The Last Lords are what remains of the once honorable Lord of the Amber Plains. Only a handful survived the trip to Saiadha and they will do everything int heir hands to avoid complete extinction.

Last Lords are an interesting faction, if you play as them you will quickly notice that there is no food aviable for them. Last Lords instead use Dust to sustain themselves and you cannot passively gain any population, only by buying them out with Dust.
This affects your military units too! Your units (including those from minor factions) cannot passively regenerate HP and you have to buy for healing with Dust but on the upside, you always heal to full which means Last Lords can, if they can afford it, keep fighting. Additionally, during fights, any dead unit, yours or enemies, will heal your units if they are adjacent. What you want to do is to surround enemies with your units before killing them to heal as many units as possible.

To get all that Dust you need Last Lords start with a few benefits. Every tile that produces Dust will now produce one more. This will play later into the game when you unlock a tech that gives every tile that didn't produce Dust before now will produce one Dust.
Additionally you start with the following two techs unlockes, Currency and Scavaneging. This allows you to build the Merchant's House, a Dust producing district, as well as giving you more Dust on won battles. The extra HP and damage bonus on your units is a nice bonus that helps you to win those fights.

The Last Lords are desperate to increase their ranks and as such they have unique interactions with the minor factions in the game. You can build a special district called the "Lord's Estate" on pacified villages inside your territories. This allows you to forcefully recruit population of that minor faction for a small influence cost. The enslaved minor faction might rebel however which removes the pacified effect and spawns bandits. You can however force them back into servitude if you want.

Another horrible thing you can do to those factions is sacrifice them to increase your Last Lord population.The way this works is that any foreign population that you have in the "Citizen" tab (the one that would normally produce food) will slowly be killed over time and for every two population that you sacrifice this way you will get one new Last Lord. While this effect is active you also get +5 Dust production on every Last Lord. Keep in mind you can only activate this if you actually have any foreign population in the Citizen's tab to profit from it. You usally want to round up enough minor faction population with the Lord's Estate before throwing them into the grinder. Because this process is so horrible you have, again, a chance for rebellion inside your empire that will spawn rebels. Nothing you cannot handle by beating them down again.

Like most factions Last Lord's have access to four different unit types starting with two and two additional are unlocked through research.




The Trall is the Scout unit of the Last Lord's. For a scout unit it is surprisingly tanky, having the same amount of HP and Defense as the standard infantry unit of the Last Lords. Thralls start with the skills Cruel and Aware. Aware gives the Thrall a fixed vision range of 3 that can see through obstacles like ridges. Cruel on the other hand ignores defense on enemies with less than 50% health.
The Dust specialization path increases movement range of the unit as is usual in scout units while the resource path increases damage on enemies that are surrounded by three or more units.



Stalwart is the dedicated tank unit of the Last Lords. It starts with the skills Defense Expert and Leeching Strike. Defense Expert increases Defense on the defend action, while Leeching Strike returns 35% of the damage dealt as health for your unit. This allows the Stalwart to stand ready and then strike back enemies to minimize damage. The Dust path increases it's defensive stats and upgrades Defense Expert on the final upgrade while the resource path increases damage and adds a higher crit chance.



For the sake of clarity I will call these units "Bishops". The Bishops are unlocked in era 2 and will really ramp up your military might. They are both a ranged unit and a juggernaut, making them excellent siege monsters and hero killers. For a Juggernaut unit they have suprisingly little HP which makes sense since they are backline units and not frontliners. Bishops make great support units thanks to their upgrades. The Dust Path adds extra damage and gives the Bishop the skill "Life from Death". This is one of the most essential skills for the Last Lords, when the Bishop attacks he heals nearby friendly units for 30% of the damage dealt. The resource path gives instead much more HP and attacks from the Bishop deal 50% of the damage to nearby units of the initial target, on the last upgrade even full damage.



Dust Lords are terrifying flying units with lots of HP and damage. They apply the Terrorized debuff on enemies they attack or when they defend. This debuff will knock the enemy back on the next hit. On the Dust path the Dust Lord will get more HP and defense as well as Curel, which ignores defense on units with less than half HP. The resource path instead gives the Dust Lord more damage and Leeching Strike which improves their self sustain.

Minor Factions play an important role to any empire but even more so for Last Lords. Since they are essentially slavers that sacrifice foreign population for their own growth you generally don't care too much what you want to get and instead look for regions that have two villages to get more out of your Lord's Estate.
That being said, there is art least one minor faction that I always look out for and am even willing to go to war for.



