Ardent Mage Guide

This is a basic reference guide with as much simple and useful information i can compile together. However i will not be including storyline and lore text because that requires alot of time.

Table of contents

1. Ardent Mage Intro
2. Ardent Mage Pillars
3. Ardent Mage Economy/Expansion
4. Ardent Mage Quests
5. Ardent Mage Units
6. Ardent Mage & Minor Factions (MF)
7. Research Orders
8. Strategies
9. Early retrofitting of units
10. Retrofitting & Accessories

Abreviations
AM - Ardent mages
MF - Minor factions
PvP - Player vs player
FIDSI - Food, industry, dust, science and influence

Notes: Some of these screenies were heroes I bought straight from the merc market that had skills already in place. I did not purposely spec them this way for the guide, but I used the chart to make a screenshot to show you what i wanted you to see.

Special thanks to the gamers below for making this guide possible.

Neuralnetwork, LadyCrimson, Toofninja, Florryworry, j.a.paisley, Grinder & Diablowe

Ardent Mages Pillars

Below are two links to some really well written guides that discusses: Ardent Mage pillars, available effects, spells and durations. I highly recommend that you read that guide for this section of this Ardent Mage guide.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=342604382

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=338506254

DISCLAIMER - neuralnetwork controls the rights and ownership to these guides. Permission has been obtained from neuralnetwork to attach links to his guide.

Ardent Mages Economy/Expansion

FIDSI (Food, Industry, Dust, Science and Influence) explanations.

Your key economy FIDSI are science, Industry, Dust and influence. You will need high numbers of all four if you are going to play Ardent Mages. Because if you don't then you will quickly fall behind in economy and military.

Food
AM are okay at producing food, with the exception of the Broken Lords, all races need food to increase their population. If you use pillar of regrowth on your cities, you can dramatically increase food production to crazy levels.

Industry
This is the biggest pain in the butt to increase. All races need to research extra industry tech in order to have reasonable production times. This mainly affect early game, where no one has the dust to be able to 'buy out' all their units and city improvements. There are no pillars for industry, so you are going to need to find a 'sweet spot' for balancing between industry with dust, influence and science.

Dust
The way that the pillars game mechanic is designed, requires you to have a decent amount of dust on every city that you settle. Otherwise, your economy will really suck. Early on your going to need to search LOTS of ruins for dust and unlock imperial coinage to sell things for dust. Research empire mint and dust distillery in era three for that extra dust, along the way get roads too.

Science
Ardent Mages are really good at producing massive amounts of science. If you are fighting against the Vaulters, your going to need more science heroes. Get two or three ardent mage heroes with science boost 3 and start leveling them to be science governors.

Note: Ardent Mages can achieve higher science digits through the faction quest line that unlocks tier 3 glass and titanium technology, as well as Verda's laboratory. Verda's lab works like a second geomic lab so if you have a ton of science tiles around you, it adds up pretty quick. Even with faction quests, ardent mages cannot out tech vaulters, keep this in mind.

Influence
Every race needs influence for a bunch of things, and Ardent Mages are slightly better at making influence per turn than most races, excluding Drakken and Cultists of course. Ardent mages can use pillars to push their influence per turn higher instead of just "moving" population dudes around.

Unrelated to FIDSI but still a part of the whole picture - Happiness

How to increase happiness

Making Efficient cities
For every district you build your town will lose happiness. In order to counter balance this problem we need to level up the districts as fast as possible. Making a triangle is best for quick results and making a straight line is best for the most efficient results.

Museum of Auriga (Guardians DLC)
+20 happiness or +40 happiness in city built (district level 2)

Boosters
Too many to list but most of the boosters give +5-10 hapiness excluding wines +20. The boosters have a number of amazing benefits and you should be extracting/buying them as you need them.

Minor faction
Eyelessones +5 hapiness per minor faction settlement.

City improvements
Sewers, Central market, imperial network and arts council gives hapiness and the last two even gives you FIDSI.

Expansion dissaproval
Bread and circus and State approved theatre reduces expansion penalties by -25% each for both making new districts and expanding to new regions.

Bottem line this turns penalties into bonuses and increases overrall FIDSI.

Settling new cities
You should not spam settlers everywhere like i see people doing in just about every game. You should actually stick with one city and expand to a new region every 15-20 turns till turn 60. Why? overrall more FIDSI, better empire plans, you can have 3 heroes as opposed to 1 and you can buy things off the market faster than you can extract them in slower game speeds. Your economy will actually burst with wealth this way so much quicker than if you were to spam a bunch of single district towns. You should be scouting like crazy and if you find your opponent sieging them with single unit armies during winter will really annoy/piss him off. Not only that it will make his economy incompetant and you can just rush him when you have a strong force.

Your first hero should be wild walker with industry boost 2 or 3 (Wayra seigo). This hero is going to build up your cities and level fast doing so. When this hero reaches higher levels you can build a town from top to bottom in one turn for a little less than 1000 dust with a combination of empire plans, boosters and hero skills.

