Overview
This Guide is the groundwork for any Dragon Commander player. How much damage do Dragons do? How about abilities? From Act I to Act III This Guide will show you the basics and veteran strategies, decisions and all the information you need. We will keep the Guide up to date and make sure that this will be a must-have guide for Dragon Commanders worldwide on steam.
1 – Introduction
Welcome to the Biggest Guide in Dragon Commander History!
Dragon Commander, developed by Larian Studios. Dragon Commander is a game set in the Divinity universe but unlike their previous Role Playing Games (RPG), you will not need to know anything about the universe to get the full gaming experience.
During this Guide I will go in depth and take a lot of time to explain everything. This Guide should be all you need for beginners and veterans of Dragon Commander to learn everything about the game, mechanics, statistics and so forth.
Set in the Divinity universe, Dragon Commander tells you the story of a young knight who fights for the survival of Rivellon when his father (Emperor Sigurd), was brutally murdered by his own insane children. Six nations – elves, dwarves, imps, undead, lizards and humanity- must set aside their differences and unite the broken land in the name of our new young half-Dragon who will become the new Emperor.
2 – Characters
In Dragon Commander, you will have multiple characters aboard the Raven. Some who offer research and teaching, some are potential wives, others are politicians and generals. During the next chapter you will be introduced to most of them.
During the beginning of the game you will meet the wizard Maxos who gives you insight on the ship and the world you will play in, and the imp Grumio who does your research.
Maxos is the Wizard you will find on your ship that advises you during the entire campaign. Maxos is a person the generals highly respect and one of the reasons they will follow you in battle. Maxos will mainly be used because you can upgrade your Dragon Skills when you talk to him. He will also be very important for the story later on and is one of the more mysterious characters.
Grumio spends his days researching new technology for you. As the world of Dragon Commander strongly suggests, Imps are one of the main reason for new technology and advances to be made, and Grumio is a fine example why. He will also have dialogue for you as the story progresses and have his own opinion about certain matters. You will find him most useful as he will upgrade units and their abilities with your research points.
2.1 – Political Characters
Political Characters represent 5 of the 6 so-called “Civilized races” (with you representing the 6th race – Humans). They will propose political changes for your empire. It’s entirely up to you whether to agree or deny them. Their faction’s approval of you directly affects your ability to effectively battle in areas their influence is present in. These changes can also have different effects, like your Gold income or how much luck you have in battle.
The ambassador of the undead, Yorrick is the man (‘Hardly a man!’, scoffs the dwarf) who safeguards the interests of his skeletal fellows aboard the Raven. Like all undead he is deeply religious, so as long as your decisions don’t sin against the commandments of the Seven Gods, you should find Yorrick to be a congenial councillor, albeit a bit tiresome in his rather effusive piety.
A staunch defender of the ‘Green Mother’, Oberon defends nature where he can, so serving elven interests. Elves try to keep a balance in a ruptured world, not wanting dwarves to destroy it with mines and factories or undead to make it all too rigid with dogmatic beliefs.
Rich and corpulent, Falstaff embodies everything that is dwarven. He loves gold, loves beer, upholds family values and speaks plainly. One could easily dismiss him as a loud-mouth dwarven don, out for wealth and power only, but to do so would be very foolish indeed: behind his gruff exterior a cunning politician is at play. Underestimate him and you’ll leave the table empty handed while he reaps all the rewards.
The epitome of reason and liberal ideals, Prospera is like a steadfast buoy amid a tumultuous sea of shouting elves, quarrelling dwarves, preaching undead and babbling imps. Always is she cool, calm and collected; a far cry from the other, hot-headed councillors.
If one wants to sum up the impish spirit with one word it is unpredictability. Trinculo may often surprise with his meandering points of view, but like all imps he is as clever as he is fickle. Science and progression are his bywords; for gods, men (or anything else really) he has little to no use.
2.2 – Generals
When you have a battle to fight you can do it yourself, let the imperial army do it, or choose a General to fight. They will get paid for every battle they fight but their skills increase the chance of winning the battle. Generals can learn new skills depending on their dialogue with you and will develop as individuals throughout the game. Make sure you have their backs and they will have yours.
General Edmund is an extremely able and intelligent general, and he knows it. His arrogance is legendary, which endears him very little indeed in the hearts of those who know him, but he would not have it otherwise. If he has the choice between solitude – loneliness even – and having to suffer the vagaries of inferiors, his decision is quickly made. His cold and analytical mind desires the game of chess that is strategy only, and he takes great pleasure in obliterating his enemies, especially those who are non-lizards; base and lowly creatures he detests with a passion.
Henry is a man of action; a general as loyal as he is brazen. Battle may have lost him an arm and an eye, but that has not diminished his lust for combat. You won’t find another officer who doesn’t admire Henry’s military talents, but you probably won’t find anyone who calls him a friend either. Arrogant and prone to fly solo, he is not what you would call the social type. If you do want to sit down for a chat with this old warhorse though, bring a bottle. He may not like you, but he’ll like the moonshine.
Catherine used to be a queen in her own right, but ever since the enemies of the empire have been conquering kingdom after kingdom, her throne has toppled. Lusting for revenge, she has joined your cause to serve as a general, but she has a hard time of it. ‘To serve’ is a new concept for her, especially to serve a man. Catherine used to reside over a matriarchal society after all, in which all key positions were filled by women and wherein men were good for few other things than manual labour and procreation. She definitely needs to adapt to what is a new world for her, and when it comes to matters that relate to the equality of men and women she is a staunch proponent of all matters feminist.
One of the fan favorites in Dragon Commander because she has a great way of expressing herself. Scarlett is an upbeat young woman with a passion for combat, liquor and all the pleasures of life. There is another side to her though, one she keeps strictly secret, though in time she’ll reveal this secret to you.
2.3 – Marriage (and possibly Love)
As part of the storyline, early on in Act II you will be required to marry a princess. Even an Emperor-to-be has no choice in such matters. It’s important to remember that this is primarily a political marriage first and foremost, with love only a possibility, not a guarantee. A race will be quite pleased if you select their princess, and you will get a 20 point bump in their popularity. Keeping that in mind, it might be smart politics to pick a wife from one of the races who do not like you.
Many princesses will bid for your hand, but when you have made the decision whom to marry, that is only the beginning. Each princess has her own background and personal struggle. It will be up to you to guide her to the best of your abilities, keeping in mind the often conflicting sensitivities of your councillors.
The decisions you choose will shape the future of your Queen. She can become traditional, outspoken, or even rude depending on your decisions. These choices will also have a impact on the other races and how much they apriciate her (and your) company because of that.
Making choices with the Queen is the same as diplomatic choices – be sure to read them carfully and take decisions based on your own opinion. Each queen’s arc can have a different ending, offering great replay value. And the undead lady is actually going to look allright later on *wink wink*.
In Act II you will be presented with some lovely ladies who all have their own personallity and will develop in their own way. You can talk to them and they will introduce themselves. Here are the charming females you can choose from in the game.
Aida is as true a dwarf as Sir Falstaff Silvervein, but despite her jovial ways she is actually a very troubled young woman who has always lived in the shadow of a father that never loved her: Thelor, king of all dwarves. Even on the Raven his influence lingers, to her great discontent – and possibly yours.
Raised at the court of the elf king, princess Lohannah has always lived a sheltered life in strict accordance with the elf ways of old. Now she finds herself aboard the Raven amid the representatives and traditions of many other cultures and it will be up to you to try and make sure she doesn’t abandon her own customs – like the elves will want you to – or to encourage her to become a more urbane person, and risk the ire of her kin.
She was raised in a royal household in a very strict, indeed authoritarian way. Her parents did not shy away from severe punishments for the slightest infractions and this rigorous upbringing has given shape to her character in a fundamental way. All she has known all her life is law and order, and that is what her life is still about: she is a judge with a reputation for handing out harsh, never compromising. Aboard the Raven, she will remain a servant of the law, though you might be able to influence her decisions.
The undead are in essence immortal creatures, trapped as they are in an eternal state of ‘semi-being’ that touches the boundaries of both life and death while crossing neither. Some of them though, eventually do traverse the line and die, either by being destroyed in combat or of disease. This last instance happens very rarely indeed, but unfortunately for Ophelia she is one such exception, afflicted as she is by a cancer that is eating away her marrow. She is withering away and nothing can be done about it, at least, that’s what the other undead say, who believe that this disease is a punishment from the gods. Ophelia though, doesn’t want to give up without a fight and she is determined to find a cure or any sort alternative that may keep her alive, even if it goes against her own faction.
3 – Become the Dragon
In Dragon Commander, when you are in the Real Time Strategy (RTS) part of the game, by pressing R (by default) after the timer in the center of the lower part of the HUD reaches 0, you can summon a Dragon for 20 Recruits. It only costs 20 Recruits the first time, or if you are killed. If you despawn willingly, you can re-enter the battle again at no cost. Whether you despawned or were killed, there’s a short 7-second cooldown before you can resume Dragon form.
The terrain you have to fight in can be large, so your Dragon is equipped with a Jetpack to let you move around the battlefield at speed, and dodge anti-air weapons. It has a good deal of charge, and will recharge once it is depleted. The colour of the flame indicates how much charge is in the Jetpack). Your main attack is not a stream of flame, but a rapid-firing series of fireballs, the strength of which depends on the Dragon type.
You have 3 Dragon types to choose from. The Zephyr Dragon, Sabre Dragon and Mountain Dragon.
Dragon types
The different dragons have subtle differences, you decide if they are relevant or not. Besides looking different, and having different starting abilities, they all have access to the same abilities, and thx to the poster Stabbey, its been confirmed that dragons have different damage, overheat limits. and health amounts. Mountain has the lowest health, but the highest damage per fireball but a faster overheat, the Zephyr is basiclly the opposite of the Mountain, and the Sabre a balanced version in-between.
The differences between Dragons
Note: Values for Damage and Overheat time are approximations only, for comparison purposes. More tests will be done to refine the numbers. The time to Overheat was measured by clicking the fire button as fast as possible, but this may not produce the same results for everyone, and it does not necessarily translate exactly to actual combat performance.
– Health: 1620
– Damage to Recruitment Center from single fireball: ~95
– Overheats in: ~4 seconds of rapid fire
This Dragon is a glass cannon. It’s exceptionally good at dealing damage, but it has the lowest health and can’t take damage very well. It is very good at burst damage, but it overheats quickly at maximum fire rate. It comes with the skills Rejuvenation, which boosts its rate of passive healing, Blood Leech, which heals it for a portion of the damage it does, and Acid Blaze, which replaces its breath attack with corrosive acid for a short time, letting the damage linger for 3 seconds. In Campaign mode, the Mountain Dragon gets the Warlock unit researched for free.
– Health: 2420
– Damage to Recruitment Center from single fireball: ~44
– Overheats in: ~12 seconds of rapid fire
This Dragon is weak on offense, but has a good defense and has the highest health. It’s intended for use to support your troops, but it doesn’t do a lot of damage on its own. It can sustain its maximum fire rate for the longest period of time, but each shot does little damage. It comes with the skills Purifying Flames, which turns the breath weapon into a healing spray that restores damaged units. Ray of Power creates a link between you and a unit that boosts the units damage. Friends with Benefits puts a shield around a unit, and damage that unit does heals the Dragon. In Campaign mode, the Zephyr Dragon gets the Shaman unit researched for free.
– Health: 2020
– Damage to Recruitment Center from single fireball: ~79
– Overheats in: ~6 seconds of rapid fire
This Dragon is the middle ground between the combat and support dragons, and can support your troops or deal damage, but not as good at either role as the others. It comes with Soar, which boosts its movement speed, Advance, which boosts the movements speed of all nearby friendly units, and Sabotage, which disables the attack and abilities of a single unit or building. In Campaign mode, the Sabre Dragon gets the Hunter unit researched for free.
3.1 – Creating your Dragon
Your Dragon can learn up to 31 skills (a mix of active and passive skills), but can only bring up to 9 of them at once into an RTS match. Passive skills do take up slots on your skillbar, and I recommend moving those to the far right, to save the easier-to-reach keys for the active skills.
Early on your Dragon is usable, but very weak. many of Its abilities ,while “good”, only affect single units and that is a micromanaging nightmare, especially if you want to use other unit abilities too. But later on you get abilities that boost your dragons durability, attack and special Area of Effect (AoE) and Crowd Control (CC) abilities.
In my experience the 2 most effective builds are one that specializes in raw power to solo pretty solid armies on its own with minimal support and another that specializes in escorting armies to make them almost invincible.
3.2 – Damage Dragon Build
Damage Dragon Build
The easiest way to use your Dragon, this build achieves victory by quickly neutralizing and destroying the enemy.
