Overview
New to multiplayer? Want to learn everything you need to know to get started? This guide is for you.
Introduction
This guide will teach you everything you need to know to start winning multiplayer battles and start feeling more comfortable online. It will cover beginner basics, all the way to advanced material.
Be sure to thumbs up, favorite, and share this guide to anyone who needs help.
This game has a lot of complexity to it, hopefully I can make learning it a lot easier, so you can focus on enjoying the tactics and the carnage, armed with the knowledge from this guide.
You will be a competent general in no time. Let us begin!
What To Expect From Multiplayer
Let’s first talk briefly about what to expect from Ancestors Legacy multiplayer.
It is a squad based tactical RTS in which you will be fighting over ownership of control points (villages,) fighting with your opponents out in the fields, forests, and ruins in brutal medieval battles, and besieging / defending bases.
Fighting over and controlling villages scattered around the map is at the heart of the gameplay. Villages give you victory points, and most importantly resources.
Most multiplayer matches are Domination, in which victory points are used. Tick down the opponent’s points to 0 by controlling more villages to win.
But you can also win a secondary way in Domination, by destroying the enemy’s key structures in their base.
You’ll be focusing on micro managing your troops, building up your base, upgrading your forces, maintaining / defending / conquering the villages out on the map, using special abilities, and trying to outplay your opponent in tactical battles.
Infantry, archers, cavalry, catapults, and heroes all battling it out.
You’ll be playing against other players, so human cunning and human error will play a part in matches. There’s a lot of unpredictability. It’s a lot of fun.
The matches are on the casual side, it is not super serious. When you lose, think of it as a learning experience, try to think what you did wrong in the match, what the other player did better. Playing against people who are better than you, is how you get better yourself.
Just remember, in the end, it’s all for fun.
Now you know what to expect, let’s start at the very, very beginning and ease into it.
Keyboard Commands, Interface, and Basic Controls
This section will teach you basics about using your keyboard, the interface, and controls.
1.) WASD to move the camera (press shift at same time to increase camera speed.)
Left click to select units, right click to issue orders.
Left click and drag to make a selection box to select multiple units. You can also hold down left shift and click on multiple units.
The mouse wheel zooms the camera in and out. Zoom all the way in for action cam, while having a unit selected. You can rotate action cam by moving the mouse. Zoom back out to exit action cam.
Q is the hotkey for the Stop command.
2.) Right click and drag on the ground to face your units. The shorter/longer the arrow drawn, the different formations your units will take, if you have multiple squads selected. Left click while dragging to cancel.
3.) Press and hold spacebar to see where your units are walking to and the route they will take.
4.) Shift + spacebar to jump to the most recent event. The event list is on the left side of the screen, above the mini map, and below the chat. Events include enemy spotted, squad leveled up, building complete etc. You can also click on these to jump to them.
5.) Ctrl + 1 – 9 to set your control groups. Control groups let you quickly switch between them, using the number keys. One press to select them, two presses to jump the camera to them. This also works on buildings.
6.) Shift + right click to queue orders. You can queue orders for units that are currently retreating. You can queue movement orders for units to follow after they use healing camp, but you cannot queue orders for units that are replenishing, as it will cancel the replenish.
7.) Press Tab in game to see what faction everyone is playing, your allies resources, what tier their town hall is at, and how many villages you currently control. There is also another tab to the top right, called Squad Stats, use this to quickly assess your allies armies.
8.) Ctrl + A to select all visible squads on the screen. Ctrl + Shift + A to select all squads in your army.
9.) Enter to bring up chat. Shift + Enter for public chat in team games.
10.) To place communication pings on the map for your allies to see:
-Alt + left click = question mark ping, no chat message
-Alt + 1 = Attack! ping and chat message
-Alt + 2 = Defend! ping and chat message
-Alt + 3 = Move! ping and chat message (used to be Follow / Meet Here!)
-Alt + 4 = Retreat! ping and chat message
This is much faster communication than typing normally.
These don’t work if you click on the mini map. Wherever your mouse is, that is where the ping will appear. If you ping a squad, the ping will follow and be over that squad, which can be very useful.
11.) F1 – F6 are your management tabs, to the bottom right. You can manage your entire base and its production from these tabs, without even looking at your base. You can also manage your captured villages without looking at them. The little green star means you have enough resources to make a purchase from that tab. These tabs are crucial because they give you more time to micro your troops and watch the battlefield.
12.) Press P for tactical slow-mo. This only works in single player modes.
13.) I recommend you change the default key bindings so they are more comfortable to use.
This is the layout I use.
Toggle Minimap = O
Grid Menu Item 1 = E
Item 2 = R
Item 3 = T
Item 4 = G
Item 5 = X
Item 6 = Z
Item 7 = V
Item 8 = F
Item 9 = C
Item 10 = B
Item 11 = N
Item 12 = M
Following Camera (hold) = I
Toggle Action Camera = L
14.) You can click on the mini map in the bottom left, to jump the camera to where you click. You can also issue orders from there, by selecting a squad, and right clicking on the mini map.
15.) To the top left of your first squad slot at the bottom, there is a flag icon. This is your global rally point for all newly created squads. If you want individual rally points, click the individual building then right click on the ground. The global rally point overrides previous rally points.
16.) To the bottom of the screen, to the right of your mini map, are your squad slots. Here you can quickly look at your squads and see their health blocks, their grey morale bar, and their status. The status is the very bottom circle, and quickly tells you what the unit is doing. Green arrow is moving, red arrow is retreating, no icon is idle, orange flag is inside your base, three yellow arrows means the squad is shooting, etc. Mouse over the icons to have a tooltip tell you what they are if you forget.
17.) To the right of your squad slots, if you mouse over a unit, it will tell you information about that unit. It will tell you what the unit is strong against, what it is weak against, and what type of unit it is itself, next to its name.
The crossed spears are a spear unit.
Crossed axes are an axe unit.
Bow is a ranged unit.
Shield is a shield unit.
Horse head is a cavalry unit.
Catapults, ballistas, and buildings all have their own symbols too, they are pretty self-explanatory, but the previous five are the main ones you want to know.
There will also be a brief description about the unit, sometimes giving important gameplay details. To the very bottom right corner, by the unit description, is how much food the unit is currently consuming. As soldiers die, the squad will consume less food. I will go more into food later.
If you look at this before a unit is recruited, it will tell you the max amount of food this unit will consume, in addition to the wood / iron cost. And it will also tell you how long it will take to recruit the unit, with the blue hourglass.
18.) Your resources are to the bottom right, next to your management tabs.
Wood, food, and iron. Wood is your primary resource. Iron is your secondary resource. Food is your special resource for the upkeep of your army.
