Basic gameplay and early game guide

Winter has come, the dead are here, and they have dragons.

A small guide to cover the basics of the game, my strategy for defeating the early waves and preparing for the the onslaught to come!

Overview

Reignfall is a city building, hack and slash and real time strategy hybrid.

The premise is basic – Undead armies launch periodic attacks (waves) against your kingdom. During the lull between battles you must expand your city, upgrade your resource production and recruit soldiers and heroes.
When the Undead attack, you fight them off in a battle similar to the total war games, with the major difference being that you can take personal control of your lord or any other hero from a 3rd person view, using WASD keys to move, the mouse to attack and the keyboard to activate various abilities.

Those who have played 'They are Billions' will feel right at home here.
The waves start fairly weak, but ramp up quite quickly, come from multiple directions, and later on will spawn units during the battle, creating attacks from unexpected directions.

You have fifteen minutes to prepare for each wave, or twenty if it's a boss wave.
Speaking of boss waves, every third wave is a boss wave. Boss waves introduce new Undead units, catapults, and are of course, led by one of the five different bosses – very large and powerful mega enemies.
Currently, if you defeat the fifteenth wave, you are awarded victory. However you can continue playing in endless mode, or finish the match, claim your rewards and start another game.

The game is fairly difficult, but its both fun and fair, and it possesses a wonderfully simple progression system that makes each play though rewarding.

Early stages, part 1

Initially when I booted up my first match, things were a little confusing. I tried building a little bit of everything, which lead to frustration as resource accrual is quite slow.
And that slowness is heavily compounded by the fact that the only stat you have access to on anything is it's overall health.
Building output per minute remains a mystery, the damage of your Sorceress' energy bolt left up to you to guess, and I could not tell you if my life depended on it, the optimum placement of farms or resource structures in general.
Farms have a very large radius that they can supposedly collect from. But how many crop tiles each can harvest from I have no idea.
Same issue with fishing huts. Can you cram four huts around a single tile of water and have them produce? No clue. So if you are looking for a meta, 10/10 build order, I won't be of much use.

But what I can share, is some basic ideas that will help you to create an economy that can and will power you through the game, from start to finish.

The first part of that task, is to identify the most important resources to focus on early.

You begin with a limited amount of resources, and as mentioned resource accrual is at a snails pace, so you want to kickstart your economy wisely.

The first most important resource, is gold.
Unsurprising for a game like this. You need gold to construct structures, recruit heroes, squads of soldiers, and pay for everything's upkeep. Without gold, you have nothing.
Gold is earned through housing – taxing the peasants for the good of everyone.
There are four structures that increase the amount of gold houses within range produce, provided they are connected by a road.

All throughout the game you must not neglect your gold income. Each squad you recruit, and each building you construct will have a negative effect on your gold income. I like to maintain a steady income of around one hundred gold, that seems to be enough to pay for everything and be there when I need it.
You can sell resources through the marketplace for gold. A useful feature, but the amount earned is small, and it's not viable until much later in the game, as early on you will not have the resources to spare.

Next up, is food.
While food has a much more limited use, it is absolutely vital. Without it, you will not have an army. And in Reignfall, the city aspect supports the combat, not the other way around.
You need food to recruit your gallant knights and upgrade your houses to increase gold income. And you will need a lot of it.

There are several ways to produce food.
My favourite, all throughout the game, is the most budget option – the humble apple orchard.
It's cheap, but most importantly, it doesn't need a convoluted supply chain to work. It simply makes apples for your people to eat.
The major downside is the orchards take up a lot of space, and their food income is extremely slow.
Still, I prefer to build quite a few of these orchards and call it a day.

The next easiest option, are fishing huts.
If you have access to water nearby, plonk down one of these huts and the fisherman will get to work. The problem I have with these huts is, I do not know how best to arrange them. Do multiple huts in close proximity reduce their efficiency?

Next up, pig farms. These require a supply chain to function, but are very useful.
First, you need a grain farm up and running. Once that is established, I think it's a great idea to build a few pig farms. The pigs eat the grain, grow up big and fat, and are then butchered, providing two resources, food and skins.
The skins can then be sent to a tannery, and turned into light armour, unlocking the option to recruit three types of soldiers.

And finally, there is bread. Bread is so expensive to set up, I only bother with it much later in the game. First you need a grain farm. Or multiple if you are also raising piggies.
Then you need a flour mill (if you want this to be a reliable source of food, multiple mills are needed).
And then you can construct bakeries to bake the flour into bread. It's a convoluted process that takes quite a long time to produce food, and is very expensive to set up. You are looking at, at minimum 1900 gold, 53 wood and 8 stone just to get started, a lot of room for all these buildings, another few hundred gold in roads potentially, and a long travel time for the workers as they run between all these structures and then back to the castle.