Key abilities:
– Breaching Fire (resets your main attack’s Overheat meter, and makes your attacks do more damage against medium and heavy units and dragons);
– Eye of the Patriarch (very high damage AoE fireball);
– Pillar of Flame (AoE damage which has a ongoing duration);
– Scales of Steel (passive that increases durability);
– Bastion (activated damage reduction ability for the Dragon)
– Blood Leech (passive that heals you for all damage you deal);
– Devastation (passive increase in main attack damage);
– Dread roar (AoE paralyze, which is great for Crowd Control);
– Crippling Roar (AoE CC which disables weapons and abilities);
Supporting Abilities:
– Acid Blaze (resets your main attack’s Overheat meter, and makes your attacks do lingering damage over 3 seconds – most useful against groups of light units);
– Sabotage (Single-target attack that disables a unit or building’s abilities and attack)
– Charm (Single-target debuff that converts an enemy unit to your side temporarily)
– Soar (Passive that increases the Dragon’s flight speed)
– Rejuvenation (Increases the Dragon’s health regeneration rate)
– Salvation (A self-heal for the Dragon)
Gameplay: Spawn in, swoop down, use your base attack to soften targets up drop your heavy-hitting AoE spells, and keep using your main attack to keep yourself up while finishing up units. Only massed anti-air is a threat to you, and even then still a combo of swooping in and using an AoE CC + AoE hard hitters will probably seal the deal. The AoE disable works on anti-air turrets just like its single target version.
You can use this dragon to cause devastating damage on its own or support your armies the same way and CC.
Note there are other weaker but still useful abilities you can use while you dont have all these ones, Acid Blaze, for example, is a good ability similar to Breaching FIre, but it works better on Light class units with low health.
Advantages: Your dragon becomes a second army on its own basically. This is the easier way to use the Dragon. Its hit-and-run nature makes it easier to manage multiple army engagements at once.
Disadvantages: The game play is riskier, and potentially less efficient support/recruit wise, while also diverting attention from your bases and units as you focus in your dragon’s combat.
3.3 – Support Dragon Build
Support Dragon
A harder Dragon to master, thus build achieves victory by buffing its friendly units and keeping them in top fighting condition. The Support Dragon has a larger selection of useful skills to choose between, and may wish to change some out depending on the battle.
Key abilities:
– Aura of Frailty (Passive, reduces enemy attack range);
– Aura of Restoration (Passive, heals your troops);
– Aura of Annihilation (Passive, increase your troops damage);
– Cleansing Charge (Targeted anti-debuff AoE skill)
– Call of Valour Roar (Mass buff to units armour and damage)
– Dread Roar;
– Mass Restoration (targeted AoE heal);
– Pillar of Restoration (AoE heal with ongoing duration)
Supporting Abilities:
– Purifying Flames (eliminates your main attack’s Overheat meter, and changes your attacks to do healing to friendly units. Useful early on, but is later supplanted by the AoE healing skills);
– Aegis / Friends with Benefits (These skills shield single-targets, letting them survive longer. units that have Friends with Benefits also heal the Dragon with the damage they do to the enemy)
– Chameleon Hide (This turns the Dragon invisible for a long duration – useful to grant auras to your units (or in the case of Aura of Frailty, debuff the enemy) with less worry about being targeted by anti-air.)
– Advance! Roar (AoE movement speed increase)
– Scales of Steel; (optional, for increased survival)
– Salvation (self heal) or Blood Leech; (optional, for increased survival)
– Bastion; (optional, for increased survival)
Gameplay: Spawn in every army engagement, keep your units buffed, enemies debuffed, and your troops healed, your armies will loose much less troops and be able to push much superior forces and fortifications. Its important to know how to play the game IN dragon form, which I will describe below.
Advantages: Your units will simply be much more powerful, so you don’t need to outnumber the enemy so much. More cost-effective (as each point of recruit defeats more points of enemy recruits), and its much easier to manage your forces and bases.
Disadvantages: Maintaining buffs and keeping your army in shape is more difficult. Concentrating on your troops means that you have less focus to deal with anti-air. It’s harder to manage multiple army engagements at once.
3.4 – Tips while in Dragon form
if a force is too overwhelming, even for the full upgraded dragon, use alpha strike swoops (hit and runs) with a area of affect spell or ability and jetpack away. Even basic fireballs have splash, and can do a lot of damage to units that are close to each other.
Use the Dragon (even if not an assault build) to deny enemy base captures. For example, send your forces to capture a base, and either defend them if the AI sends a small but superior force, or if it sends a small force to capture another base you can CC/kill them.
Spawning the Dragon costs nothing unless its the first time or its been killed (costs 20 recruits if so) so dont be afraid to unsummon him if you need better battle control of units.
Learn how to keep pressure with your armies while giving your dragon’s support, a support build dragon just providing auras and CC is immensely valuable when you are stuck in a a battle where you have a disadvantage (like having too low approval/support).
To best use your Dragon, you need to learn to use hotkeys to build and command troops. We are assuming you are using the default keys (you can redefine these hotkeys in the options).
- F2 – Select All Units on Map – This selects all the units on the map. This could have unforseen consequences of course. Useful if you want to be absolutely sure to get units that may have lagged behind.
- F3 Select Units Near Dragon – This selects all the units close to the Dragon, suitable for when you’re engaging and want to be sure to have all the skills at your disposal.
- F4 Select Units Near Target – This selects all the units around the point the Dragon is aiming. Useful for trying to do long-distance engagements or grabbing certain troops far away without selecting the entire map’s worth.
- Alt + [1-0] Select Control Group – This selects all units and buildings in a control group, no matter where they are, letting you use skills (or in the case of a building, produce units).
- Escape Deselect All – Pretty self-explanatory.
- Q Attack-Move – Move to the designated location, attacking anything hostile along the way.
- Tab – Next unit type – switches the current unit type for the next one in the group. Useful for ordering a unit to use a special ability.
It’s a good idea to keep up production of units during battle. Use the z, x , c, v to select ALL of your factory types, and g,h,j or whatever appears in the bottom right corner to start producing units.
4 – Units and RTS Production
Sigurd the First knew that you can’t win a war without troops. He formed his army from a mixture of the six Civilized Races, and despite the empire falling into civil war, the races are still united, even in opposition. Each unit has a role to fill in the army, and each has three possible upgrades. Some upgrades are active, some are passive, and they all offer different possibilities to use them. Two units (Shaman and Zeppelin) come with free abilities (Healing and Ally Range Increase respectively) that are always on and do not have to be researched.
Ground Units
Ground units are the backbone of the army, the only units capable of seizing building points. They come from one of two structures: the Battle Forge for the lighter units, and the War Factory for the heavier ones. With so many types, counters are not immediately obvious, so it’s important to keep an eye on what units your opponent is making.
Air Units
Air units are uninhibited by terrain, and can unleash devastating strikes on distant points, however, they are relatively fragile and must be protected. Neglect creating air units of your own at your own risk. All air units are produced by the Aerofactory
Naval Units
Control of the waterways is often important, as it can let you bypass troops and chokepoints, or engage in long-range assaults or support. The Transport is the only units which can transport heavy units quickly to islands or across bodies of water, and its abilities to cloak and clear mines aid to its power. The Ironclad is a powerful defense unit to protect your fleet from airborne threats. The Juggernaut has the longest range in the game, it can be a mobile factory for producing Imp Fighters, and it can unleash the devastating Imp Bunker Buster to lay waste to a base.
Shamans and Warlocks can move over water, making them also supplemental naval units. Their abilities can greatly enhance your own naval fleets, and disrupt the enemies’.
Factors affecting RTS Production
Population: The population of a land in strategy map. In battle, it turns slowly into Recruits at a rate depending on the number of Recruitment Citadels (RC) you hold.
Some cards (Genocide) can reduce a territory’s population (even to none). That is good for when attacking a territory with an larger army than the enemy has – or fighting in a area of low faction approval. Be warned though, that at some point a patch may come out that adds negative consequences for using Genocide cards. Other cards can boost the population – good for defending against a larger army than you have, or when fighting in a area with high faction approval.
Population is a common pool resource, meaning the total amount of population will supply both your recruits and the enemy recruits. Once a population is gone, your resources are limited to what you have saved up, and what little you can get from capturing enemy-held construction sites.
You do not need to capture all or even most of the bases to win a battle, when the enemy has no recruits and population is depleted the currently deployed forces will determine the outcome, if you defeat the enemy army and he has no recruits and no population, you win the battle regardless of how many bases he or you hold.
Recruits: Recruits are the only resource in RTS battles. It is comes from the population of the territory on the strategy map. Recruits are used to produce units in real time battle, and are generated by special buildings called Recruitment Citadels.
If a map’s population is depleted, you will gain or lose (“defections”) Recruits from your “bank account” depending on whether or not you have more or less Recruitment Citadels than your opponent.
Recruitment Citadels: These are special buildings that are built on octogonal Construction Sites. Holding more Recruitment Citadels will increase the rate that population is turned into new recruits for you, and increase your Support cap. You need at least one Recruitment Citadel to be able to spawn as a Dragon.
Support/Supply: Is how much a population of a land supports you personally, and it affects how many units you can have out at a time. (Support is also commonly referred to as Supply by Starcraft players.) One of the prime factors to how much Support you have is faction approval, The other factor is the number of Recruitment Citadels held.
Approval: Depending on the choices you make onboard the Raven, you will notice your faction approvals changing. It’s in this section and not the strategy map because so far as I have noticed, faction approval has no effect in anything on the strategy map OR any auto resolve battles.
On the other hand it has important effects on real time battle, where your Support will be greatly affected by faction Approval. The lower your approval is, the less Support you have. The less Support you have, the fewer units you can field at once, potentially preventing you from winning RTS battles due to never being able to have a force with minimal size required to beat the enemy army.
Production:
Units are produced from the appropriate factory ( the Battle Forge for Light-class ground units, the War Factory for Medium and Heavy-class Ground units, the Aerofactory for Aerial units, and the Shipyard for Naval units). Units are built one at a time, but you can queue up multiple units (you can use the shift key to order 5 at once). Units have a certain cost in Recruits, which is deducted immediately upon order, and they use up a certain amount of Support towards your cap.
Reserves:
Normally, producing units takes time and resources to build, but in some cases, you can battle on a territory where the Support cost of the Troops you brought in from the Strategy Map and Mercenaries exceeds the maximum you’re allowed to field.
In that case, any additional units you have brought in an invasion force are held in Reserve. Units held in Reserve do not cost recruits and have no production timer, they pop out instantly, they merely require the factory and available supply cap.
For example, if you invade with 4 troopers more than your supply cap allows, upon building your Battle Forge and queuing 6 troopers in the production queue, 4 will pop out instantly because you had them in your Reserve. The other 2 will be produced normally in the factory.
Army size: during battle the top middle bar in the battle UI will show you a graphic comparing of how big the armies are proportional to each other. If your army size drops to under 10% of the total army size, you will automatically lose the match, so keep production up and keep your Troops as close to the Support limit as you can.
4.1 – Ground Units
Trooper
Strong against: Light Ground units, Armours.
Weak against: Hunters, Heavy Units, Air units.
Troopers (the majority of which are Humans) are your basic swarm unit, the only other use they have (with research) is ninja’ing abandoned enemy buildings, a group of 6 troopers can capture a deserted enemy base turrets and all, with advanced research they can also do suicide bombings, yet this is not effective at all, they die too much too fast too soon with little damage done. They have low DPS and low durability, are effective at swarming larger units or faceoff’ing other tier 1 units.
Abilities:
- Enhanced Engines: (Passive) Increases the movement speed of Troopers.
- Spoils of War: Allows Troopers to permanently capture enemy buildings. The process takes some time, more troopers speed it up.
- For the Empire!: (Stance) Disables trooper’s attack and sets it to self-destruct on contact with enemy units/buildings.
Grenadier
Strong against: Medium-Class Units, Dragons and Air units.
Weak against: Troopers, Hunters, Heavy Units.
The Dwarven Grenadiers are the rocket version of troopers and can attack air, they also have a DPS boost and a spreading damage ability that is quite good only it requires a bit of micromanaging to use, naturally. They have medium DPS and low durability, and are effective DPS support units in general.
Abilities:
- Imp Binoculars: (Passive) Increases Grenadiers attack range.
- Enhanced Explosives: (Passive) Increases radius of area-of-effect attack.
- Chemical Warfare: (Stance) Grenadiers fire a hazardous projectile that diseases enemy units.
Shaman
Strong: When mixed in with other units as a support.
Weak: When alone.
Shamans (crewed by Imps) are your basic healer, you should use about 4+ in a large force to keep it up, its worth mentioning his shield ability(research), if you are good at micro, it gives 50% damage mitigation to units. Shamans float and can cross water, but they are not a flying unit, and cannot be targeted by anti-air.
Abilities:
- Ally Healing: (No Cost) Heals all nearby ally units. All Shamans start with this ability already, no research required.
- Cripple: Casts a spell to paralyze a group of enemy units for a short time.
- Immunity: A protective shield on a friendly unit that increases its defense and nullifies debuffs.
- Charm: Temporarily switches a single enemy unit to your side for a long time.
Warlock
Strong: When used as an offensive spellcaster, against Ironclads and Air Units.
Weak:In direct combat.
Warlocks are a strange caster support unit and an okay skirmisher. The Lizard race crews their double-ballooned ship. With research they can cloak, CC (polymorph if you are good at micro), and do small area aoe dmg, its base attack also has a long range. You can use them as fire/caster support though the micro requirements – especially in large force engagements – is hard, or you can use them has independent harassment units, in mid field cloak engagements and the like. It has long range medium DPS and very low durability. Warlocks float and can cross water, but they are not a flying unit, and cannot be targeted by anti-air.
Abilities:
- Cloak: Turns the warlock Invisible for a long time. Using abilities cancels the cloak. Attacking does NOT cancel the cloak.
- Meet the Beetles: Polymorphs a single enemy unit into a harmless ladybird beetle, disabling its attack and spellcasting capability for a moderate time.
- Death from Above: Summons a rain of meteors, doing massive AoE damage on the target area.