The left number for each is your stockpile, and the right number is the rate per minute you are getting that resource.
Next to your resources is your population limit. The left number is how many squads you currently have, the right number is how many you can support in total. All units take up one population slot.
Each house you build will increase your population limit by one. But be careful, if your houses get burned down, it will negatively affect your population capacity.
And that’s it for this section.
If you want to play by yourself without getting attacked, start a skirmish but don’t add in an enemy, and start the game. This way you can experiment and try things out at your own pace.
Basic Gameplay and Fundamentals, Part 1
In this section we will learn about basic tactics and gameplay, and combat fundamentals.
1.) Units that come into contact with each other, will get sucked into melee fighting, and can’t be issued movement commands anymore.
Even if one soldier from a squad touches an enemy squad, the other nine men will get sucked into melee fighting too.
The only way for two squads to stop fighting and move is: the enemy squad dies or retreats, or your squad dies or retreats.
This system places emphasis on positioning, troop committment, retreating, having reserves, getting good match ups, and flanking.
2.) There is no attack move. You have to watch over and command your troops.
Ranged units will automatically fire at nearby enemies though, if they are not on Hold Fire mode.
This means you have to always tell your melee units to manually engage. You have complete control over them, they will not charge off without your order. They will also not pursue enemies who retreat, unless you specifically target the enemy again while engaged in melee.
3.) Unit stances are another big part of gameplay.
Offensive formation = faster movement, no charge protection, can charge enemy squads, cannot detect traps, will trigger traps, even if they are already revealed. This is the default stance for units.
Defensive formation = slower movement, melee defense boost, charge protection from the front, cannot charge, can detect traps, will not trigger traps.
Spearwall = same as defensive formation, but even slower speed, and greater melee defense.
Defensive circle = greater melee defense, charge protection from every angle, even when engaged in melee combat, and cannot move while in this formation.
Hold Fire = Ranged units will not fire automatically, and will detect and not trigger traps. No movement penalty. Ranged units never have charge protection.
Being in the right stance for the right situation is very important. Stances can turn the tide of the battle very quickly. (Click pictures to enlarge.)
4.) The unit UI is important to understand as well.
-The morale bar is the grey bar at the top. This affects how well your squad will fight. No morale and they are practically useless in a fight.
-Below the morale bar, is the health bar. Each soldier is represented by a block of health. The blocks change color depending on how hurt the soldiers are.
-The number at the bottom left is the squad’s level. The small grey circle that goes around it is the unit’s experience. The bottom right circle is the unit’s specialization, once they reach level 2. As you equip your squads with armor, their banner art will change from bronze to silver, then gold, so you know the armor level they have.
-Bottom left blue/black icon is the unit stance, this includes healing and retreating. This will tell you what stance the unit is in.
-Any yellow or orange icons on the left side are environment / terrain effects. Important things to add to the picture below are: you can’t charge in swamp/water, and rain/snow reduces ranged unit’s firing range.
-Status effects appear on the right. You don’t have to memorize them. Just know green is good, red is bad. But I would know the two red icons at the bottom right, those are important.
5.) Knowing unit types and match ups is critical to your success.
Units all have a type assigned to them, each with their strengths and weaknesses.
-There are axe men. They will beat shields, but lose to spears, they can do decently against cavalry. They will take a lot of damage from archers.
-There are spearmen. They will beat axe men and cavalry, but lose to shields, and take a lot of damage from archers.
-There are shieldmen. They will beat spearmen, but lose to axe men. They are vulnerable to cavalry. If they raise their shields, they are good against archers.
-Ranged units are countered by shieldmen with their shields up, melee cavalry charges, and other ranged units on foot. Melee units that catch them will kill them.
-Melee cavalry. They beat ranged units and shields, but lose to spears. They do decently against axe men.
-Ranged cavalry. This is a special unit that can damage spearmen, axemen, shieldmen without their shields up. Any melee unit that catches them will beat them in melee. Loses very hard to ranged units on foot, and towers. Ranged cavalry can beat ranged infantry in melee sometimes.
-Siege equipment is used against buildings and villages, the crews are killed by everything pretty easily. Not good at attacking units.
Get the best match ups you can for maximum effectiveness! (Click picture to enlarge.)
Match ups are not black and white though. Spearmen will not beat axe men 100% of the time. Using tactics, stances, and abilities, you can beat a unit that counters yours.
6.) What is unit morale and what effects it?
Morale is the grey/whiteish bar above a unit’s health, and determines how effective the unit is in combat. The lower the morale, the worse the combat effectiveness. No morale and the unit is practically useless.
-Rear attacks drop morale very quickly.
-Flank attacks drop morale.
-Being outnumbered in melee drops morale quickly. (Outnumbered 3 or more to 1.)
-Taking damage / losing men in your squad drops morale.
-Having no food left in your stockpile will drop morale very quickly. Getting food back in your stockpile will raise the morale up.
-Some unit abilities drop enemy morale.
-Some unit abilities raise individual unit morale, or raise nearby friendly unit’s morale.
-Reinforcing friendly units in melee combat will raise their morale.
-Standing near a hero will raise unit morale.
-Staying out of combat will raise morale.
As you can see there are lots of factors which affect morale. This friendly squad on the far right is in trouble.
This squad of shieldbearers on the right should retreat!
7.) How do I heal and replenish my troops?
Healing your troops after battles is very important. Wounded soldiers won’t last long in battle. Equally as important is replenishing your soldier’s numbers. You want to go into battle with full squads.
To heal your troops out in the field, order them to use healing camp. They will heal themselves, but they are very vulnerable in the process.
Troops standing in your base will heal automatically, without needing to use healing camp.
To heal cavalry, retreat them back to your base. They cannot heal in the field.
You can also heal in your ally’s base, without needing healing camp. But you can’t replenish from allied bases.
To replenish your soldiers, stand near captured villages for replenishment in the field. At your base, they need to stand by the building they were produced from.
Moving stops replenishment, so they need to stand still while they get more soldiers back in the squad.
Basic Gameplay and Fundamentals, Part 2
Let us learn more about the basics of gameplay and unit management.
1.) What is retreating all about?
Retreating is losing control of a unit for a short period of time, as they attempt to escape combat and get a safe distance away to regroup. It’s how you disengage from combat.
Retreating units get melee invulnerability for a very brief period of time, and increased resistance to arrows. They also get a speed boost while running away.
One click retreat, the unit will run a short distance away, depending on how hurt the unit is. If you click once, you can see the blue hourglass at the bottom right, telling you how long the retreat will last. Very damaged units will run for a long time.
