Strategy Guide for Heroes of Might & Magic Version 0.2 03/96 Brought to you by Yujun Qin http://www.egr.uh.edu/~yxq60120 yxq60120@tree.egr.uh.edu Do whatever you want with this document. You can even print it out and burn it. I give you the right to do so. But if you do distribute this document, please do not alter it and distribute in its entirety. DISCLAIMER All parts of this game are designed by New World Computing, Inc. Some screen shots are used in this homepage and none of them should be used for any commercial purpose against the interest of New World Computing, Inc. A CRY FOR HELP This guide is primarily aimed the new players of this game. FOR THOSE EXPERT PLAYERS, please oh pleeeeaaaaasssee mail me your strategies of playing. I can not do this alone. If you love this game as much as I do, you would love to help others play better wouldn’t you? If we can pool all the resources together then we can make this guide really, I mean REALLY valuable to others and more players can benefit from it. You compose a new section for this guide and your name will be in the Credit section as the co-author of this guide. If you can only offer one little tip, I will still thank you by putting your name in the special thanks section. I repeat, I can NOT do this alone, I need help. So let’s get it going!! Some shit you can skip Since I put basic concepts of the game and troop types in other sections, this document will concentrate on strategies. However, strategy is considered more like art than science. You need to feel it. I can call myself an expert player of the game but certainly not a strategist, not yet. What I am offering in this guide is my own experience and some advice. I still called it “Strategy Guide” because that’s what they are all called and “Advice Guide” sounds lame anyway. Credits Well only little old me fit here, for now. Special thanks The Zhou Brothers dragonus@sfsu.edu Rachael Tang elthia@cnct.com (Thanks for the offer to rewrite the whole thing, but no thanks, I will stick to my bad grammer :P) Steve Mclnerney stevemci@pop.mil.adfa.oz.au Paul Harden pokey@cyberspc.mb.ca Stephen Young youngs3@rpi.edu The first thing you need to learn I am not going to reproduce the manual here. You should read every page of it before you start the game. Even the letters written by Ironfist have some tips on strategy. What I am showing you here are what I think is important and my own experience. One thing you absolutely need to know is how to use your right mouse click. The right click is like ‘help’ in most cases. When you click on something you don’t understand, you will see a small window pop up and give you some explanation. Actually you can find most information you need by right clicking. Like the cost for building everything, troops' status and so on. You can also right click on enemy heroes to find out what kind of troops and how many of them are led by this hero. Right click on enemy castles/towns shows you the defenders. Basic Concepts This is a fantasy strategy game, turn based. I can put the whole legend of the game here but, that’s pretty much the whole manual is about, so read it. Of course, you can play the game without reading the story. What you really need to know is this: You have one hero with one or two troop(s), normally two, and a castle with minimal improvements at the beginning of each scenario. You start your building/conquest there. You have several tasks to survive and ultimately win the scenario. Castle -- Castle is the place you build all your improvements and hire your heroes from. It’s your home, defend it. It also produces 1000 gold per turn, BTW one turn is one day. Different castle type also decides what kind of troops you can produce. Capture as many enemy castles as you can, this is normally what you need to do to win in most scenario. Towns -- Towns are the only places in game that can be build into castles. This makes the towns almost as useful as castles. Towns generally are neutral at the beginning with some kind of defenses. Always conquer the neutral town upon discovery as you can manage. Don’t start any suicidal operation, it will, generally, do you no good. A town is fairly easy to conquer compared to a castle They don’t have a wall to protect itself. When you attack, it is the same as fighting on plains. I recommend you to change towns into castles as soon as possible. Mines -- You need to capture mines or you will soon draw your resource reserve empty. You will need all the resources to build city improvements, produce troops and hire heroes. To capture a mine and claim it yours, just have a hero walk into it. You will see a little flag of your color on top of it after capturing. Capture as many as you can. Always reclaim the mine if it is captured by other lords’ heroes. Don’t leave those mines without checking back later!! Hero -- To capture mines, you need heroes. To fight and conquer others you need heroes. The concept of hero is very useful in this game. A hero is needed to lead your troops. Without a hero, your troops are not going anywhere but defending your castle. Hero is the leader and soul of your troops . A hero can cast spells when you have researched/found spells, and with a spell book in the hero’s inventory. A hero can hold up to 14 of whatever artifacts he/she may find and use them. Different types of heroes have different modifiers and abilities, I will discuss these later. City Improvements -- You need to build city improvements. Most of the improvements produces troops, the detailed list will be in the troops section. Every castle has some common improvements: Magic guild: 4 levels totally. Each level you add, you get additional spells. With magic guild, you can also, for 500 gold, buy spell books for non-spell casting heroes like knights and barbarians. Thieves guild: Gives you information on your standings among other players in different categories. The more guilds you own, the more info you get. But I don’t really find it that useful to build one in every castle. Well: This one is useful. It increase the productions of your troops in that castle by 2 per week. It may not be much for peasants or sprites and such, but when you need dragons or phoenix, 2 units takes two weeks to produce. Tavern: Increase the morale of your defending troops. Shipyard: Produces ships, if you are on the sea shore; you can't build a shipyard if you are not on the sea shore. Also, only one ship can dock at a shipyard at any given time. You have to move the boat before you can produce another one. Troops -- You need to, of course, produce troops, to fight other lords. The status and cost of different troops are discussed in details in troops section. Artifacts -- You will want to find and grab those artifacts available in each scenario. You don’t HAVE TO but it will help, well mostly. There are artifacts that will hurt you rather than help you. And once you find the artifacts, you can’t destroy it nor drop it. You can't trade it either. It HAS to be carried on the original hero who found it. Note, only the bad artifacts can't be transferred. You can trade between your own heroes good artifacts and troops. My advice is this. Grab everything that you can get your hands on. If you do find a ‘bad’ artifact, let this hero carry it (you don't really have a choice there.) then, if you want, you can give him minimal troops like one of the weakest and let him fight other lords’ heroes, after he is defeated, the winning party will have to pick up the artifact up and now it’s their problem. Beware though, you might forget who picked up your bad luck later and fight that same hero again only to find out you got your bad luck back. So a more safe way is to keep him to dig up all the artifacts, then redistribute them. If you do choose to do this, remember don't keep him in the castles that are likely to be attacked, because when attacked the hero in the castle will assume the role of troop leader and the artifacts he carries will effect all the troops. Or better yet, you can leave that hero in some place where nobody will ever be. Of course you can just forget about the bad one just give all good ones to this hero to counter balance it and give him as many troops as possible and he is still a good fighter. You can get to the point where you have so many troops under the command of one hero that you don't have to worry about spells, luck or anything else. you can kill any enemy troops within one turn. Then who cares what the hero is carrying. Among the artifacts, there is a biggie in every scenario, that is buried somewhere. You need to solve a puzzle to see where it’s buried. You solve the puzzle by find pieces of the treasure map from different obelisks. After you fit all the pieces together (don’t worry computer does that for you.), you can