The Consortium gives your entire empire a Dust boost and this boost scales with the number of Consortium villages. They also produce +4 Dust if that city has a trading post. This is quite a large amount of Dust and it's wothwhile to just keep them as is in your empire and simply buy out population with Dust instead.

Any other minor factions you want to assimilate are up to you and up to what you are presented with during your game. I suggest checking out this guide to see exactly what each minmor faction can provide including population, population perks and their assimilation bonus:

https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3583358452

One last information, the assimilation perk of the Oneiroi which I usually take in every other faction does not work on the Last Lords because they cannot regenrate health.

Going to war with other factions can be quite profitable even if you don't plan on doing a Conquest victory. Last Lords love Dust and you can get absurd amounts of Dust from war if you play your cards right. There is for one the battle spoils that you get after every won fight, including fights with other empires. These usally will cover healing costs but you still get a small profit.
You can pillage or raze enemy territories. Pillaging gives you a nice Dust bonus but let's the enemy faction keep their territory. Razing on the other hand completely removes the territory from it's owner and destroys everything that was built on it. You get a big Dust bonus depending on how much was lost.
You can also occupy a territory which means you will keep it but don't get any Dust from it. Depending on the situation you may do this because it gives you access to an important resource or you want to expand a city's territory. You also keep everything the other faction has already built on that territory except faction exclusive districts. This also counts for population which means you can sacrifice them for your own gains.
If you take a city center all connected territories will be reduced back to camps (they still keep their districts). If you just want to raze a city this is faster because you don't have to siege very single territory.

Lastly, the winning side of a war can extort the losing faction for Dust, depending on how long the war went on and how hard the other faction lost, the demand will increase. This is one of the most profitable ways for Last Lords to generate Dust. Where is our honor now?

Look for a good spot to settle your capital. Since you cannot use food, anything with high Dust yields will do. Industry is nice too but not as important as Dust. Anything else is just a bonus.

Start by building a Sancity of Nature and then a Merchant's House on a Dust tile. Plan ahead when building Districts that you can later use Communal Habitations to upgrade multiple districts at once. Use your two starting armies to scout for curiosities, other empires and useful minor factions. If you find the ocean, scout for strategic resources. Minor Factions in your own territory will be bribed. The extra units you get from bribing can be used to bolster your main army which makes it easier to deal with roaming armies.

Don't start buying out Last Lord population yet, the net profit of a Last Lord is only 4 extra Dust per turn while Sancity of Nature gives you +10 and a Merchant's house +8 Dust. This means it's better to buy out these improvements over buying out Last Lords. This will change later but for now focus on bribing minor factions and buying out districts.


Start research in the following order:

• Scientific Charter (unlocks science district)
  
• Feudalism (unlocks Soul Repository)
  
• Voice of the Masses (unlocks Influence district)

Scientific Charter allows us to build labs. Always build labs around anomalies if possible, otherwise around Communal Habitations.
Feudalism unlocks a faction exclusive district, the Soul Repository. As soon as you unlocked this district, build one, this has priority over everything else. Build it somewhere where you can easily surround it with other districts. The Soul Repository will add a special population type to your city, a Primordial Lord. These are the original Broken Lords that are now reawakened. As such they will consume Dust to survive which means they deduct Dust from your income but they also increase the Dust and influence production of every Last Lord in the same city. This is the moment when you start to buy out population. The value of Primordial Lords scales with the amount of Last Lords you have, so you want as many as you can. You still can and should occasionally buy out a building or unit that is close to being finished in the production queue but building up your population has the highest priority.

Keep in mind that you always leave room in the Citizen Tab. Last Lord's hate doing peasant work which reduces approval much more than for other factions and you need the extra room for said peasants so you can convert them into more useful Last Lords. If you run out of room for populations, build more Communal Habitations close to your other districts.




Voices of the Masses unlocks the Forum which produces more Influence. You need influence to round up the minor faction population via the Lord's Estate as well as expanding your empire. Froums are relatively flexible in their position to build as long as you build them close to other districts.

If you plan on going to war with other empires you want to unlock Keeps through research. The extra fortification helps to strengthen your city and gives you more time to react when your city gets attacked. If you notice that Necrophages are your neighbours you absolutely should unlock Keeps.

