Wild Walkers

Overview

This guide will give you a sense of general direction on how to play the Wild Walkers.There are also tips and guidelines on Strategy, Military and Economy for you to consider.I hope this guide gives you a deeper understanding and many victories while playing the Wild Walkers.

Wild walkers are wonder oriented, meaning it’s easier to achieve the wonder victory compared to the rest. To achieve a wonder victory you are required to follow and finish the main quest line and finally build the wonder. This guide will focus on what the race is designed to accomplish. If you find other uses for the race, please share in the comments below!

TRAITS

Traits of the Wild Walkers make the wonder victory an easy achievement as they are set up to grow very fast. And secondly to keep the land they’ve captured safe.

These traits compliment building on forest tiles, expanding your city tiles and expanding your territory. Building mainly on forests increases industry, food allows you to increase population and build districts and sewer systems allow you to increase approval once it is lowered by area growth. Add heroes as governors to the mix and your industry will skyrocket.

These two traits will give you strong defensive capabilities. You gain a couple of turns reaction time to prepare for oncoming enemies. And when they reach your city you’ll be able to use the forests to your defensive needs and drive them from your lands.

Strategy

Scout > Expand > Main Quest 1/3 > Upgrade current cities > Main Quest 2/3 > Stockpiles > Resources > Main Quest Finished > Build Wonder > Defend

Early Game:
Use your units to scout neighbouring areas and look for forests. Build the starting buildings, settlers and districts. Settle in areas that have high industry production and try to ignore open fields. Invest in science to reach era 3 and research stockpiles. Use your hero and units to accomplish as many quests as you can, use the main quest as a guideline for your next move and align it with your build order.

Mid Game:
It could be the case that the main quest has led you towards a ruin that is located in an enemy territory. Try diplomacy or chat to visit those areas. Most of your own areas should be mainly filled with forests to have a defensive advantage if push comes to shove. To increase this defensive advantage research The way of the woodlands in era 4. Once you notice that you’re not able to expand more or that you’re having approval issues or that someone is looking for a fight. Stop the expanding and focus on building districts and setting up your military. Aim for better stockpiles as a research.

End Game:
Try avoiding war as much as possible so you can focus on massing industry stockpiles. Furthermore make sure you have access to strategic resources. To build the wonder you will need Hyperium and Mithrite and tons of industry. By this time you should be fininishing your questline, have enough defense and finially build the wonder and claim victory.

Please keep in mind that these are general directions. Each game will bring new challenges to overcome. The key to success is focusing on your end goal and not getting distracted by too many issues around you.

Military

As a rule of thumb I use 0 as the lowest possible stat and 50 as highest stat, without including HP and Speed

The Wild Walker army is long range/defense oriented. Because you would want to maximize your economy you will find yourself building upon land that is mostly covered by forest. As a racial trait these forest tiles will also give you a massive 50% bonus attack due to the Forest Rage ability. And to top it all off you can also get 25% Defense bonus when you research The way of the woodlands.

Has the second highest attack overall, but in return also has the lowest defense overall. They have a range of 4 tiles, meaning that they are able to shoot once and sometimes twice before the enemy reaches them. Cavalry is their main counter but due to their high initiative the Dakari Ranger will get the chance to attack first.

This support unit is mainly used in combination with the Dakari Ranger. They have two abilities to give the Dakari Ranger more time to deal as much damage as possible.

Bark Skin: 75% Defense for 2 turns. (Can increase the ranger defense from 18 to 31!)
Slow Down: -50% Speed for 2 turns. (You can switch the weapon used to instead cast -10% attack)

Has the highest HP and one of the highest defense stats overall. But due to it’s low initiative it’s usually on the receiving end so use the time that it can move for defensive purposes.

Tactics
Simply looking at the units available we can see that they have two extreme ends stats wise. The Rangers and Tenei clearly have a specific role and compliment each other. The Shaman has a supporting role for both of these units. Furthermore we get a defensive bonus on forest tiles.

If we would think of a basic tactic to use during all of our battles it would look something like this:

Front
Tanei Walkers to block bottlenecks on the map and serve as a meat shield. If the map isn’t in your favour keep them close to your Rangers so they claim the tiles an opponent could stand on. Don’t forget to place them on forest tiles for the defense bonus.

Middle
Agache Shamans should be somewhere in between the two core units. It will be up to you how many you want in your army. Use them to slow down the enemy so the rangers can shoot as much as possible. When the enemy starts attacking the Tanei cast Bark skin to delay them at the front line.

Back
Your final ranks should be filled with Dakari Rangers. Have them snipe units one by one with focus fire. Your main focus should be cavalry and flying units. Second to that, any units that are ignoring the Tanei Walkers and that are heading towards the rangers.

The unit balance of your army and weapon choice should be something like this:

Tanei Walkers – 35% – Invest in armor that mainly gives you HP. The shamans will give you the defense. If you choose not to use shamans then give them defense stats.
Agache Shamans – 15% – Simply make the choice for Slow Down or the Unsteady ability. Keep the weapons on Tier 1.
Dakari Rangers – 50% – Invest in Longbows with Tanei Walkers. Otherwise choose crossbows with shields.

Economy

The Wild Walkers receive massive amounts of industry and you should abuse this. Wild Walker heroes have abilities that increase industry significantly. Though they can be a nice asset on the battlefield their governor abilities overshadow the combat ones. Because you will find yourself mostly in forests you will struggle with other resources. Use any population you can spare on science and focus on getting stockpiles. Because of your high industry you will be able to produce stockpiles easily. You can use them to boost science to keep up with eras or you can sell them for dust at the marketplace. Finally once the wonder is available, stockpiles can finish it in a couple of turns.

Economy Priority

– So you can get to stockpiles fast and keep up with eras as enemies will have higher tier weapons.
– Your fast production will eventually ask for high upkeep.
– Your cities will make this easy to gather. Once you have stockpiles there is no worry.
– You’ll mostly be all by yourself. So no need for diplomacy, could be handy for empire plans.
– No worries.