Second hero could be cultist, drakken or haunt hero. If you are lucky and you can afford a haunt hero that rarely becomes available, buy it right away it is the best science governor in the game. The haunts hero is also really good against necrophage too so thats a bonus.

If your facing off against necrophage i would get another archer hero, either roving clans for hp boost or wild walker for attack. Skip this if you managed to get a haunts hero.

Third hero could be a necrophage or drakken hero (cultist works too), Both are good choices and depending on how you plan on winning your going to need either one. Drakken heroes for influence and roving army immunity, necrophage for training 2-3 units per turn.

Necrophage makes for amazing army training cities, you can train units in 1 turn or even 2 units in 1 turn. Drakken makes for amazing influence hoarding cities for empire plans and everything else influence is good for.

Any hero afterwards isn't really all that important but i find cultists heroes get winter gloves unlocked the fastest and they make for good fillers for ungoverned cities. Wild walkers will get all your cities into shape faster and the more the better i guess. Once everything is built necrophage governors are the best for getting high populations but you miss out on science and dust.

Ardent Mages Quests

Ardent Mages imho really need some of the tech/items/units that you can get from quests.

The most useful tech would be Winterized Pillars and Secrets of the Virtuals for +2 pillars/+2 spells. Transcendant Rod of Verda is a powerful staff that is easily obtained for support heroes.

The rest of the rewards can either be near useless or amazing depending on the RNG factors.

In PvP i'd suggest you stop doing quests after you unlock winterized pillars and transcendant rod of verda. For the most part players are going to play focused heavily on rushing you militarily and scientifically. If your spending alot your attention on quests your simply going to fall behind or worse, end up dead.

You can achieve some massive science boosts from questline
In order to make the most of your science production with the extra quests tech. Check all your cities and see which one has the most potential highest science achievable. Then go through the questlines like they tell you, then burn down the verda's temple and other exclusive science tech. Then build it in the highest potential science production city, If your lucky the city you settled for science will already be the one you'd want to put all your science stuff in.

(Note: I did not write down a flat number for the luxury/dust rewards because it is based on what turn and era your empire is in. The higher the turn/era the more risks/rewards).

1. Embers
- Pacify 2 MF villages
- Search ruins marked by dust





Rewards: luxury random, 2 AM units (Warlocks or Zealots)

2. Ancient Paths
- Search 2 ruins marked by dust
- Ambushed: Kill roaming army
- Parley (Insert MF)
- Ambushed: Kill roaming army



Rewards: Random dust, strategic or luxury resource random x2, Transcendant Rod Of Verda
(Second best staff quest item ingame for heroes)

3.Prudence before Passion
- Pacify 5 or more total villages within empire borders






Rewards: Strategic or luxury resources, (Rare) T3 glass/titanium armor or weapons.

4. A Trial Gone Cold
- Settle a new city with 10 or more science per turn.
- Increase science yield to 30 per turn (place a pillar and buyout library)
- Build Verda's lab



Rewards: Verda's lab, T3 Glass/titanium armor or weapons, strategic or luxury resource random

5. Secrets of the Dust
- Exploit 6 anomalies total within empire borders.
- Produce 30 influence per turn in any one city.





Rewards: Winterized pillars, strategic or luxury resources.

6.The Taste of Fire
- Lay down 4 Pillars of Extraction within the same time
- Send an Ardent Mage hero with level 6-8 zealots to explore dust marked ruins.




Rewards: Strategic or luxury resources x2

7. Fratricide
- Defend random city siege
- Maintain approval: Happy within your sieged city





Rewards: Random dust and Altar of transcendance.

8. Transcendance
- Build 1 Adamantium/Mithrite extractor
- Build the Altar of Transcendance





Rewards: Strategic resource, Altar of Transcendance, Secrets of the Virtuals and Temple of the Earths Core.

Ardent Mages Units

The AM has some really powerful units that pretty much define a glass cannon. They pack a mean punch but die just as quick.

For assimilated minor factions your going to really want them for the defense/attack/% initiative or hp for rushing and % production/ % dust/ % science for games that are going to be inevitably long.

Using minor factions in combat can round up your army pretty good. Finding a balanced army of tanky slow units/high speed ini damage units can make your army a force to be reckoned with.

Ardent flames are probably the best military perk you could get ingame. The more damage you take the higher attack and damage capabilities your units has. This means as long as your troops are equally tiered to your opponents or higher they almost never miss [excluding cultists, broken lords and drakken]. This only applies to ardent mage faction units so, keep this in mind.

Settler

Not much to be said here, standard city settling unit.

Telsem Warlocks

These guys literally suck at level 1. That said the higher level/better gear you got on them the better they are. These guys can eventaully take on a rather decent amount of punishment and kill 2 or 3 units at a time before they die. Units like treants and rumblers hate warlocks because they will die trying to melee the warlocks since they dish out enough damage bring that high hp down.

Sweep is what makes these guys really good slow frontline units. (sweep requires being hit first to activate). If your facing off against alot of calvary or roving clans you won't have any problems with the melee calvary because they will shred themselves attacking you. You could alternatively use a minor faction unit instead too (dorgeshi/tetike's comes to mind).