Two click retreat, is retreat back to base. The unit will run all the way back to your base.
Retreating units will not fight back, so be careful of enemies that attempt to attack them as they run.
You can’t retreat while in your own base.
Units that are retreating cannot be charged, but if the charge goes off before the retreat order does, it might still connect and cause serious damage.
Retreating units will always fall back in the direction of your base, but they try to take the shortest route. The shortest route might not be the safest! Always think about your retreat path. If the enemy cuts it off, you could suffer heavy casualties trying to retreat.
Some unit abilities block retreat, such as Pin Down, Intimidation, and Sacrificial Craze. Mud traps block retreat too. So be wary of that.
2.) Don’t shoot your own men!
Friendly fire can cause you a lot of casualties.
Remember to not shoot into the backs of your own men.
If your ranged unit is behind a friendly unit, and that friendly unit is engaged in melee, targeting the enemy squad they are fighting with will cause friendly fire damage.
Move your ranged units around the flanks or behind the enemy to avoid friendly fire damage, or retreat your own men from the melee. Shooting into the backs of the enemy will not damage your own men.
Village arrows and tower arrows do not cause friendly fire damage.
Siege equipment can cause friendly fire.
Ranged units that are firing automatically at nearby enemies are usually good about not firing when they know they will cause friendly fire, but I’d still keep an eye on them. If you manually target an enemy, your ranged units will fire at them no matter who is in the way, so be careful.
Remember Q is the hotkey for Stop.
3.) To charge or not to charge?
If you use an infantry unit to charge directly at a unit facing you, who is in defensive formation, or spearwall, you will receive health/morale damage, and not cause any health/morale damage to them.
If you flank charge a unit in defensive formation, or spearwall, you will not take health/morale damage, but you will only cause morale damage.
If you rear charge a unit in defensive formation, or spearwall, you will not take health/morale damage, and you will cause a lot of health/morale damage to them.
You should never charge at defensive circle. It blocks charges from all angles, even when the unit is engaged in melee.
Heroes in defensive formation also block charges from all angles, even when in melee.
Many abilities can be activated while a unit is charging.
Cavalry cannot be charged at.
You can’t charge at units currently retreating.
Using cavalry to frontal charge at spearmen in defensive formation or spearwall is disastrous, resulting in instant casualties for your horses. Frontal charging spearmen in offensive formation will not do anything to them, but won’t result in instant casualties.
It is never recommended to charge at spearmen with cavalry, even from behind, unless they have no morale, or are incredibly few in number. Horses and spears don’t mix!
Charging at ranged units is great, they never have charge protection.
Charges require a minimum amount of distance between your squad and the target for it to go off. You can’t charge at point blank. You’ll get a feel for this distance required.
4.) Let’s talk about unit abilities.
Unit abilities will appear in the F1 selection tab, by clicking on the units.
Going from left to right, top to bottom. I will also be using my own hotkeys, which I outlined in the keyboard section. I recommend you change the default layout to what I put there.
Each unit has 2 special abilities to the top left, different units will have different abilities. For our example we have Spear Guards selected, so their first special ability, hotkey E, is Call to Arms.
Our next special ability, hotkey R, is Spearwall. Spearwall and defensive circle are both stances and special abilities.
Change Stance, hotkey T, is an ability that all melee units have. This is how you change between defensive and offensive stance.
Ranged units have Hold Fire, instead of Change Stance. Hotkey T as well.
Healing Camp, hotkey G, is how you heal your troops out in the field, but at the tradeoff of being vulnerable to attack. You can tell who is being healed by the green cross above them.
To put down a mud trap, use hotkey X. Units have to be standing still to do this, so press Q to have them stop.
To put down a spike trap, use hotkey Z. Make sure your unit is standing still, and that there is adequate room to place the trap. Remember Q is to stop.
To light torches, so you can see farther, press V. This can only be done during the night.
To replenish your squad, press F. They need to stand near a friendly village, or the recruitment building they came out of. Moving the unit, and being in melee combat stops replenishment.
To retreat a short distance away, press C once. The blue hourglass will appear if you hover your mouse over retreat, telling you how long the retreat will last.
To retreat all the way back to your base, press C twice. You can see the blue hourglass, since it was only pressed once in the screenshot.
To equip better armor for your squad, use hotkey B. Increased health, decreased speed.
To dismiss a squad, use hotkey M. You have to press this twice to confirm it, so don’t worry if you accidentally press it once. You will receive back some resources if you dismiss a squad, as well as the population they were taking
There is a toggle time, that appears as a small circle over the squad whenever it is transitioning between states, such as between offensive and defensive stance. This lets you know how long it will take before they are fully transitioned.
That is it for the unit abilities. If you ever can’t click on something, it will tell you why you can’t, next to Requirements.
Basic Gameplay and Fundamentals, Part 3
In this section we will cover more topics on basic gameplay and combat.
1.) Unit Specializations
Units gain experience through combat, and by burning down villages. Units do not gain any experience from killing peasants, or by burning down base structures.
To the bottom left of the unit’s UI is the experience level, the grey bar that goes around that number, is the experience meter.
Squads can go all the way up to level 5. The higher the level, the more powerful the squad. You want to keep your squads alive so they can gain lots of experience, so they pack more of a punch in battles.
This is why wiping, or completely killing a squad, is very important to do to your enemy. And important to prevent happening to yourself.
Losing a squad completely, or dismissing the squad, will get rid of all their gained experience.
Once a squad reaches level 2, you can choose a specialization upgrade. Hotkey N.
Melee unit specialization upgrades look like this:
Ranged unit specialization upgrades look like this:
You get to pick one upgrade for that squad. If you want to choose later, hit the red X.
The speed specialization is a solid choice for cavalry units, as speed and charge are their primary attributes. And the speed boost can help offset armor weighing them down.
There is no wrong choice, pick which one suits your playstyle and preference.
2.) Passively Attacking Units
If you’ve ever attacked a neutral village, you’ve seen the peasants running everywhere panicking.
You’ve probably noticed your soldiers will swing at anyone who comes near them, killing them. They do this without you telling them.
This is actually an important part of gameplay.
This passive attacking of nearby units comes into play in many scenarios.
-You can kill resource peasants that are running to their resource nodes, and back to their village. (You can also manually right click on a resource node to attack them.)
-You can kill peasants carrying buckets of water trying to put out burning buildings.
-You can kill peasants who are going to repair or construct buildings.
-You can attack retreating enemy squads by running near them, or along side them. This is the most important use of this attack. Your men will swing at them and cause damage. The longer you can have your men close to them, the more swinging, and the more damage you can deal out for free.
