Before starting the Tribal Stage, you will be prompted to change your creature one last time. Unless you are absolutely purely satisfied with your creature the way it is, take this opportunity! It'll be the last time during the course of a regular game that you can make major changes to your creature's body. Since you should have most or all of the parts unlocked at the end of the creature mode, have fun making the creature that you want! There will be more opportunities for creature customization, just not body customization.

After finalizing your creature design, the very first thing you will be prompted to do upon starting Tribal Stage is to create an outfit for your creatures. All of the creatures in your tribe will wear this outfit, and each piece conveys bonuses to stats. For example, one shoulder pad set increases your health, a backpack increases the amount of food you can gather at one time, and one of the masks makes you much better at combat. As every creature wears these, the bonuses apply to every member of your tribe!

Much like the creature stage, there are two ways you can go about taking over the region. The two choices are socializing and combat. You can't finish it any other way, so don't bother trying. But before you can begin to interact with other tribes, you have to get your economy jump-started and expand your tribe. Which is where gathering and construction comes in.

Gathering is pretty simple. You can gather four kinds of food, each of which gives you the same amount (making one not very much better than the other except maybe in the method of acquiring them). You can forage for fruits and veggies, hunt animals, poach eggs, or fish the seas. Gathering is easiest but takes more time than the others. Hunting takes a little bit of time, but yields a lot of meat per creature. Poaching is almost a supplement to hunting, as poaching an egg will piss off that species. Fishing is reasonable as well, but requires the fishing building to be built.

To further your tribe, both in members, you must use the main hut. There are two immediate options you can do. The first is give birth, which spawns an egg that hatches into a baby. After the baby has survived a little bit, it becomes an adult and can assist the tribe. You can also select buildings to build in the 6 slots available to you from the start. As you conquer or befriend tribes, you will get more buildings that enhance your interaction abilities. The first three tribes will give you two buildings, and the fourth will snag you that final building. Much like giving birth, building stuff takes food. However, outfitting your tribesmen with the tools you acquire costs nothing at all.

The interactions with the other tribes are fairly simple, but require the tools you get from the buildings you acquire. Without exception. To equip these tools to your creatures, simply select a creature and right click on the building. They will walk over and grab whatever tool comes from that building. The buildings are divided into 3 segments: general, social, and military. General occupies the top space and has buildings which assists you in a rather generic way. For example, a Shaman Hut allows you to heal your own troops. The other buildings have very specific functions.

The social buildings consist of three ultimately interchangeable musical instruments. The social element consists entirely of equipping your tribe with these instruments, walking to another tribe, and playing them some music. It is, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same as the social element of the creature stage, just with instruments. Play the requested instrument and your relationship goes up. Play the wrong one and nothing happens. Simple.

The military buildings have a little more variety, naturally. There are three military tools, and each is effective in their particular element. Spears are good for ranged attacks, Axes are good against creatures in melee, and Torches are good against buildings. There's no reason to use anything but axes, though. It may be slower in destroying buildings, but they tear through creatures, and buildings aren't your primary threat. Enemy tribes are.

There's a set of abilities that your chieftain can use as well, depending on the evolutionary path that your race is taking. However, they don't impact your methodology much. Naturally, pacifist abilities are effective for socializing, aggressive ones for attacking, and neutral ones for bettering your own tribe. You can beat Tribe Stage without using these abilities once, so don't worry about them.

Eschewing DNA for relationships, the game ends when you conquer 5 tribes. You can do this by maxing out your relationship with them through socializing, or by eliminating their tribal hut. Upon defeating one, you gain the aforementioned bonuses as well as a new totem piece. After one has been conquered, you can hatch 3 new tribe members. This happens again after 3 have been conquered, bringing the total member count to 13 (12 regular, 1 chieftain).

Upon conquering all the tribes, you should be treated to a humorous cinematic, and your species will form a civilization! If you have followed this guide, you should get the following achievements upon completing the stage:

Ergonomically Terrific!

Complete the Tribal stage in less than an hour.




Civilization stage unlocked

Play enough of the Tribe stage to unlock the Civilization stage.




Founder

Complete the Tribal stage and build a city.



For an overview of the Tribal Stage, take a look at the Tribe Trailer here on Big Download. And rev your engines, clean your treads, and cast your sails. It's time to conquer the world in Civilization Stage!