Hunter
Strong against: Light Ground units, Air units and Dragons – with “A Bird in the Hand” upgrade.
Weak against: Armors, Heavy Units, Air units and Dragons – withOUT “A Bird in the Hand” upgrade.
Hunters are your first medium unit, they have low DPS and medium durability and are effective at negating tier1 units (troopers and grenadiers). With research they can also attack air and and detect cloaked units. This in my opinion is the perfect backbone army unit. Hunters are crewed by Elves.
Abilities:
- Revelation: (Passive) Lets the Hunters detect cloaked units and mines in an area around them.
- Teleportation: Teleport to a distant friendly unit.
- A Bird in the Hand: Equip Hunters with Rockets for effective anti-air attacks.
Armour
Strong against: Medium units, Heavy units, Buildings
Weak against: Troopers, Air units, Dragon
Armours are your first anti-heavy unit, they have medium DPS and high durability, these are good at defending against other medium and heavy units, its good to have a few of this in front of your weaker units. Humans crew the Armours.
Abilities:
- Public Transportation: (Passive) Lets Armours transport Troopers and Grenadiers.
- You’re Mine: Allows Armours drop ground mines into the field.
- Short Sharp Shock: Armours release a powerful shockwave dealing massive damage to nearby units.
Devastator
Strong against:Ground Units, Sea Units, Buildings
Weak against: Armours, Air units, Dragon.
Devastators are your first heavy unit, but this one works better as artillery, they have long range and fully researched can keep a sizable army of tier 1 and tier 2 armies at bay, they are awesome at laying siege enemy fortified areas and “pulling” their armies towards you, or defending a base with lesser units. They have high DPS and high durability. The Undead race is behind the barrels of these powerful machines.
Abilities:
- Enhanced Engines: Increases movement speed.
- On the Double: (Passive) Lets Devastators fire twice in succession for lower damage per shot.
- Besiege: Enables Siege mode, which surrenders mobility in exchange for increased attack range.
4.2 – Air Units
Imp Fighter
Strong against: Air units, If ‘Bombs Away’ researched: Armours, Devastators, Juggernauts, Most Infantry units.
Weak against: Grenadiers, Ironclads
Imp Fighters are a Medium-class anti-air fighter. Fragile, but the cheapest air unit to make, Imp Fighters can easily sweep the skies clear of enemy aircraft. They have upgrades to increase their health, allow them to drop missiles on ground units, and deliver a slowing attack that cripples the firing speed of the victim – which is particularly devastating to the Dragon.
Imp fighters are air supremacy units, with research they can also attack ground, it’s a good idea to have 3 or so if even only to guard your other air units, but otherwise not a particularly useful unit, unless… you have a problem with enemy air where these become your greatest asset.
very high anti air DPS, low ground DPS, low durability.
Abilities:
- Bombs Away: (Passive) Equips your Imp Fighters with bombs, allowing them to attack ground targets.
- War of Attrition: Imp fighters attacks will slow down enemy attack speed.
- Iron Plating: Boosts the survivability of Imp Fighters (increases their health).
Bomber Balloon
Strong against: Heavy Sea Units, Ground Units
Weak against: Air Units, Ironclads.
Bomber Balloons are pretty much the heavy hitter air unit, they only attack ground, but do so with extreme prejudice. High DPS and high durability, but they have the lowest range of any unit. The Undead are the race crewing these airships.
Abilities:
- Mine High Club: Gains the ability to plant air mines. These mines are NOT cloaked, so are of limited utility compared to the other mines.
- Revelation: (Passive) Lets bombers detect cloaked units and mines.
- Enhanced Explosives: Gives an increase to bombers AoE damage.
Zeppelin
Strong: When mixed in with other units as a support.
Weak: When alone.
Zeppelins are just a support unit, they boost your army attack range and for this you should have at least one in any sizable force. They work especially well in tandem with Juggernaut ships and Devastator artillery. With advanced research they can “cloak” armies in a smoke ability and have a quite powerful AoE damage ability. This ship is crewed by Elves.
Abilities:
- Ally Range Increase: (No Cost) Increases the range of all nearby units by 33%. All Zeppelins start with this ability already, no research required.
- Fly, my Flaming Pretties!: Allows Zeppelins to unleash multiple fire-bats on an enemy air unit for massive damage.
- Fog of War: Enables Zeppelins to cloak themselves and a group of units in the area for a limited time.
- Mustard Gas: Zeppelins cast a persistent cloud of poisonous gas on their enemies in an area for a short time.
4.3 – Naval Units
Transport
Strong Against: None
Weak Against: All
Transports are pretty self explanatory. they can bypass mines and whole armies with its cloak, and it can attack land, sea and air units by itself too. Low DPS, high durability. Elves crew this ship.
Abilities:
- Cloak: Hides the transport from view for a limited time.
- Minesweeper: (Passive) Lets Transports clear mines from the water.
- For the Empire!: Disables Transport’s attack, sets it to self-destruct on contact with enemy units.
Ironclad
Strong against: Sea Units, Air units, Dragon.
Weak against: Ground units, Warlocks.
Ironclads are your sea (and air) superiority escort ships, they are best against sea and good against air, they cannot attack land however. High DPS vs other ships medium vs air, high durability. Dwarves on a ship? Who would have thought!
Abilities:
- Revelation: (Passive) Lets Ironclads detect cloaked units and mines.
- On Guard: Enables Ironclads to activate an defensive-targeting mechanism to shoot down enemy projectiles in an area around them for the duration of the skill.
- Sea Mine-Maids: Allows Ironclads to deploy sea mines.
Juggernaut
Strong against: Ground units, Sea units, Buildings
Weak against: Ironclads, Air Units
Juggernauts are your mobile base cruiser super unit, crewed by the proud Lizards. This and the bomber balloon are the only tier 4 units. When fully upgraded, this unit by itself can lay waste to entire armies and bases, as it has a huge attack range with high DPS attacking from the sea, while also being able to produce Imp fighters on itself, almost any naval engagement becomes easy with a couple of these guys. High DPS, high durability.
Abilities:
- Imp Binoculars: (Passive) Increases Juggernauts attack range.
- Imp Backup: Allows Juggernauts to deploy Imp Fighters from their position when needed. Costs the same amount of Recruits as the Aerofactory-deployed fighters.
- Imp Bunker Buster: Launch an extremely powerful tactical warhead that does an enormous amount of damage in a target area. The warhead is slow, and is targetable and can be destroyed before impact.
4.4 – Advanced Strategy: Battle Forge Units
Trooper
Class: Light Ground Unit
Role: Swarm / Kamikaze unit
Strong against: Light Ground units, Armours.
Weak against: Hunters, Heavy Units, Air units.
Troopers do low damage, but have a fast fire rate. When in a large group, Troopers can do serious damage in firefights if the enemy tries to shoot them down one at a a time. In a battle of equal supply with a Hunter – their direct counter – it ended with the Hunter at about 33% health. Four Troopers (12 Supply) is enough to kill an Armour (10 Supply). Troopers are strong in groups, but they’re also at their most vulnerable. Splash damage and Area of Effect attacks can destroy large groups of Troopers quickly.
– Enhanced Engines are basically a requirement if you plan to field Troopers. They greatly increase the Troopers speed and enhance the utility of their other two abilities. This also makes the Troopers great at capturing construction sites if you don’t have Hunters to spare.
– Spoils of War lets Troopers capture enemy structures, to use or to sell. Currently, it is a bit broken (overpowered) as the capture time is quite short, even for only 2-3 Troopers, and Troopers can capture Turrets, making Turrets rather pointless to build early on.
– For the Empire! (AKA Kamikaze) can turn Troopers into suicide bombs. If you have a large enough group of Troopers, this can be very useful as even if your enemy targets them, some will probably slip through. Even if it fails, it will be distracting and let your other units get in free hits.
Grenadier
Class: Light Ground Unit
Role: Anti-armour / Anti-air unit
Strong against: Medium-Class Units, Dragons and Air units.
Weak against: Troopers, Hunters, Heavy Units.
Grenadiers are a cheap, easily massed anti-air unit, whose primary weaknesses are low health and their low speed – the lowest of any primary attack unit if the Troopers engines are upgraded. They also share the Troopers vulnerability to splash damage and AoE. These make good counters to Armours, but against Hunters they need to outnumber them by quite a bit.
– Imp Binoculars is a great upgrade. With it, Grenadiers will match or exceed the range of every land and air unit in the game except Devastators.
– Enhanced Explosives lets Grenadiers do splash damage to units which are clumped up, but the radius is so small that it’s mostly only good against the smaller light units. Get this anyway, but it’s not critical.
– Chemical Warfare is an insidious weapon that will do damage over time that spreads to up to two different targets from the initial infectee. If the enemy has no Shamans, it can be quite a debilitating effect, but this still requires you to turn the stance on, and microing grenadiers to that degree is easy to forget.
Shaman
Class: Light Amphibious Support Unit
Role: Healer / Debuffer unit
Strong: When mixed in with other units as a support.
Weak: When alone.
Shamans seem weak and unassuming, but their abilities can make them some of the nastiest units in the game. They’re the slowest unit in the game, so you need to move your forces with care if you want the benefit of Shamans, which is immense. Shamans can heal any unit around them for 95 HP a second, and that stacks with multiple Shamans. A lone Shaman cannot heal itself. These are usually priority targets for the enemies, and they should be for you as well. Shamans can travel over water, which makes them great to use accompanying your naval units.
– Cripple (AKA Fear) is a spell which can paralyze a group of enemies, letting you get in several free shots before they are destroyed.
– Immunity (AKA Shield) is a vital defensive spell. It can remove debuffs on your forces, and shield them from damage and debuffs. This is a really important spell to keep up, especially if you’re engaging forces with Warlocks or Shamans, but it’s helpful for any battles, really.
– Charm converts an enemy unit to your side for a short time, letting you use their abilities, or cause your enemies to kill each other. (Version 1.40+) If the enemy charms your units, Charming them back will return them to your side.
Warlock
Class: Light Amphibious Unit
Role: Crowd-control caster unit
Strong: When used as an offensive spellcaster, against Ironclads and Air Units.
Weak: In direct combat.
Warlocks are a very dangerous offensive spellcaster. They are weak and slow, with a rapid, but low-damaging series of fireballs as a primary attack. Their abilities are very disruptive.
– Cloak turns the Warlocks invisible. They can still attack while invisible, but that will give their positon away, making them easy targets for your Dragon or Ground barrages. It lets the Warlocks move across the map undetected, making them good targets for a surprise Hunter Teleport. It can also let them get into better position to use their other abilities.
– Meet the Beetles (AKA Polymorph) turns any unshielded unit into a slow and harmless ladybird beetle for a while. This is great to remove key enemy units from a fight, although Shamans can counteract it with Immunity.
– Death from Above (AKA Meteor Storm) rains a group of meteors onto an area, causing massive damage. It’s rather hard to avoid this, and even moving out of the way as soon as it’s cast isn’t easy. The best bet is to kill the Warlocks before they get a chance to cast it.
4.5 – Advanced Strategy: War Factory Units
Hunter
Class: Medium Ground Unit
Role: Anti-Infantry Scout unit
Strong against: Light Ground units, Air units and Dragons – with anti-air upgrade.
Weak against: Armors, Heavy Units
Hunters are your scout units, meant for hit and run missions – they’re the fastest ground unit in the game, and only trail the Transport and Imp Fighter for overall speed. They move fast, hit lightly and can take a moderate amount of punishment. They can fire while moving, letting them cover their own retreat. Hunters are great at capturing build points and intercepting enemy light units on the same task. They crumple quickly against Armours, but with good micro and enough room to maneuver, they can beat the slow-firing ballistic shots of unaccompanied Devastators while taking little damage.
– Revelation reveals cloaked units and mines, an excellent ability for a scout unit. This makes them good at hunting Warlocks – provided that they are shielded from the Polymorph spell.
– Teleportation lets the Hunters move instantly to a friendly land units position. This is obviously quite handy for maneuvering them about or retreating them to safety, a bit less so for attacking enemy bases, due to their low damage to buildings.
– A Bird in the Hand equips Hunters with Anti-air missiles which do okay damage to air units. The Hunters fast speed and other abilities makes them a bit better than Grenadiers to intercept air attacks, although each shot does less damage than a Grenadiers rocket.
Armour
Class: Medium Ground Unit
Role: Anti-Vehicle Unit
Strong against: Medium units, Heavy units, Buildings
Weak against: Troopers, Air units, Dragon
Armours are your tank units. They’re built to dish out and recieve punishment, and they can do so in equal measure. Their double-barreled cannon is powerful, but shoots slowly. They’re meant to take on other War Factory units, and they do so well, but masses of smaller units can overwhelm them with numbers. Their thick armour is well-suited for deflecting the Devastators shells. They’re extremely practical, good against anything but air, but their abilities are mostly situational.
– Public Transportation lets Armours store a combination of Troopers and Grenadiers (up to 5 total units) in some kind of pattern buffer to be re-deployed instantly later. This is great to get the slower-moving Troopers and Grenadiers to the front lines faster, but the downside is that it’s probably not worth it to just send 5 over, so you need to have several Armours wait around for their troops to be produced and loaded. It may only be useful under certain circumstances.
