Getting Started

A guide to help you get started in the world of Elemental, covering the selection of a sovereign, founding your capital, and some tips for being successful going forward.

Introduction

Hello aspiring Master of Elemental! In this guide I have compiled useful information to help you start on the path to world domination, starting with sovereign creation and faction selection, some tips on Capital creation, recommendations on starting research, and some pointers to keep in mind as you journey out into the dangerous wilderness and found additional cities. Note that this guide is created assuming that a Kingdom faction is chosen.

Your Sovereign

For starters: don't choose one of the pre-selected sovereigns; make your own so that you can customize to match your playstyle. Starting at the top:



Faction choice - This is up to you. Choose whatever sounds interesting, or customize one to meet your needs. Personally, I prefer Pariden because I like being able to teach heroes new magic disciplines and the fact that your units will grow stronger for each magic shard you acquire. Additionally, the Scrying Pool city improvement adds one Essence to the city, which comes in very handy. Being able to summon outposts for 50 mana is nice too so that you can nab resources without having to expend population to train and deploy a Pioneer.

Magical Proficiencies - I would strongly suggest you tailor your sovereign to be a mage type, with two Magical Proficiencies. Tactical (i.e. in battle) spells will often mean the difference between life and death, and chosing a mage type will allow you to maximize spell damage and healing effectiveness while minimizing the cost of the spells. Further, city buffing strategic spells will drastically improve their output.

My personal preference is to choose Air and Life Magical Proficiencies. I find Life magic a necessity for your sovereign. Having Life magic as a proficiency is one of the few ways to heal units in combat. Additionally, you will gain access to the Sovereign's Call strategic spell, which will add +2 growth rate to a city. Choosing Air will allow you to cast Propaganda on your cities, producing two additional gold per Essence, as well as spells to improve the Initiative and Dodge of your units in battle.

Fire is also a solid choice for the damage potential. I'm not as big a fan of Water and Earth. Go to the Fallen Enchantress Wiki[fallenenchantresswiki.com] for more info on spells, and to plan ahead for what spells you want as you improve your Magical Proficienices.

What was Your Profession - You get to pick one. I like the bonus to research given by Scholar, but Warlock (if you're going mage), General, and Warlord are all solid choices.



Talents - You can choose as many as you like, at the cost of 1 attribute point each. Brilliant is a solid choice, as is Tactician.

Weaknessess - You can choose one weakness in order to gain an additional attribue point. If you've chosen Life magic, Scarred is a good choice since you can heal yourself, offsetting the negative of only healing one hp per season. Weak also works if you are going mage.

Equipment - There are several pieces of equipment available for your sovereign to start with. The basic weapons cost nothing, but several more potent items are available for the cost of 1 attribute. The two most useful are Procipinee's Crown, which completely eliminates the mana maintenance cost for enchantments cast on your sovereign, and the Staff of Souls, whihch increases spell damage by 25% and adds 3 mana per kill.

Map Selection

As shown below, I like to pack my worlds full of monsters, quests, and magic. You might want to leave the map on default to start, or perhaps up the Quest or Monster Frequency in order to improve your opportunities for gaining experience.

Founding Your Capital

Is My Starting Location Good Enough? - You need to get a solid start in the world. Try and find a plot with 3/3/3, 4/3/2, or 3/4/2 Grain/Material/Essence surrounded by a couple of special resources; preferably a shard. I've included a bad and good example below:

This start isn't good enough because there is only one essence, and limited special resources.


This one works. You have two starting Essence, and there is a nearby shard and gold deposit.

First Research

Start with Shard Harvesting, followed by Restoration, then Leatherworking and Weaponry. You may want to swap Shard Harvesting and Restoration depending on the availability of shards at your starting position. It is important to get to Leatherworking and Weaponry very early however, since, as noted above the weapons and armor will drastically improve your units.

Capital City Type, Enchantments, and Building Queue

What City Type - Your city will need to grow to level two before you can make this choice. With that in mind, your capital will be a Town type. This is not an option! You need a solid financial basis to fund your armies, so you need a Town focused on gold production. All trade treaties with other nations add a 10% increase in gold to your capital, therefore your capital is the logical choice for the center of finance. Here is a screenshot of my late-game capital as supporting evidence:




Now that my point is made, let's start that capital off on the path to financial success.

Building Choices - Since you need to start out with a strong financial base, first build a Merchant. Next build another militia unit for your army; you'll need the extra muscle. Next comes the Tower of Dominion; doing so will net you a champion, and improve the rate at which your capital will grow.

I keep my army fairly small until I've researched Leatherworking and Weaponry, as these technologies will drastically improve unit performance.

City Enchantments - Propaganda (Air Magic required), Meditation, and Sovereign's Call (Life Magic required) are all good choices. If you can only pick two for your capital, go with Meditation, which adds 1 mana per Essence, and Propaganda, which adds 2 gold per Essence. You need those boosts early on.