Ateshi Zealots

Best ranged (mage) unit in the game, you can rain death down on the unit and surronding tiles for crazy AoE damage. I've seen 20-60 damage to surronding units from AoE rain and 30-240 on unit hit. This may not seem like alot but it adds up when you got 3+ zealots. Of course with a bunch of luxury items, hero boosts, retrofitting, and empire plans you can push all of their stats higher. This will make your army deal overrall more damage than what i've seen but most games don't last that long.
(This requires at least 80+ ingame turns, most end around 90-120 assuming your playing with game setting "Fast").

Enequawings

Upon further experiments and learning, it has come to my attention that you can produce this relatively quick with a necrophage governor.

I find haunts/daemons to be the best flying units in the game and if you have one of said factions nearby don't bother with enequawings. However, this unit is usuable with a necrophage governor and if you have no access to flying minor factions this is a really good filler. Immortal troops anyone?

Guardians

[WIP]

Ardent Mages & Minor Factions

Ardent mages really suck econimically, i don't care what anyone else says. You're going to need/want Delvers, urces and haunt factions for games that are going to last long. For games that you plan on rushing/warring your way to victory you're going to want those orcs, spiders and minotaurs or nidya for attack/defense/hp or initiative.

MF you want on the frontlines are urces, harmonites, centaurs, dorgeshi and nidya.

Urces / Rumblers
They are really tanky versions of warlocks that has beam attacks instead of ardent flames. Not too shabby a tradeoff if you asks me. They really shine with the assimilation bonus though % production is a godsend early game.

Harmonites / Silics
These are the tanks your going to want in the frontlines facing off against necrophage. Immunity to disease means they won't die by petty hit and run tactics and you got a fairly sturdy wall to boot. They work much like an urce/rumbler does, only their early assimilation bonus is "meh". If you got 4 or more villas you can get 2++ extra strategic resources per turn. What are the chances though? RNG is a jerk no?

Centaurs / Bos
This unit is probably the least used cavalry unit and i cannot, for the life of me find out why. High mobility, option to use shield and axe or 2hander axe/spear and free counter. You know what that means? You can attack someone and if they are melee, you can attack them again when they hit back. 2x attack for ever 1x attack vs other meleers. Thats crazy good and these guys scale relatively well throughout the game. Assimilation bonus to food % is nice as it scales well all game and really packs a punch endgame.

Dorgeshi/ Bordeki
These units are interesting, they have the ability to increase their attack(accuracy) and chance to stun based on how many tiles they move. Since these guys are cavalry its very easy to organize them to move the most tiles possible when attacking units. You can actually stun lock your opponents army if your lucky and then just shred them from there.

Nidya / Arpuja
This is the unit i would use instead of enequa wings. These guys can hit everything in a circle, so they can hit up to 1-6 guys at once which is great if they're archers. You can retrofit them to use 1h axes and shields or 2h axes and 2h long spears. This means they can be anti cavalry or anti ranged troops, imho thats bloody amazing. This unit is an archers worst nighmare, high block/initiative/movement and AoE like a boss! Hell yeah! Their assimilation bonus is % initiative which is just adding gravy to the whole deal.

MF you want in the rear are hurnas, ceratans and eyeless ones

Hurnas / orcs
Unlike vaulters and wild walkers ardent mages does not have access to bows. If your facing off against necrophage or any player that is using alot of flying units you may consider grabbing a few orcs and blending them with your zealots. However zealots are pretty close to the best units ingame so it's a tough decision between sniping off flying units or just dishing out raw AoE damage. I fought against an ai (hard) that strictly used enequa wings so needless to say i added 2 orcs with 2 zealots and 4 warlocks. They got slaughtered xD.

Ceratans
These are awesome units and I LOVE these spiders. I never thought i'd say that for a creepy ass looking bug but these guys are great at healing and offense. If you keep them out of the way from ranged and melee troops they can heal your army at the end of every turn. If you aren't getting hurt much they can attack things at a range like an archer. If they get swarmed by flyers they have claws and decent defense thanks to assimilation buff. This means that those flyers are going to think twice before swarming at them because they will get seriously hurt.

Eyeless ones
These guys are amazing healers inside battle and outside. They have healing aura that can heal multiple units at once much like the broken lord healer. Only difference is they can't attack and heal simultaneously. Having one or more of these guys in your party also increases health regen. Assimilation bonus (happiness) is great if your going to spam cities everywhere.

Ardent Mage Favorable Heroes

This game seems to be hell bent on hindering you from buying heroes, they are expensive so getting 1 or 2 heroes early can turn the tide ingame. Some of these pictures i edited to show the kind of skills your looking for on specific heroes such as the wildwalker hero i poorly edited. I used paint doc so bare with me.

For warmongering your going to want at least 1 or 2 wild walker governors. Your starting hero makes for a pretty decent general all game long. Being able to recieve 4 reinforcements per turn can determine your win in battles with little to no space for your units to start. If you get into a battle where both players have 2 or more armies in standby. Reinforcements +4 units per turn can really change the tides if your opponent doesn't have that ability.
(Rare in most cases though, but i've had it happen a few times where both sides started with 2-4 units and because i was getting 4 reinforcements per turn i outnumbered and crushed them).