– You’re Mine allows the Armour to plant cloaked land mines. These do okay damage, but are also situational. They’re only really useful when you’re playing defense and letting the enemy come to you. They’re great to plant in front of a Devastator siege line, because even if your enemy has detectors, they will still need to destroy the mines before they can advance, letting the Devastators get in free hits.
– Short Sharp Shock is a skill that sends a shockwave that does a moderate amount of damage in an area around the Devastator. It’s only really useful on masses of small units. This tends to be used only in desperation, as it is rather suicidal to send Armours into a large enough mass of small units to be worth using this on. It can also be good if the Armours are cloaked by the Zeppelin and can surprise the enemy horde.
Devastator
Class: Heavy Ground Unit
Role: Long-range Artillery Unit
Strong against: Ground Units, Sea Units, Buildings
Weak against: Armours, Air units, Dragon.
Devastators are your siege unit, slowly shooting shells that arc towards the target. They’re powerful and fairly sturdy, but they move slowly and are easily out-maneuvered by fast units like Hunters. Creating a line of Devastators backed up by Shamans and other units and slowly advancing it is usually quite effective. Devastators have the ability to bombard a point on the ground, letting you create a wall of impacts to deter passage through a chokepoint. A Devastator is a prime target for spells, so keep an eye out. It outranges all land units except the Mortar turret in normal mode, and outranges everything but the Juggernaut in Siege mode. Combining it with a Zeppelin is a great combination to increase its already exceptional range.
– Enhanced Engines allow the Devastator to move faster. It’s normal speed is barely above that of an unupgraded Battle Forge unit, and the enhanced engines let it keep pace with other units. It’s up to you to decide if this should get priority over Besiege.
– On the Double changes the Devastators fire two shells (at 75% damage) per shot, increasing the Devastator’s output by 50% This is a great upgrade, but it’s still only the third-best one for the Devastator.
– Besiege enables the Devastators to enter Siege mode. This increases the Devastator’s range by 40%. This is a must-have upgrade for serious Devastator users.
4.6 – Advanced Strategy: Aerofactory Units
Imp Fighter
Class: Medium Aerial Unit
Role: Air Superiority Fighter
Strong against: Air units, If ‘Bombs Away’ researched: Armours, Devastators, Juggernauts, Most Infantry units.
Weak against: Grenadiers, Ironclads
Imp Fighters are the air superiority fighter. They’re the fastest unit the the game, and have the most move points of any unit on the strategy map (four). They can fire while moving, and have good range. Their primary role is anti-air, but can be upgraded to attack ground units as well.
– Bombs Away is the ability that lets Imp Fighters attack ground. It doesn’t do a lot of damage, but it does expand the utility of the fighter, so it is very useful for those planning to use Imp Fighters.
– War of Attrition is a passive ability that adds a slowing effect to the Imp Fighter’s attacks. Anything but by it will move slower for 3 seconds, and further attacks stack on top. This is mostly dangerous to the Dragon. Once hit, even trying to escape with the jetpack is very ineffective.
– Iron Plating is a flat health upgrade that boosts the Imp Fighter’s health by 50%. It’s nice, but not that thrilling.
Bomber Balloon
Class: Heavy Aerial Unit
Role: Anti-Ground Bomber unit
Strong against: Heavy Sea Units, Ground Units
Weak against: Air Units, Ironclads.
Bomber Balloons are a powerful anti-ground unit that does the most damage in the game to ground units, which has substantial splash damage. Aside from its vulnerability to air. it’s biggest drawback is that it has the shortest range in the game. It’s not exactly vertical, but really close, meaning that it will inevitably take damage before it starts to deal any. Because of that, Bomber Balloons are most effective in large groups, which can be a problem because their cost is substantial and their build time is slow. To mass these, you’ll want to bring in some in reserve, or have a second Aerofactory producing them. They’re also easily countered by the Imp Fighter, and are vulnerable to casters. Try to stop your enemy from massing a lot of them.
– Mine High Club lets the Bomber Balloon drop air mines. Air mines have the largest trigger radius in the game, but they only home in on air units and are not cloaked. Any anti-air ground unit will destroy the Air mines in passing. Imp Fighters out-range the Trigger radius, making them useless to cover a retreat – only with a suicidal charge will their deployment do anything against Imp Fighters. They’re mostly good as an anti-Dragon weapon, making researching them in single-player pretty useless. Funnily enough, they’re most helpful on enemy Bomber Balloons: Use a Shaman’s Charm, and suddenly you have a friendly balloon in perfect position to drop a mine on a bunch of other balloons. They might also have some use if you cloak your Bombers with the Zeppelin to get them close to flying targets.
– Revelation is the same as the Hunter skill. It reveals cloaked units and mines.
– Enhanced Explosives greatly increases the area of the Bombers splash damage, making them phenomenally more dangerous. Highly recommended if you plan to use bombers.
Zeppelin
Class: Medium Aerial Support Unit
Role: Support / Crowd-Control Caster
Strong: When mixed in with other units as a support.
Weak: When alone.
Zeppelins are a powerful unit which appears to be mostly harmless at first glance. They move slowly, have low health for an air unit, no armor, and no attack. It’s when they’re mixed in with other units that they truly shine. Zeppelins all come with the inherent ability to increase the firing range of all allied units by 33%. Enemy units without a Zeppelin of their own will start taking damage before they can get in range to retaliate. Zeppelins also can learn some tremendously powerful abilities that can change the balance of power on the battlefield in an instant.
– Fly My Flaming Pretties! is the Zeppelin’s only anti-air defense weapon. It shoots a barrage of missiles at a target, but the full barrage is only enough to take out another Zeppelin or an Imp without Iron Plating. It’s not that great, but it’s cheap to research, so there’s no reason to not get it. You should also cast it at a closer range than the maximum distance that you can, because the enemy can flee and get outside the range of the last shots, instead of being outright destroyed.
– Fog of War lets the Zeppelin cloak a group of friendly units around it for a tremendously long time. An enemy which lacks detection is basically doomed, because units hidden by the fog can shoot while cloaked. Ideally, take out any Hunters or Anti-Air turrets around before using this. Maxed out Bomber Balloons and Ironclads can also remove the cloak.
– Mustard Gas is a very dangerous anti-blob weapon, It shoots a missile at the ground that releases poisonous gas which does substantial damage, persists for a long time, and greatly out-damages even a group of Shamans healing. It does friendly fire damage, so avoid getting your own troops caught in it.
4.7 – Advanced Strategy: Shipyard Units
Transport
Class:Heavy Sea Support Unit
Role: Land unit transportation / Blockade Breaker
Strong Against: None
Weak Against: All
Transports unglamorous but vital role is to ensure that land units absolutely, positively reach thier destination. They’re critical for most ocean maps, since there’s rarely a path for land-based units to reach their destination otherwise. Transports are sturdy, and are the second-fastest unit in the game, but have only minimal firepower. Their weapon is a slow-firing missile which can hit land, sea and air, but the Transport’s attack power is considered on par with that of the lowly Trooper. A Transport therefore relies on stealth and speed. Transports can hold 15 Battle Forge units or 7 War Factory units, or some combination. If combined with an Armour that has Public Transportation, that jumps up to 36 Troopers/Grenadiers and 7 Armours in one Transport. Loading and unloading is rapid, but the main downside to using Transports is simply that it takes time to assemble a force to send, which will inevitably divert resources from the main front.
– Cloak lets the Transport move about unseen, it can load and unload troops while cloaked, and even attack. Since the attack will do little more than give away that there is a Transport around, it’s not recommended to attack without good reason. Vital if Transports are a key part of your strategy.
– Minesweeper defuses sea mines left by enemy Ironclads, letting the Transport clear a path through a blockade. It’s rarely needed, but so cheap to research that you should get it anyway.
– For the Empire! is just like the Trooper’s ability of hte same name. The Transport is set to self-destruct on impact, and gets a speed boost. You should unload any troops on-board. The damage is pretty substantial, and if you activate the ability BEFORE you use Cloak, you have an invisible floating bomb that the enemy won’t see until it’s too late. The Transport can target waterborne Warlocks and Shamans with this. This is a clever way to use Transport mercenary cards in sea battles where the enemy deploys mercenary Shamans or Warlocks.
Ironclad
Class: Medium Sea Unit
Role: Sea Superiority Unit
Strong against: Sea Units, Air units, Dragon, Sea construction sites
Weak against: Ground units, Warlocks.
Ironclads are the dominant force on the water, with their powerful torpedoes and anti-air missiles, they are excellent at defending themselves, and escorting other ships. They can lay and detect mines, and in combat can use a defensive laser to shoot hostile projectiles down. Good timing with On Guard, in concert with other Ironclads using the ability one after another can create a nearly invincible defense. On the strategy map, 3-4 in a group can win most auto-resolve battles at sea if you don’t wish to fight. They have no weapons that can hit ground-units, and their anti-air systems can’t track the floating Warlock and Shaman. Ironclads need help to handle those units. Ironclads can fire while moving (at least at air targets).
– Revelation is the same as the Hunter and Bomber Balloon versions. It reveales cloaked units and mines. It is useful for hunting transports and revealing Warlocks, even if another unit must finish the Warlock off.
– On Guard is a fanstastic defensive ability that lets the Ironclad shoot down any hostile projectiles – including the Warlock’s “Death from Above”. A group of Ironclads can use this skill one after another to create an extended period of defense that is hard to break. They may be vulnerable to some Shaman and Warlock spells to take them out of the fight, however.
– Sea Mine-Maids are the Ironclad’s sea mines. Somewhat useful for creating defensive perimeters around islands, or for luring pursuing ships into a trap. Shamans and Warlocks do not trigger the mines.
Juggernaut
Class: Heavy Sea Unit
Role: Capital Ship / Naval Siege unit
Strong against: Ground units, Sea units, Buildings
Weak against: Ironclads, Air Units
Juggernauts are perhaps the most powerful unit in the game. They have the most health, do substantial damage, and their range dwarfs all other units. Combining them with a Zeppelin gives them an stupendous range boost. They are also the most expensive to research and build, and represent a substantial investment. They have superior firepower, but struggle against Ironclads. They’re also vulnerable to air attack, although an upgrade to let them build Imp Fighters mitigates that somewhat. Their abilities are very dangerous.
– Imp Binoculars are like the Grenadier’s upgrade: They increase the range of the Juggernaut, but given the huge range it had before, this makes an already hard-to-touch ship even more effective.
– Imp Backup lets the Juggernaut manufacture Imp fighters on the spot. There is no difference between these fighters and ones produced in an Aerofactory. The fighters are independent units after production and do not land on or interact with the Juggernaut afterwards.
– Imp Bunker Busters are huge, high-damaging weapons, basically, the equivalent of nukes. They take substantial time to build, and the enemy is given a warning once they’re launched, and they become a priority to shoot down. They move fairly slowly, but they explode once destroyed, and yes, they do friendly fire damage. You’ll likely need to launch at least two at once just to get one to hit. They can target any point on the map and are not restricted to areas inside the Juggernaut’s normal weapon range.
5 – World Map
On the Strategy map each turn you will receive Gold and Research Points (RP). Gold will be put into building Troops and Buildings, and the Research points will be.. for new research 😉
– Give priority of your gold to building units, your generals are useful, but they are rarely worth their fee over you playing the real time strategy battle or just using the Imperial Army auto-resolve. Only put up a building once your lands are secure and the building itself is of use (no sense paying for something the enemy will be able to easily capture and hold, right?).
– The other use for Gold is to directly buy cards from a special building called an Emporium. Emporiums are absent from single-player, and can only be acquired from a special Strategy card that lets you build one. Emporiums offer a random selection of cards at prices ranging from 5 to 15 gold each. Most are of the type that can be generated by other buildings, and so aren’t worth buying – but occasionally it will have special purple cards that can’t be recieved from any building. One example of a card like that is one that lets you start a map with 100, 250, 500 recruits ready to go. As you can imagine, that gives you quite a head start on the RTS map.
– You can make buildings on the map. When you create a building it will show you the effect. Here are the buildings.
- Gold mines double the income you recieve from that territory (It’s only worth using on lands with 3+ gold base production).
- Parliaments generate strategy cards that let you create/destroy strategy map buildings, increase/decrease a territory’s income, increase/decrease a territory’s population, increase movement points/prevent a unit type from moving, and block invasions for a turn or two. (these are the least useful ones, but are of strategic value)
- Taverns generate free “backup” or “emergency” troops that you can place in any battle. These are very useful and can tip the scales of many battles.
- Academies generate unit buff and debuff cards mostly, but more rarely, cards that let you build a unit you otherwise couldn’t for a battle, or unlock a skill for a unit for a turn. Academies also give you a bonus research point.
- Wizard Towers generate Dragon skill cards. These are one of the least useful cards because it’s random what you get, and if you already have the skill researched, the card is worthless.
- War Factories let you create units in a country, making careful placement of these vital so you don’t have to move units too far to reach the front lines. They can only produce as many units as the country has gold income, so be sure to place these in territories of 3+ gold base production (the higher the better).
– Cards are extremely powerful, so use them wisely. You can use them to limit enemy troop real and turn based phase movement, to cripple enemy production by destroying gold mines and factories, deny them card production in the same way, boost your own production, cripple or boost population or friendly and enemy lands (will explain this value later on) etc.
