depending who you are, you might not want to know the stuff below. However, if you are going to ask for it anyway, you might as well read on - Cappu
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Gather Info:
Before I get into the Citizenship Test I would like to go over some basic gather info.
Slate: Along the waters edge.
Mud: Along the waters edge.
Sand: Along the waters edge and from desert areas.
Wood: Gather from trees.
Grass: Gather from grassy areas.
Straw: Made by drying grass or processing flax in a flax comb(1 per flax).
Tow: Made from processing flax in a flax comb(1 per flax).
Lint: Made from processing flax in a flax comb(1 per flax).
Twine: Made from processing tow in a small distaff(3 per tow).
Thread: Made from processing lint in a small distaff(15 per lint).
Rope: Made from processing twine in a small distaff(5 twine).
Canvas: Made from processing twine in a students loom(60 twine).
Linen: Made from processing thread in a students loom(400 thread).
Flax Seeds: Recieved from SArt or Grown from "wild" flax beds.
Flax: Grown from flax seeds.
Rotten Flax: Made by "rotting" flax in the water.
Guide to passing Citizenship:
Start by opening the map and with the F3 key, familiarize yourself with the map. Now open the "Welcome to Egypt" tab in the lower left hand corner of ther screen.
Carpentry
The first thing to do on this list is "Gather Slate near a shoreline" to do this walk along the edge of a body of water till an orange icon with a chisel pops up in the top right hand corner of the window. Click the orange icon to "Gather Slate". Next thing on the list is "Learn Stone Blade Fabrication" this will require you to gather 7 slate and bring it to any SArch(check the map with F3), click the school and select "Learn..." from the menu, now select "Stone Blade Fabrication" and Click "Pay Tuition".
Now you have your first skill. We will now put it to use, gather 2 more slate and click yourself, select the skills menu and select "Make a Stone Blade". Next up on the list we are going to "Gather Wood from a Tree" to do this walk up to any tree click it and select "Gather Wood", Head back to the shore line, gather slate and make stone blades until you have 3 stone blades. Now head back to SArch and get the Carpentry skill from the Learn menu. Head back to the shore line, make 1 stone blade and gather 3 more slate. Build a wood plane by clicking on yourself and selecting the Projects menu, select "Build a Wood Plane". Use the wood plane to make 4 boards and head back to SArch once more, get the skill Brick Rack Construction from the Learn menu. head back to your wood plane and make 4 boards. Select "Build a Brick Rack" from your Projects menu.
Brick Making:
Now you have the basic tools to build many of the building and tools in the ATiTD world. Head to the shore line and gather some 3 mud and 1 sand using the corresponding icons in the top right corner of the screen. Head back to your brick rack and pick grass on the way by clicking the blue and green grass icon in the top right corner of the screen. When you get back to your brick rack drop the grass by clicking yourself and selecting the "Drop" menu, select grass and enter an amount(10 or less will dry the fastest.), wait for the grass to turn yellow(Straw) and pick it up. Click your brick rack and select "Make Bricks" wait for the bricks to dry(They change color when dry) and select "Take" then select "Everything" from the brick rack menu.
Growing Flax:
Head over to the SArt(Check the map with F3), Click the school and select "Supplies" now select "Request Flax Seeds"(A basic rule of thumb for beginners is to get Old Egypt flax seeds as the Nile Green seeds require watering, if you do not recieve Old Egypt wait 3 minutes and try again.)
To grow flax, plant a bed of flax plants using the "Plant" menu, on grass. Flax will not grow on sand. After a short while, green flax shoots with blue flowers will appear in the bed. Shortly afterwards, yellow weeds will appear. Weed the flax bed by selecting the appropriate menu option. Depending on the variety of flax being used, you may need to water the flax when you weed it (using one jug of water), and you may need to weed the bed several times. Eventually, the flax will complete growing and you may harvest it. There are no signs that the flax is ready for harvest except more flowers grow in the flax bed. The best way to tell is to click on the flax and see. To get water you need a jug, which you can get by trying to learn the pottery skill at any SThought.
Flax grown in the above manner will not produce any seeds. To grow flax seeds, plant a bed of flax but do not weed it. Shortly after weeds appear in the bed, the flax will go to seed. You will see more of the yellow weeds. You may then harvest seeds from the flax up to 5 times before it finally dies. When the plant dies, it will leave more seeds on the ground. Take care to not use up all your flax seeds when growing flax; you should always keep at least a few in reserve to grow more seeds. If you do run out, you can go back to any SArt to get a few more seeds.
You will need to harvest 20 Flax to get the "Flax Processing" skill, head over to SArt and get the skill from the Learn menu.
Rotting Flax:
Most uses of flax require rotten flax, as ordinary flax cannot be processed until it has been soaked in water to soften and separate the fibers. Regular flax may be rotted by standing near a body of water and selecting the "Rot flax in water" option from the "Skills" menu. Rotting flax in a body of water does not appear to have any impact on fishing. Rotting flax in a body of water will create a flax buoy that you can retrieve once it's rotted. The time required to rot flax is independent of the amount of flax in the bouy.
Gathering Thorns:
Thorns can be tricky, very few plants in Egypt produce thorns, your best chances are to look for groups of trees with plants under them, once you find a plant that give thorns click it and select "Gather Thorns" You will need 60 thorns. I have included two examples of plants the give thorns.
Flax Processing:
By now your flax should be fully rotted, You need 20 Rotten Flax as well as another 2 or more Flax to finish the citizenship test. Head over to SArt with your Rotten Flax and get the "Clothwork" skill from the Learn menu, now build a Flax Comb(60 Thorns, 18 Boards and 36 Bricks) and a Small Distaff(12 Boards, 100 Bricks and 10 Wood) using your projects menu. Process the rotten flax till step 2 and take the Tow from the flax comb, Load the tow into the Small distaff and start spinning it into twine.
Finishing the Citizenship Test:
Now that you have learned all the basic skills it takes to live like an egyptian it is time to clean up your area. First start by picking up your brick rack(it will crumble) and tearing down your wood plane. This should trigger lightning and you should have finished the citizenship test. It is also polite to tear down any other buildings you have made(Small distaff and any chests you have built) so as to keep Egypt clean. You can now start exploring Egypt and start your initiations into the 7 disciplines that are available.