Best heroes for warmongering imho are drakken heroes with level 2-3 hp and defense or attack boosts, although good luck getting that early on without an amazing RNG start.

Main Hero as Warmonger
Main Hero as Governor

Note: For the choice over battle hymn or seething fire as warmonger the choice is up to you. Battlehymn for a stronger early start and seething flames for stronger endgame. I like numbers that increase consistently over time rather than a flat bonus but thats just me. If your lucky enough to get enough redsang luxury resources to level up your heroes you can max em out pretty quickly and grab everything.

Ardent mages first hero is suprisingly flexible in ways of governing and war. You could make a really effective hybrid governor/war general or just focus outright governing or war. Imho governing is the best way to go for earlygame. Why? because if you don't take advantage of ardent mages ability to rush into era two faster than the other races. You will lose from either poor economy or poor military early-midgame.

Seething flames and defensive tactics are extremely well placed by the devs, just because you decided to be a governor doesn't mean you can't make use of those military skills too. Even 1 point in both defensive tactics and seething flames is helpful early on.

Differences between efficiency and FIDSI boosts explained
FIDSI efficiency gives FIDSI per population registered to one of FIDSI and FIDSI boost gives FIDSI per hero level and is constant. Boosts are better because you can move population around and not lose the benefit that the heroes give. Efficiency only works when the population heads are on said registered FIDSI.

Wild Walker Heroes (Most Favorable for low production cities or wonder victory)
- You can build towns from top to bottom in a single turn midgame for under 1000 dust
- Try to get one with industry boost/efficiency 2 or 3. (preferably efficiency).
- It is possible to get a hero with industry boost 3 and food boost 2 (extremely rare though).



























Cultist Heroes (Good filler heros, fastest access to winter immunity)
- Try to get one with influence boost 2 or 3 (for influence city) [Ozek the chosen 1-3+].
- If you see a cultist hero with industry 2 or 3 get it (for any city).

























Drakken Heroes
(Best war heroes ingame, tanky, heals, damages and good army boost all in one. It doesn't stop there, drakken heroes level 2x faster than any other hero making them better at everything really).
-Try to get at least one with hp boost 2 or 3.
-It is possible to get a drakken with attack or defense boost with hp boost but it's extremely rare.
-Best influence generators in the game if your facing off against drakken your going to need a few drakken heroes to generate arse loads of influence to counter forced peace.




























Vaulter Heroes (Best for science governor in cities with tons of trade routes/close to enemy lines)
-Try to get science efficiency or boost 2 or 3. (preferably boost).
-It is possible to get army boosts but they're rare and we can retrofit them with the boosts we want.

Vaulters are very unique when people are sieging your cities. Their heroes can become a governor even when city is under siege and while they are governing that city you suffer no FIDSI loss. Vaulters can run away from cities undersiege as well, so if your city is a lost cause you can save yourself some dust and run away. Your army can walk through baracades to reinforce the city/vice versa city and army. This is a huge boon when you need that extra bit of reinforcements. Cities with a vaulter governor gain a fortification bonus as well. These heroes are well placed in cities that are close to the frontline boarders of other factions.



























Roving Clan Heroes (Good governor for a city with tons of trade routes/dust tiles)
-Try to get a hero with dust boost 2 or 3.
-Dust boost is the best for non broken lord factions.































Necrophage
-Can train 1-3 troops per turn and gives your units in your/allies territory global health regeneration.
-can get food boost 3 and industry boost 2

Research orders (WIP changes coming)

Core (Used in every strategy)
For the first 5 turns i recommend scouting with your hero and two single warlock groups to gather dust and clear the fog around your city. If you had a bad science start put the hero into your capital right away and scout with your two warlocks. Heroes can level up pretty fast by searching ruins, parleying and battles. Some quests may require your hero to provide some more fire power. You should level up your hero to get 45% more science and max the level 1 science skill. Afterwards work towards winter operator. Lay down a science pillar right away and make sure it stays up. Once you pacify the surrounding villages and get pop +4-5 start moving population towards influence so you can get better empire plans, make sure to always keep an eye on when empire plans are available and to have enough influence to max them out or get what you need.

Rule of thumb with boosters, only research it if they have bonuses that will help you grow faster both in the long and short run of the game. The best boosters are spice, gold, dye, wine, blood crystal, grassilk, titan bones, moonleaf, quicksilver, redsang, dustwater, dust orchid and hydromel. If any one of those boosters falls into your territory it is worth it to research the needed booster's tech to unlock them and start using them. This will mess my research order guide and your going to have to make your own judgement on when to research the boosters based on the flow of the game.

If you have no strategics in your starting region, don't worry skip the alchemical furnace tech and get imperial coinage as soon as you entire era 2. Buy the strategics you need as you go and pick up alchemical furnace when you expand to regions that have glass/titanium. If you have decent boosters like the ones listed above research open-pitmine instead of alchemical furnace that you would normally pick up. (Only if you have no strategics, and if you have no boosters but strategics research alchemical alloys).