The third most important resource, is wood.
Early and mid game, you will not be able to get enough of it. You need it for every building, and in large quantities, especially for housing.
Earning wood is simple, you build a Woodcutters hut near a grove of trees and call it a day. Keep in mind, trees are the only resource I have noted to be slowly depleted over time. The loggers will fell a tree and eventually it will vanish for good.
At the start of the match, you will want a couple of woodcutters, as early on it's the resource you will be choked on the most.

Once you have these three resources covered, you have a big decision to make – what sort of troops do you intend to go for first.
Eventually you will be able to use everything, but for those early to mid waves when you simply need extra muscle, it's a tough choice.
You simply do not have the resources, or more importantly the time, to be diverse right off the bat.
Multiple times I have mentioned the snails pace acquisition of resources. Tanning hides or smithing weapons, through their multiple production buildings is a slow, slow process.

In my opinion, you have four valid options to go for at the start.

Option 1 - Church troops – Honestly, by far my favourite. You will need ale. All of the ale.
The second you get into the match, pause the game and build a hops farm and brewery. Two hops farms are even better.

Barracks troops
I broke the barracks into two parts, because there are essentially two different resource requirements for the various soldiers.

Option 2 – light armour. With light armour, you can recruit spearmen, archers or light cavalry. If this is your intention, you want to, as above, get your production started asap. You will need a grain farm, multiple pig farms, and I would suggest two tanners. The added bonus of this strategy, is the extra food income.

Option 3 – Going straight for the end game units that require heavy armour and smithed weapons, namely knights or heavy cavalry.
This is the riskiest option, but it does carry the largest payoff. Even a single unit of knights will trivialise the early waves.
You will need iron (the rarest resource on the map), as well as weapon and armour workshops, ideally two of each to produce the equipment in a reasonable time frame.
I wouldn't suggest this method with a 'naked' starting lord. If your lord is beginning the game with extra starting units, or resources which can trivialise this challenge, then I wholeheartedly suggest it. (more on lord starting gear later)

Option 4; untested boogaloo, Footmen.
I haven't tested this myself yet, but footmen could be another solid option. They require weapons and light armour.
They may not have the punch or durability of knights, but they are hardy, potent fighters that will last you all game, until the final waves when you simply have the resources that not upgrading them to a higher tier unit would be a mistake. More importantly they are more than a match for all but the most elite undead units.
The added bonus is the food income from the pig farms, and the fact that once you have the production chains in full swing, they are fairly cheap.

Early stages, part 2

Option 5 – Heroes, by Bonnie Tyler.
You need ale, and a lot of gold. An awful lot of gold. Build a tavern, recruit the heroes as quickly as you can.
The most significant upside to this strategy is veterancy. Units in Reignfall gain veterancy by number of enemies they kill and damage, regardless of whether that unit is a zombie, or a zombie dragon.
By getting those heroes out the door and onto the battlefield early, they can farm the weaker enemies and gain some easy levels without pesky soldiers stealing kills.
There are three veteran ranks, each one grants ten percent damage and damage resistance, for a total of thirty percent each. That is extremely potent on powerful units such as heroes, whom have area of effect attacks and can be manually controlled to deliver as much damage as possible.

The second major advantage gleaned from this strategy, is you don't need food. Atleast, not for soldiers. You only need small amounts to upgrade your housing. You can focus nearly all of your starting resources onto gold, ale and wood. (wood to get the gold via building more houses) Once the heroes are recruited, you can hire Brigands from the tavern to be your soldiers until you tech into something else.
Brigands are very similar in every way to footmen. They are only slightly weaker, but cost just gold and ale to recruit.
They cannot gain veterancy, so they drop off in viability substantially in the late game, but they make excellent and easily recruitable stop gap soldiers.

There are two heroes to recruit that are not from the Tavern, one from the Castle, another from the church. They are both fantastic, but also four times more expensive than those from the tavern, and they cost food.

The downside to this strategy is mostly in the risk you face that you could lose your heroes. While the starting enemies are weak and will be swept aside by a half decent squad of soldiers, your heroes suffer from being stun locked.
Each time an individual unit is hit, (yours or the undead) they flinch, which cancels their attack. cavalry, bosses and 'large' units such as Flesh Golems are immune, unless hit by a very powerful attack, such as the Warlord heroes jumping overhead axe chop.