Units engaged in melee combat, will not swing at retreating enemies. They have to be free to move to swing.
Positioning your squads so they can get these free passive attacks is a great tactic.
Here are some cleavers guarding a wood camp, they swung and killed the peasants that went by, who were trying to get to it.
3.) Hero Units
Hero units are special characters in multiplayer. Each faction starts out with one hero.
You can turn heroes off in the settings, but I recommend you never turn them off.
If they die, they are permanently dead for that match.
However, just because you lose your hero, does not mean you have lost the match. You can win without your hero.
Hero units provide a morale boost to all nearby units. The circle around them is their radius they will give this morale boost.
Heroes do not have morale, therefore they have no morale bar, and anything that effects morale, does not affect them.
Hero units do not have food upkeep, and you do not receive resources back if you dismiss them.
Heroes are great for tying up whole enemy squads. And since they only need healing camp if they get hurt, they are great at saving you money, since you don’t need to pay money to replenish them, and you aren’t paying food upkeep for them.
Heroes that survive to level 3, 4, or even 5 can be very powerful!
4.) Traps
There are two types of traps in the game. Mud pit traps, and spike pit traps.
Mud pit traps give a huge speed debuff, causes slight to moderate damage, prevents retreat, reduces combat stats, reduces morale, and massively reduces vision. Once they step in they are incredibly vulnerable. Mud pit traps are cheaper, and quicker to build.
Spike pit traps instant kill enemies when stepped on, and they also drop morale down to 0, which will give a huge speed debuff when it reaches 0, as well as reduce combat stats. Spike pit traps are more expensive, and slower to build.
It is very important to know, if an enemy sees you building a trap, it will be permanently revealed to them. Night time is a good time to build traps, when vision is reduced.
Units in defensive formation or spearwall will detect traps, and not trigger them if they walk over them. Ranged units in Hold Fire will do the same.
Units in offensive formation will trigger traps, even if they are revealed to you. Ranged units not in Hold Fire will do the same.
To destroy an enemy trap, right click on it with a unit to throw some torches at it, or to shoot fire arrows at it.
You can have a maximum of 9 traps built. Select a trap and press M to destroy it if you want to free up room. This acts the same as dismissing a unit.
Cavalry cannot detect traps. But they can still throw torches at a revealed trap to destroy it.
The less troops building a trap, the longer it will take. Units in building mode receive a stat debuff.
Traps do not give line of sight, but you will be able to see the squad that set it off.
Here is a completed spike trap:
Here is a completed mud trap:
The skull and crossbones over traps is the amount of charges left in it. Once all are depleted, the trap will disappear.
Traps are great to protect your flanks, if you see a trap get destroyed or activated, you know the enemy is prowling around over there.
They can also be used to protect your villages, often times enemies will want to rush your villages as quickly as possible, before you can raise the alarm or react, but this haste can be their downfall as they fall into your traps.
Traps are great in chokepoints, where you know enemies will pass through.
Guarding your home base with traps is a very good idea too. Traps guarding a passage into the side of your base for example could be the difference between half your base going up in flames, or a failed sneak attack.
If you step in a spike trap, the best thing to do is to immediately press Q if you can react fast enough, so your men will stop, and throw torches at it, and so the trap affects your squad the least amount as possible. It is better to lose two men to a spike trap than eight or ten. You will have no morale so if you suspect enemies are around for a follow up attack, it may be best to retreat.
If you step in a mud trap, the best thing to do is again immediately press Q, so your men will stop, and throw torches at it, while at the same time going into defensive formation and try to face where you think attacks might come from, so you can attempt to block any follow up charges, if you think melee attacks might be incoming. You won’t be able to retreat, so brace for attack.
Economy Management and Food
Let’s now talk about the economy, and keeping your army fed.
You have three resources to manage.
Wood is your primary resource.
Iron is your secondary resource.
And food is your special resource, for the upkeep of your army. Food works differently than wood and iron, as we will see.
The left number is your stockpile, and the right number is your income rate per minute.
1.) You get base income from your town hall. The higher tier the town hall, the more income.
2.) Your main way of getting income is from peasants working at villages. Peasants only generate resources when working at resource nodes.
Income from villages is shared for your whole team, and you can’t trade resources.
Here on the mini map we can see all the villages, with their corresponding letters. By them are resource nodes. Wood is the tree icon. Iron is the pickaxe icon. Food is the drumstick icon. The circle behind them, indicates it is a large resource node. Ones without the circle, are small resource nodes.
Three peasants work at small resource nodes, six peasants work at large resource nodes. Each individual peasant working at a resource node, increases your resource rate per minute.
A grey icon means nobody is working at the node, or you do not have line of sight.
Now we will click on a village. You can manage all villages without looking at them, with the “Manage the Villages” tab, F3.
The top row when selecting a village lets you hire peasants to go out and work at the respective resource nodes for that village.
The second row is for your village defense. Here you can build towers around your village for protection, and upgrade your village with Better Defense, hotkey F.
The bottom left icon, lets you recruit peasants to all resource nodes with one click, activating the entire top row.
The bottom right icon, rings the village bell. Your peasants will run inside the village and increase its defense, but at the cost of not collecting resources. This also stops that village from generating Domination victory points.
Your village can have four tiers of defense. The higher level of defense, the more health, and the more it will damage enemy squads.
The more peasants that you have run inside, the higher the tier of defense. The Better Defense upgrade, makes your village bronze by default, without requiring resource node peasants to come inside.
The village bell must be manually activated / deactivated, it doesn’t do anything on its own, and it’s not on a timer. Once deactivated, peasants go back out to collect resources again, which lowers the defense level of the village. Be careful though, when deactivating the alarm, there is a cooldown period before you can ring the bell again.
It’s back and forth between being vulnerable, but getting resources and victory points, or being fortified, but not getting resources or victory points.
3.) The third way to get more resources is through upgrades. Build a Blacksmith to get these upgrades. These can either increase income rates, or reduce food upkeep costs. You can access these through the Technologies tab, F5.
4.) The fourth way to get more resources is to activate certain prayers. Pray For Welfare, which increases all income rates, is an example of this. Pray for Persistence, which reduces food upkeep cost, is another. You can access these through the Blessings tab, F6. These require a Church or Place of Cult to be built first.
Each faction has different upgrades available at their blacksmiths, and different prayers.
5.) How does food work?
This topic is very important.
Each squad has a food upkeep requirement. You can view these before recruiting a squad.
Here we can see a full squad of shieldbearers will take 15 food upkeep. You never directly pay food for recruiting a squad, notice how the food cost says 0.
This food upkeep, is subtracted from your food rate per minute, which is +26 in the picture.
