The challenge from combat does not come from your enemies' strength, it comes from your ignorance of the game's mechanics. No doubt that this is a game where you cannot win by any means and must adapt your strategies to face the competition; however, if you do not wish to discover this for yourself, then I will attempt to elaborate below for your convenience.
Choosing low hostility portals, hotkey in parentheses (E), at the start is of the utmost importance: as low a number as you can get, primarily below 10. These portals will destabilize in a short period of time unless you pay forth some gold and crystals to maintain them. Once you have stabilized the portal, it will remain until you manually destroy it. You need not pay again. The maximum number of portals you can stabilize is capped at 2 from the start and in order to increase the cap you must upgrade your character by performing rituals with Lymean species who you've not already performed a ritual with and spend those newly earned points in the lymean section, base species upgrade, under "Change" at the bottom of the screen. The hot key for this menu in parentheses (C).
Before venturing into a portal it is best to bring along at least four companions at the start of the game with plenty of equipment that can be purchased from the shop, hotkey in parentheses (S), and then equipped at the bottom of the screen under Prep. Party, hotkey in parentheses (Q). Attempt to bring a diverse team with high damage potential on at least three units and supportive healing abilities on another. One of the absolute best starting professions for your character is Doctor as they will be able to heal your party members if they become injured which cannot be done otherwise until you return home and have upgraded your home to include the infirmary.
Once within a portal it is important to take your time to harvest some wood and stone. If you harvest too much and cannot move, drop some from your inventory and continue onward. Build pathways wherever you travel in order to make returning to the main portal easier once you start running low on time or you will be forced to pay a fine based on how long you ventured overtime. If your team is damaged or low on mana, setup camp for an hour or two and set your wounded characters to rest and your mana drained characters to meditate. While camping in a location that is unprotected, like anywhere outside of a hut, you can be ambushed while camping. Attempt to keep the ambush chance as low as possible to avoid risking an attack while your characters are still weak by setting some of your party on guard duty. High strength or magic will increase a character's ability to lower the ambush chance. If you choose doctor as your profession, your main character can be set to Doctor which will increase the healing of all other party members who are resting.
Currency is best obtained through the farm by breeding creatures with large volumes of fluids and setting them up to milk each other. Breeding creatures with genetic traits to increase their fluid production drastically increases income and choosing species who naturally produce large amounts of fluids is the optimum method for increasing the flow. The best genetic trait for increasing fluid production is called Producer and it is possessed by Mya at the tavern, hotkey in parentheses (T). Increase your relationship with her by working for her or completing assignments at the tavern. You can also drastically increase your relationship with her by giving her a futa potion that can be retrieved by meeting the FireDemon species in a random encounter event within a portal that has both Succubus and Lavagirls within it. Once she is friendly enough with you, you can invite her to live with you and then you have the ability to breed her with your characters to pass on the trait through genetics or if you are Evolution you can copy the trait and adapt one of your other characters to permanently retain the trait. This character can then pass on the trait genetically to their offspring. The best species for producing milk and or semen can be researched in the library run by Castalia, hotkey in parentheses (R). Typically Centaurs and other species with large phalli produce more semen while Succubus and other species with large breasts produce more milk.
Crystals will be needed early for a multitude of reasons and the best way to manifest them early is by breeding your characters to produce eggs. The eggs will be stored at the farm, hotkey in parentheses (F), within the hatchery. Incubate the eggs and then destroy them to harvest crystals. Only one crystal can be retrieved per egg, so it is not advisable to collect crystals this way unless you are breeding creatures with incredibly high fertility and virility in order to produce multiple eggs per impregnation. If you feel bad about destroying all of those fertilized eggs afterward, just tell yourself you are saving lives with stem cell research. Just keep telling yourself that they weren't human yet and that their brains and nervous systems weren't yet developed enough to stimulate pain and they couldn't feel it. You can't be a murderer if they never lived to begin with. It's okay. They looked more like lizards than people and lizards don't have souls.
Once you have cried yourself to sleep over the next few days, you can rest easier knowing now how to best prepare yourself to fight the king at the warcamp, hotkey in parentheses (W). If you plan to fight the king, which is advisable as the king's quest become increasingly and grossly difficult to complete, then you will have only a couple weeks to gather your strength through portal training, arena training, and weapon acquisitions. If you do not attack the king early, his power will magnify and he will become an immensely difficult opponent to defeat the longer you wait. Build up your finances, build up your characters' levels, and make sure you save before the attempt to evaluate whether you have adequately prepared yourself for victory.
There is so much more to say about the game, but for now this information should suffice. Not everything listed above is a requirement. Merely heed it as a suggestion to move forward successfully. There are always more ways than one to move forward.