This means, that when your Paladin charges into a horde of zombies, each time he gets slapped in the face, his attack is cancelled. Enough zombies cause enough slaps to render him pretty much useless. A problem further compounded by enemies with spears, as their reach makes it hard to even get close unless they are distracted.
You will need to gang up on undead squads, which can be tricky if several are attacking from multiple directions, and risky as if even a single squad gets through they will demolish several buildings in the short time it will take you to get over there and stop them.


So, to summarise;
:From the start of the match, focus on a select few specific resources.
:You NEED gold, food and wood, and production of a resource required for a pre-planned unit type.
:Resource production is slow. The longer the production chain, the slower it gets. You generally want multiple buildings work on each resource.
:Plan ahead.

Progression and loot

Earlier I mentioned that Reignfall has a progression system that carries over between matches, well here is the info about it!

It's a nifty, ever so simple system.

Every third wave is a boss wave. If you defeat the wave, you gain treasure in the form of items. You get these items regardless of whether your game ends in victory or defeat.
For instance, if you defeat the boss wave on wave six, but are defeated by the seventh wave, then you still keep the loot earned from the wave three, and six bosses.

The items you gain can be equipped to your lord at the start of each new game. They give you a skill setup similar to the other heroes, except you can customise them to your liking.

The loot earned falls into three categories.
1: An ability for your lord. Much like your heroes, who have a ability that can be activated in the RTS mode, or by pressing 'F' in third person. Powers like throwing a fireball that damages and ignites everything in a beam or causes a pillar of ice to erupt from the ground and knockdown any enemies in it's path.

2: You have slots for two minor abilities, such as a jumping overhead attack.

3: You have three 'accessory' slots. Accessories are one use items that really power up a new game. They include things like additional starting units (start with three squads of minotaurs, anyone?) or additional starting resources. Even the rare goods like weapons and heavy armour are possible.
Chapel Knights before the first wave begins? Yes please!

At any point you can have a look at the loot you have earnt, by clicking on the treasure chest button on the bottom right of the screen, next to the minimap.

Units and Heroes breakdown Part 1

I've made frequent mention of the various units and heroes above, in this section I'm going to go into more detail about each individual unit, offering my opinions on their strengths and weaknesses, sorted by the building they are recruited from.

One thing to note, I'm writing this assuming the unit cap is still at the default of 15.

Castle:
Your HQ. If it's destroyed, you lose the game. It is also a limited production center.

Hero: The King.
The player avatar. You can customise him through items. Basically he is a hero with one major boon, at the start and end of each wave, he is resurrected, if he was slain prior. This makes the king, ironically, your most expendable unit. A political statement, perhaps?

Royal Guards:
A tough as nails, five man squad. You begin the game with these guys, and your King.
Individually, these fellas seem on par with Knights and Chapel Knights. Being only a five man squad, they are not as strong as the afore mentioned eight man squads of Knights, but by the time the end game rolls around they are most certainly at max veterancy.
Really solid unit, it's a shame they aren't recruitable.
One thing to watch out for, is being stun locked. With only five members, if they get too heavily outnumbered, even by weak enemies, it's very likely they will take excessive amounts of damage until they can cull the attackers down to a more manageable amount. And each guardsman requires one weapon and heavy armour to replenish, if they are lost early it will be quite some time before they can be replaced.

Militia:
80 gold, 50 food, 5 upkeep.
Absolute garbage. Unless you absolutely have no choice, do not waste your resources on these dirty plebs.
There isn't a single Undead unit they can defeat in a fight, one on one.
They have no defences, and therefor suffer heavy casualties in combat, which gets expensive to replace. And their damage output is almost non existent.
They aren't even cheap!
Avoid unless you are truly desperate.

Hero: Templar.
2000 gold, 100 food, 10 upkeep.
In my opinion, the most important unit in your army!
Baseline he is a well armoured, duel wielding, powerhouse. In one hand he wields a mace, and the other a halberd. Which is amazing!
Mace deals blunt damage. Many of the Undead units are skeletons, whom are weak against blunt damage.
His halberd, being a polearm has a long reach. But far more importantly, it deals extra damage to cavalry, monsters and bosses!
So he has bonus damage against nearly any foe he comes up against, depending on whether you left or right click.
He has a minor ability that corresponds with each weapon, for an extra burst of damage.

And if all of that wasn't enough, he has, what I consider the best ability in the game.
He can cast an area of effect heal that lasts ten seconds and covers an enormous radius. It's the only method of healing I have yet discovered, apart from standing close to the castle out of combat.
It has a long cool down of three minutes, but it is still a huge boon. In combat, it really helps keep your units alive and fighting, and out of combat it vastly speeds up your armies healing after a wave, or from hunting neutral camps.