Dragon cards unlock abilities that you may otherwise not have access to, and some dragon abilities are quite powerful, though dragon cards being too random and the “relevant abilities” being fewer make them hard to be of value,
– Study the map and Plan your movements. Pay attention to the lay of the land, its important to know where and when to bottle-neck/turtle and when/where to rush and spread out.
if there is a land that is hard to access or get around for being too big, that’s a good place to bottle-neck the enemy advance. Keep a large force there, use it to hunt down stragglers in the surrounding lands and slowly build a flanking force to take lands from completely different sides to either force the enemy army to divide itself to defend, or simply take easy lands and new territory to attack from.
– Sea territory is the easiest to defend or block enemy forces, unlike land where you need a force to match or overcome the opponent (auto resolve at least, not going to mention dragon until further down) in sea you only need 1-3 Ironclad ships to take it and 1-2 to steadily defend it.
Island territory is VERY easy to keep safe or to completely blockade, just keep a pair of ironclads (3 or 4 if its a capital or a hot zone for enemy navy) in the water territory in the vicinity of the island and you are set.
A good example of this is in Chapter 2. There is an undead island right next to your capital, and people struggle with its huge army at the start of the map. They fail to realize a single sea territory is all that needs be defended since his army cant fight in the water at all. Place ironclads there will make that capital a non threat for the whole map.
– A small force is better than no force, a single trooper in a territory in a land you are no sure is safe. If it is invaded, you can use mercenary cards or use your dragon to defeat a force that is too big for a single trooper. A battle wont even happen if you have no force at all there, it wil lsimply be captured by the enemy instantly. The same is true for invading.
6 – Political system
In the newspaper you will see your current popularity with all races, and this determines how strong you will be in the areas influenced by this race. On the strategy map you will see icons of Dwarves, Undead, Elves and so forth. Improving your popularity will increase the chances of you winning RTS fights on these areas (I do not believe auto-resolve is affected).
In the Bar and later on the Throne Room, you will be stressed with issues presented by the leaders of the races and your Generals. These decisions will have outcome on how much the races like you, and how much the Generals respect you. The Generals can learn new skills and become more powerful when Auto resolving battles, but you must take their side on occasion and show your support for their pressing issues. (Although it sometimes seem hard to determine what option will grant a General a new skill.)
These decisions will carry over in how much luck you have in battles, and how much income you have per turn. As a good example the dwarven politician will ask you to build trade roads, deny that, and you will have less income. Accept and your money income will increase significantly. Now on the other hand the elves don’t agree with this because making trade roads destroys mother nature’s trees. By denying the request, they gods of nature will increase your luck.
Overall most of the times 3 people will be favorable against a new political decision and 2 will be against. There are rarely any easy, clear-cut answers for you. You just have to weigh the arguments, and then pick whatever your instincts tell you to pick.
A word of caution, though: Approving too many things which cost you money could come back to bite you later on as you struggle to fight a war on reduced income. Getting a race’s popularity too low will also cause issues on the RTS map – fighting in a territory will be a lot more challenging if a race is so opposed to your policies that you can only have a handful of troops in their lands.
Faction Arc
If your approval with one or more races gets high enough (85% or more), by repeatedly making political decision that aling with thier wishes, the representative will get the idea that you’re on their side, and will present you with a proposition. Faction arcs are not explicitly labelled, but you can usually tell which questions are faction arc questions because all of the other four races are strongly opposed to the idea.
Each faction arc has three questions, and each one you approve will grant you a Permanent Card, which as the name suggests, are permanent. These bonuses can only be acquired through approving stages of a faction arc. You don’t have to complete an arc, and you may not want to, as it will lower your popularity with the other four races for each agreement you make. Disagreeing will disappoint them, but it will also make the race change their approach. If your popularity with them returns high enough to reach another faction arc question, they’ll ask you for something different.
7 – Abilities and Research
When starting the game there are a lot of things to keep in mind. You are now the ruler of your own ship and you have generals to manage, and political decisions to make that will greatly impact the future of your rule and kingdom. The first thing you should do is go to the research tab, you will see the Imp researcher. By default you have 20 Research Points to spend right away. These points will help you on your first mission(s).
Research is used to unlock new units, unlock abilities for units, and unlock abilities for your Dragon.
These abilities can do a lot of things like giving units a longer range or a special attack. Research you do in Act I or Act II will carry over to later missions and Acts and will set you up for the long run.
In the Royal Chambers you will find the Wizard Maxos who gives access to Research new Dragon powers for you. These will help you have extra passive and active skills, making you stronger! These skills also carry over to later missions and Acts.
It is important to carefully balance research for your Units and Dragon. Well… okay, technically I suppose you could just research units and play the game as a traditional RTS without a Dragon, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea to us. So you should carefully weigh what upgrades to get and when. The Eye of the Patriarch is a great skill, but do you want to spend those 40 Research Points on it now, instead of getting Devastators?
8 – Cards
Dragon Commander uses a power-up system unusual for an RTS: Cards. Cards represent favours and such from different people, or are provided to you by different buildings. There are many different types of cards. You can have a LOT of cards, the limit is very high.
Each card is consumed once played, regardless of whether it is effective or not. The exception of course, is Permanent Cards. Most of these cards can be acquired from a certain building, although you can also get them as favours from people onboard the Raven. Cards are used in only two places: “Strategy Cards” are used on the Strategy map, and “Combat Cards” are used on the Battle Preparation screen.
(May the Seven forgive our dust: This section is under construction.)
Acquired From: Parliament
Colour: Bronze
Used: On Strategy Map
Example(s): “All Ground Units can be produced at a 75% discount”
Political Cards are buffs to allied countries on the larger Campaign map, to help your economy and production, or grant you extra movement points for all units on a country – very handy.
Diplomacy cards let you:
- Build a building on the Campaign map.
- Increase a country’s revenue.
- Increase a country’s population
- Grant an extra movement point to all units on a country.
- Prevent a country from being invaded one or two turns.
- Produce certain types of units at a discount
Acquired From: Parliament
Colour: Gold
Used: On Strategy Map
Example(s): “Sabotage: Hunters on this Country cannot move this turn”
Sabotage Cards are debuffs to enemy countries on the larger Campaign map. They can reduce population, destroy buildings, reduce the enemy income, or prevent certain enemy unit types from moving on the strategy map. The unit-blocking ones sound nice, but they’re not that common, it’s hard to judge the right time to use them, never mind have enough of them to block much of an enemy force.
Sabotage cards let you:
- Destroy a building on the Campaign map.
- Decrease a country’s revenue.
- Decrease a country’s population
- Prevent a certain unit type from moving for a turn.
Acquired From: Wizard Tower
Colour: Green
Used: On Battle Preparation Screen (RTS mode only)
Example(s): “Dragon Skill: Aura of Annihilation”
Dragon Skill Cards let you use a Dragon skill you have not researched for a single turn. If you have researched the skill, this card is of no use to you. Obviously, these are only useful for entering RTS mode. You must remember to play the card on the Battle Preparation screen first, and then move the new skill to your Dragon’s skill bar. After that it functions like a skill you’ve researched.
Acquired From: Tavern
Colour: Cyan
Used: On Battle Preparation Screen
Example(s): “Mercenary Card: Juggernauts: 2 Juggernauts join you in battle”
Mercenary Cards let you use free units for a single turn in an Auto-resolve or RTS battle. They are pretty important if an enemy is invading and you lack the troops to defend. Mercenaries can be used both in auto-resolve and RTS, but are more effective in Auto-resolve simply because in RTS, they’re only as effective as the player using them. They tend to adjust your percentage chance of winning an Auto-resolve by quite a lot.
Acquired From: Academy
Colour: Red
Used: On Battle Preparation Screen
Example(s): “Unit Advantage: Your Devastators Firing Rate is increased by 40%”
Unit Advantage cards buff the abilities of a specified unit to make them more effective in battle. These cards only offer a slight chance to the chances of winning an auto-resolve, so most players shun them in favour of Mercenaries. They are much more effective in an RTS battle (well, if the player knows what they’re doing). Stack enough buffs onto one unit and they can become very dangerous – especially when combined with the next category of cards…
Unit Advantage Cards…
- Increase the range of a friendly unit
- Increase the firing rate of a friendly unit
- Increase the damage of a friendly unit
- Increase the health of a friendly unit
- Increase the movement speed of a friendly unit
Acquired From: Academy
Colour: Magenta
Used: On Battle Preparation Screen
Example(s): “Unit Subversion: Enemy Hunter’s Range decreased by 75%”
Unit Subversion Cards debuff the abilities of a specified enemy unit to make them less effective in battle. These cards only offer a slight chance to the chances of winning an auto-resolve, so most players shun them in favour of Mercenaries. They are much more effective in an RTS battle (well, if the player knows what they’re doing). Stack enough debuffs onto one unit and they can become almost harmless. Speed and range debuffs are particularly lethal. If you are on the recieving end of a -75% Shaman Speed card, well… hope you weren’t planning on using Shamans. At all.
Unit Subversion Cards…
- Decrease the range of a enemy unit
- Decrease the firing rate of a enemy unit
- Decrease the damage of a enemy unit
- Decrease the health of a enemy unit
- Decrease the movement speed of an enemy unit
Acquired From: Emporium, Favours
Colour: Purple
Used: Varies
Example(s): “Start battle with 100 Recruits”
Emporiums are buildings that let you pay gold for a card of your choosing. Most of these cards can be acquired from other buildings, but occasionally there are some which can only be acquired through the Emporium (or favours done for various people on the Raven). I’m calling this category “Macro” cards because they affect the production side of the RTS.
Acquired From: Approving Faction
Colour: Purple
Used: Varies (Always used)
Example(s): All Ground Units are 25% Cheaper.
Permanent Cards are acquired by approving one or more decisions in a Faction Arc political decision, and offer special bonuses that can’t be acquired elsewhere. These might be a special variation of “Macro Cards”. More information when I have completed all the faction arcs.
Act I – Introduction
Act I is basically a long tutorial showing the first steps of this game. During this though, there are some really important things to keep in mind. In this guide you will take the first steps to completing Act I and preparing yourself for Act II.
In Dragon Commander a large part of the game is a “Risk”-like map where you will be able to produce units from Capitols or War Factories and gain special benefits from other buildings. Wizard Towers grant Dragon Skill cards, a Gold Mine doubles a territory’s income, Make sure you secure locations on the map where the enemy can only attack from one side (not counting the ocean), making it good and easy to defend locations.
Always get all the Neutral land first (it has no border around it) as it will give you the land, and any buildings and units on it for free.
It’s key that you take most of the map, but you may not want to take the enemy Capitol immediately. (The Capital is the large building on the map with the dome and team-coloutred band of colour around it, it looks the same as yours. Hover over it and it will display a message saying that if you take the Capitol you will win the game.)
Act I has a limit on how much you can research: You can only research Basic (Tier 1) Dragon skills, and Basic and Advanced (Tier 2) Units and Unit Upgrades. It’s not strictly necessarry to research everything before finishing Act I, but at the very least you’ll want to research all the Units and Turrets that are available.
The less experienced you are at RTS in general, and the more difficult you found Act I to be, the more you should research. It couldn’t hurt to research all available technology for the Dragon powers and Units before moving on to make the game easier later on.
Act I – Plan your conquest
In Act I the map may look daunting, with most of it claimed by the enemy, but it’s actually quite easy.
When you start playing on this first map you need to start thinking which upgrades you want to get first which units you want to make and so forth. It’s very important you have a plan going in to the next moves.
- E: My advice is to expand a little bit to the left so you take the province connected to two other provinces. This way the computer will only be able to attack you from one side.
You can just move the 4 Troopers you begin with to the country on the left border of your capital. Construct any additional units in your Capitol. To the right of your starting country, you will see neutral units. Use the troops you constructed in your capitol to take the two provinces to the right and make a transport. Use the transport to grab both islands.
- S: I prefer a different approach: Send at least one of your starting Troopers east to the neutral territory right away. Each country you claim adds to your gold and Resarch income. Neutral territories don’t become yours until the turn after your units enter them. It’s better to get it on Turn 2, rather than moving into it on Turn 2 and claiming it on Turn 3.
Move a unit to the right to claim the neutral territory, and the 2 Hunters and Transport there will join your cause.
To the south-east is an neutral island with 2 Armours. You will need Transports to reach the island later on, and conveniently, once you reach the next turn, you’ll suddenly have one. You can drag units in a transport, move the Transport, and in the same turn, unload the units by clicking the mouse on the transport after moving it.
On your next turn, load the Trooper into the Transport and send it to claim the South-east island. If you only sent one Trooper to the island, you’ll be able to bring everyone back the turn after. During this time you will need to make units.
E: I would suggest making Troopers and Grenadiers to start with and adding Shamans, Warlocks and Hunters later on.
S: Hunters are excellent units in Act I, they’re faster and deadlier than Troopers, and have few counters in Act I. I’d suggest making some as soon as you can afford it. Shamans are slow, but can keep your troops alive and healed, which makes for easier victories. They’re also good to make.
Act I – Research & Cards
In Act I, both you and your AI opponent are restricted in the level of technology that you can create. You are restricted to Basic (Tier 1) Dragon skills, and Basic and Advanced (Tier 2) Units and unit upgrades.
Research and Cards you get in your current Act will carry over to the next Act. All restrictions are lifted in Act II on both you and your opponents. This means its very important – especially for those new to RTS, or those having difficulty – to take the time to unlock all the Units, and get all (or at least a good amount of) the Research for your Dragon and Units before advancing to the next Act. Please note you cannot have more than 50 gold and 30 research points at any time in this Act.
