Realm drops you into an empty continent with $10,000 in starting capital and no instructions beyond a short menu of first moves. That’s deliberate. The goal of your first hour is not to win — it’s to complete one economic loop: extract a resource, transform or sell it, and pocket the proceeds. Everything else branches from there. This walkthrough follows the default solo scenario, Frontier: you and eight AI rivals, similar starting resources, no economy yet.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/at6132/econ/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Launch and world generation (minutes 0–2)
Click New Game on the title screen. The world map fills in over a few seconds — continents, oceans, terrain, all procedurally generated. Watch for the status messages: “Generating world…” → “Placing AI rivals…” → “Surveying initial conditions…”When the map finishes drawing you see a 2D continent in color-coded terrain. A brief intro card appears:
“You are an entrepreneur arriving in a new world. There is no economy yet. Whatever exists, you and others will build.”Returning players can skip this card. First-timers should read it: it tells you the most important thing about Realm before you place a single order.
Choose your starting plot (minutes 2–5)
The Map view opens with available plots highlighted. Hover any plot to see its visible properties: terrain type, climate, and whether it has coastal access. Subsurface composition — what’s actually under the ground — is hidden until you survey.A small panel reads: “Choose your starting plot. You can buy more later.”Pick one. For this walkthrough, assume you pick a coastal plain. A confirmation appears:
“You now own Plot #017. Starting capital: $10,000.”The map zooms to your plot. You see a cleared rectangle with your character icon and a ring of tutorial markers pointing at the three suggested first moves.
Survey your plot (minutes 5–10)
The onboarding panel presents three paths:
- Survey your plot. Find out what’s underground. Costs $500.
- Build extraction. Skip the survey and build based on surface resources (forestry, fishing if coastal, etc.).
- Trade instead. Use your $10,000 to buy goods where they’re cheap and sell where they’re expensive.
AI agents are already active in the world during your survey. Prices on the market panel are moving because Tier 1 behavioral agents are placing buy and sell orders in the background. There is no “starting price” set by designers — what you see when you open the market for the first time is the result of real engine activity.
Read the market and make your first decision (minutes 10–15)
Open the Market panel. This shows all current order books in the world. You’ll see something like:
This is the moment of insight: clay is selling high, you have clay, and there’s only one seller. Open the Build panel for your plot and choose:
| Commodity | Price trend | Sellers | Buyers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron | High | None local | Several |
| Copper | Moderate | 2 AI sellers | 1 buyer |
| Timber | Low | Many | Few |
| Clay | Surprisingly high | 1 seller | None |
- Clay quarry: $3,000, requires labor, produces ~50 units/day
- Sawmill: $1,500, processes timber
- Fishing dock: $2,000, requires labor, produces fish
First production cycle and first sale (minutes 15–25)
The world ticks. Your quarry comes online. Workers begin extracting clay. Watch the Inventory panel — it shows 50 clay accumulating per day.When you have 100 units, open the Market panel and place a sell order: 100 clay at the going rate (or slightly below the one existing seller to get priority fills). The order sits in the order book.A few game-days later: “Order filled. +$1,200 to your account.”You just made money in a player-driven economy. No quest reward, no scripted event — someone (or some agent) looked at the order book, decided your price was acceptable, and bought your clay. The mechanism that made that happen is the same one that will govern every transaction you make for the rest of the game.
First contract: Margaux makes her move (minutes 25–35)
A message arrives in your Messages panel:
Margaux the Industrialist: “I see you’ve started clay production. I am also expanding into clay. I’d like to propose a 30-day exclusive supply contract — I will pay you $25/unit, above market, in exchange for first refusal on your output. Will you accept?”This is a supply contract in action. You have three choices:
- Accept. Stable revenue above current market price. But you’re locked in if spot prices spike above $25.
- Reject. Stay on the spot market. More upside, more volatility.
- Counter-propose. Send back a message: “I want $30/unit and a 15-day term.” Margaux will respond.
The world reveals itself (minutes 35–45)
Explore the remaining UI panels:
- News feed: “Rico the Speculator just bought 500 timber at market. Prices spiked 5%.” These are real events caused by real agent actions, not flavor text.
- Map view: Other players’ (AI) plots are visible. You can see what each is publicly doing — what they’re producing, what orders they’ve placed.
- Reputation panel: Your own score continues to grow as you fill orders and (if you accepted) fulfill the Margaux contract.
“Generic NPC laborer pool: Wages have risen in your region by 10%. Three workers have left for higher pay elsewhere.”Cause and effect. The labor market responded to increased demand — possibly your hiring, possibly Margaux’s expansion, possibly both. You can either raise wages to retain workers or accept reduced output. Neither choice is wrong; both have consequences.
Choose an identity arc (minutes 45–55)
By now your account sits around $8,000 — you’ve recovered most of your initial spend and are generating steady revenue. You have real options:
- Buy a second plot. Expand your clay and timber operations horizontally.
- Buy a vessel. Enter the shipping business, transporting your own or others’ goods.
- Lease your plot to someone else and become a trader. Pure financial play, no physical operations.
- Take a loan from the NPC bank to accelerate growth — available through the Contracts panel.
End of the first hour: the hook
Game saves automatically. Your summary card:
“Day 4 in Realm. Net worth: $14,200. Reputation: New.” “Your decisions today affected prices in three markets. Margaux is watching you. Rico has not noticed you yet. The world will keep going whether you play or not.”You’ve established a small business, made roughly $4,000 in net profit, negotiated your first contract, been antagonized by a named rival, felt the cause-and-effect of a living economy, and identified an arc to pursue. The question “what happens next?” has a real answer — and only you can determine it.
What you experienced
The first hour isn’t a tutorial — it’s a proof of concept. Every event you encountered was produced by the same nine economic primitives that govern every other action in the game: land, materials, labor, time and distance, capital, production, markets, contracts, and code. Margaux’s message was not scripted for minute 25. It arrived because she is an LLM-driven agent pursuing a strategy, and your clay operation made you relevant to that strategy.Economic primitives
Understand the nine building blocks every business in Realm is composed from.
Building a business
Turn your first plot into a real business using worked examples.
Markets and trading
Learn how order books work and when to use P2P trades instead.
AI agents
Learn who Margaux, Rico, and the other named rivals are and how they behave.