Other than that you should get at least Workshop and Saiadhan Inquisition, the order does not matter in this case. Workshop allows us to build industry districts so we don't have to rely too much on Dust to buy out buildings and SI gives us extra science on our Lord Estate while also reducing the healing cost of units.
Other techs can be researched depending on your game, Keystones is always great when you have many rivers in your territories (but can be ignored if not) and Civil Order gives some nice extra approval which increases all yields in your empire.

For IDSI we want to focus on these things: Dust > Influence > Science > Industry

Dust has obviously the highest priority through the entire game, you need it for basically anything. Influence is also important not only to expand your empire but also to make use of your Lord's estate. Science helps us to unlock more techs which is necessary to improve our empire over time. The reason why Industry is so low this time is because you produce so much Dust, you will buy out most things eventually.

Make sure to claim territories that have valuable minor factions or would get you access to a strategic resource once tidefall hits.

Once Monsoon hits you can try to farm some extra Dust from roaming armies and levitation curiosities. You might even try to farm some of the other empires if you are willing to risk it. Don't play too risky however, the early game is the most vulnerable phase of the game especially if you play on Endless difficulty. Shoutout to my Thrall boys here, their vision range cannot get reduced by Monsoon which allows them to see enemies before they see you.

After the first Tidefall hits you want to claim new resources. Titanium and Glassteel are must have, Hydromiel is also good for the Dust boost while Klax gives more Approval. And if you ever claim a territory with Orchidia, just throw yourself into a Necrophage Feedhole.

At this point of the game you should hit Era 2, if you didn't you are falling behind. Era 2 unlocks Bishops which allow you to finally start taking on other empires. The extra damage on sieges allows you to conquer enemy territorioes faster. If you notice that other empires have claimed useful resources or minor factions you might want to challenge them.
I usually start with Dustlyitcs followed by Lords' Discipline. Dustlytics allows us to build an improvement that boosts a city's Dust income by a massive 50. If you manage to get all three cities out that's an increase of 150! This costs Glassteel however which is why we want this resource as early as possible. If you couldn't get Glassteel on time, consider getting Markets early to buy the required resources.
Other than that I would go for Thanatology next, which unlocks two very good improvements and also increases science on our Lords Estates and Soul Repositories further. Mineral Inquisition will give resource extractors a massive sciene boost while Dust Divination makes it that every tile that didn't have Dust before will now yield one Dust.
Lodgings is next on my list. Lodgins provides more room for Last Lord's and also allows us to store more minor faction citizens until we juice them.
Adjust your research depending on your game and what you need the most at the moment.

You can start looking for level 1 fortresses if you want. These give good loot and also allow you to claim a territory for free if you can beat them. This is a great way to expand your territory and also plays into one of the victory conditions.
As usual, focus mainly on Dust production, buy anything out that you don't want to wait for, increase your population as much as possible and see massive returns for your investments. Playing Last Lords is all about massive gains.

Once the next monsoon hits Doomwraiths start to spawn. If didn't neglect your military they shouldn't pose much of a threat. Wait until they corrupt one of your territories and kill them afterwards to get that juicy Doomwraith Remains anomaly. If you want to get the Bringer of Doom Deed you want to kill Doomwraiths from other empires as well. You can also close rifts to get a nice Dust bonus.

Second Tidefall is when Lazualin and Hyperium open up. You will need Lazualin to improve your units and Hyperium to build a useful improvement that opens up in Era 4.
New luxury resources are Dragonroot (+2% more influence on cities), Crystal Cap (+2 industry on population) and Leviathan Ichor (+3 science on district). All very useful.

Try to get these resources as soon as possible, possibly through a fortress to save on influence.

To get a rough estimation if you are doing good so far in the game, I usually have around 1k Dust income at this point in the game. Anything more than that is awesome but if you still haven't reached at least 500 production you are doing something wrong. Keep in mind that the number should still go up from here, we don't plan to stop.

The following Era 3 techs are useful here:

• Dustnomics
  
• Lords' Piety
  
• Commerce
  
• Research Grants
  
• Corkscrew Drill
  
• Urban Planning
  
• Citizenship
  
• Conscription

The order does not really matter here but if you need a strict order, go for thje order I listed above.