You can use neutral units you have acquired on the world map in the RTS mode without needing to research them, but you will not be able to produce that type in RTS mode without researching it.
Recommended Research
What you choose to focus on is of course up to you, and you should get all the units, but there are a few things you should probably prioritize on getting quickly:
- New Unit: Hunter – Hunters are strong counters to all Battle Forge units, and being able to produce these in RTS mode will be of great help in Act I. Sabre Dragons already have this researched.
- New Unit: Shaman – Shamans are great and healing your units and letting them fight longer. They can also heal your Dragon. Being able to field them will let your forces survive longer. Zephyr Dragons already have this researched.
- Upgrade: Trooper: Enhanced Engines – Troopers are pretty slow by default. If you plan on using them in any decent amount, this upgrade is a must-have.
- New Unit: Armour – The enemy will field Hunters in Act I. Grenadiers can kinda do okay against them in large enough numbers, but to truly counter Hunters, you want Armours.
- Upgrade: Trooper: Spoils of War – This lets Trooper capture buildings. The AI will gladly use this against you too, and the best way to counter it is to capture right back.
- Upgrade: Shaman: Immunity – This lets Shamans shield units from damage and debuff spells. Very useful.
- Upgrade: Warlock: Cloak – This lets the Warlock turn invisible, and since they can attack while invisible, this is quite handy.
- Upgrade: Warlock: Meet the Beetles – This lets a Warlock change a unit into a Beetle for a short time. This is basically required to make Warlocks worth building.
Getting Cards
To get Cards you need buildings on your land on the world map (See “Section 5 – World Map” for details on the buildings and what they do). Taverns give you Mercenary Cards (very important), Wizard towers give you Dragon Cards and so forth. Make sure you have a big stack of cards before going to Act II which will be a lot more difficult.
At the start of any fight you will be able to select Cards. These Cards will affect the game like increasing the range of a certain unit or movement speed. It can also give new (Mercenary) units which will strengthen your initial force. Dragon Power cards can also be played, letting your Dragon use skills they have not researched during that fight.
S: Cards are certainly helpful, but if you’ve been doing well in the RTS mode and have a handle on the game. Certainly research all the units and turrets, and grab the upgrades that look most attractive, but you probably don’t need to research every single thing, or hang around just gathering cards for 20 turns. The next act is a step up in difficulty, but it’s not impossible. You don’t want to make things too easy on yourself, do you? 😉
Just make sure to save in a separate slot before finishing the act, and if you’re having trouble, then you can go back and farm cards if you think you need to.
Act I – Important Units and Strategy
In Act I these will be your most important units, and I will explain how you can use them to really make a change in a battlefield. See “Section 3.1 – Ground Units” for more details.
– Trooper –
Troopers are fast units and the base of your army. With upgrades they can unlock a few skills like: Moving faster, capturing buildings (including turrets) and a self-destruct to deal area of effect damage. Especially the combination of movement speed and the fact that they can capture turrets make these units extremely powerful in Act I and the computer will use them often to try and “overwhelm” you.
How to counter: Hunters chew through Troopers like tissue paper. If you see your enemy massing Troopers, build a good supply of Hunters.
– Grenadier –
Grenadiers are a weak counter to Hunters – you can use them to kill Hunters, but it will cost more in Recruits and Support than the Hunters you take out. Combine Grenadiers with Troopers and Hunters and you should have the Ideal combination of units for act I. Grenadiers are weak when they take damage and can clump up easily, keep them at the back of your army. Grenadiers are also strangely effective at taking out…. other Grenadiers 😉
How to counter: Troopers are strong against Grenadiers, and cheaper and faster to build too. Hunters also do well, unless outnumbered 3:1 by Grenadiers.
– Shaman –
Shamans can heal your army but more importantly, they can heal your dragon. When you move your dragon with Shamans behind him he is nearly invincible in Act I. Keeping Shamans behind your grenadiers while you move the dragon close to them will make for a army the AI cannot defeat. Shamans are amphibious units and can move across water.
How to counter: Anything can kill them, order your units to target the Shamans first.
– Warlock –
Warlocks are small amphibious units (can move across water) with a long range (but weak) barrage weapon. Later on they can also unlock powerful spells, but until then they aren’t terribly strong in battle. In Act I they can learn abilities – cloak to attack unmolested, or polymorph to remove a single enemy from the battle for a short time.
How to counter: Anything can kill them, but Hunters (with the Shaman’s Immunity shield cast on them) are best.
– Hunter –
Hunters are the counter to Troopers (and all Battle Forge units), you should use them when the AI “massing” Troopers. Hunters shoot fast and can shoot while moving. Keep this in mind because weakened Hunters can be moved to the back of a line while they are shooting.
How to counter: Armours are the best bet, although large amounts of Grenadiers can work as well.
– Armour –
Armours are the counter to Hunters (and all War Factory units), you should use them when the AI is making lots of Hunters. Armours shoot slowly, but can shoot while moving. The same tip about moving weakened units to the back also applies.
How to counter: Grenadiers are great against them. Troopers aren’t as good as Grenadiers, but a ratio of 3 or 4 Troopers per Armour will do fine.
Act I – Tips and Tricks
Basics
– Make sure you research new abilities and Dragon skills every time you are able. It’s also okay to save up for more expensive things.
– Don’t Auto resolve all battles, its usually better if you fight them – especially in Act I.
– Make sure you add Gold Mines and Taverns when possible on the Provinces available to you.
– S: Gold mines should only go on territories with 3 income or more. Taverns are good, but Academies and Parliments are also useful.
– Don’t wait too long grabbing the islands close to where you start the game.
– Neutral Units will join your army once you take the province they are in. There are some Hunters and Armors close by, they will be very useful in the first 15 turns.
Units that can really help you
– Shamans can heal your Dragon and although very weak they can be put in good use behind Grenadiers.
– The Dragon is extremely powerful in the first Act and should be used every time.
– Turrets can be a good way to hold the AI off. Especially Mortar Turrets, when protected by a few Hunters they will really demolish Grenadiers and Troopers if the AI rushes you with them. You can’t leave Turrets unguarded, though: the AI will use Troopers to convert them to your side.
What if the AI defeats me in the first 90 seconds of the game?
– S: Did you start the battle tremendously outnumbered? If not, then maybe you should lower the difficulty or speed.
– Mercenary Cards! I can’t stress this enough, Mercenary Cards can change the battle early game. Only use the Cards if the position you are defending (Choke Point or Capitol) is good enough to use them for. Every Tavern you can build, Build it!
– Troopers – although weak – can secure buildings and terrain pretty fastest if Enhanced Engines has been researched. Use a few of them to lure the computer away.
The AI keeps sneaking Troopers into my base and capturing everything!
– That can be obnoxious. To prevent that, keep 1-2 Hunters and Shamans back (and maybe some Troopers with “Spoils of War” researched as well to re-capture anything the enemy grabs. That should discourage weak invasion attempts, and your main force should be distracting enough to keep the AI from launching larger invasion attempts.
Act II – Introduction
Act II increases the difficulty quite a bit. Instead of just one opponent, you’re now facing three. The restrictions on Research and units are lifted. In fact, the AI starts out with an advantage in naval power, and start or can acquire Devastators early on.
There are multiple ways you can win, and I will show you have Air Domination can give you a great lead or even win you the game in Act II. I made a separate guide with a special strategy to defeat your opponent in 6 easy steps. This will be included in the Complete Guide. But first let’s take a look at the strategy map.
On the second map there are a lot of Islands and your Capitol is on one of these islands. Right next to you is one of your opponents – Karthan Axhand – which can be frustrating if not taken care of rather soon. You are very subjectable to drops and you will need to make sure the AI doesn’t surprise you. On the continent, you will find a lot of competition. Luckily the AI’s also fight each other.
I will also take the time to give you tips on how to win Auto resolve and Real Time Strategy (RTS) battles. There will also be tips on how to use some of the key units in Act II, and I will introduce you to marriage – and what this can add to the game – and much more.
Act II – Air/Sea Control
Air Control is something I refer to in this game. It’s a very simple concept if you hold one of the areas on the map with either a naval (boat) or flying (air) unit, this will make that area yours. You won’t gain any money from it and you can’t build anything on it, but what it allows you to do is automatically fight any opponent that crosses that area.
This is a extremely powerful for map control, because this means no enemy ships can contain you in that area and no Transports can drop units through that area so the island(s) and provinces behind that area that you own are safe.
S: In terms of controlling land, I prefer to own the land outright with ground forces. If I’m not going to earn income from it, I’d rather not risk the loss of units fighting over it. I do agree that controlling the seas with Air and Sea units is important for success.
When sending Transports across open ocean I always escort them with at least 2 Ironclad ships – that way, if I get into any naval battles, I have a chance to save the Transport.
Act II – Key Units and Strategy
One of the reasons people lose a lot in Act 2 is because the Computer Opponents (AI) start using skills. They make Warlocks invisible to flank you and use shields to protect their units. Imp Flyers and Grenadiers are supported by Hunters (upgraded with Anti-air weapons) to take down lone dragons and so forth.
Players like to play the battle from a Dragon perspective, but it’s harder to manage the units as a Dragon. It’s important you siege up devastators and use this as rally point for new units, so they will not be caught off guard.
You should research the ability for hunters to spot invisible units and always watch the mini map. Flanks can be dealt with easily but can be annoying, troopers have the ability to take buildings and even turrets so its advised to be annoying also. Sent out small squads of Troopers to capture AI-held bases. The AI will typically respond by sending too many forces and you can flank with your entire army.
Support the troops with your dragon powers and you should be one step closer to winning. It’s not bad losing the dragon – it only costs 20 recruits to morph, so as long as you kill 20 recruits worth of units, you’re not doing too bad, and that’s quite easy!
Some important units in Act II
– Ironclad –
Ironclads are at the top of the list of important units in Act II, because they are the sea superiority unit, and in Act II, you start on an island, with a hostile navy all around. “Stabbey” recommends that you make at least 6 on your first turn.They can also keep the skies clear with anti-air missiles, making them difficult to deal with. It’s best to have a good number of these, and until you sink the enemy fleets, use them to escort your Transports across the ocean.
How to Counter: Warlocks are the best. Ironclads have torpedos as their anti-ship weapon, so cannot target land units, and Warlocks are not high enough to be targeted with anti-air. For the same reason, they’re also vulnerable to Shamans special abilities.
– Devastator –
Devastators are a slow-firing but powerful artillery unit. As mentioned multiple times, they can enter Siege mode with an upgrade, making them the anti-ground unit with the longest range. Keep them in the back, protect them. Put Grenadiers behind them, hunters that can flank, and Imp Fighters over them. With some Armours at the front, unbeatable.
S: I like to keep Shamans with the Devastators to keep them healed, and Zeppelins to increase their range. If you maintain your line, you can push it forward to victory. Don’t get too careless, though.
How to counter: Armours shrug off damage from Devastators. Lone Devastators can be killed by well-microed Hunters without the Hunters taking any damage at all. They’re also vulnerable to Warlocks “Meet the Beetles” and “Death from Above”, which can be cast from outside their maximum range. Shaman’s Charm is also a dangerous counter as it turns the Devastator against you.
– Imp Fighter –
Imp Fighters are the best anti air unit and can clear the skies efficiently. They support the Dragon quite nicely. They can also throw bombs on targets with an upgrade, which do great splash damage. When opponents fire at the imp, make them chase you. When they clumb up, sent them back and throw bombs on multiple targets, creating a sea of dead enemies.
S: Really? I’ll test this, but I’m pretty sure that the Imp’s bombs do NOT do Splash damage, certainly not great splash damage or a sea of dead enemies’s worth. Have you confused them with Bomber Balloons?
I find this unit good in its role as anti-air, but the ground attack is unimpressive. It’s useful to have the ground attack, and it should be something to research soon after the fighter, but it’s not spectacular.
How to counter: Grenadiers, Ironclads, and Hunters are good anti-air against them.
– Grenadier –
Grenadiers are the best all-round unit in the game offer good support. They are small and clump up please avoid this keep them in a spread out formation and use them as “long range support” as they have little health and armor. They’re great at handling air units and Armours.
S: I wouldn’t call them the best all-round unit in the game. I don’t think there is any one best all-around unit. Grenadiers low health makes them too vulnerable to splash damage, of which there is a lot. You definitely want some on hand, as they are the best counter to Armours.
How to counter: Hunters, Devastators, Zeppelin’s “Mustard Gas”, Armour’s “You’re Mine”… the list goes on. Basically splash damage will wreck Grenadiers.
– Hunter –
Hunters are the best units to flank with. Using their upgrade to Teleport – in combination with an invisible Warlock to use as the destination – you can easily send them from the back, right or left side and get a bigger angle of fire, something that is very important. They can also shoot air units with a upgrade. Their speed lets them respond to air threats faster than Grenadiers. They’re terrible against Armours though, so they’re not suitable when the enemy has lots of those.
How to counter: Armours, Warlock’s “Meet the Beetles”, Shaman’s “Charm”.
Act II – Strategy: Getting a Foothold
This is an Optional strategy intended to gain you territory on the islands and mainland.
Step 1: In Act 1, be sure to have researched Ironclads, and enter Act II with as much gold as possible.