Expensive to recruit, but totally invaluable. The earlier you recruit him, the better.

The Barracks:

Spearmen:
120 gold, 60 food, 10 light armour, 12 upkeep.
A very viable unit, if, and only if, you have solid macro skills.
As the name suggests, Spearmen are a lightly armoured squad armed with spears.
They have long reach, and considerable bonus damage against many of the most scary units. Cavalry, monsters and bosses all have to respect the humble Spearman.
A group of these lads are one of the most effective units to clear the map of all the neutral creature 'camps'. Minotaurs and stone golems don't last long against the power of a pointy stick.
Mid to late game, the Undead waves employ many cavalry and monster units (Flesh Golems and bosses) that really suffer when they run into a forest of spears.
The units downside, is they are the ones who suffer if they are set upon by a unit of infantry. Even early game Ghouls and Skeleton Swordsmen will punish them, while Dark Knights or Skeleton Reavers will slaughter them quicker than they can get away.
Their only defence against infantry is their long reach, they can get in a few free attacks, micro-stunning the attackers as they try and close in.

And this is where macro comes into play. If you can do your best to provide the spearmen with optimum matchups, they can really shine, especially for their cheap as chips cost. They can even be useful against engaged infantry. Attack them while from the side while they are distracted, land a few hits then pull back, wait a few seconds and come in again. Those long reach poke and stuns can really help.
Even with quality macro play, these guys do get expensive to maintain as they take heavy casualties in most engagements.

Archers:
180gold, 80 food, 12 upkeep.
I cannot say that I am enamoured by this unit. They seem to serve very little purpose.
Early game, the majority of the Undead units are Skeletons, which take reduced damage from arrows. Stronger units barely seem to notice the damage done by these archers, and cavalry move faster than the volleys of arrows can hit them.
Those units that do take some actual damage from arrows, are all melee orientated. And take a lot more damage from a Knights claymore to the face when they run into town.
Defensively archers die to a stiff breeze, and are about as effective in melee combat as a ghost unable to affect the material plane.
If these archers had some kind of gimmick, they might find a place. If they fired fist shaped projectiles that dealt blunt damage, that would be very useful (and seriously cool). Of if there was a defensive structure such as a brazier that granted all archers in range fire damage, then they might serve a point.

One of the most important roles the players units undertake, isn't just killing the Undead, it's blocking them. Keeping the skittles and zombies away from the town buildings until they are either destroyed, or reinforcements arrive to finish the job.
The player only has a max of fifteen squads and seven heroes to fight the bulk armies and the single squads the arrive from every direction during the battle.
Sometimes all you can do is send a single squad of valiant Knights to plug a breach in the wall and fight off three squads of enemies and a monster, and hope they last long enough for the bulk of your army to win its battle and reinforce them.
In that situation the archers are useless. Their pitiful damage won't make any difference, they wont last long enough in combat to hold anything in place. All they are doing is wasting a slot that could be taken by a useful melee unit.

Footmen.
180 gold, 80 food, 8 weapons, 8 light armour, 15 upkeep.
Solid.
They will cleave the weaker enemies, and go toe to toe with elites. They are tough, dish out respectable damage, and are fairly cheap to recruit and maintain. There isn't much to say about these chaps, apart from the fact they make excellent and dependable mid tier units.

Knights:
300 gold, 100 food, 10 weapons, 10 heavy armour, 20 upkeep.
Here we go. Clad foot to toe in plate mail, and wielding a BBB. (bloody big blade)
They lift, they eat clean, they party hard, and they deliver freedom to any Undead that come within 140 centimetres.
They aren't invincible, but they are among the best you have for the end game battles.
Try to even the odds enough that they aren't stun locked by a vastly numerically superior foe and they will do you proud.

Units and Heroes breakdown part 2

Light Cavalry:
150 gold, 100 food, 12 light armour, 15 upkeep.
Another unit that truly feels pointless.
The unit description is accurate in stating that their job is being a fast moving unit capable of providing support anywhere on the battlefield.
Sure, they can get there. But then what?
Their health and damage is so low, you end up having to send another squad anyway, because these horsemen couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

If the Undead fielded archers or spellcasters that had very low health, then these riders could be invaluable. But as it is, they achieve nothing but burning a hole in your warehouse with their expensive recruitment cost.
Even catapult crew butcher these horsemen.
And that's on normal difficulty.