Dustnomics is inmcredibly powerful on Last Lords because it gives our Last Lord population yet another +2 Dust bonus. It also boosts the income of all the Merchant houses we have built so far. When this unlocks you will notice a significant jump in income.
Commerce is also powerful, it doubles Dust on any foundation and reduyes the movement costs on roads. If you haven't built Trading posts at this point, now you should start doing so. This makes traveling in your empire much easier. One trading Post per territory is usally enough but you can consider building more if you have extractors in that region.
Research Grants gives us more science. Since the cost of new techs ramps up pretty fast this is absolutely necessary. If you remmebered to put your labs around anom,alies you should see a huge improvement here.
Corkscrew Drill gives unlocks an improvement that gives us more industry but more importantly this also increases the yield from resource extractors.
Urban planning is only useful because it unlocks Citizen Center, an improvement that allows us to attach one more region to a city. An attached region is always more secure and profitable than a simple camp.
Citizenshiop is simply for more influence, they cost fore new camps and cities ramps up and we need to keep up.
Conscription unlocks yet another useful improvement which reduces the Dust cost of all your units. I cannot stress enough how good this is. This can obviously only be built once per empire and I would suggest building it in your city that will build all your units since it also gives a huge expiernce boost to new units, enough to start with a veterancy level.

If you are on the top of your research game you might also unlock Era 4 here (I usually do since Last Lords have great research potential that even rivals Tahuks).

These are the most useful techs in this era:

• Penitent Shrine
  
• Supreme Fealty
  
• Banks
  
• Dramatic Arts
  
• Highway Patrol
  
• Digs

Penitent Shrine unlocks a very useful improvement that increases approval on citizens. This way our minor faction population can be more useful while they wait to get sacrificied. It also boosts Dust income on Lord's Estate and Soul Repository, not by much but any bonus is nice.
Banks unlocks another useful improvement that gives a massive approval boost. This can only be built once per empire though, so make it count.
Dramatic Arts makes the cost for forums cheaper and also allows us to build an improvement that boosts influence income on scribes at the cost of approval. If that is too steep for you you can also decide to research Auxiliary Forces which also unlocks an improvement which does exactly the opposite effect. Having both in the same city gives you still a net gain of +1 influence and + approval per scribe.
Highway Patrol is yet again another movement cost reduction for roads, the last one. Having all three allows your units to cross 5 tiles with just one movement point!
Digs reduces the cost for camps but more importantely it also unlocks the Scour action on camps. This allows us to remove resources from a territory and get random new ones. This is great to exchange useless resources with much better ones. Keep in mind, thios only works on camps, not cities!

If you reach Era 4 in this phase of the game you will notice that there are many improvements that require Thalitine which isn't aviable yet. Don't worry too much about it, just build what you currently can and remmeber to build the rest when you have the required resource aviable.

Until the next monsoon starts you should focus on expanding your empire. Make sure to settle until you reach your city limit because each extra city massively increases your Dust, science and influence production.

The endgame begins and you are now watching out for your victory. In the final tidefall you will unlock the last two strategic resources, Eradione and Thalitine, as well as the remaining luxury resources. Very useful to have here are Dustwater and Lunar Veins, both boosting your Dust income when used.

Era 5, which you should reach anytime during this phase, unlocks a handful of useful techs.

• Scientific Prizes
  
• Research Institute
  
• Sacred Vow
  
• Financial Literacy
  
• Military Engineering
  
• Land Management

You don't need all of these technologies if you can win before reaching them but they do help.

As Last Lords you are quite flexible in what victory you want to achieve. Three easy to achieve victory conditions are for Multitudes, Wealth and Stature. Multitudes can be easily be achieved because you can just buy out population as much as you need and if you run out of Dust you can use Influence to enlist minor factions instead. Wealth is also fair game, just buy the amount of strategic resources you need and fill the holes with your own extractors. For Stature you just have to bribe every minor faction you come across, use the units you get to spread out further and speed up your bribing process. Make sure that Aspects don't beat you to it.

But most of the other victory conditions are also doable for Last Lords. Supremacy and Insight work great for a more militaristic playstyle in which you take fortresses and conquer territories from other empires. You could also go all out on military and just go for a Concquest victory, erasing all the other factions.
Enlightenment is harder but manageable, Last Lords have a strong science game and if you make sure to always cover your anomalies with labs this should be fine. It really depends on if you have already reached era 5 when the last tiodefall started or if you are still struggling on era 4.

Acclaim is the only victory condition I never go on Last Lords. We neglect Industry the entire game in favour of Dust production and since we cannot buy out monuments this will only hinder us. But this is okay since we can go for everything else and just have to make sure no other empire beats us to it.