Necrophage
If your facing necrophage scout like crazy to find tetike or hurnas minor faction. Either one works but tetike early game rip necrodrones so hard your necro opponent is going to think twice before attacking you. If they start abusing proliferators i reccomend massing Zealots and enequa wings or haunts. Zealots with their incredible AoE will shred masses of battleborns so who cares if they have 50 of them, more exp for us!
(to clear confusion, tetike are wolf archers/infantry hybrid and hurnas are winter immune orc archers).

Research Era 1

language square, mill foundry, library, empire mint, topograhy, cultivation, open-pitmine, alchemical furnace, zealot, sewers and merc market.

If you are lacking dust tiles aquapulvics can help alot; research pitmine and alchemical furnace
only if you have the strategics in your location and the boosters are worth grabbing. (dyes, gold and wine). In guardians expansion you can get 150 boosters by being the first to either harvest 30 boosters or use boosters three times. If those rewards are dyes/gold/wine it is worth trying to get it!

Research Era2
If you have enough titanium choose management science and skip canal system otherwise grab canal system and later grab management science.

Management Science or Canal system, glassteel/titanium weapons [tier 2], pillar of influence, army size tech, glass/titanium armor [tier 2], zealots, empire roads, central market
(Your going to want to go back for empire roads at some point in era 3 or 4).

Research era 3
Smelting station, Statistcal methods, reaping station, dust refinery, palladium/adamantium weapons, bread and circus

Only grab reaping stations if you have the era 3 boosters in your region and they are worth getting. (Titan bones, grassilk, moonleaf [eco]. Blood crystals and quicksilver [war]).

Wild Walkers
Wild walkers is a pain in the ass to deal with, their units are going to go first no matter how you retrofit your soldiers. Their archers will hit your soldiers no matter how much defense you stack too so don't bother, you just need army attack boost, army hp boost, army damage boost and movement talisman. If you get some army training technology you might be able to get more initiative than them by having higher level units.

Every single racial empire is slow industry wise early game, cultists and wild walkers are not. Depending on their start, minor factions and the player it's best to use guerilla warfare. However i would not recommend hit and run tactics when they unlock that berserk ability in quest line. Berserk allows them to have ALOT more movement than you. You're going to have to play careful and attack them when their weak, attack them when their cities are undefended and etc. Basically just be careful and play smart.

Drakken
When playing against a drakken player i find they get overly cocky early game. They think because they got higher hp/defense and a healer no one is going to attack them. My advice is make them run around like a chicken with their heads cut off. Send in single scouts to siege their cities in the winter to screw their economy, because they like to expand fast early and this will throw them off. If you get lucky and manage to pacify haunts, daemons or dorgeshi start amassing a big enough army to ambush them with. Your goal is to harm them economically so they can't do a whole lot. If you manage to ambush and kill their only force, go in for the kill. When you get into tier 3 you can start pumping out some really strong units to finish them off.

However forced truce can be a pain, If they are going to play that way just turtle up in your city and mass produce science. Out resource them so they have no choice but to war you, then kill them.

Broken lords
Very similar to drakken but they have less hp than them. They can easily stack massive amounts of defense and when their units have close to max morale it can become impossible hitting them. I would recommend exhaustion staves on your hero, and high attack retrofitted troops. If you can harass and smack them around early game you can essentially knock them out of the game.

Rush
Research Era 1
language square, mill foundry, seed mill, library, alchemical furnace, empire mint, zealots 7, Sewers 8, merc market

Only get alchemical furnace if you have strategics in your regions and open-pitmine if its worth harvesting (dye, gold and wine).

Research Era2
If you have enough titanium (20-30) choose management science otherwise grab canal system and later grab management science, you need it.

Management Science or Canal system, glassteel/titanium weapons [tier 2 ], pillar of influence 3, dust purifier 4, army size tech 5, glass/titanium armor [tier 2], central market 7 or management science, central market if you don't have, native district (optional but later you need it)
(If you skipped native district your going to want to come back for it in tier 3)

Research era 3
Statistcal methods, smelting station, reaping station, dust refinery, palladium/adamantium weapons, palladium/adamantium armor, bread and circus

Cultists

These guys snow ball during midgame and to prevent them from getting completely out of control powerful you need to destroy their converted villas. Don't leave yourself undefended and get the enhanced senses item on your hero so you can see far away and attack the settlements when there is only 1-3 guys in it. The key here is to harass like a jerk until you can build up to full out attack.

Rush
Research Era 1
language square, mill foundry, seed mill, library, alchemical furnace, empire mint, zealots 7, Sewers 8, merc market

Same tech order as vs broken lords.

Strategies (WIP changes incoming)

Rush
This strategy works really well on slow starting factions, although your going to have to take a specialized approach on who your rushing. Knowing your enemy is key here and not making bad moves or putting yourself in a bad spot will depend on how well you know the enemy.

Please note that this is not set in stone and you may have to tinker with the tech based on map settings and situations that may require other things first. The rush isn't always going to work there are many factors that can either allow you to succeed or fail, bottem line is good players won't fall so easily. In that case just wear them down until you either outech them or outscore them militarily.