see the red mark on the map indicating the location of the artifact. One trick to this is to start digging before you have all the pieces. As long as you can make a good guess where it is, start digging. You will be happy with that artifact, it’s much better than other artifacts. While normal artifacts may give your hero +2 attack skill, or +2 defense skill, or +2 spell skills, the one that you dig up will add 12 to a skill. Artifacts are generally defended by some neutral troops on the way. After you reach for the artifacts, three things may happen. You may get it for free (the best), or you can buy it for 2000 gold, the worst is you may find a pack of rogues defending it. You never know which situation will happen. It’s pure luck. So be always prepared for a battle. Misc. -- You may also find other strange looking things. Always remember to right click if you are not sure. Most things you walk into won’t hurt you. Even if they will, you will be asked if you want to go in that place or not. This is a always a good indicator and you should expect a battle ahead. I will give some examples below but you can find these out easily. Examples of good ones -- The fountain and ring bless your troops and make them lucky. The statue give you good morale. Capturing a lighthouse increases your troops' move on sea. Windmill gives you a small amount of resource every week, but you have to walk to it every week to receive it. Some dwellings for peasants and goblins or archers are out there. Also dwellings for nomads rogues and genies. (yes, the genies in the lamp) Examples of bad ones -- The ship wreck, grave yard and cave have monsters and ghosts inside, but you can always find something useful in return if you win the battle. However, if you or someone has already searched those places and killed all the monsters, and you search again, you will find nothing and your troops’ morale becomes low ??? -- The strangest of them all is the dragon city. You can consider that a good place to visit if you have a large army. After you attack the city and kill all the dragons in there, the rest of the dragon will offer you 1000 gold per day and defend the city for you. And you ask how come there are dragons left if your army killed them all? Maybe dragons are magical and can rise from their ashes. Wait that's phoenix. OK! Baby dragons from the city's day care center! Satisfied? I didn't design the game!! Anyway, it's like a gold mine with defenders; and in easy settings, other lords never attack the city. In the harder setting, they might when they find it. HAD ENOUGH? I JUST GOT WARMED UP!! Strategy -- Yeah finally :) OK I will do it this way. I will follow the process of playing. Standard game? Campaign game? The first you need to do is select Standard game or Campaign game from the Main menu. Multi-player game is not a issue of strategy, it depends on whether you have a buddy or not. Now let’s go back to which type of game to play. I will list the advantages and disadvantages of both game types. Standard Game Advantages: You get to choose the number of computer players (1-3) and their dumbness. You get to choose your color freely (yeah like that’s important). You can set the difficulty of the whole game. You can choose the scenario, and after playing the same scenario for a while you can remember the whole map. In some scenario you start with more than one castle. That's not always an advantage though. Since you can't see anything on map between these castles and if you have more than one castle, guess how strong those computer AIs are! Disadvantages: You can’t really choose which type of troops to start with. One, out of four types of troops, is assigned to you randomly. Or it's rather a castle type that is assigned to you. Doesn't matter really, all the same thing. Notes -- In the standard game selection window, there is an option called ‘King of the Hill’ if you are a newbie, DO NOT CHECK THIS OPTION. This option makes all your enemy stop fighting each other and beat you up first. I think it is an option for expert players who want an adventure and challenge. Another thing, although you don’t get the briefing window like the campaign game, you can still read something explaining the scenario when you click on the scenario you want to choose. Campaign game Advantages: You can choose which type of troops to start your campaign with. You get a briefing window before every scenario to learn what you are supposed to do in that scenario. Every mission is different, not simply seek domination of the land; this make it much more interesting. And it does follow a story line. As simple as the story is, it's still a story. To see which type of troops to choose for campaign game, see 'troops' section. You get to choose which lord you want to choose to play as. Then you get asigned a castle that should be led by this lord. Disadvantages: You can’t really set the difficulty level. You will always face what the computer throw at you. You don't have any control over it, but to accept everything. I always think in campaign game you are always put in a less favored situation. Others lords may be more advanced than you, and you always start with one castle. Note -- In campaign games, always pay close attention to the mission assigned to you. If you don’t finish the mission successfully, you can’t finish the scenario. You may conquer all the warlords, you still can’t finish it. Also beware of the other warlords who may finish the mission before you, then you are in BIG trouble, namely, you lose. I found that out the hard way. All the campaign scenarios stay the same at all time like standard games. Only the distribution of artifacts changes every time, not the locations but the items themselves change. This applies to both type of games. After you have picked the type of game, a scenario starts. Like all other strategy games, you can only see a small block of the whole map, where your castle and hero stands. You have limited resource at the beginning. You have a level-one hero already hired leading minimal troops. In one word, YOU SUCK. OOps, that was two words. OK so I can't count, no surprise there, I am in college!! The first thing you need to do is click / double click on your hero AND your castle to check their status. Let’s look at these. Hero’s screen: You left click on your selected hero to see info. (left click to select too) Who’s my hero? The title bar that’s above all the pix is the name and class of your hero. Like Arus the knight. Also, the first pix of the first row is the portrait of your hero(most are ugly, generally no foxy lady either :) How experienced is my hero? The first row of pix give you that information. There is an icon for attack skill. The number showing is how much attack skills this hero can add to all the troops he leads. The icon and number for defense skill works the same way. Only it adds to defense. The spell skill number tells you how effective your spells are. For some spells like protection and bless or blind; they last as many rounds as your spell skill. For example, spell skill = 1 gives a cheesy one round protection per spell cast. The knowledge number tells you how many spells of the same kind you can keep on your spell book. You can keep all the spell you can learn from a magic guild but how many each depends on your knowledge, make sense? The last picture has three row inside. First the eagle like icon stand for morale. Click on the eagle for your morale info. The second row inside the picture is a rainbow like icon, which stands for luck. Same thing, click on icon to see your luck info. The third is a star with the word “exp” on it. The number besides it is your hero’s current experience points. When you click on the icon you see how much more is needed for next level. When a hero gains a level, he/she gains one point in one of the four skills. There is no telling which one though. Spell casters have more chance of gaining spell skill and knowledge, knights and barbarians have more chance of gaining attack and defense skills. But again you can’t really tell, it’s random. A hero gain experience mainly by fighting. The more powerful and greater in number of enemy you kill, the more experience you get. A hero can also visit gazebo to gain experience but only once per gazebo per hero. You can also convert gold to experience when you find treasure chests. How strong is my hero? The strength of your hero depends on the troops he/she leads. The hero doesn’t actually fight during a combat. What he does it making decisions and cast spells. So it’s the troops who will fight. The second row of pictures of the window tell you which kind and how many troops the hero is leading. A hero can lead a maximum of 5 types of troops. But you can stack all the troops of same type together. And there is virtually no limit to how many you can stack together. I have reached more than 200 troops myself, no problem. BTW 200 of any troops should be pretty powerful, except peasants, I have killed 160 peasants with one shoot :) Some common sense, stack as many as you can afford. An army can never be too strong. I will discuss the detail of these later. Does my hero carry any goodies? It depends on you. The last two rows of icons in the window are normally unfilled at first. This is the inventory of you hero. He/she carries the spell book and any artifacts the hero may find. Spell casters normally carry a spell book with them when you hire them. For others who don’t have a spell book at first, you can click on the magic guild that you have build and for 500 gold you can buy one.