Can someone explain some stuff to me?

[Artemis]

Since there's no wiki I find myself at a loss on a couple of things. Can I not drive Demonaica back into his citadel? He's rampaging around and preventing me making any kind of food income so my people are going to starve. I don't see how it's possible to continue the game when he's wandering around, casting denial spells and STILL summoning monsters. I've also been completely boned by not finding any of the tiles that give you techs so while I clearly have to restart can someone describe what it looks like so I can at least know what to work towards in future?

[sounds like a wooosh]

I think you have to get stronger to be able to beat him. Go out of his way before that.

The Wiki you asked for is probably here http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=A_Valley_Without_Wind

Enjoy!

[Misery]

There is no proper wiki for the second game. That one there is unfortunately only for the first.


Anyway, to the OP: The idea of the game is basically to avoid and simply deal with Demonaica as best you can until you figure out exactly how to deal with him. There's alot of strategy and decision making involved in exactly how you go about doing this; your main goal throughout most of the game is not to "defeat" him or drive him back, but simply to get your food and scrap up, protect your survivors, and build/use various buildings to advance your cause. There really is ALOT of different tactics available to you here, though some of the strategy involved can be a bit counterintuitive to learn. If you're playing on the default strategic difficulty, I can say it is totally possible.... and not THAT hard (though still challenging) to go through the game without losing a single survivor, once you get the hang of it.

Finding special buildings can also be very important; for example, Ivory Towers, which will weaken Demonaica's spells for as long as you control them (he will happily stomp the crap outta them if he gets near enough though of course). Knowing when to purify things like this.... and when NOT to... is also important, as Demonaica and his monsters can never destroy buildings that are not purified.

Also, make sure you have enough survivors recruited; I've often found that many tasks are best done with a small group of survivors. Like defeating the monster waves that come from Demonaica's Keep (or ones that he summons directly), it's often a good idea to have 3 or so warriors/skirmishers in place before the building spits out monsters, so you can take them out quickly without them damaging any buildings. And taking out Deep Gates (the nastiest thing you'll encounter on the strategic map by far) DEFINITELY requires a group of survivors; dont allow a deep gate to purify unless you're totally ready to bring it down, because it can completely wreck you. All 3 classes of survivors are important for a variety of tasks.

As for finding the special tech buildings..... there's no "time limit" with these. Wether you find some of them early on, or wether you dont find ANY of them until the very late game doesnt really matter; obviously it's best if you find one or two of them early on, since the feats they give can give you advantages during the platforming bits, but you dont *have* to find them super fast or something. Your main goal should be to build up your forces and survive, and hold back his attacks, while searching for important things like level-up towers. The tech buildings also tend to be behind walls (the evil city tiles, or whatever they are) and in generally dangerous areas.


I dont want to give away any spoilers, but as far as "defeating" him, what you want to be on the lookout for are Stratospheric Citadels. Really funky-looking blue buildings, there are exactly two of them on the map. In order to beat the game, you must destroy both of these (though that's not ALL you have to do, there's more..... but it's what gets things going towards the end). Dont just attack them the moment you find them though. You'll have to go through an area on foot to purify these, AND you'll then afterwards have to send in your guys to finish the thing off (and Demonaica *will* always hurl a spell at the building at this point, regardless of his spell-timer, so watch out for that). Before the Citadels, your main goal should be to find the ice tower (which lets you enter cold zones), and the fire tower (for fire zones), and as many level-up towers as you can. There's only one each of the ice/fire towers, and Demonaica cannot destroy them (ever).

Anyway, that's the general idea. For most of the game you CANT defeat or even push back Demonaica.... it's a battle for survival until you can find the things that'll finally allow you to strike back at him.



Hopefully my rambling explanations help a bit.... the game does have a bit of a nasty learning curve to it, but it makes better sense as you get further and further into it. Just experiment and try different strategies, and you'll get it eventually! If you have direct questions, the game's main forums are also a good place to go to get answers.

[Blind]

I wrote a rather extensive guide that can be found here on steam.

If you find anything is missing let me know so I can add it.