Step 2: To the southeast of your Capitol island (called Orcha), you should see two transports of your colour on a sea tile, next to the enemy-held country of Steelside. Immediately bring those Transports to land on your island, you will need them. Now you have 3 Transports, 5 Armours and 5 Troopers. Spend your money and build as many Ironclads as you can. At least 6 for preference. That’s all you have to do this turn. (If you’re feeling lucky you can do Step 3 and send your remaining Transport unescorted, but that risks losing it.)
Step 3: There are three neutral territories near you: Starlington on the northeastern part of the continent, Yuthul Gor on the eastern part of the continent, and Bethune, an island just off the eastern part of the continent. Starlington has Grenadiers, Troopers and a War Factory, Yuthul Gor has Troopers, and Bethune has Troopers, a Transport, a War Factory, and a high income.
There may be hostile ships in the waters between you and them, so it’s up to you to decide exactly how many of these steps you want to follow. You may also wish to delay the move another turn to see if the enemy ships move away.
Load at least one Trooper onto each Transport, and send them to land on Starlington, Yuthul Gor, and Bethune. You may also wish to send an Armour with them as well, but that will leave your home country dangerously undefended. Send two Ironclads each to also land on those territories. They are escorting your Transport, so if it gets into battle, your Transport will not be undefended. This does not guarantee victory, but it is a sensible precaution.
Step 4: I assume you have made one or more successful landings, and now have a foothold on the continent. Where the strategy goes from here depends on the individual territory.
Step 5A – Starlington: Starlington is an excellent first step. It grants you access to two countries by land and to the islands in the northm and countries in the bay to the south. Send Troopers to seize the lands to the south (Serpentpool) and west. Entering Katzenstein, the western country, will likely provoke a battle with Faran (Yellow by default). Bringing an Armour over on the Transport can help with that battle. More Transports can be used in a repeat of the Ironclad escort procedure to capture the neutral islands and their units to the north. The goal is to hold Katzenstein and prevent Faran from advancing. There’s no immediate need to attack just yet.
Step 5B – Yuthul Gor: Yuthul Gor is harder to hold – it has no factory and only Troopers as neutral units. The enemy – Sybille (default colour Green) will be advancing with heavy ground units. They may not invade immediately, but you will need to reinforce Yuthul Gor with more forces quickly. Yuthul Gor is not a great staging ground, but it is 2 tiles from your capitol, and thus easy to reinforce. You can also take the island Ravenseat in the bay to add to your holdings, although it will likely be difficult to hold for long. Just take Ravenseat, then take your troops from the island until you’re ready to garrison it with a permanent force of troops
Step 5C – Bethune: Bethune is the prize jewel with its ready-made War Factory and 6 gold income. It is a good staging area, not only for the three elven countries on the eastern side of the continent, but also the islands to the south and east, held by Karthan.
Step 6: Now you have at least a partial foothold on the continent that should not be too difficult to maintain. Just use Ironclads to escort Transports everywhere – ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ troops from Orcha to where they’re needed, and eventually you can seek and destroy the enemy navies so you can dominate the seas in peace.
Strategy by Stabbey.
This strategy has been tested on Normal and Hard.
Act II – Strategy: Air Supremacy in 6 steps
This is a Optional Strategy if you are having troubles
Step 1: In Act I make sure to take your time and get some research done. Most importantly, get some good Mercenary cards (from Taverns) these will be key in the strategy I will show you. And research at least Hunters and Transports. – Don’t go to act 2 without having 50 credits (max) on the bank. please make sure you have at least 5 powerful mercenary cards.
Step 2: In act II Start by making one transport, you should start with a transport also (and there are two more Transports on the sea tile to the south-east of your island. Bring those back to land on your island), and a few hunters (you should have 50 credits on the bank. Don’t take any land yet, just camp for one turn.
Step 3: Use the Transports and assault Karthan, the AI player next to you (His colour is RED unless you chose it, blue otherwise). Use the 5 good mercenary cards and defeat his capitol. This will give you his capitol, a good income and all his old land. This will be the hardest part of the act. If you win this fight you should have no problem completing the other steps. Be sure to save before engaging and make sure you have 5 powerful cards.
Step 4: Research Imp Fighters (most important) and start getting defenses on your main island to counter any attack.
Step 5: Make Imp Fighters, you should make them in pairs of 3 and now you will start surrounding your capitol island and then you could even expend it all across the island. What you could do is surround the complete main island with squads of 3 Imp Fighters. This way the computer will not be able to get off the main island and you can take all the islands.
“I would recommend however, just surrounding the first islands you get with around 30 imp fighters and you should be good to build from there. Making drop ships to destroy your enemy, eventually. (I managed to do this in under 2 hours on hard so its not the most dragging strategy at all but you can take as much time as you want.)”
Step 6: Congratulations, if you managed to surround the island(s), and possibly the big island, you are unable to lose. Grind out cards and get all the research, once you have enough get drop ships and just drop the CAPITOLS, you don’t need to take the entire map. This should actually go quite fast.
Strategy by Enthousiast
This Strategy was tested on Normal and Hard difficulty.
Act II – Auto resolve, Cards and more
Autoresolve
When Autoresolving you need to keep some things in mind:
– The Computer can also use cards. When they use Mercenaries you will see a green + behind the unit showing how many mercenaries of that type they hired.
– Selecting a General costs gold but gives a slightly better change to win an autoresolve battle.
– Your Generals will get new skills depending on your decisions. When you give females more wages, the ladies in your company will learn new skills etc. These sjkills will further increase their chances to win auto-resolve battles.
– Cards are very important. When you Autoresolve or start a RTS battle Cards will add in the factor of your chance to win.
– It’s not recommended to Autoresolve battles where you have under an 80% win chance. That’s a 1 in 5 chance you lose, and losses can cripple you if you had a lot of forces tied up ion that battle.
– If you’re in an RTS and don’t think you can win, it’s better to retreat than to let everything get destroyed. There is at least a chance that some of your units will survive, rather than none at all if you are entirely wiped out.
Cards
You gain cards by having different types of buildings (See “8 – Cards” for details). Taverns will give you mercenary cards, Wizard towers will give you dragon cards and so on. Mercenary cards are the most important when autoresolving. There are also a few cards that can increase the range, movement speed of your units etc, or lower the same for the enemies. When you play out a battle by yourself, if you are not outnumbered try increasing the effects of your most important units or debuffing your enemies most numerous units..
Also Remember:
– Always research everything in every chapter until you cannot research anything anymore.
– S: The game is not quite so difficult as to require you to stall and max out every single thing, and carry 5000 gold and 5000 cards to another act. Just playing normally on a difficulty that’s enough to challenge you without becoming frustrating should give you enough resources and research to get what you want anyway. My experience has been that doing Act II generally will give you enough Research Points to acquire all the units and upgrades, and most or all of the Dragon powers.
– Gold and Research points max out at a certain point but you will take them with you in the next Act.
– You can Restart lost missions by clicking F10 and then “restart” during anytime in a RTS Mission.
Act II – Tips and Tricks
Basics
– Make sure you have all research done.
– You can take up to 50 gold from Act I to Act II and 30 research points. Make sure you don’t close Act I before collecting this, this will help you out a lot at the beginning.
– Recruits are important the relation to the Race of the country you are fighting on will determine how many recruits are available.
Units that can really help you
– Warlocks can make enemy units in to Lady Bugs, this can be helpful when you want to disable their anti air when you release your Dragon and change the way the battle looks.
– Shamans can heal your Dragon and although very weak they can be put in good use behind Devastators.
– Devastators can siege and hold their own lines. Your Dragon can support them by healing and taking out enemy anti air. With the support of Warlocks as mentioned above this can make extremely unflavored battles yours!
– Imp Fighters are the best Anti Air unit but they are also stupid! Make sure you don’t let them fly in a battle head-on and keep them close to your other forces.
What if the Computer defeats me in the first 90 seconds of the game?
– Mercenary Cards! I can’t stress this enough you need Mercenary Cards to change the battle early game. Only use the Cards if the position you are defending (Choke Point or Capitol) is good enough to use them for. Every Tavern you can build, Build it!
– Troopers although weak can secure buildings and terrain the fastest, use a few of them to lure the computer away.
Act III – Introduction
After completing Act I and Act II you are now close to winning the game. Act III is all about destroying the last opponent and the map you fight on is harder because this time you are not on a island and you cannot rely on air units to give you complete control. But I will show you how you can easily defeat the game and start again on a harder difficulty.
One advantage over the last map is that you are only facing against one opponent and you can focus purely on killing and you don’t have to worry about anyone else stealing your land in the process. You will see if you take his lands and hurt his economy the Act will become easier.
This is quite a difficulty spike from the last act. The enemy starts with maxed-out research, and they all have a permanent, undispellable buff that increases their damage and speed compared to your own units. They have a massive array of ground, sea, and air forces, and you are surrounded on all sides. However, the hardest part is the beginning. Hold off the initial wave attacks and you can only get stronger from there.
Act III – World Map
This looks familiar… but where did that extra land come from?
During the last chapter of the game you will be on a variation of the Chapter 1 map (see picture) where you will be attacked from all sides. You start the act with only a modest defense force, but the enemy, of course, has more units at the start. If you saved enough gold (100-200 should suffice) you will be able to steamroll trough the chapter like a brainless zombie (even on the harder difficulty).
First you will need to hold off the initial attacks. You don’t have enough forces to defend all the territories that will get attacked. You have some air and sea units at the bottom left of the map, which you might forget about, and Armours and Transports on an island. Return those to your capital so you know the opponent will not drop you here. Territories which only have Troopers in them should be abandoned – split your Troopers up and send them to bolster defenses in your Capitol and the territories which have War Factories.
Next, unite all your old provinces that you conquered in Act 1. Make sure the enemy holds no provinces in the “middle” ground. From there, victory is just a matter of time.
Act III – Attacks from all angles
The AI will start off very aggressively. It has you bottled in a strange position, as it has provinces right next to yours. He also has the Islands close to your shores. This makes for a very strange beginning of the Act. If you don’t have enough money or Cards you will need to fight the battles yourself to make sure you don’t suffer losses. The AI will try to go at you from all angles and with the few starting units on your side, you simply can’t hold all the existing territory without losing some.
E: At the beginning just make heavy units if you have the money – the most expensive ones, because in a Auto-Resolve (if you choose to do this) they will do the best. If you are playing the battles out, I would recommend Devastators with Hunters like in my previous guide, they still do wonders.
You will need Taverns, lots of them! Mercenary cards will be the most important, almost the only cards you use. Make sure you don’t forget to use cards to increase provide wealth and population if you have them. During the last chapter the opponent will come from every side so its important you start to group units in choke provinces, provinces that can only be attacked by one side through land. After that we will start… Mass Imp Fighters like good old times! 🙂
S: You’re in a bad way at the start and no mistake. Hopefully, you came into this Act with all your unit research done and at least 100-200 gold cash on hand. Don’t hesitate to spend. You’ve probably accumulated a lot of cards through the course of the game, this is the last act, there’s nothing to save up for, so use those cards!
Note on the above strategy: Be careful if you choose to focus on a Devastators + Hunters combination, Armours tear through both of those units like paper.
The following is my recommended strategy:
“We’re not retreating, we’re advancing in a different direction!”
Your starting forces are inadequate to defend all of the territories that are about to come under attack.
First, take your air and sea forces in the south-west and send them onto your capital territory. A blockade is less important than ensuring a strong defense. Take the 6 Armours from the SW island and put them in Transports, ship them back up to the capital and unload them.
Second, you have 3 provinces defended only by Troopers. That’s not going to be enough to hold them. Consider those lands already lost. Split up and retreat the Troopers from Rocco Siriye into Ghoultry and Shaderidge. You may want to leave at least one Trooper each in Leliyalint and Romentell there to block the advance of enemy forces into your Capitol (Orcha). They won’t survive an attack, but they will block a the enemy land advance into your capital for one turn, leaving you with only a possible air and sea attack.
Third: Bolster your weak spots. Your capital should now have 6 Armours on it, but it has no Hunters or Devastators. Build at least 2 of each. Shaderidge has no Hunters or Armours, so build some there. Ghoultry has no Armours, Devastators, or Shamans.
Optional: At this point, you probably have a lot of gold still and can’t do anything with it because you can’t build more units, right? I bet you have a few “Increase Revenue” cards saved up. Play a few and you can build new units there. The strange thing is that you get the gold NEXT turn, but you can only get the extra building capacity THIS turn.
Couple the increased build capacity with an “Decrease production costs” cards and you can build a lot of units really cheaply. (Aren’t you glad you built a lot of Parliaments in Act II?)
With your forces consolidated, nothing more to build, then all you can do is hit End Turn and see what you have to deal with.
Act III – Securing a domain
E: You can secure the domain with Imp Fighters, everywhere! Every country you own, you need to have 4-5 Imp Fighters on the water tile next to it. You can also use ships, or other air units to do this. Check the picture above, and make sure the opponent won’t drop you. Don’t take any extra provinces through land until the coast is secured! This is key in winning the last act. All your money should go into securing the sides, because those units can also help you on the mainland. Because of the way the map is constructed, there will usually only be one point your land army can be attacked from. Air and sea units can’t capture territory, so you will need some ground units, but the cheaper hunters will be good enough for that, when supported by Devestators to use our beloved strategy of sieging them up and protecting them.
When the waters are secure, you start pushing, one province at a time. Every time you secure the new coastline with more Imp Fighters, or other units of your choice so you will have ultimate map control at the end of the game.