26 – 15 = 11. After recruiting the shieldbearers, our new food rate per minute is 11. A positive rate adds food to your stockpile, a negative rate subtracts food from your stockpile. And if we mouse over the shieldbearers, we can see they are taking up that 15 food upkeep.
As some of those shieldbearers are killed in combat, that upkeep will get updated, and will lower. Mouse over the squad again after casualties to see the updated food upkeep. It will not be a consistent 15 upkeep. Each individual soldier contributes to the food upkeep.
You can have a negative food rate per minute, if you recruit too many units. This will draw food from your stockpile. If your stockpile hits 0, and still has a negative rate accompanying that, your army will starve. Starving armies have their morale drop down to 0, and become useless on the battlefield. You cannot win battles with a starving army.
The quickest way to help this, is to dismiss units, which will increase your food rate per minute.
Some factions such as the Slavs and Vikings, have higher food requirements. German Panzer cavalry have the highest food upkeep in the game of 20. Always be mindful of your food income rate and stockpile.
Keeping an eye on your food resource is critical. Use village food nodes, upgrades, prayers, and army size management to keep your forces from starving. Keeping your peasants harvesting food safe, while harassing your enemy’s food nodes, can turn the tide of the battle.
Bases and Village Combat
With this section we will discuss bases, and how best to defend / besiege them. As well as village combat.
1.) Your home base is made up two types of buildings, critical and non-critical.
If all of your critical buildings are destroyed, you lose. Your main headquarters, and any building that produces units is what you need to keep safe at all costs.
If your non-critical buildings are destroyed, you are still in the game.
Critical Buildings
-Town Hall
-Barracks
-Archery Range
-Blacksmith
-Stables
Non-Critical Buildings
-Houses
-Archery Towers
-Well
-Church / Place of Cult
2.) Your building is automatic. All you have to do is click what building you want, and your construction peasants will automatically go out and build it for you.
These pre-determined building spots give your base streets you can use to help defend, and help keep things open and not cluttered so units can move / path around properly. It also gives you more time to focus on your troops out in the field.
3.) How burning buildings work.
Buildings have a green health bar. And a red burn bar below that.
If the red burn bar is filled to the max, the green health bar will start to go down. Villagers with water from the well, and rain/snow can help stop burning.
A building must have no red left in the burn bar before it is repaired.
4.) You start out with three towers, but watch for blind spots.
Each match starts you out with your town hall, and three archery towers. Depending on the map, your base might have blind spots not covered by the archery towers. Take note of these, you don’t want a strike team in the back of your base lighting your buildings on fire unopposed.
If you notice your enemy is attacking your base and you have nobody home, grab some squads and double click retreat to have them run back to your base to defend.
A single archery tower needs help from units to defend against two or more full infantry squads. Shieldmen with raised shields are a big threat.
5.) Catapults are a huge threat to bases.
A catapult can light most buildings on fire with a single direct fire ball shot.
When you light a building completely on fire, you get vision around it, until it burns down, this allows you to chain your shots and keep firing and lighting things on fire, because you’re getting vision from the burning buildings. Don’t let enemy catapults get within firing range of your base.
Catapults have two firing modes. Direct fire flaming shot, which is an accurate fire ball shot if you
right click on a building you have line of sight of. This is the better attack to use. The secondary is Area Attack, which will rain down rocks randomly over an area, you can use this if you don’t have line of sight, and want to fire into the fog of war.
6.) Cavalry and heroes are very weak against buildings. Archers also struggle.
Squads that throw torches and catapults / ballistas are your best bet against buildings. Some ranged units, like slingers and crossbowmen, do throw torches up close.
Heroes only throw one torch, they don’t have enough damage output against buildings. Cavalry suffer the same, they only throw five max. Heroes are good at soaking up damage though.
Fire arrows are not as effective as torches. Ten torches will do more damage than ten fire arrows.
7.) How do you defend your base?
Use units in conjunction with your towers. Towers alone can be vulnerable.
Think of towers and village capture zones as attrition zones. You want to tie up the enemy and fight them alongside your towers, so they are constantly getting hit by them, while not damaging the towers.
Traps can also work. A well placed trap right before a tower can turn back an entire assault.
8.) Now let’s talk about village combat.
Village have capture zones around them. This is where you will need to stand in to affect the village. To capture it, heal it, or stop capture progress. This is the range of where units will be able to throw torches at the village, and where the village will fire back arrows to defend itself.
Bare villages will not fire back arrows in self defense.
Here is a neutral bronze level village. You can see its capture zone around it.
Here is a good example of how to try take a village. Notice how the two enemy squads are tied up, leaving two friendly squads free to throw torches. Shield units with Raise Shields activated are great for taking villages. Just remember Raise Shields makes them worse in melee combat.
Here is a bad example of how to try to take a village. Notice how everyone is tied up fighting, no one is free to throw torches. The gold village is taking no damage, while dealing out lots of damage. And to top it off, it’s raining, this will make burning down the village even harder. If anyone is alive after the melee fight while getting hit constantly by arrows.
You can contest village capture progress, by standing in the capture zone at the same time as your enemy. In this picture, the progress bar is at a stand still, since it is contested.
Villages can be healed by nearby troops. If a village is taking damage from ranged units, and you have a friendly unit inside the capture zone, and it is uncontested, that unit will help heal the health of the village. In this picture we can see a bunch of archers targeting the village, but the shieldmen are healing any damage they do.
But if a unit contests the capture zone, the healing will stop. Here we can see the cleavers stepped inside the capture zone, so the archers are able to deal consistent damage, since the village stopped healing.
If your line of sight radius touches the edge of the village capture zone, you will be able to see the entire capture zone radius. Here we can see some shieldmen’s vision radius barely touching the outside of the capture zone, but they can now see all around the village.
You can use this to your advantage, and launch surprise attacks against those by the village. We can see the cleavers, but they can’t see us.
Catapults are great for taking villages. They can one shot bare/bronze/silver level villages. And two shot gold level villages.
If you’re getting hit by a catapult and you have a gold village, put some units inside the capture zone to heal it, before the next shot lands.
If your opponent is really dug in around a village, put units inside the capture zone to contest it, to stop the healing, and two shot their gold village with your catapult.
Cavalry will have a very hard time taking villages. Fire arrows are not as effective as torches.
Once a village is destroyed, the towers around it will be destroyed as well.
Captured villages left on their own, will heal by themselves after a short time.
Use towers, units, traps, and the alarm bell to help defend your villages from attack.
The Environment
In this section we will talk about the terrain, weather, and day/night cycle.