(to do this, the hero has to be in the castle that has the magic guild.) The spell book is considered the only artifacts that can’t be transferred between heroes. Including the spell book, a hero can carry a maximum of 14 artifacts. Each normally affect one skill/luck/morale of the hero, hence the troops the hero is leading. Now you must have noticed there are different hero types here. There are four types in this game. The following is the attributes of level 1 heroes. Normally that's how they are when you hire them. They improve themselves by gaining levels. Knight Attack -- 1 Defense -- 2 Spell Power -- 1 Knowledge -- 1 Come with spellbook -- No Specialty -- +1 morale Barbarian Attack -- 2 Defense -- 1 Spell Power -- 1 Knowledge -- 1 Come with spellbook -- No Specialty -- No movement penalies for moving over rough terrain. Sorceress Attack -- 0 Defense -- 0 Spell Power -- 2 Knowledge -- 3 Come with a spellbook -- Yes Specialty -- Move on water with double speed. Warlock Attack -- 0 Defense -- 0 Spell Power -- 3 Knowledge -- 2 Specailty -- Has a larger visibility radius in Adventure window. Now this is it for heroes screen. The Adventure window You see the surrounding of your heroes, your castles and the places your heroes have been to. You can scroll this window around. For an overview of all areas, use the world map at the upper right corner. You use your adventure window to move your heroes around to fight others and explore the unknown territories. There really isn't much strategy to talk about in this part. All you need to know is in the manual. :) Yeah right, what manual?! The main objective in the adventure window is to move you heroes on to as many mines and obelisks as possible, they can ONLY help you. Every turn, before you do anything, right click on all castles, yours and especially enemy's. You look around your castles for potential dangers, like some sneaky enemy heroes. If you do see one right click to find out its troop strength. If you think your defenders of the castle are stronger than the enemy troops, then just leave him alone there. But beware, if you don't have a hero in your castle you still may lose even if your troops are stronger. Because heroes have several advantages. First, heroes have spells. If you don't have any hero to counter cast spells, chances are half of your troops can't even attack before they got all killed. Second, heroes have artifacts to help them, to increase attack power, defense skill and luck and morale. I won't go too much into it right now, I will save the goodies for later, the combat. Last but not the least, heroes adds bonus skills to all the troop he/she is leading. The bonus depends on the level of the heroes, and hero's class. You can't tell any of the above without 'identify hero' spell. So you can't just look at the enemy troops and say 'They are weak!' as long as the power is close to yours especially if the enemy has one of the four most powerful troops (Paladin, Cyclops, dragon, phoenix-- look into troops section to see why they are powerful) take extreme caution. Since your castle is your most precious property, defend it carefully. If you do think you will lose the fight and you don't have any hero of yours close enough to save you, you don't have to loose all your troops in your castle. If you have lots of money and all your dwellings in that castle can still give you more troops, then get everyone of them, even if all of your troops added together can't save the castle. Why, you ask? So after your enemy take over the castle, he can't recruit any more troops and you know exactly how many troops he has, and probably within a week, you can get an army strong enough to get the castle back and preferably kill that enemy hero(well heroes never die, but if you defeat them in the combat they disappear). Now that you have emptied your castle, it's time to flee. Yes flee. If you are positively sure that you can't win that battle, you flee to save your troops won't you? You go hire a hero and let that hero lead all the troops you got and flee out of the castle. If you have more than 5 types of troops, leave the weakest in castle and, no choice, you have to let them die. Normally, computer's first objective is to capture your castle. So its hero will totally ignore the hero fled out of the castle and still go ahead and attack the castle. The computer also use this strategy when it sees that your troops is going to attack its castle and it can't defend it. So if this happen to you, do what I do, go attack the fleeing hero first and kill all the troops, the castle is empty for the week anyway, you have plenty of time to capture it later. There is an interesting effect caused by this strategy used by computer. When one computer player attack another computer player, the defender flee ask I describe above, so the attacker take the castle then it will leave without put any troops for defense. So the fleeing hero go back and take the castle back and also leave without defense, since none of them can get more troops from the castle. So those two heroes will keep capturing and leaving the castle for ever, without attacking each other. Now, you have checked all your castles and make sure they are safe. It's time to check enemy's castles. When you right click on enemy castles you will see the defenders. If it's weak then you find a good opportunity to get yourself a brand new castle. Right click on enemy heroes to find out their strength. After knowing what you have and what your enemies have, you can start planning, and move your heroes around accordingly. Also, recruit as many troops as you can afford. After all, get a large army is the ultimate goal you have to achieve for this game. Be careful where you are stepping though, there are scattered creatures all around the map. They don't belong to any lord, but they will defend their properties if you invade their privacy. Each such creature has the control over the adjacent squares. You can walk pass them in those adjacent squares without pissing them off, but if you stop in those squares, you'd better ready to kill them all, for if you don't they will kill you. If you stop right on those creatures, which means you are attacking them intentionally, two things might happen. Do you want hear the good one first or the bad one? OK, bad one first. You have to fight until one dies. Now the good news, the creature may offer to join you, and you will gladly accept that offer, I hope? The surrender generally happens when your army is way to powerful for them to handle. But, it's all random. I forgot what happens if they offer to surrender and you don't have any space left in your army to hold them. Or maybe they don't surround under that condition? Anyway this don't happen much. Normally, those creatures are guarding something. Maybe a mine, an artifact, a road to other parts of the map. Whatever it is, if you want to go through, you must try your luck. However, you don't always have to fight them. If you don't desperately need that mine or whatever, you can wait until other heroes kill the creature, and you can capture the mine later. Of course if it's an artifact then you can't get it. Sometimes, when the creatures are guarding an road, they are actually acting as a defense line for you to keep other lords' heroes away, at least for a while. So my advise is this: do not fight them unless it is necessary, they usually fight instead of surrender so don't think you can always get free troops. Another thing you can do, in advanture window is walk to another friendly hero, then a trade window come up and you can trade troops and/or artifacts between two heroes. This is a way to deliver troops and/or artifacts to a hero who, for some reason, can't get back to a castle. You trade troops and artifacts by click the ones to be traded then the according arrow sign. Or if you want to exchange things, just click once on one then click once on the other. Note, spells books and cursed (bad) artifacts can't