S: Securing your borders is good, but I’m not a fan of the “Imp Fighters around every part of your territory” strategy. There are at least 11 ocean tiles around the Act 1 provinces alone, so that’s 44 to 55 Imp Fighters you’d need to make just for that, and you don’t start out owning any. Sure, the price can be lowered with air discount cards (Thanks, Parliaments!), but trying to make a shield of Imp fighters is just a waste – most of those units won’t see action.
It was pointed out that Air and sea units can’t conquer territory – and that includes enemy units. they can fly over your lands all they want, but if there are no troops for them to fight, they can’t do anything. A massive blockade of a zillion Imp Fighters doesn’t make sense (and it didn’t in Act II either).
Cheaper by the Dozen
My strategy also involves a varied combination of land, sea and air forces, working in tandem. Once the first turn is done, you should still have a good amount of gold remaining (at least 50, hopefully closer to 120). If you have any “Revenue Increase” cards, play one or two on your capital Orcha, and then play one or more “Discount: Naval Units” cards (do they stack? Check this…), so you can build a whole bunch of Juggernauts and Ironclads (Preferably 12 of each). If you have more cash to spare, build a bunch of Transports too, as well as some Air units.
Assess the situation and decide how many countries look vulnerable to invasion. Send as many units as you are comfortable with to conquer the territories the enemy holds, but watch the “Chance to Win” percentage. If it isn’t high enough for your satisfaction, hit the undo button (Backspace by default) to cancel some of your moves. Keep in mind that the enemy may send even more forces there, so what looked like an 80% chance to win could slip into the low 70%.
You want to push the enemy back on as many fronts as possible, and eliminate them from your starting area.
The best defense is a good offense
On the next turn, once your Juggernauts and Ironclads are free to move out of Orcha, split them into task forces and send them to hunt and destroy the air and sea units that are dominating the waters. Moving in groups, they can clear the coasts of enemies efficiently, not just hanging back in a defensively like Imp Fighters. Most importantly, they can escort Transports and support landings.
Use your land units to clean up any enemy presence. By now you should have secured most of the Act 1 territory. Prepare Transports to move your units out on more assaults. Press the enemy as hard as you dare on multiple fronts and they won’t have time to worry about invading you.
This strategy was tested on Normal and Hard difficulty.
Act III – Clean Up Duty
E: Once again, Air control is key. You will need to maneuver around the ships and air forces. Imp Fighters are easily the fastest to move around and will do well against any opponent (except Ironclad groups).
Now it’s clean up duty. Once they can’t drop you and you secure a good position, your main army will be unstoppable. With the great amount of taverns to back you up, every match should be Auto-Resolvable. This will be an easy clean-up duty, and you can decide if you want to push to his Capitol or if you wish to take the entire map. At one point you will see he cannot produce a lot of units anymore and the end game of Act III is extremely easy.
S: Once the lands from Maciliye Tiriel to Mordburn are yours, you can move the bulk of your land forces to Mordburn and Ghoultry to hold that chokepoint. If it looks viable, use Transports to land in Cryptwick and seize that territory as well.
Your navy and air support should be busy sweeping troublemakers from the sea, circling counter-clockwise from Orcha around the Horn of Romentell, sending enemy airships to the bottem of Kraken Bay, and docking in Rocco Siriye in preparation to clean the ocean north of that, opening up the way to Grimland.
You may want to launch an invasion of Grimland, an island to the north where the enemy has a factory, to prevent them from using it as a staging ground for an invasion behind your lines with Transports. Once that’s done, it’s just a simple march of your ground forces to the capital – with each and every invasion supported by Ironclads and Juggernauts.
The enemy is strong with air and sea forces, but weak on ground, which is another reason why I feel an “all Imp-fighters” approach is not the best idea on this map.
The long narrow countries means there’s no chance of getting flanked, so moving your army all at once will create a rolling, unstoppable ball of death. Once you capture Scarview and the enemy War Factory there, the enemy won’t have enough ground forces left to prevent your approach.
Act III – End Game
After you complete Act III, it will end the game and you will be victorious. You can try the game in harder difficulties, or see how other decisions in the political department will affect your characters and the way the game plays out. You can also try to complete the game without using your Dragon mode, that’s very hard!
There’s also the Custom Campaign option, which has all the politics and personal storylines, but with the story stuff stripped out. You pick your Dragon, your wife, the map to play on, and change any gameplay altering settings you want, and off you go.
Leave a comment if you have anything to add to the Guide, and there will be some Tips and Tricks for Act III following the Credits and Hotkeys.
Act III – Tips and Tricks
Basics
– It’s a good idea to have all unit research done (although this should have happened naturally over the course of Act II).
– You can take up to 5000 (or a little more) gold from Act II to Act III. You won’t need this much gold but if you want a easy time in Act III have a bunch of it. You should be fine if you bring at least 100-200 gold to start out with.
– Having a bunch of Strategy cards that boost a territory (increased revenue, unit type discount) can help you bolster your forces quickly, and standing armies are more efficient than Mercenaries.
Key Units and Strategy
By this stage, you should have maximum Tech, but so does your enemy.
– Juggernaut –
Juggernauts are the masters of the sea. Their long range, excellent damage and superior durability makes them a formidable unit. Their Bunker Buster ability lets them attack anywhere on the map for massive damage, although the enemy will prioritize destroying them, so you’ll generally need to launch three at a time just to get one to hit. Being so dangerous, they’re priority targets for you and the enemy, and should be kept guarded and healed by your casters
– Bomber Balloon –
Bomber Balloons are slow and have almost no range, but their bombs can devastate masses of enemy troops quickly. They’re also expensive and slow to build. Because they’re slow and are outranged by everything, they need to be in large groups to be effective.
– Warlock –
Warlocks can polymorph enemy units into Lady Bugs. This can be helpful when you want to disable certain enemy units. It can be helpful to disable anti-air when you release your Dragon and taking out other unit types can change the way the battle looks from dangerous to a pushover.
– Shaman –
Shamans can heal your Dragon, and although they’re very weak they can be put in good use behind Devastators. Be sure to shield them with Immunity to prevent Warlocks from
– Devastator –
Devastators can siege and hold defensive lines. Your Dragon can support them by healing and taking out enemy anti air. With the support of Warlock and Shamans as mentioned above, this can make victory yours, even in some extremely unfavorable battles!
What if the Computer defeats me in the first 90 seconds of the game?
– It could be that you were simply outmatched. Battles in Act III are difficult, since the enemy has maxed-out units which have permanent damage and speed buffs on top of that. If your unit combination was weak to the enemy, well, you can lose.
9 – Custom Campaigns: Change the rules
After finishing the story campaign, you can do a custom campign. Select “Single Player” from the main menu, then “Custom Campaign”. A Custom Campiagn most closely resembles the single-player mode, except the first and last chapters are chopped off and you can play on a map of your choice.
It skips the slow introduction of your crew assembling, everything up to and including the marriage ceremony. You pick your difficulty, your Dragon, your wife, and the map that you and 1-3 of your siblings are fighting over.
You still get all the political decisions and the interaction on the Raven. The only thing of note that’s missing is the Demon Corvus and everything associated.
But perhaps the biggest draw is that this time, you can change the rules of the game itself. Not every rule, but a lot.
- Recruits Cost Multiplier: This affects how many Recruits it takes to create a unit or Structure. It ranges from 1 (default) to 3. At 3, a Trooper which normally costs 3 Recruits to create will instead cost 9, and a War Factory that normally costs 30 Recruits to build will cost 90.
- Game Speed: Affects the speed of the game, the same as the identical setting in the Options menu.
- Starting Recruits: How many Recruits you start with in an RTS match. It ranges from 0 to 100 (default 15).
- Dragon Spawn Cost: How many Recruits it takes to spawn the Dragon initially or after death. Ranges from 0 to 60 (default 20).
- Recruit Rate Quantity: How many Recruits you recieve from per Recruitment Center every 5 Seconds. Ranges from 1 to 20 (default 4).
- Dragon Allowed: This checkbox will allow you to disable use of the Dragon in RTS matches if you want to keep them as pure RTS. Default is Allowed.
- Dragon Timer: How long it takes until the Dragon can first join the battle. Default is 120 seconds (2 minutes).
- Dragon Respawn Timer: The cooldown it takes until you can re-enter Dragon form after despawning or dying. Default is 4 seconds.
- Unit Percentage for retreat: If the AI’s total units drop below this percentage of total units in the battle, they will automatically retreat and surrender the match. Default is 10%.
- Win when all opponent buildings gone: This lets you decide if the match is over once you kill all the opponent’s buildings or not. Default is enabled.
- Defection: Once the population is depleted, this determines if unspent Recruits from a side with fewer Recruitment Citadels will defect to a side with more, increasing their Recruit pool. This is meant to prompt players to spend their recruits quickly instead so they’ll hurry up and finish the match, instead of dragging things out.
Campaign-Only Options
- Starting Gold: This determines how much Gold each side will start with on Turn 1. It ranges from 3 to 200 (default is 20).
- Starting Research Points: This determines how many Research Points each side will start with on Turn 1. It ranges from 5 to 200 (default is 20).
- FFA AI’s always join the battle: When rival factions meet on a country in a Free-For-All game, this determines if all the AI players will join the battle, even if they have no units in the fight. Default is enabled.
- Times Allowed to go to combat: This determines how many times you can fight an RTS battle (with the Dragon) in one turn. It can be “Never” for a purely turn-based strategy game, “Once per turn” if like in normal single-player, you feel the Dragon should only be in one place at the same time, or “Always” (default), if you want to always be able to play any battles in RTS mode.
- Maximum Turn Time: This determines how long you have to make all your moves, place buildings and play cards on the Strategy map. Default is 600 seconds, but I think against the AI it’s considered unlimited unless you specifically change it.
- Maximum Combat Decision Time: When going to battle, This determines how much time you have to decide what cards you want to play and what Dragon Skills you want to take into the fight. Default is 60 seconds, but I think against the AI it’s considered unlimited unless you specifically change it.
Single-Map Skirmish Only Options
- Starting Population: This sets the starting population pool of the map in Skirmish mode. It ranges from 1000 to 10000 (default is 3500).
- Support: This sets the support cap for each side (which determines the number of units they can use. It ranges from 250 to 1000 (default is 500).
How these options matter
– Higher Costs means Fewer Units
It drastically changes the way the game plays if you double the unit/building costs, while keeping the income from Recruitment Centers identical. That reduces the number of available units, and makes starting units much more important. Mistakes are amplified, and making a wrong purchase of a building or too many units, or spawning the Dragon can end up costing you a match.
Fewer units on the field for both sides means that micromanging them is easier, and there’s less chaff to deal with.
10 – Shortcuts
Shortcuts
RTS: doubletap ~ -> toggle permanent icons
RTS: shift-“any command” -> give your units queue’d orders (Example: hold shift, rightclick, A, B -> move, attackmove, execute warlock stealth)
RTS: middle mouse button -> swivel camera
ANY MODE: shift-enter -> talk to ALL
ANY MODE: ctrl-enter -> talk to team
ANY MODE: enter -> talk in current “mode” (all or team)– default is all
DRAGON mode: right click or spacebar –> cancels skill
DRAGON mode: a unit skill hotkey while having unit selected –> execute unitskill
RTS: esc when finished buildings selected with active build queue: cancel build queue of units according to (this is already in the list as a general “cancel” button)
RTS: esc when building is still building: cancel construction of building (this is already in the list as a general “cancel” button)
RTS: shift-leftclick to build units in any building: build 5 of each unit per click
RTS: leftclick on a unit portrait in build queue: cancel unit
RTS: spacebar –> go to nearest alert (red blinking dots on minimap)
RTS/ RISK: scrolling mousewheel –> zoom in / out
RTS: ALT –> show HP bars on all units
RTS: double click on unit -> select all of type on screen
RTS: ctrl-click on unit -> select all of type on screen
RTS: shift-click on unit when other unit already selected –> add to selection or remove from selection (if already selected)
RTS: double tap control-group –> jump to group (camera position)
RTS: double tap Z(W) X C or V –> cycle through type of building (camera position)
RTS: click on portrait of unit in UI -> zoom on unit
RTS: CTRL-1 through CTRL-0 –> set controlgroup
RTS: SHIFT-1 through SHIFT-0 –> add currently selected unit to control group
RTS: 1 through 0 –> select controlgroup
RTSmode: ALT-1 throuth ALT-0 –> select controlgroup
RTS: backspace: cycle through recruitment centers (with camera focus)
RTS: click on icon of controlgroup -> select controlgroup
RTS: doubleclick on icon of controlgroup -> camera focus on controlgroup
RTS: q (a) -> attackmove
RTS: h -> hold position
RTS: o -> stop
RTS: p -> patrol
RTS: m -> move
RTS: insert -> default camera position
RTS: when building selected: J -> open research panel (skirmish mode only)
11 – Credits & Closing comment
This Guide was written and developed by Enthousiast. Ganen and Stabbey have helped develop a lot of additional content to the original work I made. They did this to help complete the vision of making one Guide with all the key information in it. I would like to thank them for their hard work and they also have the rights to add future content.
The Guide will be updated to improve the current format and content, and we will keep updating the Guide with new information about DLC and more when/if it becomes available.
Make sure to rate the Guide by the experience you had while using it. If you want me to add something to the Guide or you have other things you would like to ask, just leave a comment and I will do my best to be helpful.
– Enthousiast
11.1 – Test new updates
