PCPP Game Guide 2/PCPP_GG2.iso/PCPP/strategy/homm.txt

Text File | 1998-06-02 | 74KB | 1,368 lines

Strategy Guide for Heroes of Might & Magic
Version 0.2 03/96
Brought to you
by Yujun Qin
http://www.egr.uh.edu/~yxq60120
[e-mail]

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 wouldnÆt
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 letÆs 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
ôStrategy Guideö because  thatÆs what they are all called and ôAdvice Guideö sounds lame
anyway.

Credits
    Well only little old me fit here, for now.

Special thanks
    The Zhou Brothers
       [e-mail]
    Rachael Tang
        [e-mail] (Thanks for the offer to rewrite the whole thing,
                      but no thanks, I will stick to my bad grammer :P)
    Steve Mclnerney
        [e-mail]
    Paul Harden
        [e-mail]
    Stephen Young
        [e-mail]

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 æhelpÆ in
most cases. When you click on something you donÆt 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, thatÆs 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. ItÆs
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. DonÆt start any  suicidal
operation, it will, generally, do you no good. A town is fairly easy to conquer compared  to a
castle They donÆt 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 lordsÆ heroes. DonÆt 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 heroÆs 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 donÆt 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 donÆt
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 canÆt 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  æbadÆ 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 lordsÆ heroes,  after he is defeated, the
winning party will have to pick up the artifact up and now itÆs 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  itÆs buried. You solve the puzzle by find pieces of the treasure map
from different obelisks. After  you fit all the pieces together (donÆt 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, itÆs 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. ItÆs 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 wonÆt 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 troopsÆ 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 letÆs 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 thatÆs 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 canÆt 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 æKing of the HillÆ
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 donÆt 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 canÆt 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   donÆt finish the mission successfully, you canÆt finish the scenario. You may conquer all the
warlords, you still canÆt 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. LetÆs look at these.

HeroÆs screen: You left click on your selected hero to see info. (left click to select too)

WhoÆs my hero?
    The title bar thatÆs 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 ôexpö on it. The
number besides it is your heroÆs 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 canÆt really tell, itÆs 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 doesnÆt actually
fight during a combat. What he does it making decisions and cast spells. So itÆs 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 donÆt 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 canÆt 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 û 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.
TravelerÆs 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.