'Gord' Can Be Difficult for RTS Newcomers — Five Tips to Get You Started

From the jump, Gord will throw tutorial after tutorial at you. It’s an RTS where you’ll make buildings within a palisaded gord, assigning subjects to gather resources or pick up an axe to brave the Slavic horrors beyond your home.

That sounds simple, but when you have to balance the nuances of its city-building and exploration mechanics on top of managing the survival of your subjects, it can get complicated. If you’re new to RTS games, even more so.

To help you digest and get more enjoyment out of Gord from the start, we have some beginner tips you should keep in mind to prepare for your muddy romp through the dark forests of Lysatia.

In the campaign mode of Gord, you’ll progress through different maps. Each map will require you to make a new gord and complete objectives to proceed to the next. But before starting one, you must choose which subjects you’ll bring.

We recommend having a balance of older veterans with high proficiencies in gathering or combat and wearing good equipment from past maps and green-faced adults. Since Gord has an aging system, older subjects are liable to die, and you’ll want to pave the way for younger subjects if the vets suddenly croak.

Once established in your gord on a new map, you should send out an Axe Wielder and Scout to circle the surrounding area of your base. Getting a lay of the land is crucial for understanding where subjects can gather, the number of enemies in the area, and the treasures nearby.

One minute, subjects out collecting clay and wood are close to your gord, and in the next, they’re pushing into unknown territory and are nearly dead. Due to gathering points drying up over time, subjects will automatically pivot to other areas if one is available.

Keep tabs on them and make adjustments, like sending out patrols or planting fireflies nearby to keep their Sanity high. If you want more control, you can manually choose where subjects go from their assigned building.

The Temple and Meadery buildings are very useful and can be game-changing.

With a Temple, you can unlock access to Incantations to sap the lifeforce from enemies, buff subjects, clear fog of war, or summon an ethereal decoy to turn a bad situation around in a pinch. The Meadery is used to manage the Sanity meter of subjects, increasing their resilience to being in the dark or seeing others die in front of them.

If you don’t take care of your people, they will break down, get sick, and potentially lead to the death of others. Both buildings provide different ways of supporting your subjects that are incredibly vital to surviving in Gord.

Once you can gather clay and metal, start planning to upgrade buildings or strengthen your gord against enemy raids. Making certain buildings better will increase resource distribution, attack speed, and unlock more Incantations. As you dive deeper into the unknown, having a fully decked-out gord makes exploration more manageable.

Over time, you’ll get the hang of Gord and discover more tricks. But to kickstart your experience, follow these tips until you’re comfortable trying things out yourself.

Gord will release on August 17 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.