be transferred. You have to leave at least one group of troops for a hero. You move your heroes around, sooner or later, you will encounter combat. One cool thing about this game is that you can actually see and control what's going on in combat not random result like other games. When you engage in a combat, you enter the Combat Window Attacking troops will always be on the left side, defenders on the right. The troops of one hero arrange in a column from top to bottom of the window. The troop that is the first in 5 troops appear at the top. You can see the order of appearance by double click the icon of the hero who is leading those troops at the left side, outside the adventure window. The small tent behind the line of your troops is where the hero is hiding during the combat. You can move the mouse point over the tent and it will change to a helmet. Then click and you will see all the options a hero can do. Nothing much, cast spells, retreat, surrender, cancel. Cast spells -- If your hero has any spells on the spellbook, it's time to use those COMBAT SPELLS. I will tell you the effect of different spells in 'spells' section. Your hero can cast spell once every combat turn. So make sure you are not helping the enemy before you cast a spell. (Yes, you can actually help your enemy by cast a spell in battle.) Retreat -- Your hero flee, lose all troops but your hero is back to the pool for rehiring right afterwards. The heroes keep the experience points. artifacts. BEWARE, the hero after fleeing can be hired by any lord and disappears the next week. So if you want to rehire that hero do it quickly. Surrender -- it doesn't sound good for a hero but it has its advantages too. When you surrender, generally the other hero will accept (yes only another hero can accept surrender so you can't surrender to enemies without a hero leader.) After the hero accepts your surrender, he/she will ask for ransom before setting you free. The amount depends on the number and kind of troops. What you are actually doing is paying money to buy back your loser troops. If you can't pay or the hero declines your request, then you must continue the fight. After paying, your hero is back to the pool with experience, artifacts, all the troops and ready for ALL the lords to hire. Since you paid the money for his/her freedom, grab that guy OK? Don't be a sucker and let some other lord get your hero and troops. Cancel -- You click here when you say 'OOPS, I click on the wrong icon.' Attacking party move first. exceptions see 'troops' section. The troops attack in order of speed. The fastest troop attack first. Most fast troops, and all flying units can move to enemy and attack in one turn, most slow units can't. So don't get part of your units to deep into combat while your others units are still trying to catch up. But again sometimes you want to do that. All depends on your strategy. Shooters are the most precious units you can get in combat so ALWAYS PROTECT THEM. But remember, your shooters have limited ammo so if you fight a long battle, they will run out of the arrows or whatever. After that, shooters units suck. There is another thing you should know in combat called retaliate. Don't think your enemy will just stand there dumb-founded. They will return the favor to the first one or two attacks they receive, generally, see 'troops' section for exceptions. The same apply to your units, if they are attacked. You can only retaliate the enemy in adjacent squares, therefore, you can't retaliate any shooter unless you are standing next to them. When it's time for one of your units to move, you would see that unit being highlighted. You can skip this unit and go on to the next one by clicking on 'skip' button at the bottom of the screen. But if you do that, the unit you skipped lose that turn. There are three situations you may get into when you start your combat: combat on normal terrain, attacking a castle, and defending a castle. Attacking and defending a town is the same as fighting on normal terrain. When fighting on normal terrain, everyone has the same advantage/disadvantage. You just move your troops around and do your normal fighting. Castles When attacking a castle, you have to use catapult to break the castle walls before you can walk up to an enemy unit and attack. You flying troops are not limited to this, they can fly into the castle bofore you break the wall. Your shooters units' damage is reduced when attacking over the castle wall. You can only fire your catapuls once each turn, and it takes two hit tat the same section of the wall to break that section. The catapult aim at a random section every turn. You can't control it. You can fire twice if you have an artifact called ballista of quickness. See 'Artifacts' section. Catapult can not be destroyed. When defending a castle, you have castle walls to keep enemies away from you. You can't walking out either. You can use shooters to attack them and flying units to fly over castle walls to attack. The same apply to your enemy. You have a guarding tower shooting fire arrows, once each turn. The damage of arrow depends on the number of city improvements you build inside the castle. The guarding tower can not be destroyed. Hell, it can't be seen either. Now you need to know all the changing mouse pointers during combat. Running man -- When you see this, you know you can move the highlighted unit to the place where you put your pointer. Flying man -- Same as running man, you only see this when the highlighted unit can fly. Sword -- This means you can attack whomever you are pointing at with your highlighted unit. Arrow -- You can shoot there. You see this only when the shooters of yours are highlighted and they have arrows left. Red X -- You can't move/attack there. ? -- It changes to ? when the pointer is on one of your units. Click and you see the troops info window come up on the screen. Click on this often during the combat to see if any of the troops are low in hp and need a heal. (Yes, you will have heal spell.) Helmet -- I already told you. Now that we got the basics out of the way, it's time to fight. The BIG question, Do I or Do I not choose Auto-combat? This is a bit tricky, since both auto or manual combat have drawbacks. First let's talk about auto combat. It is a good choice for newbies. For more experienced players I would suggest manual combat. Playing auto-combat is like watch a cartoon, it takes the fun out of game-play. But if you have absolutely no idea what is going on, then forget about the fun part and just keep your men( or some kind of creatures) alive ok? First let's look into what's happening when you choose different combat options. Auto Combat There really isn't much strategy involved on your part. Computer does everything for you. And computer always follow one single strategy in combat. Normal terrain. How computer casts spells Each turn, if you have any combat spells available, the computer will try to use it. Typically, it casts 'protection' on your shooters unit first, then 'bless' either your shooters or one of your currently attacking units. Computer casts other spells generally when it's needed. But computer try its best to cast one spell per turn ( The max allowed ) until you run out of combat spells. Sometimes, and I have no idea how computer calculates that, it will force your hero to cast some destructive spells like storm. It will hurt both enemy and your own units. I highly oppose the usage of this kind of spells unless you are on a suicidal mission. There are only two spells in the game that will hurt all troops, 'storm' and 'Armageddon'. Use these with extreme caution!! You could kill your army with it. But over all, computer does a fairly good job on spell casting. The only problem is you need to go back to your castle to restock your spells at least every two battles, if you let computer do all the spell casting. Oh, also, the 'fireball' may hurt your own troops if they are one square away from where the fireball explodes. How computer moves the troops around and fight The computer will always move your slow units before the shooters to form a protection shield. By slow I mean the units that can't move to the enemy and attack within one turn. That will include all the units with 'slow' speed and most 'medium' speed units, unless you cast 'Haste' on them. The units with 'fast' speed and flying units will all go attack enemy shooters units first. Well... That's about it for dumb computers. It just wait until enemy units are within attack range then attack it. Otherwise, only shooters will attack. And computer always attack the enemy shooters first. This is the strategy the computer use when attacked by you. But, of course, if the attacking unit can't get to the enemy shooters, it will attack anyone