Heavy Cavalry:
300 gold, 100 food, 10 weapons, 10 heavy armour, 20 upkeep.
Hmmmm.
My first thought using these, is that they are too easily killed. They have 600 health less than their Undead counterparts, or roughly 800 less than Knights, whom they are supposed to rival as an end game unit.
Being immune to micro-stuns is fantastic, and their damage is strong, but they die very quickly. They tend to charge in, get separated, and each rider gets surrounded and hit by several enemies and the units health bar depletes far too quickly.
I don't know if they deal extra damage on the charge, or if their lances count as polearms and deal extra damage against other cavalry, monsters and bosses. That sort of information is sadly lacking in this gem of a game.
For now I have to withhold my overall judgement until I have tested them more, but they seem completely inferior to Knights and Chapel Knights as far as end game shenanigans go's.

Cannoneers:
500 gold, 100 food, 25 weapons, 25 upkeep.
Whoa, check out the recruitment cost! And highest upkeep in the game.
Are they worth it? Pfft, no.
They suffer from the same weaknesses as the Archers, though they do have one gimmick.
They are squishy and cannot fight in melee, which is to be expected. Though that right there, in this game, is a major drawback. Because it automatically mean's you are fighting one squad down.
Anyone that isn't holding the dead in place, is a tourist.
Like archers, they cannot hit moving cavalry.
Unlike archers, they do not deal blunt damage. However their damage is non existant. I recruited a squad just before wave 6, and kept them alive until I defeated wave 15. Only normal difficulty, so the enemies did not have extra health. They were sent to the main battle every time, to try and get maximum use out of their gimick. They ended the game on 11 kills, and never even reached the first level of veterancy. Bar was only half full.
The one positive they have, is their projectiles have a knockdown effect on enemies hit.
But that is nowhere near enough to justify the massive recruitment cost and wasted unit slot.
Hard pass.

Tavern:

Brigands:
500 gold, 10 ale, 20 upkeep.
I love em'.
They are expensive to recruit, have a hefty upkeep and cannot gain veterancy, all for a unit that is slightly worse than Footmen.
I love them because they are easy to recruit. If you are going for church troops, or heroes early on, then you have the needed resources to hire these squads. They don't need an advanced production line of gear. Just gold and beer. They are expensive, but the resources they cost are easy and relatively quick to acquire. And unlike Militia trash, they are dependable soldiers.
They will make a mess of early game enemies, and won't embarrass themselves against mid and late game foes.


Hero: Paladin.
600 Gold, 10 Ale, 10 upkeep.
Useful bro. Send him where the fighting is thickest, as he has two knockdown abilities. His main ability blasts an area with holy power, dealing damage and knocking down enemies in a large radius. He can also shield bash enemies in a 90 degree arc directly in front of him, which is another knockdown.
His third ability imbues himself with holy power. Whatever that means. I dunno if it gives more damage, more defences or what, but it does make him glow. So there is that.

Hero: Warlord.
600 Gold, 10 Ale, 10 upkeep.
Tormund with a big, two handed axe.
Arguably my favourite of the tavern heroes. He hits hard. That is his job. His axe has a decent reach, deals good damage, and his abilities are fantastic. His main power is a high damage 'beam' attack that also sets enemies on fire.
His minor abilities comprise of a leaping overhead mighty axe chop which dumps pain onto whatever is hit, and will even micro-stun cavalry and monsters. And his second minor ability sees him spin around hitting every enemy around him.
I always send Tormund after bosses and monsters.

Hero: Ranger.
600 Gold, 10 Ale, 10 upkeep.
Low damage hero with one useless ability, and one gimmick worthy of the title 'best nuke in Reignfall'
She has a bow, that shoots paper and good wishes. I swear I've seen health bars move after shooting something, but that's just my mind playing tricks on me. Her first minor ability has a long build up, to shoot a blue ball of absolutely nothing relevant.
Her main ability is really cool though, she blankets a large area in fire which deals a large amount of overall damage when she hits several units.
What makes her so good, is the little WMD she carries around in a barrel. Run into the middle of the battle, or next to a boss, drop the barrel, then use your main ability to blanket the area in fire. Not only does the enemy catch fire, the barrel explodes for heavy damage.
The downside? Running a squishy archer into the middle of a raging battle. The upside? BOOM!

Hero: Sorceress.
600 Gold, 10 Ale, 10 upkeep.
Useful high damage support hero.
She has a nice stick, which she enjoys hitting things with. She isn't overly good at it though, so keep an eye on her health bar and retreat her when needed.
Her main ability is a continuous damage beam attack. It doesn't have knockdown, but the damage is solid. Her first minor ability shoots an arcane ball which deals respectable single target damage, and her second minor ability is great, a knockdown nova with good range.

Units and Heroes breakdown part 3

The Chapel.