The environment affects gameplay in a number of ways. For reference, the yellow/orange icons are what we will be covering here.
1.) Stealth Grass
Stealth grass, or stealth bushes, are areas of terrain in which the rules of visibility change.
Units on the outside of the grass can’t see in. But units inside the grass can see out.
Notice how the squad on the right can’t see inside the stealth grass on the left, the line of sight stops on the border of the grass. Units can use this to hide inside stealth grass.
Once you cross the border of the grass, you can see inside.
Units inside stealth grass will receive the In the Bushes status, and infantry will crouch. Both are indicators of being inside stealth grass.
Stealth grass is great for launching ambushes from, hiding your troop movements, and concealing units so they can’t be targeted by ranged units.
It is a good idea to approach stealth grass in defensive formation or spearwall, if there aren’t many ranged units causing you damage, units may charge out suddenly, and you won’t be able to see them to react.
Stealth grass on the mini map is the brown areas with downwards triangles in them, hotkey O to enlarge your mini map.
Maintaining control of the stealth grass can be very powerful.
2.) The Forest
Now let’s talk about wooded areas.
You will see when you approach heavily wooded areas your units will slow down and receive the Forest status effect. They will receive increased protection from arrows, and slightly reduced vision range.
Increased protection from arrows is the main thing to remember, let the trees protect you from incoming arrows. They will give you lots of protection from arrows, to help you win ranged fights, and to keep your units safe. Look for the yellow double tree icon, so you know you are getting the benefits.
3.) Swamps and Water
Water slows down troops, and prevents troops from charging.
Water is great at giving ranged units extra time to fire at incoming enemies.
4.) Now it’s time to talk about the day and night cycle.
Night time significantly reduces vision. This is a good time to place down traps, and a good time to launch surprise attacks on villages.
To counter this reduced vision at night time, you can tell your troops to use torches. While torches will help you see farther, they can give you away with their orange glow, through the fog of war.
If you want to be stealthy, avoid torches.
Torches can be used to give greater line of sight for your ranged units to fire as well. Have a melee unit hold a torch and spot for your ranged units.
Ranged units will drop their torches if they attempt to fire their weapons. To stop this, have your ranged unit Hold Fire. They will not drop their torches in Hold Fire mode. You can have one ranged unit spot for others this way.
Units engaged in melee combat will drop their torches.
5.) Rain and Snow
Either rain or snow will happen on a map, depending on its time of year. Both have the same effects, they are just cosmetically different.
There is normal rain, which is the yellow icon. And heavy rain, which is the orange icon. Same for snow.
Rain/snow slows down the pace of the game. Units move slower, buildings burn more slowly, ranged units can’t shoot as far.
Heavy rain/snow is rare but slows down the pace of things dramatically.
If it’s raining or snowing, think twice before assaulting buildings, especially bases. Clear sky conditions are much more favorable.
Ranged units are at a disadvantage in rain or snow, they won’t be able to fire until the enemy is right up on them.
6.) Use the terrain’s elevation and chokepoints to your advantage.
Here archers are protected up on higher ground from the melee battle below.
Here one squad of shieldmen is holding off two enemy squads, without being flanked or rear charged, by using defensive formation on the end of a small bridge, with nearby fire support from a village tower.
Advanced Tactics, Part 1
In this section we will cover some more advanced maneuvers.
1.) Finding traps with cavalry. If you have a good idea where a trap is, say in a chokepoint, but you only have cavalry around, or all your infantry are tied up, you can do this.
Inch them forward, press Q. Keep inching up until the 1st horse hits the traps, then press Q, the remaining four horses will destroy the trap and can slowly move past it.
2.) Using cavalry to run down retreating units. With your cavalry selected, click constantly ahead and in front of where the retreating infantry are going, you cavalry will run through them and kill them.
3.) Placing traps on retreat paths. If you manage to sneak a unit around the battle, and you know where the enemy’s retreat path will be through, you can build a spike trap on this path for maximum carnage, or a mud trap to slow down their retreat.
4.) The shieldmen + catapult sneak attack. Sneak a shieldman squad and a catapult near your enemy’s base. Use your shieldmen with raised shields on to spot for the catapult, while the catapult targets the vital buildings in the base. (Town hall, barracks, archery range, blacksmith, stables.)
5.) The longbow retreat and delete. If your enemy thinks he’s safe from your Longbows while you’re in melee combat with his units, because of friendly fire, try this. Target his squad, turn on accurate shot, right as your bowmen pull back to fire, tell your melee unit to retreat. Right as your melee unit turns to run, the shots will land right in his face with little time to react, and your melee unit will take no friendly fire damage.
6.) Slav mounted archers can be used in melee combat against ranged units on foot. They will actually kill quite a lot of them. Click behind the archers so your horses run into them, since mounted archers won’t charge.
7.) Use speed boosts to run alongside retreating enemies as the Vikings. Use Chase on Spear Raiders, the Beserker’s Frenzy ability, and activate Thor Worship to run just as fast if not faster than retreating units, so you can attack them as they run and wipe them.
8.) Dragging cavalry charges through multiple units. For example, if three archers squads are standing by each other, click on the one farthest from you, your cavalry charge will activate just before it touches the first squad, and drag through the first two, and crash into the third. You’ll get a feel for the charge distance for cavalry.
9.) Defensive circle is a great stance to turn on inside a cap zone, if you want to contest a capture. Watch them try for ages to get your squad out of the zone, as you delay them mining time. With your squad’s big melee defense boost, and charge protection from every angle, it might take them a while.
10.) If you are being hit by archers and want to get into melee as soon as possible, but don’t want to charge into the enemy defensive infantry in front, click behind the enemy melee infantry, your units in offensive formation will run at full speed into them, but won’t charge.
11.) All it takes is a single torch to stop repair or construction of a building. If you notice your enemy building a tower, throw a couple torches at it. You don’t have to spend all that time filling up the burn bar completely, if you’re in a hurry.
12.) If your enemy thinks you’ve left a village alone, wait for him to ring the bell to send his peasants back to work. Right as he does that, charge in and destroy his village. His alarm bell will be on cooldown and he won’t be able to press it again.
13.) You can chain pin down and intimidation so the effect lasts uninterrupted for a very long time. Instead of pressing pin down and intimidation all at once on your units, space them out, so right before one effect runs out, another is activated. Look for the red debuff with the little white flag on it. The enemy will never get a chance to retreat. The abilities target the enemy they first engaged with, so make sure you engage the right unit you want the abilities to affect.
Retreating from spearwall and defensive circle requires toggle time, activate your pin down or intimidation when you see the toggle going off to stop their retreat at the last second.
