Help with tactics

[Rednax]

Hey there!

So far, i love the game. But after a few hours of playing ( with still only the snake god ), i only use 1 tactic ( raid villages/forts/churches, infiltrate city, go to the next one and repeat ), while also spreading my shadow.

But it feels like i'm missing something. Are there other ways to destablelize the security of cities to infiltrate them?

[Aunty Herbert]

The Courtier can either lower the security of his home city by 3 or lower the security of all cities he is in by 1.
And anyone with I think 35 (?) gold can bribe the guards, which lowers the security in a city by 2 for 25 turns.
Security is also lowered by 1 for every infiltrated neighborhood settlement, by unrest (for example caused through hunger, and potentially stoked by special action), or if the city ruler is enshadowed.
And there is off course the ability to infiltrate one location for 2 powers. Thats 1 of 3 in a city, and with the right supplicant you get it back after you enshadow the city.
I haven't explored magic yet, possibly blood magic has some extra useful tricks.

[Overpwrd]

my strat is to inflitrate everything around a city and let shadow slowly creep in. mostly using intrigue characters like Courtier and trickster. once leader is enshadowed you'll have easier access

thats whats great about it, there are many ways to complete it.

[Obscure]

I just got warlocks and build wells of shadows and desecrate churches in the largest kingdom.
At least 2 warlocks and shadow stolen from a lore heavy hero.
Maybe use the Covens for some more shadow spam.
Then when I founded the Dark Kingdom I won.

Shadowed Leaders give a city -2 security,
-1 security for every adjacent infiltrated location
and -2 for bribed guards.

But you don't wanna be to hard on the towns that will become part of your dark empire.

Maybe you wanna start a plague somewhere else? It's hard going to war when your troops are dying.

[Brave_Sir_Peres]

The game is deeper, but the God you chose will force you to experiment new tactics.
Madness in Port towns can be used when you infiltrate the docs, plague can wreck havock across a continent, orc warlords can divert the heroes attention, the dark nation is game changingand once the alliance kicks in, you'll have to find a way besides infiltration and shadow spreading.

[tolaburke]

Shadowed Leaders give a city -2 security,

-2 to -5 depending on how enshadowed they are.

[Flap]

Originally posted by Brave_Sir_Peres:

The game is deeper, (...)

The is complex, as it has many mecanism. But I am still not sure how deep it...

[liosalpha]

I still dont know how tp make a good dark empire.
Cause its so crippled by its requirements.

[GC13]

Originally posted by liosalpha:

I still dont know how tp make a good dark empire.
Cause its so crippled by its requirements.

You know that Buzz Lightyear meme?

Shadow. Shadow everywhere.

I was fortunate. All of the heroes were obsessed with the shadow generated by the Elder Tomb and didn't do much to disrupt my spread of shadow on the mainland, so the only affirmative step I had to take was assassinating one leader so their enshadowed heir took control and my Monarch had no resistance to her Dark Empire. But then I did have two Hierophants and a Supplicant running around infiltrating everyone with a Warlock to do Lore challenges, and using most of my Power to use She Who Will Feast's Eyes in Shadow (which I feel to be so useful as to negate most of her other powers).

[Guedez]

* Start with courtier with 150 gold for early knives or bribes.
* Use cast shadow spell (snake god) to butcher a couple of heroes and start doing overt atrocities to get a high menace/profile sacrifical minion for a reset on everyone else, spam it once unlocked.
* * A good strategy is to have one minion yielding axes to transfer to the shadow as soon as you create it to give it a better chance at killing it's father for the free trait.
* Always use the daughter and run around in circles with her to get as much desert as possible while letting her last as long as possible, never engage enemy armies with it, it's a waste of her valuable HP.
* Try to always start near a primal fountain, it's gamebreaking, really
* Steal tons of money (1k~) and give to an orc, convert all encampments into fortresses and lay low, on minimum threat you go through most of them organizing the horde and lay low again at the furthest one from enemy heroes. The enemy nations will start the war for you.
* Covens are either late game pump or early rush, once you start using one you keep until they break your toy, ultra specially good with the last god that can rush 20 points of an action for your agent, you can get 3~4 casts before an army can even reach you most of the time.
* Heroes can't disrupt actions you only take two turns to complete.
* Heroes disengage if an orc agent becomes an army, and armies disengage if the orc army becomes an agent back. A 700 profile 1500 menace orc is bound to get all heroes permanently busy with it if you just alternate those two ignoring everything else.
* BUG: You can rob the same person as many times as you want for infinite profile/menace.

[Guedez]

Originally posted by Flap:

Originally posted by Brave_Sir_Peres:

The game is deeper, (...)

The is complex, as it has many mecanism. But I am still not sure how deep it...

The other way around, the game is extremely simple, none of the features are all that complex or hard to understand. It's how they interact with one another that creates the deep engaging gameplay.

[liosalpha]

Once you get an orc so manacing it wil atrack all heros, give him a little harvester buddy. harvesting the soul of the fallen heros and turning the live ones insane.

The first daughters can be a great source for the harvester too. all the ruines will have a human soul, making his harvested souls thing stack up in to hundres of turnes. Giving him free time to visit libraries to idk pick up a side hobby of learning the arcane.
Getting him early and giving him 3 crows (by having another intrigue pawn steal money for him) you can spec him wel in to lore for casting near endless ghasts.

[jasta85]

don't try and infiltrate everything, its not really necessary most of the time. Only infiltrate if you have a specific goal in mind (robbing a treasury, researching arcane stuff in a library or starting a plague using the sewers etc).

covens are great for spreading shadow, just take them over and enshadow them and they'll spread shadow far away from your initial starting point.

level 1 death magic can be gotten right away with a warlock, and doesn't start the magic arms race since you don't need to research it. it lets you summon ghosts which move around the map spreading shadow until they are killed. great way to spread shadow while also distracting heroes. The more people that die the more and more powerful ghosts you can summon.

Plague is a very efficient way to weaken kingdoms that you have a hard time enshadowing. Plague doctor can start it anywhere, or you can use sewers once you infiltrate them. It spreads easily and can seriously hurt kingdom strength, as well as cause heroes to work on supressing it.

Basically, cause chaos all over the place and force heroes to run around putting out fires while your agents focus on specific tasks unnoticed.

[Flap]

Originally posted by Guedez:

Originally posted by Flap:

The is complex, as it has many mecanism. But I am still not sure how deep it...

The other way around, the game is extremely simple, none of the features are all that complex or hard to understand. It's how they interact with one another that creates the deep engaging gameplay.

Hmm. I fell that full depth is not totally there yet... I don't know... maybe some more fine tuning, more interresting endgame...
But I am sure that it will mature.