Flagellants:
150 gold, 50 food, 10 ale, 12 upkeep.
Superb light infantry.
They come in a squad size of eleven and deal solid damage. And best of all, that damage is type: blunt! So they absolutely massacre Skeletons. Even late game Skeleton Reavers will lose to a veteran unit of Flagellants.
These loons are also very effective at clearing the map of all neutral camps, apart from the mysterious cave. Their damage is high enough they simply unleash a beatdown on anything they come up against.
Unit size eleven means they are extremely effective at stun-locking enemies. As enemy squads get weaker and lose members, the survivors eat more and more mace sandwiches and struggle to attack back.
Flagellants will carry the early and mid game all on their own with ease. It's only when the elite Undead units are in the majority they really start to fall off. They are still effective, but they become very expensive to maintain.

The downside to this unit, is the unit size of eleven, combined with nonexistent armour. The low health pool and no defences means they suffer heavy casualties, and each squad death costs resources to replace.
They are also absolutely terrible if outnumbered. With so many squad members, if they get spread out, several squads can easily attack them and that damage piles up faster than you can ask for a whipping.

Chapel Knights:
350 gold, 100 food, 15 weapons, 15 armour, 15 ale, 20 upkeep.
Knights +1.
Incredibly expensive, but the best recruitable non hero unit.
They only just beat knights in combat, the real difference is in the fact they deal blunt damage. So they turn every type of Skeleton unit into dust. Couple that with more defence than the Knights, and you have your winners for wave fifteen.
Given they have the same upkeep, the reason you would still recruit Knights, is the recruitment resource difference (50 gold 25 other resources is a lot) and the fact these take around three minutes to train.

Hero: Warpriest.
2000 gold, 100 food, 10 upkeep.
Has a two handed warhammer that deals blunt damage. (Are you noticing a theme here yet?)
His main ability summons a mighty fist in the air that punches the earth, knocking the enemies down.
His minor abilities comprise of a long dash, and a high damage jump attack which also has knockdown, assuming those hit survive.
While not as amazing as the Templar, this holy man really hates skeletons and is a rock solid damage dealer. But be mindful of his health, he doesn't seem particularly tanky.

Towers:

Unlike in They are Billions, towers here are very average. They are entirely support objects that are expensive to build and maintain, and have limited impact on the game.
The main use I have found for them, is once they attack enemies they draw the attention of them away from the base structures and onto the tower, which can be a god send if enemies have broken through and you do not have a squad nearby.

Keep in mind the towers are, for large stone constructs, extremely vulnerable to attack. With just a pitiful 250 health, and low damage, if left unsupported they will be destroyed, along with the significant investment shelled out for their construction.
Always surround them with a wall. The more layers, the better.

I tend to only worry about these late game, once my army of Knights and Chapel Knights is fully established.

Arrow Tower:
450 gold, 10 wood, 25 stone, 12 upkeep.
Not worth it.
Short range, shoots useless arrows that deal little damage, and are completely useless against skeletons. Skip.

Ballista Tower:
600 gold, 15 wood, 30 stone, 15 upkeep.
Very expensive, but it's not too bad. Has long range, and it's one projectile deals decent damage and knocks down the target. Worthless against monsters, but you notice the damage when it hits a squad member.
It's range means it's very effective at controlling aggro and pulling/taunting any Undead that have made it inside the town.

Bombard:
700 gold, 15 wood, 40 stone, 15 upkeep.
By far the most useful tower.
Area of effect knockdown, and decent damage against squads.

Keep in mind, an elite unit of Undead, such as Skeleton Reavers, Dark Knights or Undead Heavy Cavalry can, with ease, fight through three layers of wall and still destroy any of these towers.

I'm yet to try massing many towers in the one spot, but alone, or even small groups, these towers cannot be relied upon to destroy attackers without assistance.

Combat and map clearing

Combat talk!

So, by now you have a solid idea on the game play basics, on what resources to focus on, and which units you are aiming for. Well, you have my idea, atleast.
As for combat tips;

When the wave starts, pause the game.
You will notice there will be red blips all over the edges of the map. Have a loot at each one. Check out the composition. See which grouping has the most skeletons, so you can apply your blunt damage dealing units. Which group contains the largest amount of warriors, so your Sorceress and Ranger can get to work with their area of effect attacks. Which directions have lone groups of cavalry, and where is the most likely spot they will try to breach your wall?
Where is the boss? Are there any catapults?

Not all of the enemies will attack immediately. Some will. Some will wait indeterminable periods of time.

Always keep an eye on the minimap. This is doubly important if you are zooming in and out of third person, all over the battlefield. It's easy to miss a sole red blip rushing towards your city, when before it had remained stationary.

