Tips

[Squint-E]

Hey I'm new to this game, I just wanted to ask something. I'm not sure if I"m playing it right.

There's like 1 mine in my quadrant of my 4 player map, the map has a desert in the middle with neutral bandits who are level 10-25 with absolutely STACKED armies. My town is almost maxed and even with my most powerful commander, all of my troops being stacked into their army, they're all rated at impossible difficulty.

How do I move forward in this game, as I feel like I'm land-locked into my corner with nothing to really do aside wait for weeks to pass to stack my army even further?

[di eshor ribly]

It depends on what hero you're playing as, but you still have a few options.

Upgrade your tavern and hire a few extra heroes, this gives them some Entourage stats, which give them bodyguard units. Keep stacking units in your main army and send your "phantom army" heroes at the bandits in the hope of weakening their army. When their numbers thin out enough clean them up with the main army.

Hunt for artifacts to boost your strength. Some of them have effects that can tip the tides of battle. Tusk's wargear, Mesmer's arcanum... anything helps. Plus they boost your stats.

If available, start snacking on your army with Devour (and Digest). Your stats are measured against enemy strength, once your attack and defense break the 100 point barrier almost every army you face will be "easy" or "moderate", even with a smaller army. After the 500+ point barrier is breached your hero can solo entire doomstack armies.

[The Gaming Torilla]

So I am not sure how much this helps but I've played a bit of the game to know the Difficulty rating system set up by the game (just like most auto resolves in games) can be rough at best. Of course depending on how you play; In this there are so many different ways of being powerful which in most ways the rating system doesn't account for accurately.

This is true for throughout basically all stages of the game besides end-game obviously. A good example of this are Mercurials. Mercurials are tier 2, power 3 units that you can fight not anywhere but essentially at most difficulties like the very beginning of the game Week 1 Day 1. Why do I mention this? because they have the traits Mutation & Splitting. Mutation gives each mercurial a set fighting style (melee, ranged, etc); Splitting - when they die they split into 2 more mecurials (it stops here). An instant pot army if you will, so when you see a group of 20 mercurials guarding a gold mine, think twice about battling a balance comp army of 60 units day 1.

What I am trying to point out is, Everything has something they're good at that destroys they games definition of them. Also, although this is an auto-battler, proper unit placement and micromanagement still have their place in winning battles. Spells often being game changers in turning the tide of battle.

At this point you may not have many options being that you're so far into the current map but here are some actual tips for the future if you weren't aware:

Units are replenished at the beginning of each week, I mention the obvious because not every (I play on hardcore+) map does the AI rush you before the first week. Knowing this it could be wise to not battle anything until the start of week 2 at which you will have about twice the army size to work with. This is often helpful because you will likely be able to creating a snowball effect quite quickly if done right. (This strategy isn't always necessary but useful none the less)

Part 2 to the same point, when building a structure usually prioritize unit making structures as soon as possible. Its better to have more units than you can afford over more money than you can spend. You will get the hang of figuring out what structure you should get and when. Reason this is a part 2 is because after you do this you get the instant units as well as the units in the next week whilst saving gold for buying the units.

A good hero makes or brakes a run, this has changed quite a bit in the recent version of the game with the new skill trees but the essence of greatness is still the same. Mastery (not the skill) & synergy, either have a hero with something they are undeniably good at and/or combine trees to make the perfect product. Examples: The new devour tree can independently scale your hero and is useful in a variety of way, give it some time and its really all you need. OR Faith & Sorcery to reach a pinnacle of magic. If your hero doesn't have potential, its a bad hero; YOU WILL DIE.

Way too much more can be said but end of the story is early development is integral to having a smooth campaign, besides the enemy AI armies that may come for you early on, once you get past that its often straight forward. What I am confused about though is do you HAVE to go through the bandits to reach more of the map? After all its you and the AI right? Its really rare to be at a complete standstill. Do you not have the movement to run past them or maybe no space to do so?

[Ashtero]

You've picked a rather unusual map. I've beaten it once, and my strategy was:

1) Wait a lot in your little corner. Picking trading specilization for city helps with rare resources. Enemies probably can't get to you due to bandits.

2) When you finally have an army capable of defeating bandits, go and conquer everything.