Help for newbies to get started

[Polaris2013]

The first 3 times I played this game I lost in miserable failure because the game doesn't do a good job of explaining what things are important. For me in particular, I had latched onto the campaign's (which is just the name of this game's tutorial) misleading description of Harmony which suggests that harvesting too many resources will be penalized. That led me to some incorrect assumptions about the game, where I anticipated the main goal of the game was going to be about reaching the level quotas with as little overshoot as possible and in the shortest time possible. This conception turned out to be absolutely, completely, and totally WRONG.

Hopefully no one else made this dumb mistake, but I wrote it out because I see a lot of people have trouble getting started with this wonderful game, so I know I'm not alone. Eventually I stuck with it and gave the game another chance, determined to learn from what was causing me to lose, instead of what the tutorial told me to do. Now I can win about 90% of games with the first 3 tribes, and 30-50% with the Northern tribe (they're a big step up on the difficulty).

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I figured things out on my own, but I also looked through the guides to see what was out there. Here is the best one I found:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2600944623

That guide is short and succinct and covers enough that I don't want to re-invent the wheel by starting a new guide from scratch. However, it doesn't address all the stumbling points I faced, and makes some recommendations based on a previous version of the game's balance which aren't as relevant as they used to be. So I will make a few additions here.

GENERAL TIPS:
-Try to stay on a halt as long as possible without suffering harm, usually the last harvest cycle before the "Major Vagary" occurs.
-Explore remains on the first map. If anything disastrous happens you may restart without losing much. Ignore remains after that, because they can totally devastate your journey.
-Pay attention: Sacred Sites and Remains are different! Sacred Sites are never harmful if you choose to Pray at them (though only barely helpful).
-On the Journey map, halts which are Protected, Ancient, or Sacred tend to be the hardest because they are filled with blocked hexes which makes it difficult to harvest efficiently. Try to plot a course that avoids these levels.
-In between levels you are constrained by how much you can carry on your caravan. However some "resources" take no space: Knowledge, Job Experience, and upgrades on Mobile Buildings. Focusing on these is the most powerful way to boost your expedition's success chance. (It's part of the reason I suggest staying on a halt as long as possible: to gain more Job Exp, which can be thought of as a resource that carries over without consuming any caravan space)
-Specialize your pupils on certain jobs. I try to give each pupil 2 jobs to be good at, not counting Gatherer or Builder. Nonetheless, every job only needs 1 specialist (again not counting Gatherer or Builder), so more pupils means more specialization. (One of the reasons for specializing pupils is that they produce more knowledge, and knowledge is another resource that doesn't consume caravan space). Note bene: If you are able to avoid all Protected levels, then you will not need a Druid/Herbalist.

STARTING A JOURNEY :
I have 3 main goals for the first halt. You should be able to achieve at least 2 of them, though all 3 are usually possible.
(1) Build a council or camp.
-The council and the camp are the only important appendices. It's a judgement call which to get first. My tilt favors the council.
-The council can counteract RNG coming from vagaries or pupil traits. The only major source of RNG it can't help with is the level layout. At higher levels it can also reduce your resource consumption, which is important for the Northerners.
-But if you have to buy the camp then you have to buy the camp. I like to have 4 workers eventually, but I prefer to get the housing from the caravan upgrade or the hermit trait, neither of which are likely to be attained on the first halt. If a friendly caravan offers an exceptional pupil then I may get the camp first.

(2) Build a mobile cookhouse OR mobile bakery (to keep for the whole journey).
-These mobile buildings are expensive, but important. They will save you the most work per map of any mobile building. Not only are they saving you the resources of an expensive building each deployment, but the upgrades are important and save even more labor in the long run.
-Cookhouse or Bakery? The cookhouse is easier to use because hunting options are more abundant than farms. The bakery is less dependent on spice, so requires fewer pupil jobs to maintain. However a Mobile Farm soon becomes essential to the Bakery, which you should get by the second halt. For the North tribe I prefer the Bakery.
-(As a tangential comment, I disagree with the linked guide about buying a mobile pasture for the North. It is a nice-to-have, but not a need-to-have. The Cookhouse or Bakery+Farm are need-to-haves)

(3) Stockpile at least 125 food per pupil to start the next halt. Plus keep 100-200 Wood so I can start building immediately. (I mean take as much as you can, but at least this much)
-Enough resources are needed that there is no imminent threat of failure on the next halt. This gives enough for 20 turns of food, plus the wood to build any necessary infrastructure for the next level. You will need to supply the cook's building with either a farm, a trapping lodge, or a fishery. If it's a farm then prioritize making it mobile.
-If you don't have a mobile Bakery or Cookhouse, then you should bring at least 150 food per pupil to start the next level.

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You should be in a good enough spot to have spare capacity for filling hard level objectives or compensating bad RNG with this start.

To counter RNG you can zap bad vagaries and get building armor from the council. You can also reroll pupils with bad traits, but don't aim for perfection, just the elimination of things that interfere with their usefulness.

To handle levels with an extreme resource requirement your best bet is to utilize an expert pupil with 75% preservation to harvest the resource, which quadruples its supply (part of the preservation comes from job expertise and part from building upgrades). Also look 2 levels ahead when you are plotting your path (that's a lesson for next time). Meet all friendly tribes and hopefully you meet the one that cuts level requirements. As a last resort, the marketplace can help a little bit, but don't count on it for much.

I hope this helps you get closer to the Eye, and is written in a way that anyone who gets stuck can identify specific ways to improve their gameplay and understand the techniques clearly enough to apply them successfully. Good luck out there!