Split your army accordingly. Very, very rarely will you have one major battle. Each waves battle will be fought all over the map. Normally two or three large fights, then sporadic skirmishes.

Catapults are scary building destroyers. They won't attack your units, they will instead focus on knocking down any structure within their long range. If engaged in melee, the crew will not fire the catapult. Be aware, the crew are not total push overs and will fight back.

When it comes to fighting bosses, your units are better at it than your heroes. Your heroes can certainly help, but their area of effect damage skills and wide sweeping attacks are far more useful against squads of enemies rather than monsters and bosses.
Tough units, such as Knights are the best suited for such work. Not just because they are your best units, but because bosses have their own, punishing area of effect attacks that will shred lightly armoured units.
Of course Spearmen will get the job done, and Flagellants can do it, but they will suffer extremely heavy (and therefor costly) losses.

When it comes to assigning your units to their enemies, play it safe. If your unsure if one squad will be enough, send two. If you don't have two, then send your toughest squad, so at the least, they will buy enough time for reinforcements to come and save the day.

Remember stun-locking. A unit of knights could easily defeat four units of zombies...at Irish boxing. In Reignfall they will be stun-locked and eaten.

Don't neglect veterancy! Once the battle has well and truly swung in your favour, and if you have spare resources to replenish extra casulties, don't be afraid to try and 'farm' unit promotions. Pull most of your units out of combat, and leave those who can still be promoted, prioritising those closest to the next level up.
Thirty percent extra damage and damage resistance on a unit of Knights, or a hero is enormous. Doubly so at end game, when you cannot recruit any more units due to the cap, but the Undead are coming at you with more and more.
Getting 30% more out of every squad is how you remain dominant.

After wave nine, I highly suggest you keep one unit back at your castle. Enemies will continually appear around the map in small groups during the battle, even after the initial deployment.
If one such group comes at you from a direction where your army is too far away, it could be devastating. Game ending even, if it breaches the wall and lays waste to several key structures.
Having just one, tough unit in reserve has been more then enough in my experiences.
On harder difficulties, a reserve squad earlier is always a good move.

Walls are certainly useful, but they wont hold even a single squad of Undead for long. The key use of the walls, are not to keep the Dead out, but to funnel them into a desired location, and to buy your troops time to reinforce the location.


When it comes to clearing Neutral camps, there are a few things to take note of.

The best time to do it, is right after a wave. Return to the castle and heal up, then go clear a neutral camp or two.
You need to make sure that you have enough time to be fully healed, and all abilities ready to be used, before the next Undead attack starts.

The difficulties assigned to each camp are misleading. The camps labelled weak, are still far beyond your Lord and Royal Guard.
Wait until you have several units before attacking.
It's always better to be safe. This game does not reward risky behaviour. There is no great reward, only a game loss if things go south.

The Mysterious cave!

Your looking at it, you wonder what treasures it holds! I can tell you it contains goodies. Not just resources, but items for you to loot and equip your lord with for next game.
Before you decide to go and claim that sweet loot, ask yourself. Am I end game ready? If wave fifteen happened right now, would I be ok?
If the answer is anything but absolute certainty, you are not ready for the cave.

You have been warned.

Guide - Church style

I suppose it's about time, for the guide part, of this guide.

This section is mostly aimed at players who are having trouble getting off the ground, an early start guide so to speak. It works very well on difficulties up to hard. I'm sure it will be just as effective in Brutal, I just haven't played that difficulty yet.


Currently, my preferred tactic is to focus on the Chapel troops, putting one hundred percent of my early efforts into gold, food, wood, ale and Flagellant production.

Once the game starts, I pause and have a good look around. I take note of what resources I have within my starting territory, and where the resources outside of it are, making special note of stone and Iron. I won't be needing stone or iron for a long time, but it is vital for the end game.

I mentally map out a large, open area within my starting territory to be a housing zone. I try and plan out where the roads will go, to make the optimum use of space, and also take into account other resource spots, and the room for the roads they will need.

I will normally start with two upgraded woodcutters. If there is an abundance of trees, three basic woodcutters are fantastic.
Then, two hops farms, their crops, and a brewery. Ale is vital. Recruiting a squad of Flagellants before the first wave really helps. It means the first two waves will be a breeze, and if not after wave two, then after wave three, you can begin map clearing in earnest, taking down weak and moderate camps.
For food, three apply orchards.
And then the housing zone. Starting with a Chapel, marketplace and a well. I build the houses around that and connect them with roads.
Seeing as I am rushing a Chapel, maxing out on the gold income boosting structures is effective.