Make your hero a governor for the first 10-15 turns. This will help push you into era 2 faster than everyone else and get you the mandatory tech needed to start wars or expand. On fast game speeds you should lay down a science pillar turn 1 and maintain it. Normal game speeds lay down 1 pillar and maintain it if you can but make it last priority. Scout as aggressively as you can early because once those MF units start spawning your movement will be limited until you get tier 2 retrofitted troops. Go through questline as fast as possible so you can get the extra units and settle a second city by turn 8-14. If your doing really well economically those quest units you got can be sold on the merc market for an extra 100 gold to buy you a second hero. What kind of hero? Drakken war hero of course! Army hp 2 and a dedicated healer will make your army something to be feared. Train three zealots and three warlocks and retrofit them. Get another army of 6 and send your troops over as soon as you got pillar of influence and dust purifier. Why would i research dust purifier? because stun sucks ass arcana level 1 at arcana level 2 it is more likely to stun than miss. Races that can fend off your rush includes drakken and necrophage. If you catch them by surprise however you can deal alot of hurt which is the whole point of rushing. If you manage to take out a player with this rush, you are now one of the strongest military players ingame. Beware, people might ally against you or take this chance to attack you! Keeping this in mind it is a good idea to ask for a truce towards other players close by that you aren't rushing. From this point onwards i would get as much city fortification/science and military tech you can research. It's going to get tough defending and attacking simultaneously. Especially if your facing off in a game of 4+ other players. Winning is difficult but if you carefully choose your friends and opponents you could achieve a science or military win under peoples nose.

Long games

You don't want games to be long, you need to be constantly on the offensive and if everyone else is significantly superior to you make some allies.

How to deal with forced peace

If there is a custom drakken ingame, chances are they are going to go one of two paths. Early rush or diplomacy lockdown. This means its a battle of who can produce the most influence, so instead of the normal tech path you would take, grab all the influence producing tech in each era. Make sure to make good use of your influence pillars. Talk with other players ingame if your going to attack them and ask if you can help "drain" their influence by constantly waging wars.

If you can get flagless mercs then you can just harass them by sieging all their towns with hit/run tactics.

Early Retrofitting of units

Warlocks
for turn 10-20 Retrofit tier 2 claws or longspears and all tier 2 armor. Long spears have higher overrall base defense and some initiative. Early on warlocks are wimpy as hell and any extra survivability is welcome.

turn 30-40 I'd start equipping tier 3 iron claws or tier 2 titanium claws and all tier 3 armor, when you can.

For slow tanky high hp/def races such as Drakken and Brokenlords. You should retrofit titanium and adamantium for the extra attack/defense and damage. For fast low hp/high initiative and attack units you should have a mix of titanium and glass or adamantium and palladium.

Zealots
Turn 10-20 retrofit for tier 2 magewand or staff and tier 2 chestplate

Magewands are for fighting high initiative/attack armies. You can curse their attack down by 30% highest tier.

Quarterstaves are for tanky high hp/defense armies, you need to slow them down so they can't reach you. The stats on quarterstaves also increases attack and damage more than mage wands do.

Enequawing
I don't use this unit but for the sake of the guide i can give you a general idea of what to retrofit them with.

turn 10-30 if you have the rediculous industry required to train them within 1-6 turns i'd retrofit them with tier 2/3 iron and titanium or glass claws depending on what races your fighting. Glass for fast units and titanium for slow tanky units. If your facing wild walkers it's a good idea to put on iron rings tier 2 or 3 to give them extra defense vs that focused archer fire.

Nidya / Arpuja
If your facing off an army mostly filled with infantry or cavalry i would use 2h longspears and titanium/adamantium armor.

Facing off against an army full of ranged units i would go 1h axes and shields with a mix of titanium/glass or adamantium/paladium.

Dorgeshi / Burdeki
You want these units to be as fast as possible while still maintaining a decent amount of defense. Retrofit movement talismans and iron rings/adamanituim ring for that defense boost. These guys require carfeful precise orders to be efficient but when you use them right they can stun lock your opponents.

Mix of glass/titanium or adamantium/palladium

Urces / Rumbler
I like using claws with slow units because they can sweep 3 or 4 guys within range when attacked. That said its best to give these guys the slowest meanest heaviest armor possible.

Go pure titanium/adamantium.

Silics / Harmonites
I like using claws with slow units because they can sweep 3 or 4 guys within range when attacked. That said its best to give these guys the slowest meanest heaviest armor possible.

Go pure titanium/adamantium.

Hurnas / Orcs
I only use these orcs as storm troops/scouts during winter and snipers for fliers. With their range and movement i'd retrofit them with long bows and use them like a wildwalker ranger. This faction is a godsend when no other archer MF is available to use against necrophage.

Mix of titanium/glass and adamantium/paladium

Tetike/ Wolf archers
This unit is incredible, it's precisely an infantry and archer unit in one. If you like wild walker war generals, zealots and tetikes make for a devastating army. This is the ideal army i would use playing against necrophage factions.