14.) Split up your forces. One shieldman squad with raised shields is enough to take a silver village. Even if you don’t take the village, having your enemy ring the bell is still a victory. They aren’t getting resources or victory points since they know you have a unit hanging around, and you can deny towers before they are built.
Sometimes it can be better to attack multiple areas at once, instead of one big predictable push.
15.) If a village tower is being lit on fire while it’s being built, cancel it. You will get the resources back and you can start building it again somewhere else right away.
16.) Sometimes stealth grass is inside village capture zones, use the stealth grass to safely attack villages.
17.) Use your hero to hold off enemies in the village capture zone, so the rest of your squads can throw torches.
18.) Viking Beserker axe throw charges and Slav Spearmen javelin charges can be thrown through units, if you to target a unit standing just behind another. The charge won’t connect though, as they will run into the squad in the front.
19.) Building traps on top of bridges. Sometimes you can place traps really far directly onto bridges, not just where it connects on both ends.
20.) Don’t let cavalry charge your archers. If you see cavalry coming for your archers, press retreat. They won’t be able to charge and lock on to retreating squads.
21.) Vikings can’t build catapults, but they can capture enemy ones left behind on the battlefield, by using a squad and right clicking on it. Your captured siege equipment will require you to have a free population slot available before you can grab it.
22.) Houses and cottages around villages give vision to the player who controls that village. If you burn these down, you will get rid of that vision. This is especially important at night time, by burning these down you can effectively blind a village’s own vision. They won’t see you coming until you are right up on them.
23.) If your base is being attacked and you don’t have many critical structures built, quickly start building more critical structures. If your town hall is completely on fire, you won’t be able to build new buildings. Only buildings that have completely finished building count, and will keep you in the game.
24.) Huskarls using Rage are great at damaging heroes.
25.) Traps are great for protecting your ranged units. Melee units and especially cavalry usually will be going at your ranged units as fast as possible, this haste will make them fall right into your traps.
26.) Slav archers are the most effective archers against buildings, because of their fast fire rate.
27.) To take a village without it being contested, put your troops on the border of the capture zone, and fight off the enemy so half your squad is in the zone, half is out, so the enemy squad doesn’t get a foot inside the zone, while you cap.
Advanced Tactics, Part 2
Some more advanced knowledge in this section.
28.) You can hear enemy archery ranges training ranged units through the fog of war.
29.) You can hear cavalry through the fog of war.
30.) You can hear enemy peasants working at resource nodes through the fog of war, as well as the village alarm bell being sounded.
31.) You can see catapult and ballista shots flying through the air, through the fog of war. Use this to locate where they are firing from. You can also hear them preparing to fire through the fog of war.
32.) If an enemy has a lot of ranged units in his army, remember what will help you beat them.
Trees will give you a big boost of ranged defense, stay in the trees and look for the yellow double tree icon so you know your units are getting the benefit.
Rain and snow will reduce his range, this is a good time to attack.
Night time will reduce his line of sight, get into melee combat with any units holding torches trying to spot, so they drop them.
Stealth grass will hide you from enemy ranged units targeting you, keep control of the grass and use it for protection.
Shieldmen with Raise Shields activated can absorb a lot of arrows, and Slav/German melee cavalry charges will decimate ranged units.
Any units with Pin Down or Intimidation are great at catching and blocking the retreat of ranged units, so you can wipe them, remember you can activate those abilities while charging.
Mud Traps can also catch ranged units and block their retreat, and they won’t be able to brace against follow up charges.
Chase is a good ability to get into melee combat quickly, it will boost your speed and ranged defense.
33.) Catapults will not automatically fire at enemy units, but you can manually target enemy units, though they are not very accurate against them. Large clusters of troops might get you some kills.
34.) You can completely destroy catapults, target them with your own siege equipment to destroy them. Catapults will have to be told to manually fire at enemy catapults.
35.) Ballistas will automatically fire at enemy units. Put a ballista on the end of a bridge or chokepoint and have it fire down the narrow area for maximum casualties as the enemy bunch up to go through.
36.) Ballista crews cannot retreat when deployed. Catapult crews can’t retreat at all.
37.) If you see the orange glow from enemy torches disappear through the fog of war, they may be putting down a trap. You can’t have torches activated while building traps. They also might be using healing camp.
38.) Heroes are great for finding spike traps. Have them lead the way for your forces. They won’t die if they run through one in offensive formation, if they have a good amount of health left.
39.) Axe men are better at offense and charging. Spearmen are better at defense, using their special defensive stances, since they have weak charges. Shieldmen are in the middle. Rear charges with axe men are devastating. Spearmen are great at holding a battle line, using their defensive stances. Read the unit descriptions to learn important information about their stats and use.
40.) Any resources used for purchases in progress will be lost if a village is destroyed. If you have many purchases queued up, and are about to lose a village, cancel them to get the resources back before they are lost for good.
41.) Hassassins are great for sneaking into bases and using their explosive traps. Position the bomb as close to the building as possible for maximum damage, and if you can put the bomb between two buildings that are close to each other, you can burn down two buildings with only one bomb. Go for the enemy headquarters first, as this will take the most resources to rebuild. Remember Germans have strong structures, so your Hassassins might have to throw some additional torches or use a second bomb to get the building completely on fire. You can go back into stealth right after placing down the explosive trap. Be careful of enemies destroying your explosive trap before it goes off. You can target an explosive trap just like any other trap to destroy it with torches or fire arrows.
42.) Saracen mounted archers are great in melee if they activate their Stand and Fight ability. Right click behind the enemy troops to make your mounted archers get in melee distance. You can beat enemy ranged units on foot this way, and can fight shieldmen. Remember to get out of melee combat once the ability wears off.
43.) Grenadiers need a clear firing arc for their grenades. Buildings, walls, and the terrain can get in the way and cause the grenade to go off before it reaches its target. You can use this to your advantage if grenades are incoming, and get behind cover to stay safe from grenades.
44.) If you feel like you still need practice, and you’re still getting beaten in multiplayer, there are some ways to boost your skills. The first way is to read and study this guide, the second is to beat every campaign mission on Hard, and third work your way up to where you can beat an Insane AI in a 1v1 skirmish match. Those three things are great for extra practice and knowledge.
Try to analyze what went wrong when you lose. Are you charging into defensive formations, getting the wrong unit match ups? Causing too much friendly fire to yourself? Too slow with micro and hotkeys, forgetting to macro and build/replenish, forgetting village management? Forgetting about units you’ve retreated to your base? Is your food management off and you find yourself starving? Getting caught in enemy traps too often? Try to pinpoint what you are doing wrong, so you know to work on that aspect of your play and improve, so you do better next time.