Once all that is down, you have all the basics covered. Gold, food, wood and ale. Enough to power the basics of the economy, and train all the soldiers you are going to need for several waves.

Make certain that you leave room near your housing zone for a tavern. The tavern is an important structure in this build, and it also increases the gold output of houses.
With a tavern, chapel, marketplace and a well within range, each house is producing a extra ten gold.
Considering a level three house produces eighteen, its a significant bonus.

The next few waves are all about doubling down on gold, food, wood and ale, and recruiting Flagellants. If all is going well, you should also have a tavern built. If hop production is exceeding your brewery's workload, build a second.
Ale doubles as the most valuable trade good. Ten ale can be sold at the tavern for seventy gold, more than any other resource at the marketplace.

After wave three, it's time to start branching out.

Start a grain farm, with the intention of leading it into multiple pig farms. Pig farms provide food, and take up much less space than apple orchards.
The hide can be sold, or used on units depending on what you are going for. Personally I prefer to double down hard on Flagellants, and recruit a unit or two of Brigands.

Don't be shy about recruiting Brigands, unlike Flagellants they are tough. They are better suited for fighting cavalry and taking hits from monsters.
When clearing out 'strong' lairs, send the brigands in first so they draw the initial aggression from the monsters within.

By wave six, I usually hope to have;
:A solid food income, so that I can recruit soldiers or upgrade housing at will, depending on other resources.
:A high gold income
:A respectable army of Flagellants
:One grain farm and two or three pig farms.
:A second brewery.
:A Templar. This guy is worth every cent, and a strong reason why the consistent early gold focus is important.
:One iron and stone mine, normally between wave four and five, so you can start working on a nice stockpile.
:Spare gold and ale go's into recruiting tavern heroes. I start with the Warlord, then the Ranger, then Sorceress and Paladin last.

After wave six I put my attention towards Chapel Knights. Between wave six and nine, work on having two weapon and armour smithies and continually train these Knights.
Finish clearing the map, apart from the mysterious cave.

Remember not to neglect your gold income, as you start producing Knights and smithies, your income will be taking major hits.

If things have been going well, there is every chance you have managed to expand your zone with one or more storehouses. Prioritise expansion zones that contain stone. You are going to need it.

By wave nine, you should be hoping to have, or be close to, ten squads of Chapel Knights

After wave nine, you will most likely need to double down on gold income. Whenever you can, keep training Chapel Knights. The aim is to hit the unit cap of fifteen!

Just after wave ten you should be ready to attack the mysterious cave. Don't do it if you have any less than ten squads of Chapel Knights and atleast six heroes. Do not send any flagellants into this fight unless you absolutely must, they will be slaughtered.

Now that the map is yours and you have your army, now is the time to wall up. Literally. Place storehouses around your city, as close as possible to the existing town. Encase your city in a stone wall. Multiple layers is great. Just remember to add lots of gates, you need access from as many directions as possible.
Use wood walls to create mazes leading to your stone walls.

With an army of heroes and Chapel Knights you won't be overpowered directly, you will be defeated by not having enough squads to cover every square inch of the map, and sneaky attacks will get through. It doesn't take much for your economy to slide backwards.
One big bloody battle leaving you with ten plus squads needing one or two replacement squad-mates. Two or three houses destroyed dropping your income by fifty six to ninety four gold and you can choke.
Replacement gates and walls aren't cheap. And the more you build your city out, the less distance the Dead have to walk before they start hitting something expensive.

But having lots of walls and mazes, you buy yourself time.

Place walled in Ballista towers in areas where you don't expect to fight, and walled in Bombard towers in areas you do expect to fight in.
The Ballista towers are to to draw the aggro of any Undead that manage to get into your town, while the Bombard towers knockdown is really helpful.



And that should do!

Waves one through fifteen, a piece of cake!

Thanks for reading!

I hope this guide is helpful to someone, it took longer to write up than I expected!

Let me know your comments, thoughts and suggestions!

[WisXas]

is there a way to expand allowed build area?

[Quigmman the Turkey Vulture]

Great guide! and yeah those Chapel Knights RULE!

[Emperor Fooble]

@Zear Your very welcome! Enjoy.

[Zear]

Thank you for your guide. It's been very useful as I try to figure this game out.

[Noob0]

awesome, wish I read this sooner XD

[Olkinark26]

Wat

[firefruitt]

awesome dude!

[Immaluckez]

Awesome

[zombieking_FTW]

Excellent guide

[Tiber Legacy]

one think i noticed with the turrets is that the waves spawn where is the no turret coverage, so maybe they can be used discourage waves from attacking you more "exposed side"