in its way. This should be obvious. That's all to it for auto combat. Draw backs of auto combat. Doing auto combat is tend to waste your spells. Even if you know you can crush your enemy in one or two turns and you don't really need to cast any spells on your troops, the computer will still do it until you run out of scrolls and have to go back to a castle for a refill. When I was playing, I generally let a hero with some strong army wonder around and fight for a while before I get them back to a castle, so if I use auto combat all the time I will be in trouble. Spells can be extremely helpful in combat. You will see. Auto combat does not always move and attack according to situations. For example, when you encountered those neutral creatures groups, they are normally all the same type of troops, but they split into 5 groups with around 5 units each. So, when you get into those kind of combat and enemy is all shooters, the strategy computer uses is fatal to your troops, if you use auto combat that is. You see, when you are facing 5 shooting units, they shoot at your shooters at least 5 times in one round. If all your walking units are just standing in front of your shooters trying to protect them like the computer will always do, your shooters suffer unnecessary damage. The troops can't block arrows, arrows always hit the target. For your shooters alone, to kill all the enemy you need at least 5 turns. If you walk the other units toward the enemy, even if they can't attack within one turn, most of them can attack the enemy in the second round and save the shooters. (Shooters can't shoot arrows when an enemy unit is standing next to it, and they do much less damage without shooting). Another example, if you have one of the following 3 units, you'd better not do any auto combats: Dragons, phoenix, and cyclops. The problem with these units is that they are extremely powerful. They are also the only units in the whole game that can attack 2 squares instead of 1 for normal units. During auto combat, computer only see to it that dragon/phoenix/cyclops do hit the enemy. It doesn't care if you have another unit standing in the line of fire and get killed by your own dragon. This happened to me a couple of times and can be very annoying if the units got killed is one of your shooters. After that, I abandoned auto combat totally. Attacking/Defending Castles During the attacking and defending of castles, if you choose auto combat, the computer generally use the same tactically planning. Definitely the same as far as spell casting is concerned. However, computer does send more walking units to stand near the castle wall to wait for the breaking down of the walls. Other than that, it's the same. Manual Combat Normal Terrain. Now here, you can use some strategy. First you notice that your mouse point changes according to its position. The most important of all, the sword sign changes pointing directions when you move it around the body of the enemy. It shows how you attack, the handle points to where you would stand, and the blade points in the direction of your attack. It doesn't seem much at first, but it's proved to be an important thing to consider when conducting a combat. What you want to do is to keep most enemy away from your shooters and let the rest of your troops attack them with the help of shooters from behind. One way of stop a unit moving is send an unit next to them. Or use a unit to block the way. There are rocks and trees and so on, that have already blocked some of the road. The first thing you need to do is survey the whole battlefield to see how you can use those 'blockers' toward your advantages. Effectively using those road blockers and your units can keep most of enemy at their side of the battlefield and annihilate them. Another thing you need to remember is that no unit can move to an occupied square period. So if you are clever enough, you can use enemy units to block their own troops. Of course, they will attack your blocking units like crazy so use the unit with considerable strength to this job. If you send a unit to stand inside the semicircle made by three enemy units, all of them will attack your unit instead of moving around them even if they can. One note on blocking, there is no way you can block any flying units. They can fly to wherever they please to. Another importance of knowing the direction of your attack is when you have the three units I talked about earlier that can attack two spares. You want to make sure that your other units aren't in the line of FIRE. Also check if another enemy unit IS in the line of fire and you can attack both within one turn. Always leave at least one unit to protect your shooters preferably one of the slow moving units since the enemy flying units will always go after your shooters. Then send the rest to attack and block enemy units. If your flying or fast moving units aren't strong enough to take the first round, then move them slowly with the others and form a steady line to prevent undesired encounters. And again, flying units will just go over your head. Always use more than one unit to attack one enemy unit unless your are sure that the enemy unit is so weak you can finish it in one or two turns. Shooters should always try to kill the enemy shooters first. After that, if your shooters are strong(great in number, etc.) you should try to eliminate a whole group of enemy troops alone. If your shooters aren't so strong, then try to help your attacking units to finish their fight quicker so they can go on to the next battle. As the saying goes, 'it's an art, not science.' go with your feelings. Watch for ammo though. The shooters' ammo normally lasts 8 rounds. After that they attack by hands and become almost useless.(Druid and trolls will be still good attackers even after their arrows are gone.) Don't worry, after the battle is done, they got new supplies and will have the full load for the next battle. Other than these, you just walk/fly to your enemy and attack. Flee if you have to. You flee to prevent you experienced hero to abandon you. If you make a mistake by attacking someone or you got attacked and you are sure that you can't win, you can surrender and buy back your troops. For spells casting during the battle, I will put them in the spells section using comments to each spell. It will be easier to write this way. Attacking Castle Generally you do the same thing. You just need to handle an extra castle wall before you have a clear path to attack. Your flying unit can get in only if there are space left inside. Sometimes you can't find any space inside the wall. Then you have to wait until the catapult to break at least one section of the wall. Line up your attacking units along the wall and wait for the walls to be broken. your troops will be stopped upon entrance between the broken walls, hence block the way of your own troops. So castle attacking is normally a one-on-one even two-on-one, three-on-one situation. Always send in the strongest walking troops. By strongest I don't mean the type. You may have 2 dragons and 500 swordsmen, then the swordsmen is stronger than the dragon. To find out the detailed info on your troops move your mouse over them and click on the troop with that question mark. Also read the section about troops in this guide. Don't forget to let your shooters help opening up pathways into castle, by killing the enemy that's blocking the way, or kill some weak troops inside the castle to open up space for your flying units. You will have to cast protection on your shooters or they will suffer some heavy casualties.