I don't know how to play this game

[matt]

I feel really dumb.

I get that you can move around these enclosed arena spaces, and sometimes when you bump into grey coloured guys you add them to your mob - I get that some guys look different, they're different classes, and that has some sort of impact on something - slaves can carry items, philosophers can tag in for your leader guy if they die, they're almost like extra lives? - and sometimes you can also exchange chunks of your mob for other classes - or for heroes. You can only lead so many people in a mob at once - that number is reflected in the upper left of your screen.

I know you can tell guys to move to an area, attack to an area, or defend to an area - and I know you can make your leader guy run instead of walk.

But I can't figure out WHEN you would choose to do any of that, tactically. Like - there HAS to be some sort of strategy beyond "get guys, tell them to attack" - because just doing that, I get through the first couple levels, then die pretty quick later on, especially in big boss fights with lots of adds.

I feel like I should be blocking / taking advantage of positioned better? but I don't know how to tell when to block versus attack, or where to move my cursor to tell my mob to stand in different places. I don't really know what the items are or when to use them, beyond the obvious like "use meat when health low, use bomb when near groups of bad guys" type stuff?

It just feels like... it's so random, and there's so few actual decisions to be made. About 50% of the time when I stop by a merchant, I don't have the guys in my mob to trade for what's being sold. All battles seem to consist of "hold attack button while pointing at guy" and sometimes the guys are just too strong and you lose.

What am I missing here? Is there a good walkthrough or guide that I should be reading to get me ramped up on how to approach tactics in this game?

[Lord Haart]

Use source points wisely, always roll, and don't gather all that you see all of the time

[Lord Haart]

Use both though

[Sargond]

I have the same issue as you, this game just explains itself too little a lot of the time. A good tip is to look for visual ques with the gods and enemies when to block, they can be subtle ( or very obvious ) and in terms of the units, you want to try and choose who you pick up as best as you can and create a balance that works for you. The main issue in this is ultimatley, it's designed in a way where you basically are supposed to keep trying and failing until you learn the mechanics, except that this is super hard because to beat a boss, you need to run the entire "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gauntlet again :P

[Nulagem]

Same thing here.