Some tips for players new to this game.

[lalallaalal]

I have some tips to help people get started playing this game. The early game can be quite the grind.

You can solo a few dungeons with a Thief Lord by using the stealth button and moving away when enemies get close. Ranged enemies make this much harder but it can still be done. Air thieves are the best for this because they can fly to a point on the map that enemies can't reach.

When units are hit they are stunned for a bit and unable to attack. Chaos stick throwers are actually capable of perma-stunning units due to fast attack speed. Because of this feature your best use of melee units is to put them in front and set to defend and tank while your ranged units do the damage.

You receive new followers every 7 turns if you have liberated your Great Temple. It is very important to liberate your Great Temple before Turn 7. You also should be trying to liberate at least one other faith's temple before then for more production.

Early in the game you might want to focus on magical creatures for your army since they don't require a follower to make. They can be a little more expensive but you want those followers gathering resources in your town and to upgrade your town to the next level. Later on you'll have plenty of followers to start using knights, archers, etc for your armies.

When starting a new game you don't have to use the default set up for your Lord. If you click the custom button you can change what items your Lord starts with, purchase certain units, start with more resource, or purchase spells for your mage. Purchasing a powerful item like the Staff of Drowning for a water mage can make early combats much, much easier. Staff of Drowning for water and Staff of Fireball for fire are incredibly powerful since they hit multiple targets at long range and cause good damage.

That's all I can think of at the moment, hopefully some other experienced players will have things to add.

[Tommy Gray x Land Raider]

The way I start things off:
I choose a Warrior Lord and accompany him/her with two ranged and one melee. In dungeons, I have him/her get close to the enemy then put him/her in parry stance to soak up attacks that end up rarely doing damage. Meanwhile, my ranged troops pick off enemies distracted by my lord and I end up prevailing with little to no damage to my party.

A few good element choices for beginners:
Order: good quality units, particularly cavalry
Life: excellent archers
Water: balanced troops backed by a great economy potential and general safety from intruders.

[chevalperdu]

I find a team of one Earth Warrior Lord and a couple groups of Life Archers can get me through the start game using the strategy Tommy recommends. It requires using the CUSTOM option in the faction choice process to pick and choose your starting team and equipment, but if you're new to the game this set up will let you see gains very quickly.

[PyroZack]

Do you receive more points in the Customized heroes part by completing the game?
...I can't remember...and it seems like you would have to, since some of the relics cost so much.

[Rhythmson]

Unfortunately no. You can use the custom game glitch to get any amount of barter points to try games with any artifacts, spells, or unit combinations. I think they might have even made that glitch intentionally seeing as how yes some artifacts are unaffordable legitimately. Another thing i noticed is that when playing different faiths certain items have different point costs, most noticably some artifacts that were even as cheap as 500 points became 9999 when playing another faith. Some cost differences are smaller but generally for balance issues i suppose.

[lalallaalal]

Artifacts are more expensive if they belong to a different faith. If you choose a Life hero than the top tier Death artifacts will cost 9999 for example. You can tell which items belong to which faith if the description has different effects for a certain faith compared to others. For example the Staff of Drowning has added benefits to a Water Mage than if it's weilded by an Order mage.

[Rhythmson]

not just the top tier artifacts, i had a laugh at "Reed Bow" which starts at just above 500 points then skyrockets to 9999 lol.

[danconnors]

I can't say that I agree with using magical creatures to make up your early armies. They usually come one at a time--I know not always (goblins). They can't gain levels. They cost as much upkeep as a group of, say, archers.

When I like to get magical creatures is when my empire has gotten virtually too big for its breeches. There's omething hilarious about having a captive demon taunt its foes by cracking its whip and muttering, "Your soul is mine."

[Red Bat]

Water Warriors on medium difficulty or lower can afford to start with Tidal Blade. It gives a pretty massive buff to the wielder, debuffs enemy armor every hit, and allows 6 castings of the most basic water attack spell. This means that right at the start of the game, a Warrior Lord and a Mage can nearly completely kill off a 3 man team of goblin archers before closing in, and then the Warrior Lord can pretty much solo most early game mobs once the archers are out of the way.

You've also essentially started with a beefed up warrior whose also a better mage in early game than your actual mages, at least until they get better spells like Quicksilver.

A nice alternative to starting with a mage who has Staff of Drowning. Doesn't work on hard difficulty to my knowledge.

[scott0007]

Originally posted by Tommy Gray x Land Raider:

The way I start things off:
I choose a Warrior Lord and accompany him/her with two ranged and one melee. In dungeons, I have him/her get close to the enemy then put him/her in parry stance to soak up attacks that end up rarely doing damage. Meanwhile, my ranged troops pick off enemies distracted by my lord and I end up prevailing with little to no damage to my party.

A few good element choices for beginners:
Order: good quality units, particularly cavalry
Life: excellent archers
Water: balanced troops backed by a great economy potential and general safety from intruders.

What makes Water a good economic choice?

[GreyHuntr]

Originally posted by scott0007:

Originally posted by Tommy Gray x Land Raider:

The way I start things off:
I choose a Warrior Lord and accompany him/her with two ranged and one melee. In dungeons, I have him/her get close to the enemy then put him/her in parry stance to soak up attacks that end up rarely doing damage. Meanwhile, my ranged troops pick off enemies distracted by my lord and I end up prevailing with little to no damage to my party.

A few good element choices for beginners:
Order: good quality units, particularly cavalry
Life: excellent archers
Water: balanced troops backed by a great economy potential and general safety from intruders.

What makes Water a good economic choice?

No inherent bonus. But I would guess access to healing spell and potion means less time resting. Less time resting means more time clearing treasure sites. Also the start location is somewhat protected by a coast and relatively friendly neighbors means less raids.