( Those damn flaming arrows from the watch tower!) Don't leave any units with shooters to protect them unless enemy has flying units. After I take over a castle, I don't normally leave it empty like the computer does most the time. I don't leave any of my own army there either. I recruit if I can. If I can't, I let my here stay there a week. This somehow slows down your quest but, you don't lose your castle too easily. Defending the castle Your walking units wouldn't do anything until your castle wall break down. Shooters is the most important and you should start shooting the first round. First at their shooters, hopefully, with the help of the watch tower, you can kill enemy shooters. Then enemy flying units if there is any. Then shoot at the strongest enemy units to, at least, cut down its size to minimize the damage they do. At the meantime, line your troops along the wall to fill all the spaces. Also send out your flying units if they are strong enough. That's about it for combat. Isn't it exciting? Troops info (listed by type) You can actually find all those info by right click on the troops icon most the time, sometimes even left click will do. I list all these so you can have a list handy. All the numbers in cost means gold, unless specified. Growth is per week. Morale and Luck are all normal for all the troops. Only under the leadership of a hero those attributes will be changed. For some reason, those basic troops like peasants and goblins are more effected by heroes' modifier as powerful troops like cyclops and dragons are less effected. At least that's what happened to me. The troops are listed in order of increasing power (loosely), The word in following the troop name is the dwelling needed to recruit those troops. Knight/human troops In Campaign game Lead by Lord Ironfist. Color red. ]Peasants (Thatched Hut) Attack -- 1 Defense -- 1 Damage -- 1 HP -- 1 Speed -- 1 Cost -- 20 Growth -- 12 Specialty -- None Comments -- The weakest troop as soon as you can afford, discard peasants until you suddenly remember it. Only more than 1000 of them stack together can do something. But you still need to use them at the beginning of the game, if your home castle is knight/human castle. Archer (Archery Range) Attack -- 5 Defense -- 3 Damage -- 2-3 HP -- 10 Speed -- Slow Cost -- 150 Growth -- 8 Specialty -- Shooter, 12 shots per combat. Comments -- Basic Shooters. I can't think of anything else right now. I will let you know when I do. Pikemen (Blacksmith) Attack -- 5 Defense -- 9 Damage -- 3-4 HP -- 15 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 200 Growth -- 5 Specialty -- None Comments -- Can be used both as defenders or attackers just stack lots of them together. Swordsman (Armory) Attack -- 7 Defense – 9 Damage -- 4-6 HP -- 25 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 250 Growth -- 4 Specialty -- None Comments -- Same as Pikemen Cavalry (Jousting Arena) Attack -- 10 Defense -- 9 Damage -- 5-10 HP -- 30 Speed -- Fast Cost -- 300 Growth -- 3 Specialty -- None Comments -- The best attacking units before you can afford to build a Cathedral. Paladin (Cathedral) Attack -- 11 Defense -- 12 Damage -- 5-10 HP -- 50 Speed -- Fast Cost -- 600 Growth -- 2 Specialty -- Attacks twice per round. Comments -- They are fast, they are strong. But not too strong comparing to other troops in their rank like dragons and phoenix. In my opinion, even hydras are better. The only advantage is it's cheap. It's even cheaper than some basic troops of other type of castles. And its growth rate is 2 instead of 1 like others. Barbarian / Plains troops In Campaign game lead by Lord Slayer, color green. Goblin (Hut) Attack -- 3 Defense -- 1 Damage -- 1-2 HP -- 3 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 40 Growth -- 10 Specialty -- None Comments -- Most basic troop of this type. But you can see, much better than peasants. Ideal for shooter defending early in the game. Orc (Stick Hut) Attack -- 3 Defense -- 4 Damage -- 2-3 HP -- 10 Speed -- Slow Cost -- 140 Growth -- 8 Specialty -- Shooters, 8 shots per combat. Comments -- Basic shooter, great in growth rate. Stack a lot of them together. Wolf (Den) Attack -- 6 Defense -- 2 Damage -- 3-5 HP -- 20 Speed -- Fast Cost -- 200 Growth -- 5 Specialty -- Attacks twice per round. Comments -- Always tag it alone for attacking. Does double damage and fast. Ogre (Adobe) Attack -- 9 Defense -- 5 Damage -- 4-6 HP -- 40 Speed -- Slow Cost -- 300 Growth -- 4 Specialty -- None Comments -- Nice for castle defense. Of course you can use it for attack but considering its speed, it's ideal for defending. Troll (Bridge) Attack -- 10 Defense -- 5 Damage -- 5-7 HP -- 40 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 600 Growth -- 3 Specialty -- Shooters, 8 shots per combat. Regenerate HP. Comments -- The best shooter unit in game. Author's choice award :) Cyclops (Pyramid) Attack -- 12 Defense -- 9 Damage -- 12-24 HP -- 80 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 750 + 1 crystal Growth -- 2 Specialty -- Attack 2 spaces, 20% paralyzation. Comments -- Relatively cheap and a good attacker/defender. HP a little low. Speed is quite slow. Sorceress / Forrest troops In Campaign game lead by Queen Lamanda, color yellow. Sprite (Treehouse) Attack -- 4 Defense -- 2 Damage -- 1-2 HP -- 2 Speed -- Medium/fly Cost -- 50 Growth -- 8 Specialty -- Enemy can't retaliate Comments -- If you have lots of them then use them. The most spendable unit in game. Gather more than 200 of them then use them. Dwarf (Cottage) Attack -- 6 Defense -- 5 Damage -- 2-4 HP -- 20 Speed -- Slow Cost -- 200 Growth -- 6 Specialty -- 25% magic resistance Comments -- The castle defending unit for this type. Ideal for non-hero defending castles considering its specialty. Elf (Archery Range) Attack -- 4 Defense -- 3 Damage -- 2-3 HP -- 15 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 250 Growth -- 4 Specialty -- Shooters, 24 shots per combat, 2 shots per round. Comments -- Best among basic shooters. A little expensive for its rank. Druid (Stonehenge) Attack -- 7 Defense -- 5 Damage -- 5-8 HP -- 25 Speed -- Fast Cost -- 350 Growth -- 3 Specialty -- Shooters 8 shots per combat. Comments -- A good attacking/shooting units only next to trolls. Unicorn (Fenced Meadow) Attack -- 10 Defense -- 9 Damage -- 7-14 HP -- 40 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 500 Growth -- 2 Specialty -- 20% Blind (the enemy not itself!!) Comments -- Use for defense, use for attack. it's good for anything, only the growth rate is low. Phoenix (Red Tower) Attack -- 12 Defense -- 10 Damage -- 20-40 HP -- 100 Speed -- Fast/Fly Cost -- 1500 + 1 Mercury Growth -- 1 Specialty -- Attacks 2 squares. Comments -- The best. Also the most expensive next to dragon. Warlock / Mountain troops In Campaign game led by Lord Alamar, color blue. This is considered the best group of units in the game but they are very expensive and low in growth rate. Centaur (Cave) Attack -- 3 Defense -- 1 Damage -- 1-2 HP -- 5 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 60 Growth -- 8 Specialty -- Shooters, 8 shots per combat. Comments -- The weakest in game. I think it's here to balance all the other powerful armies. Gargoyle (Crypt) Attack -- 4 Defense -- 7 Damage -- 2-3 HP -- 15 Speed -- fast/fly Cost -- 200 Growth -- 6 Specialty -- None Comments -- Use it only if you don't have griffins. One advantage is gargoyles have a higher defense point. Griffin (Nest) Attack -- 6 Defense -- 6 Damage -- 3-5 HP -- 25 Speed -- Medium/fly Cost -- 300 Growth -- 4 Specialty -- Unlimited retaliation Comments -- Bring a whole bunch in your party. Considering its specialty, it is a good if not the best 'road blocker' in the game. Also ideal for castle attacking and defending. Minotaur (Maze) Attack -- 9 Defense -- 8 Damage -- 5-10 HP -- 35 Speed -- Medium Cost -- 400 Growth -- 3 Specialty -- None Comments -- I use them most for defense but it is balanced. If you can live with its speed it's OK to attack too. Hydra (Swamp) Attack -- 8 Defense -- 9 Damage -- 6-12 HP -- 75 Speed -- Slow Cost -- 800 Growth -- 2 Specialty -- Attacks all adjacent spaces; enemy can't retaliate Comments -- Take these hydra anywhere with you. They are proven to be better than paladins if not cyclops. It's best used as 'road blocker' and castle defender. If you have 'Haste' spell, then use this to attack. It could compare to the power of dragon. Well almost. Dragon (Black tower) Attack -- 12 Defense -- 12 Damage -- 25-50 HP -- 200 Speed -- Medium/fly Cost -- 3000 + 1 Sulfer Growth -- 1 Specialty -- Attacks 2 squares. Immune to spells. Comments -- What can you say? They are dragons. Nothing can slow them down. With 20 or 30 stacked together, they guarantee to wipe everyone off the map. I used 5 dragons in the 1st scenario of the campaign game and I never met any match. Miscellaneous troops, You can not build the dwellings for these creatures in your castle. You have to find their dwellings and recruit them there. You cannot recruit ghost units, they are enemies. Rogue (Wagons) Attack -- 6 Defense -- 1 Damage -- 1-2 HP -- 4 Speed -- Fast Cost -- 50 Growth -- N/A Specialty -- Enemy can't retaliate. Comments -- Considering the cost and attack skill, you may want to recruit them when you find them. Use them to attack early in the game. Facing some powerful enemy, they die rather quickly. This type of troop is very unbalanced. Nomad (Tent) Attack -- 7 Defense -- 6 Damage -- 2-5 HP -- 20 Speed -- Fast Cost -- 200 Growth -- N/A Specialty -- None Comments -- Can be used as substitute for Cavalry, but not quit as good. I will say it's your call. Not something that you definitely need to go after. Genie (Lamp) Attack -- 10 Defense -- 9 Damage -- 20-30 HP -- 50 Speed -- Fast/Fly Cost -- 650 + 1 gem Growth -- N/A Specialty -- 10% chance to cut the size of enemy unit in half. (!!!! This is good, Hello there. Wake up !!!) Comments -- What do you feel when you find a lamp with genies ( yes pl.) inside? They are