Rise and Fall: Prepare, or go in blind?

[VCrakeV]

So, I've yet to purchase the dlc, and I haven't looked into it much beyond the trailer. Is it something I should be able to learn smoothly as I play, or are the new additions a little overwhelming? Should I learn about the governor and loyalty mechanics (among others) prior to playing? I feel like Civ, and it's add ons, are so big that one must read a manual before trying them out. I suppose there is some factor of personal preference too though; some people would prefer the novelty of discovering how new mechanics work as they play, while others prefer to prepare their strategies. I seem to fall somewhere between those archetypes.

At the very least, what did you do?

 

[UWHabs]

I'd say just jump in. It'll take a little effort to get rolling along, and you'll probably forget to move governors around or pick wrong, but that's just part of the game. And I actually kind of prefer not knowing - especially for stuff like the historic moments, it's kind of cool to hit a moment you didn't plan on, rather than trying to min-max the game to optimize.

If you're just starting out, I might suggest going with the Cree, if only because their bonuses come very early you're almost guaranteed to avoid a dark age early. That should give you at least a little time to learn the systems first, although a classical era dark age is really not something to worry about. And then a simple suggestion is if you do run into loyalty issues (especially with captured cities), keep a unit in the city and parachute a governor in. Most of the time that's enough to not worry about it. If that isn't enough, then you gotta go conquer the city next to it.

My only other suggestion is to double check the governor screen every little bit. Especially with the changes in the last patch, I've found I often forget to promote my governors when it comes up.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

Loyalty is really the only one that takes some getting used to and the mechanics are a little baffling at first. Border cities require some planning now but it's a short learning curve so I say just jump right in.