Go full adamantium if you can, you want these guys to have as high attack/defense and damage as possible. Retrofit movement talisman and glory or death talisman tier 2-3 or regeneration talisman tier 1-3.

Against necrophage lose the cross bow/shield for a long bow, yes i know you lose some defense but trust me if you don't kill those drones in 1-3 hits your going to wind up dead to disease anyways. Ardent mages middle name is glass cannon anywho.

Retrofitting & Accesories

In order to retrofit accessories and armor/weapons onto your heroes units. You will need to research their respective tiers armor tech to unlock them. For example tier 2 glass and titanium armor tech for tier 2 glass/titanium accessories and vice versa for the other alloys. I normally skip tier 1 stuff and go straight to tier 2 excluding palladian and adamantium weapons tier 1. It takes awhile to get to tier two pala/ada alloys and those tier 1 weapons and armors are actually better than tier 2/3 glass and titanium.

Acessories For War heroes

Most useful
Glass trinket tier 1-3 Army initiative boost
level 1 2 initiative 5% ini boost to army
level 2 4 initiative 10% ini boost to army
level 3 6 initiative 15% ini boost to army

Titanium trinket tier 1-3 Army damage boost
level 1 4 damage 5% damage boost to army
level 2 8 damage 10% damage boost to army
level 3 12 damage 15% damage boost to army

Palladium trinket tier 1-3 Army attack boost
level 1 5 attack 5% atttack boost to army
level 2 10 attack 10% atttack boost to army
level 3 15 attack 15% atttack boost to army

Dust trinket tier 1-3 Army hp boost
level 1 15 hp and 5% army health boost
level 2 30 hp and 10% army health boost
level 3 45 hp and 15% army health boost

Still useful but not as good
Adamanitum trinket tier 1-3 Army defense boost
level 1 3 defense 5% army defense boost
level 2 6 defense 10% army defense boost
level 3 9 defense 15% army defense boost

Acessories For Governing heroes

The most useful tomes for governors just focusing economy pursuits i find are,

Glassteel Tome tier 1-3
+1/+2/+4 dust per population

Titanium tome tier 1-3
+1/+2/+4 science per population

Adamantium tome tier 1-3
+1/+2/+4 industry per population

Hyperium tome tier 1
+2 influence per population. Maybe more tiers from quests or added content?

Mithrite tome tier 1
+2 happiness per unit on city
Really useful if your not already at 100% happiness from boosters and the like. Otherwise not so useful. Maybe more tiers from quests or added content?

For cities dedicated to mass producing units

Adamantium tome tier 1-3
+1/+2/+4 industry per population

Dust tome tier 1-3
+30/+55/+80 exp when recruiting units on units? I think thats reffering to producing units and hiring units off the market.

Accessories for all units

Iron rings tier 1-3
This is your standard trinket for ranged defense on infantry/cavalry or fliers.

Iron rings has the following two abilities
Improved vision lvl1-3 = +1 / +2 / +4 vision
Improved sense lvl1-3 = 20% /30%/40% increased defense vs ranged damage.

Warning! If you fight against wildwalkers in the forests, consider these accesories useless because you screwed yourself. They get a HUGE combined bonus of attack rating from forests and other sources that can easily hit 1200-1600 attack. This trinket can actually replaced by adamantium rings tier 2 or 3, if you can afford it. See below for why.

Glass ring tier 1-3
20%/40%/60% initiative boost

Titanium ring tier 1-3
20%/40%/60% damage boost

Palladium ring tier 1-3
20%/40%/60% attack boost

Adamantium ring tier 1-3
20%/40%/60% defense boost
The defense boost works vs everything unlike iron rings vs ranged damage only.

Hyperium ring 1
Disease immunity

Mithrite ring 1
City guard = +1 morale from city tiles in tactical grid.

Iron talismans tier 1-3
Improved movement lvl1-3
level 1 talisman = 3 initiative, 1 movement, 1 battle movement
level 2 talisman = 3 initiative, 2 movement, 1 battle movement
level 3 talisman = 3 initiative, 4 movement, 1 battle movement

This is probably the most OP trinket in the game. It increases movement by 4, battle movement by 1 and initiative by 3+. I'd put this trinket on all your units when you have the dust and industry required to pull it off. Unless your facing off vs tanky high hp/def units then i may reconsider for higher grounds or morale trinkets/retribution trinkets. If you have around 4-6 Ercyis/vinesnakes assimilated you could do away with this item altogether.

Glassteel Talisman tier 1-3(Higher grounds talisman)
30%/60%/90% increased benefit from higher grounds. What is the base benefit? not sure.

This increases your attack rating/damage on grounds that are higher than your opponents. I'm not sure what the exact numbers are but it is definetly worth the slot to put it in.

Titanium Talisman tier 1-3 (Glory or death talisman)
.25/.50/.75 morale per adjacent enemy
This is going to be really effective on high HP/Defense units. Pushing your overral stats into insane numbers. (Treants, harmonites, urces, stalwarts and drakkenlings comes to mind).