good. Grab them whenever you find the lamp. But before you go pick up the lamp, make sure you have the money for at least 10 genies. I have not seen a lamp with more than 10 genies inside. Not yet. If you don't have enough money, you can't get all the genies and the ones you left in the lamp will disappear with the lamp. Also make sure, the hero who pick the lamp up has an empty slot to put the genies. If not you can't get the genies either. Ghost (Shipwreck and graveyard) Attack -- 8 Defense -- 7 Damage -- 4-6 HP -- 20 Speed -- Medium/Fly Cost -- You can't recruit them. Growth -- N/A Specialty -- For one creature killed a ghost is created. Comments -- The most annoying troop in the whole game. Don't even touch them unless you have 'turn dead' spells and/or you know every one of your troops can stand one round of ghost attack without dying and kill the ghost in one round. They are in shipwrecks, graveyard. If they are outside, you will see the icon. Spells info (list in no particular order) Advanture spells. You cast these at the adventure window. Level 1 View Mine -- Display the location and type of all mines on the map. Level 2 Summon Boat -- Summon the nearest boat (unoccupied) View Artifacts -- Shows all the artifacts on the map. Level 3 Identify Hero -- Shows you the statistics of an enemy hero and who many troops he is leading. View Heroes -- Displays the location of all heroes. View Resources -- Display the location and type of all resources. View Towns -- Displays the location of all towns/castles. Level 4 Dimension Door -- Move the hero who cast it to any space visible in the adventure window. Town Gate -- Teleport the hero who cast the spell to the nearest friendly castle or town. View all -- Show the entire map. Combat Spells You cast these in Combat window. All spells can be used on both side. So before you do any spell casting in combat, make sure you are helping your armies not the enemy OK? The spell with * is better used on your own units. The spell with ** can be used on both sides to see a positive effect. Like 'Dispel Magic' can be used to heal your own troops of negative spells, while remove positive spells on enemy units. Level 1 Curse -- Cursed units can do only minimum damage. *Bless -- Blessed units do Max. damage. **Dispel Magic -- Removes all spells from the receptian. *Protection -- +3 defense. **Teleport -- Move one troop to a random unoccupied square on the battlefield. Slow -- Slow down the enemy units so they move one square a turn and attack last. Level 2 *Anti-Magic -- Protects the units from all spells. Blind -- Blind troops can only retaliate. The damage to a blind troop cancels the spell. *Cure -- Cures ALL your troops of all negative spells. Lightning Bolt -- Does 25x hero's spell power damage to one troop. *Haste -- Haste troops speed up to FAST. Turn Undead -- Destroy one group of undead creatures, namely ghosts. Level 3 Berserker -- Berzerked units will attack the nearest troop for one round. Fireball -- Does 10x spell power to all adjacent squares. Paralyze -- Paralyzed troops can't retaliate; damage to paralyzed troops cancels the spell. *Resurrect -- Heals 50x spell power to a single creature in a single group. Storm -- Does 25x spell power damage to ALL units on the battlefield. Level 4 Armageddon -- Does 50x spell power damage to ALL troops on battlefield. Meteor Shower -- Does 25x spell power damage to all adjacent squares. Note, the level there is the level of your Magic guild not the level of your hero. Different Magic guilds in different castles gives you different spells. So do not ignore the development of all magic guilds. Artifacts info (what I found out so far) I think I got everything. If you find any artifact that is not listed here, please mail me. ULTIMATE ARTIFACTS You dig these up after you solve (or think you solve) the puzzle. There is only one in every Scenario. Ultimate Book of Knowledge -- +12 knowledge. Ultimate Sword of Dominion -- +12 attack. Ultimate Cloak of Protection -- +12 defense Ultimate Wand of Magic -- +12 spell power. Adds to Attack Thunder mace of Dominion -- +1 attack Giant Flail of Dominion -- +1 attack Power Axe of Dominion -- +2 attack Dragon sword of Dominion -- +3 attack Adds to defense Armored Gauntlets of Protection -- +1 defense Defender Helm of Protection -- +1 defense Stealth Shield of Protection -- +2 defense Divine Breast Plate of Protection -- +3 defense. Adds to Spell Power Caster's Bracelet -- +2 spell power Witches Broach of Magic -- +3 spell power Arcane Necklace of Magic -- +4 spell power. Mage's Ring -- +5 spell power Adds to Knowledge Minor Scroll of Knowledge -- +2 knowledge. Major Scroll of Knowledge -- +3 knowledge Superior Scroll of Knowledge -- +4 knowledge Foremost Scroll of Knowledge -- +5 knowledge. Adds to Morale Medal of Courage -- +1 morale Medal of Honor -- +1 morale Medal of Distinction -- +1 morale Medal of Valour -- +1 morale Adds to luck Gambler's Lucky coin -- +1 luck Lucky Rabbit's Foot -- +1 luck Golden Horseshoe -- +1 luck 4-Leaf Clover -- +1 luck Adds to money Endless Purse of gold -- +500 gold per day. Endless bag of gold -- +750 gold per day. Endless sack of gold -- +1000 gold per day. Misc Ballista of Quickness -- Catapults attack twice a round. True compass of mobility -- +move on land and sea. Traveler’s boots of Mobility -- +move on land. Nomad's Mobility Boots -- +move on land. Sailor's Astrolabe of Mobility -- +move on sea. BAD BAD BAD (cursed artifacts) Fizbin of Misfortune -- -2 Morale. Dwelling info. Float charts Knight Castle -->Archery Range / Castle ---> Thatched Hut |--> Well ---> Blacksmith\ /--> Jousting Arena \ |-->| --> Tavern --> Armory / \--> Cathedral Barbarian Castle --> Stick Hut / Castle ---> Hut |--> Adobe --> Bridge --> Pyramid \ --> Den Sorceress Castle --> Tavern --> Cottage | Castle ---> Treehouse --> Archery Range --> Mage Guild | -------------------------------- | -> Stonehenge --> Fenced Meadow --> Red Tower Warlock Castle ---> Nest --> Swamp --\ | |--> Black Tower Castle ---> Cave -->Crypt --> Maze --/ Dwelling cost Terms G -- gold O -- Orc W -- Wood C -- crystal S -- Sulfur Gem -- Gem M -- Mercury Cost for converting tent to castle -- 20 w, 20 o, 5000 g Common dwellings that can be built in all casltes Mage Guild Level 1 -- 5 w, 5 o, 2000 g level 2 -- 5 w, 5 o, 4 c, 4 s, 4 gem, 4 m, 1000 g level 3 -- 5 w, 5 o, 6 c, 6 s, 6 gem, 6 m, 1000 g level 4 -- 5 w, 5 o, 10 c, 10 s, 10 gem, 10 m, 1000 g Thieves' Guild -- 5 w, 750 g Tavern -- 5 w, 500 g Shipyard -- 20 w, 2000 g Well -- 500 g Knight Castle dwellings Thatched Hut (peasant) -- 200 g Archery Range(Archer) -- 1000 g Blacksmith (Pikemen) -- 5 o, 1000 g Armory (Swordsman) -- 10 w, 10 o, 2000 g Jousting Arena (Cavalry) -- 20 w, 4000 g Cathedral (Paladin) -- 20 o, 20 c, 5000 g Barbarian Castle Hut (goblin) -- 300 g Stick Hut (Orc) -- 5 w, 800 g Den (wolf) -- 1000 g Adobe (Ogre) -- 10 w, 10 o, 2000 g Bridge (troll) -- 20 o, 3000 g Pyramid (cyclops) -- 20 o, 20 c, 6000 g Sorceress Castle Treehouse (sprite) -- 5 w, 500 g Cottage (Dwarf) -- 5 w, 1000 g Archery Range (elf) -- 1500 g Stonehenge (druid) -- 10 m, 10 o, 2500 g Fenced Meadow (unicorn) -- 10 w, 10 gem, 3000 g Red Tower (phoenix) -- 20 m, 30 o, 10000 g Warlock Castle Cave (centaur) -- 500 g Crypt (gargoyle) -- 10 o, 1000 g Nest (griffin) -- 2000 g Maze (minotaur) -- 10 gem, 3000 g Swamp (hydra) -- 10 s, 4000 g Black Tower (dragon) -- 30 o, 20 s, 15000 g General Hints and Tips for game plays. This section deals with specific issues that you may encounter in the game. Also questions others ask me. You can consider this mainly a FAQ or Q&A section. There may be repetition of what I have already wrote about in the early sections In Campaign game which lord / queen should I choose? It depends. When you choose a lord, you are actually choosing the type of castle/troops to start your game with. After you decide, you will always start the campaign scenario with that type of castle. For details on lord/castle combanation see the troops section. Everyone has his/her preferences on types of troops. After one game or two, you will have your own preference, too. For starters, Knight casltes give you cheap and relatively OK troops. Babarian/Sorceress castles both have 2 kinds of shooters and good for castle attacking. Warlock castle give you powerful troops ( advanced troops are more powerful) but very expensive. I always pick soceress castle for no reason. Guess I like the shooters and phoenix. I suggest the starters to choose Knight castles or Babarian castle. What should I do the first day? In most games you start with one castle and one hero on the first day. Your first mission is to explore the surroundings and pick up near by treasures, artifacts or whatever that is NOT GUARDED. You don't have the stroops needed to fight. So