Your update helped me make some progress and I'm intrigued enough to keep trying! I gather that once I get the hang of it I'll be like, ooooooooh. Or it's just a really intensely hard game? Ha. It's fun though. I like the aesthetic/art/music/autobattler thing going on. I'm over here thinking like warcraft 2 but I keep remembering that I can't actually move the orriers myself.
How far are you getting? Are you collecting an orb? Are you getting overrun, or quit the run because you think it is lost?
Just trying to get a feel for the balance - it might very well be too hard right now.
It's not really about placing workers, but you have to take care not to use all your free orblings on the paths, because otherwise there won't be any left to go to the forts and become orriors. The immediate goal is to maximize orrior output - so you need some forts that are well provisioned with orblings and gemmstones.
I got it solved! Once I got a tip in the discord to go ham with making farms and huts, I was able to beat it on the first (re)try.
Before I got this tip I was going until overrun and that happened before getting the first orb or just after getting it. I wasn't able to keep my first mine for long.
I think rather than dialing back the difficulty, it be better to introduce parts of the game in stages? Not sure how games are made so I realize that might be a silly suggestion. I love your stuff btw. Great games.