Overview
If you’re aiming for a big score, your game can get pretty frenetic by the Age of Gods. Here’s how you can use Zeus to square up the battlefield, and gain points whilst you’re at it!
Introduction.
We know how this game works. You get points when units and buildings get destroyed. Predominantly that is; there’s also points in there for placing tokens and other items. So, what’s the best way to get loads of points? Create loads of units on both sides to tear each other, and buildings, apart.
The problem is, though, things can get out of hand quite quickly, and units are expensive. The likelihood you’ll be able to afford hundreds upon hundreds of units, and be able to keep them alive long enough to cause havoc, is minimal. Thus, we have to have the two factions work together to get a big mass of units on the board.
But there’s no point in writing all this in the introduction!
Gathering Resources
The way I like to use Zeus to rack up the points score is a three stage plan, but the pre-requisite to all of it is resources. To be honest, resources are the pre-requisite to most things in the game. Your war will grind to a halt without them, so makemsure you dedicate a few cities to the production of resources. Obviously some are more vital than others, but you should try and keep a healthy stock of as much as you can.
These are all the buildings you’ll need:
Wheat Farm.
Clay Pit, Potter.
Iron Mine, Diamond Mine, Jeweler.
So the finished resources you’re after are Wheat (not Bread), Pottery and Jewelery. Make sure you have a fine stock of these things, as you’ll be needing them later.
Part 1: Yggdrasil and Eldhrimnir
So, the reason you needed all that Pottery, Jewelery and Wheat Was for these two tokens, which can be laid down by the Norse (the default red team). Pop these two out on the same turn and prepare!
Yggdrasil: This token causes a doppelganger (clone) of every military unit to spawn at a random location on the map at the end of each turn. In later ages (and you should be playing this strategy in the Age of Gods when you’ve got Zeus) the levels of the doppelgangers are higher. Not only this, but after turn one, clones of the clones will be produced, and so on. This token lasts for three turns.
Eldhrimnir: This token complements Yggdrasil well. For the five turn duration of Eldhrimnir, any allied unit that dies is resurrected at a random position on the map. So that’s all Norse units being resurrected, but not the Greeks.
So what we wind up with are a multitude of units all popping out clones every turn. Oh, and all the Norse force are immortal. So, inevitably, the Greeks will get pushed down some, and the Norse will end up dominating quite significantly. Never fear, though! We can sort that out.
Part 2: The Lightning Bolt
So, as of the last section we’d placed Yggdrasil and Eldhrimnir and have military units popping out all over the place. The Norse should be coming out as the dominant force (depending on how balanced your factions were to start off with) due to the fact that they’re coming back to life, and the Greeks aren’t.
Now, what the best thing to do here is let the two armies tear each other apart for a bit, and don’t build up the Norse. However, there is a small something you can be doing to make sure that your massive Norse army doesn’t actually wipe out the Greeks: build Greek promontory cities (ie; cities that ‘stick out’).
Here, have a look:
The desolation in the middle of the board is what happened whilst I was carrying out the master plan: pretty much everything was destroyed. But take a look at the Greek city of Golgi towards the top. See how it’s connected to the mainland by a land bridge? If you create a land bridge like that, and stick a mountain at the entrance, the Norse can’t get in to destroy it.
So, what you want to do is use all of the Norse turns to set down fields branching out of the board, at least five or six blocks long, then plant a Greek city at the end. Make sure you block it off with a mountain or a lake! Now, that massive Norse army can’t easily destroy the whole of the Greek civilisation.
Be careful though, if it’s too close to the mainland, Norse archers and siege catapults will still be able to shoot at it. Trust me, those longbowmen really are troublesome.
So, back to the main ‘bit’ of the second stage of our plan. This is where mighty Zeus gets involved. You see, one of the ‘God Tokens’ the Greeks can use for Zeus is the fabled Lightning Bolt.
Zeus’ Lightning Bolt: This token strikes all enemy units – that’s the Norse – dead, in one fell swoop. Oh, and it gives you 24,000 points thrown into the bargain.
So, despite having that dominating Norse force ravaging them, the Greeks have the power to overthrow it all in one turn! So, when you feel you can’t control the carnage any longer, throw the lightning bolt onto the board. Remember though, Zeus has to move to his lightning bolt for it to activate, so put it down as close to him as you can if you want it in play soon.
Alternatively, put it on the other side of a hoard of Norse, because Zeus will kill any enemy unit he comes into contact with whilst moving towards his lightning bolt.
Remember to wait until Eldhrimnir has left the board before using the Lightning Bolt, or the whole Norse army you just eradicated will return to life at the end of the turn!
Part 3: Immortality
Having used the Lightning Bolt to cleanse the board of the Norse, your board probably looks quite empty of units, but full of ruins. Depending on how badly the Greeks were destroyed by the masses of Norse, there probably won’t be many Greeks on the board. However, there’ll likely be a few, and they’ll be the dominating force now that the Norse have no units to protect them.
Now, Zeus has the uncanny ability to be able to clear up that Greek force, despite being on their team. You see, Zeus’ ability means that no Gods on the board can be killed by ‘conventional means’ whilst he is alive and on the board.
Command: The is a direct order the Creator – you – can give to have all your units converge on and attack an enemy God.
So, find a Norse God on the board and command your Greeks to throw themselves against her (or him). Thing is though, seeing as the God can’t be killed by conventional means, your units will just be throwing their lives away. This distracts your Greek units whilst the Norse rebuild.
Followup.
So, if you’ve followed all three steps of the guide, both of your factions will be pretty decimated, but you’ll have quite a lot of points and they’ll be pretty even on the ground. What you do next is up to you. When I first played this strategy, there were only a few turns left in the game, so I just had both sides create a multitude of ranegd siege units and just had them destroy each other as much as they could in the alst few turns, hoping to hell they wouldn’t acutally knock each other out (they didn’t).
If you’ve got enough turns (and daring) left, you could try and execute it all over again. It’s up to you.
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I’m not a Skyward Collapse master or a veteran of any sorts. I’m just a normal player, worked out a pretty good strategy and felt like sharing it. I’d love to hear any comments on it in the comments section, be it criticisms or improvement suggestions or even a bit of praise and thanks. I hope you enjoyed the guide, and I hope you go on to enjoy the game even more.
~ daT.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Skyward Collapse, it’s artwork, or any characters. The images were cropped from screenshots I took of the game, and all are property of Arcen games.