don't even stop near any creatures. Don't forget to build a dwelling in your castle. You can build one a day. Then hire another hero. Don't think you would need that 2500 gold for something else. Your reserve is generally enough for several days of building, and you do need at least two heroes at the start of the game. What should I do the first week? By now you should have at least two heroes, but don't go over three since you don't want to split your troops to too many heroes. You don't have many troops yet. Don't even consider the third hero for at least a week or two. DO remember, however, to build one dwelling everyday the first week. Build dwellings that produces armies first. When you ar low in funds or you can't build the dwellings then build well and mage guild. This should open up more dwellings for you to build, since some dwellings requires the building of well or mage guild first. Leave the Thieves guild and Tavern to the last. Send your heroes to explore the nearby land. Don't go too far though. You can't go very far without fighting. One thing you can do is to give all troops to one hero and send them exploring, while the other one with minimum troops go around pick up goodies, and protect your castle in case other lord find you too fast. Don't leave the castle empty. Should I fight those creatures to get to the mine/artifact? It depends. You can look up the troops section for relative strength of troops. The creature guarding the mine/artifact is normally in 5 groups of 4-5 creatures per group, unless they are paladins or dragons. That will be 1-2 per group. Compare that to your army's strength and make a decision. If the guarding creatures are slow and you have shooters then you have an advantage. If it's the other way around then you have disadvantages. The problem will be the slowly walking troops suffer from the shooters while walking close. If you have some flying units then you can use them to tie up enemy shooters, genereally 3 of them if your flying units stand in the middle. They can't shot with an enemy unit next to them and their hand-to-hand damage suck. The same apply to your shooters so when you distribute your troops in hero's window, put the shooters at the beginning and/or the end of all the troops. That will put them in the corner of the combat window. Then you don't need as many troops to surround them to protect them. Now if you need that mine desperately then you have to fight that creature to get to it. But sometimes you can walk around the creatures and capture the mine. Don't fight the creatures that are blocking the road. They can at least slow down your enemy's approach. When you feel you are ready and strong enought to expand beyond that point. The enemy took all my castles what should I do? If ALL of your castles are gone, you should get a message telling you that you need to get your castle back within 7 days or you are doomed. Do it!! Gather all the heroes together and combine all the troops/artifacts on the most powerful hero. Use the rest hero to attack ONE castle to weaken its defense then use the hero with all the troops to take it over. If you fail, you either start a new game or load the game again, assumming you have saved it earlier. If you did win this battle, it's likely you won't have the strength to take over another castle for a while. What you should do is defend the only castle you have, and let other lord fight each other. Most of them will get weakened or even conquered. While they are fighting, you should use all your resources and gold to build powerful armies. But watch your resources, they may run out. Even if you are not fighting others, keep an eye on everyone. I recommand you turn on the view enemy move option. When you see a castle with weak defense near you, your chance is here and grab it. Go attack it and defend it. Then you have more gold coming in and you can build more armies. This way you can come back into battle and hopefully win this scenario. You should attack the weakest lord when you have the chance. There is a good chance that you may wipe him off the map. Then, you have the foundation to fight the one most powerful lord that is left. The only disadvantage is the one left over may be too powerful when you are finally ready to face him. But don't be discouraged by it. This is the time your start saving on dragons and phoenix or cyclops. Stack whole bunch of those on one or two of your heores then go kill. Most enemy heroes have their troops spread over on everyone of them. You can gather all of your troops and you can kill them without a lot of difficulties. An enemy hero is approaching my castle, I don't have enough defense, what should I do? Ok, first make sure if you have any hero that CAN defeat the approaching enemy with "Demension door" spell. If so, you maybe able to teleport that hero in time for the fight. If not, do you have money? I am talking about 5k or 10k even. If you do, you can do a couple of things. One thing you can do is buy up all the troops avialable in that castle and a hero to lead them. Let the hero flee out of the castle. The computer AI wouldnt attack them, he will go for the castle. I talked about this strategy earlier in this doc. Go find it. Another thing you can do if you have 'Storm' or 'Armageddon' spell then you can hire a WARLOCK/SOCERESS to go on a suicidial mission. Only give them the original troops that came with them and let them go fight the enemy. Cast 'Storm' or 'Armageddon' upon contact. This should wipe out all your units but that should take care some of the enemy too. If you have money just keep doing this until you run out of money or the enemy got beat up and can't take your castle no more. Oh another thing, if your castle does not have a lot of improvement in it, then it's not a bad idea to lose it to the enmey. Under one condition though, make sure you can take it back very soon. After you take it back, you might get extra improvments built by your enemy. If you take all the troops away and take back the castle within a week then you can get the extra improvements easily since the defense in castle is weak.( the computer can't get more troops out of the dwellings.) If you DO have lots of improvement and you DO want to defend your army, there is another thing you can do, only if the approaching enemy is low on shooters and flyers. You can get some flying units, buy them from dwelling or hire warlock/soceress who comes with flying units. Your weak flying units will get attacked last. So you can hide it in one corner. let all other units fight and kill as many enemy as possible, make sure you do shooter and flyers first. Always hide your flying units in one of the four corners of the battlefield where enemy can't reach within one turn. Remove spells on the flyers if needed. For each round, your guarding tower will shoot flaming arrow at the enemy and if you keep the flyers out of the reach of the enemy, the enemy will get killed after several turns by the arrows. One note though, if the enemy has a fast moving unit there is a chance that it will catch you. It happened to me once. :( This does not always work but worth a try if you are desperate. Ideas I read about: Things in this section are not written by me. I am just copying it, normally without approval of the origianl auther. But since I am not selling this, it should be ok and I will give the authhor credit. If you read your idea here and don't want me to use it drop me a mail ok? Shuttle (Joe Novicki) -- This is the original text written by him on PC game online magzine or something close. :) sorry don't remember the name. Say a large army is about to strike your castle, which is defended by a very weak hero. you have a good army close by, but it can't reach the castle to drop off needed defenders. Your weak army can reach the good army to trade units, but it can't get back. Solution: Move the weak hero out just one step from your caslte. Buy a new hero. Have the new hero go out, trade units with your good army and head back to the castle. Now your weak army should be able to reach the new army, make the trade and get back to the castle to better defend it. ... More heroes can be thrown in if needed. Cheats The only cheat code known, at least to me, is 101495 you type it in when you are at the adventure screen. Since keypad is used for movement control, I recommand you use the top row of the keyboard to do this. The affect of this code is the same as 'view all' spell. It will reveal the whole map to you. You will see everything going on on the map during the whole scenario. There are also two stand-alone save game editors and a module for Universal Game Editor. You can go to my web page at http://www.egr.uh.edu/~yxq60120/hero/hero.htm and click on cheat to find the links for download.