The Factions
Here we’ll talk about the four original factions.
1.) Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons have super heavy infantry of all three types, inexpensive and powerful archers, and inexpensive towers and traps. They are the only faction which requires a tier 2 town hall to build a barracks.
They have a unique ranged unit, slingers, which they start off the match with. They are a fast harassment unit.
Two of their blacksmith upgrades focus on combat. Increasing the firing rate of your ranged units, and the combat power of all your units.
Their main weakness is their slow early game start, and lack of mobility, since their melee troops start off a bit slow, and they are the only faction with no access to cavalry.
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2.) Germans
Germans have strong buildings, and a strong economy.
Two of their blacksmith upgrades focus on economy. You will get cheaper to build and repair buildings (including traps and village towers,) along with cheaper to recruit and replenish troops.
And they have two prayers which help your economy as well. One will reduce your food upkeep cost, the other will boost all your income rates.
They also have access to cheap armor upgrades, once they unlock armor. They are the only faction which has to unlock armor with an upgrade. Their blacksmith is cheap to build, and they get early access to catapults.
They have powerful melee cavalry, but they come with a high food upkeep. As well as a unique ranged unit, crossbowmen. They also have support archers.
Their main weakness is no shield men. And so they will have to fight off lots of enemy ranged units with their own ranged units, or with their melee cavalry.
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3.) Slavs
Slavs have two types of cavalry, powerful archers, and good mobility.
They get early access to melee cavalry, along with ranged cavalry.
They have the best village capturing, and base attacking potential early to mid game, with their fast and inexpensive shieldmen.
Their spearmen are very versatile, with defensive circle, and javelin throw charge for offense.
Rapid firing foot archers are very powerful.
Their main weaknesses are weaker melee infantry, no axe infantry, and consistently high food upkeep. They do have a prayer to help with food cost.
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4.) Vikings
Vikings have access to all three types of infantry, and they focus on fast and powerful melee combat.
They have support archers, which are also good in melee combat, when they use their special ability.
They also have support cavalry, which can scout, harass, and help out using hit and run tactics in battles.
An initial high food upkeep cost can be helped with blacksmith upgrades.
Prayers are offensive focused, increasing their movement speed, their attack power, or their ability to burn down buildings.
Their main weaknesses are weak base structures, heavy iron cost for upgrades / armor, and no access to catapults from their blacksmith.
5th Faction and DLC
In this section we’ll talk about the 5th faction, The Saracens, and all the DLC for the game you can buy.
The Saracens have powerful melee and ranged cavalry, spearmen, and irregular troops that use stealth and explosives.
They have two unique infantry units, Hassassins and Grenadiers. Both units have a smaller squad size.
Their siege equipment is also unique, Scorpions. Similar to a ballista, it is effective at sniping both troops and buildings.
Hassassins can use stealth to sneak around the map undetected, keeping tabs on enemy movement and launching rear charges against unaware enemies. They can also lay down explosive traps, which are great to use against enemy base buildings and villages.
Grenadiers can launch explosive grenades, dealing massive area of effect damage. Careful for friendly fire.
Their weaknesses are no axe infantry, no standard shield infantry, no catapults, and no foot archers.
The Saracens are paid faction DLC. They cost 11 USD / your regional equivalent.
You get a new faction to play as in multiplayer / skirmish, and a new 5 mission campaign which takes around 6 hours to play through. You can unlock the Saracen faction by buying the DLC faction pack Saladin’s Conquest. If you don’t buy the DLC you can still play against the Saracens, or have allies on your team play as them, but you can’t play as them yourself.
[link]
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You can give extra support to the devs by buying the soundtrack and artbook.
[link]You can listen to the full soundtrack on Spotify:
[link]And on Amazon Music Unlimited:
[link] [link]If you want to buy everything at once, there is a complete edition:
[link]
Hosting and Starting a Match
Here we’ll talk about the best way to get matches going fast and what settings to use.
I recommend not using the Quick Match feature. This throws you into random matches, and you cannot communicate when using this.
If you are looking to join a match, go to Multiplayer -> Server Browser. Player hosted matches will appear at the top. Look for the PVP tag, and join the player hosted lobbies.
If you don’t see anyone hosting, go back a screen, and hit Host New Game. Select which map you want, 1v1 matches are the quickest to start, I recommend hosting these. Having a server name is optional.
The only two options I would change below are these:
Starting Weather: I always change this to Sunny. Never pick Rain/Snow.
Player Level: You can change this to your level, if you want people of closer skill joining. But leaving it on Any will get you into a match quicker.
Leave everything else on default settings. Then click Host Public Game.
Don’t be shy to host a match!
Once you host, or have joined a lobby, you can use global chat to talk to other players and tell them you are going to be starting a match. Players in the main menu will see this, and will come join. Global chat is at the bottom right of the screen when in a lobby.
In the lobby, when you are ready to start, be sure to hit Lock Ready. As the host, when everyone is ready, you can click to start the game.
If you had fun playing with someone, go to Multiplayer -> Recently Played With. Here you can send Steam friend requests to people you just played with, by hitting the green button next to their name. It’s a good idea to build a roster of players you like playing with. That way you can easily send Steam game invites, and get lobbies filled up really quickly.
If you want to play a match with just your friends you invite, you can Host Private Game. Private matches give you a lot more flexibility when setting up your lobby, you can add AI to teams, leave slots empty, etc.
To invite someone to your game using Steam, first hit Shift + Tab while in Ancestors Legacy. Find your Friend bar, and scroll down to who you want to invite. Mouse over their name to the right and hover over the little drop down arrow. Click the drop down arrow, then hit Invite to Lobby.
If someone invites you, go to your Steam messages, and click hit Play Game on their invite. If you are in Ancestors Legacy, hit Shift + Tab and do the same.
Alternatively, you can hit the Invite Friends button in the lobby.
Outro
Thanks to all who read this guide and I hope it helped you out.
Thumbs up, favorite, and share this guide to anyone who needs help.
Shout out to Rasador for proof reading the spelling and grammar, and to VEF214 for letting me use your account for testing purposes. Shout out to the DC team for making such a great game as well.
And of course, check out the Community discord, right here:
[link]Join the Ancestors Legacy Multiplayer Steam group
[link]Post in the Steam multiplayer thread
[link]Be sure to check out the official DC guide as well, right here:
[link]If you would like to buy physical copies, you can do so here:
Amazon
[link]Polish Collector’s Edition
[link]The game is also available on GOG:
[link] [link]
But with that, I leave you with some good old fashioned Viking music, to stir your soul, and ignite your ancestry within you. See you on the battlefield.