Palladium Talisman tier 1-3(Retribution talisman)
12%/25%/50% increased damage when attacked for the next turn

Only thing comes to mind with this talisman is it takes thought to set it up. Your going to want units with claws, slower initiative than your opponents and good overral base defense, attack and damage. Warlocks can use this and devastate the battlefield with it but they still die easily so i would pair this with increased defense or morale bonus. If you can get hp regen from sisters of mercy or a healer that would be ideal.

Adamantium Talisman tier 1-3
City breaker = 2/4/6 fortification loss per turn when sieging a city

Hyperium Talisman tier 1
Forest resonance = 30%+ to bonus from forests.

Mithrite Talisman tier 1
Shock = -1 morale upon unit hit the next turn

One question that comes to mind is does this stack with multiple units equipped/hitting a single unit? Further experiments required. Overrall unless your opponents have insane morale you have better options to use.

Legendary Artifacts [Quest items]

[WIP]

Forgotten DLC changes to acessories

[WIP]

[HeliumPrime]

Currently, if I focus hard on the AM faction quest, I am able to complete it around Turn 50-60 on Fast speed. Usually I would save up around 10K Dust and then place down as many level 5 Pillars as I can in my Science city in 1 turn. Doing so can easily 10x my Science per turn, allowing me to snatch a surprise Science victory out of nowhere.

As I approach faction quest completion, I start researching some military techs, Isolation Sciences (for immunity against siege damage on units), and hoard Quicksilver so that I can buyout level 10 units to fend off invaders.

By the way, after talking to some experienced AM players, the consensus is that AM has the option of building strange H shaped cities if they don't want to go for triangles or lines because H shapes are very efficient at maximizing Pillar benefits.

[TheDeadDude]

This game is so tedious to a point where if you don't understand and exploit how it works its really hard to keep up with other players and especially an insane AI with all those crazy economy buffs. Only advice i can give you is to keep playing and experiment with what works for you.

[Ripley]

I've read this whole guide, but I keep getting owned at the beginning of the game. By turn 100-ish I'm basically behind in every way

[TheDeadDude]

Yeah i think i've come across that problem a few times. I actually stopped playing this game for about a year. Playing against one of my friends sorta made me lose interest as he could get 5 cities with mid tier tech within 20 turns which makes every game an insta lose for me :(.

[Grimm Turd]

A quality guide and I hope I'm not necro'ing this by adding a small "hiccup" in the faction questline that might mislead some players.
During the Prudence before Passion phase of the questline the game may not immediately show previously pacified villages. I controlled 2 regions and 4 villages when I was at this part of the quest when it said 0/5. I took over another region with 1 village in it and the following turn the quest updated itself rewarding me for having 5/5, then proceeding on to the next step.
Just an fyi in case someone thought it was bugged. It is, sort of, but not really.

[Shin]

Holy shit what an amazingly detailed guide. Thank you for all your effort. This helps a lot!

[TheDeadDude]

You don't need to plan your cities to get the most out of a pillar that does virtually nothing in mid-endgame.

Focus on getting more efficient cities. That science pillar only scales well endgame if you can get all the upgrades for it via questline and technology. Doing so will put you behind everyone in the science race and lose you the game.

Ardent mages are really good at war so being a good rusher and harasser before you come in and finish your opponents is where it's at.

[Lilem]

Thanks for the advice! I appreciate it a lot.

Yeah, I've decided to stick to the standard factions, 'cause I assumed custom factions can be quite op (with cellulose mutation for example) and they will be banned in most games.

I'm still trying out factions and their playstyles (though I do understand that each faction can be played differently). So far I like Broken Lords the most, I like Drakken too but they seem a bit weaker, but that's probably because I'm not playing them right. The mages seem really interesting but more complex at the same time, with all the pillars, spells and focus on tactical combat. Their cities require extra planning because of pillars too.

Generally speaking I'm looking for a faction that will suit me best. My friend started playing Necrophages by my advise and he really rocks them and likes them a lot, I'm looking for something like that.

[TheDeadDude]

Yeah, most games people are going to rush and flank you when you least expect it. Since ardent mages only have a strong start in terms of science it can get tough. Your best bet is make sure you scout who your facing and prepare countermeasures for it. Once you get going to can get on the offensive with zealots and enequa wings or haunts/warlocks.

Information is power so the only real strategy i can give you is to scout so you see whats coming. If you see them coming you can easily counter them if you regroup your army and hit them all at once assuming your higher equal in science/military or greater.

The ardent mages requires you "play" well in the tactical combat. Their units are fairly squishy but you can hit them just as hard if not harder than they hit you.

If your playing unmodded ardent mages you can use that pillar of speed to move your troops across the map faster than most players would expect. At a price of course.

[Lilem]

Hey! I'm learning how to play the SadoMages and your guide is really helpful. I'll have to practice more while keeping the info from your guide in mind, but it's a great source to take from. Thanks a lot!

On a side note, are there any general strategies for playing vs actual people? I've only played with my friends with a couple bots on so far, so I might not get how the _real games_ are played. It seems that the meta currently tends to be agressive, is that so?