Going Forward

Now you have your capital situated, and you are sure to have adequate funds for the future. Going forward, you should keep a few things in mind:

Adventure - Use your sovereign and their entorage to fight monsters, loot treasure, and complete quests. Stick to Weak groups at first, and make sure to use spells only when your normal troops can't handle the situation; you need to conserve your mana so that you have it in reserve for tougher battles ahead.

Champions - You'll get your first before too long. Pick one that will have different magic type(s) than your sovereign so you can expand your spellcasting diversity. Also, Mages and Commanders are the most effective types. Your champions will never be able to deal or absorb anywhere near the amount of damage as your normal units will due to normal units multiplying their damage and hp based on the number of individuals in the group. The result is that the most effective champions are those that buff the whole group (Commanders and Defenders) and gain bonuses to spellcasting and the ability to summon units (Mages).

Your Next Cities - Your next two cities should be a Conclave and a Fortress, in that order. Conclaves are a huge boost to your mana pool and research rates, which is a high priority, followed by a Fortress to maximize the effectiveness of trained troops. Also, looking forward down the road, both Conclaves and Fortresses gain Level 5 improvements which will drastically reduce Unrest for every city in your domain, which will come in handy as you reach 9 to 10 cities.

City Placement - The same rules for placing your Capital apply to your other cities; don't just place a city because the location is convenient, do so because of available grain/material/essence. Additionally, place outposts to ensure your territory is contiguous. If your city's zone of influence is not connected to the capital, it will suffer a 15% unrest penalty.

Units - Create your own! Try to maximize the attack and initiative of your units; since your sovereign can heal, damage taken by your units is less important than their ability to deal it and do so quickly. Also, if you chose Life, you will recieve a spell called Call to Arms, which will allow you to instantly train a unit for 80 mana, eliminating the penalties for making units with a lot of bonus traits.

In Closing

I hope my guide comes in handy for all of your aspiring masters of Elemental. And of course, I'm open to any feedback.

Happy hunting.

[Buzzerker]

excellent, short, concise guide, not complete, but better than the tutorial.

[wsmithjr02]

Thanks for the guide. Haven't played for a long time and decided to fire it up again. Just wondering one thing. The guide talks about "sovereign and their entourage" but my sovereign starts without any other units. Every other reference I've seen also says that you start with units other than the sovereign but I'm not experiencing that. Was thing changed or am I doing something wrong? Needless to say, I don't get very far before my sovereign gets whacked by something or other.

[Woofy]

This is very helpful, Thanks! - I was very confused!...Still a little confused about how far to space my cities...but less confused!

[Shadowfang]

a very nice guide but i have to agree with the other that a town start isent nessary in fact i have to aruge that the fortess start is the strongest as it lets you build units and structers faster and of crouse spam out more settlers as you find new lands to take over its highly usefull agenst the ai at lest as the more towns you get up the more resources that are coming in but it depends on my start i dont like to restart if i get a "poor" start if i get high food i tend to build a town high materals? fortress obviously and not even for the unit enchanments i rarely start with a conclave i think i do if im playing the summoner empire and a high level of essence

[timothyonfire]

Thanks for this, it was very helpful while getting used to the game.

[Shrimpin' and Pimpin']

Thanks for the guide, very helpful.

[Siddha]

Thanks for writing this guide; very good.

[[WEDC]grandmasterB]

i make my mage types clumsy, they never go melee annyway. and if i make a pariden class i just give them life because its the only one they cant train. ofc having the beginning city improvements from turn one cant be underestimated. totallt agree on that.

i personnaly think the research must fit your playstyle and race but then again that aplies to everything in the game, imho. but i also totally agree on capital town. my friend showed me the game and he went conclave capital.

on the capital placement, i prefere to just build it asap instead of roaming the world for the perfect spot. i agree on meditation (if life mage) but i pref growth on gildar, its like with taxes you go for the long run. and growth whill give you more gildar.

[[WEDC]grandmasterB]

personnally keep my armies moving a lot so my turn is active and i need less of them. this truly makes a difference in your gildar need. stacking armies in a city might be good for risky boarders or boarders with enemy nations. and if you keep your lands cleared less mobs are likely to spawn wich whill get your focus on the enemy empires mid too late game. b4 you can handle them ignoor dragons etc let them destroy 1 or 2 recources (this is a big drawback but it beats having your armies whiped unless they where expendable and gildar consuming).

and if playing (kingdom) life (mage) dont forget you can give another hero the ability to heal too. so 2 healers and let the non-heroe mobs do the tanking. big fan of life :) i also personally like to keep my heroes ranged. 1 good swarm can truly decimate a hero, so try to avoid that.

[HazoKun]

Certainly not ideal. But still very helpful guide.