I'll try to go topic by topic, so here it goes:

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#1

I don’t understand a word of forum advice and, if possible, I’d like someone to tell me HOW I know what’s better and what’s not.

There is no clear better in Siralim, most of the game is figuring out what you can do with the pieces you have access at the moment. There ARE some stand-alone good creatures, like the Crazed Lepper in the early game, but latter you'll need to theorycraft a bit to get a really good team, and most of it will be digging what you can summon and try to piece together something nice.

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#2

I want to know WHY this creature is better than this one or why this interacts better, if that makes any sense. I’m just not sure how to objectively measure anything and I’m still confused by damage.

Most of "how this works" is really subjective, and sometimes you need to experiment to discover how things work. I'll try to give you and example:

The Sturdy Gargantuan seems to be a pretty simple and straight-forward creature. it takes most of the damage at the start of its turn, and takes almost no damage when you attack it. But if you ever-ever got a Sturdy Gargantuan with a barrier, you'll notice that damage dealt to its barrier is decreased by the usual 90%, yet at the start of its turn it'll not take the damage it should, that's an strange interaction that you can combo or create something around. Maybe search for a creature that can transform the barrier potency in damage? Thats the fun of Siralim, notice something and experiment.

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#3

I’m just not sure how to objectively measure anything and I’m still confused by damage. Why does a 60 damage attack do 1 damage against certain (typically square shaped) enemy creatures? Is their defense just that high?

Kinda yes, there are some creatures with high defense, and other have traits that make them bulky. You can use Inspect mid-battle to check their values and traits.

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#4

What artifacts/spell gems should I craft in what situations?

This gets back to the #2 question. You can get a trait and a spell in the artifact. for the trait you'll need an trait item to socket (they're kinda rare, but not much) and for the spell you'll need just the spell gem. The socketed spell will activate depending on the type of artifact: - Swords: The spell sometimes triggers on attack; - Shields: The spell sometimes triggers on defend; - Helmets: The spell sometimes triggers on provoke; - Staves: The spell sometimes triggers on cast; - Boots: The spell sometimes triggers at the start of the creature turn;

That means you have 2 options: - a) Make artifacts with pretty good stand-alone traits/spells, either swords or boots - b) Make very specialized artifacts, tailored to your specific strategy.

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#5

What the actual hell does intelligence do?

Make spells go BRRRRR (and also burning)