Introduction to Eador

The purpose of this guide is to give an overview of the general game mechanics and concepts in Eador: Masters of the Broken World.

Introduction

Eador has a fairly steep learning curve, and the tutorial – while certainly helpful – doesn’t really cover everything. This guide is aimed towards newer players who don’t have a lot of experience with turn-based strategy games or players who simply want clarification about some aspects of the game.

I suggest you first read the "Basics" section and only look up specific topics you want to know more about after you’ve started playing the game. Trying to absorb everything at once might be a bit too much. There are a few other online guides (and even a wiki or two) that provide a comprehensive overview of things like individual unit stats, buildings, hero skills, spells, etc. One such guide can be found HERE[guides.gamepressure.com]. It also has a few useful pointers on strategy regarding different unit types and hero builds that might be useful for newer players.

The game itself has many similarities with both the Heroes of Might and Magic and Civilization series. Fans of the HoMM series will likely be familiar with the hex-based combat, leveling up heroes and improving them with new skills, spells and equipment, as well as slowly building up your main stronghold with various structures, such as unit dwellings, mage guilds, etc. Fans of the Civ series will likely be familiar with concepts like upgrading individual units through experience gained in battle, maintaining a positive income against army upkeep and corruption, as well as things like strategic resources and negotiations with other rulers.

Basics

Eador: Masters of the Broken World is a lengthy turn-based strategy game. Your goal is to use powerful heroes and armies to conquer the shards of Eador by capturing enemy strongholds and defeating other Masters in your quest to create a unified Eador that could withstand the upcoming invasion of Chaos.

After completing the tutorial, the campaign opens up in the Astral – a cosmic overview of the shards floating in empty space. You must pick a shard and attack it. This brings you to the strategic map where most of the actual gameplay takes place. You then pick a hero out of the four available classes. You start with the stronghold, where you construct buildings and hire units. Only a small number of buildings and units are available at the start. Conquering more shards unlocks more options. Most buildings grant access to new units, spells or equipment for your heroes. Other buildings improve your income, population mood, population growth, or provide additional benefits.

You travel the map with your hero and his army. The map is divided into provinces, which in turn may contain various locations. Heroes can perform only one action per turn – either move, attack a province, explore a location, etc. Neutral provinces can be conquered either by force or by diplomacy, although the latter isn’t always an option. The farther away the province is from a stronghold, the stronger the defenders.

You only have a single stronghold while conquering a shard – provinces can’t be developed aside from building individual improvements like sawmills, etc. Any enemy strongholds you capture will be instantly destroyed and replaced with an outpost, library and storehouse – enabling you to still use that province for recruiting units, learning spells and buying equipment just like in your own stronghold.

Provinces can (and should) be explored. This increases the maximum population of the province, grants experience to the exploring hero and has a chance to uncover new locations. Plundering a province yields a short-term benefit in the form of gold, but also negatively impacts the mood of the locals and reduces the population.

In addition to relying on their armies, heroes can purchase items from stores, learn spells and level up to gain new skills. They can also use weapons and armor, which deteriorate with use. If a weapon or armor breaks after its durability drops to zero, it loses all effectiveness and must be repaired or replaced. The ammo of ranged attacks (bows, wands, etc.) is also reduced with each shot and must be restocked.

Your main aim is to fight other Masters for the control of each shard. Larger shards often have multiple Masters fighting over them. Conquering an enemy stronghold eliminates that Master from the shard. Local lords may also appear instead of Masters (especially early on, when you haven’t encountered many Masters yet). These lords are generally weaker than actual Masters.

Difficulty

There are seven difficulties that affect various aspects of the game. The difficulty isn’t fixed, meaning that you can change the difficulty at any time between shards while you’re in the Astral realm. Difficulty affects various things, including starting resources and income, the health of neutral enemies, experience gained, etc. The exact effects can be seen by hovering your mouse over the options when selecting a difficulty in the menu.

On the lowest two difficulties, you also see an estimation before each battle whether or not your army is likely to win. However, it’s not always accurate, as it’s possible to win fights that are supposedly impossible, and lose fights when no casualties are predicted. Note that the enemy Masters are also stronger when you pick a higher difficulty.

Units

Units are divided into four tiers, with tier 1 units being the weakest and tier 4 the strongest. The difference in relative strength is substantial, as a single tier 4 unit such as a dragon can wipe out an entire army of tier 1 units. The high-tier units are also incredibly expensive and difficult to acquire. Many smaller shards can be conquered with nothing but tier 1 units.

Each unit has multiple stats that determine their effectiveness in battle, such as hit points, attack, counterattack, defense, resistance, etc. Outside of combat, the hit points of units and heroes are restored at a rate of 10% of base hit points per turn. Certain units (such as Healers) and buildings (such as the Infirmary) can speed up the hit point regeneration of the army.

Heroes

In terms of heroes, the game is less like "Heroes of Might and Magic" and more like "A Single Hero of Might and Magic, But Mostly Might". You can’t really afford to hire more than one hero in the early game, especially on higher difficulties. Furthermore, powerful spells tend to be rare and battles are largely decided by unit composition and tactics rather than magic, except early in the game when spells like Fatigue and Web are incredibly strong.

Heroes possess the same stats as other units (attack, defense, stamina, etc.), but also have three unique hero stats – Health, Command and Magic. One of these stats is passively increased every time the hero gains a level. Health increases the hero’s hit points, stamina and morale, as well as hit point regeneration. Magic unlocks more spell slots for the hero, enabling him to learn higher-level spells. Command unlocks more unit slots for the hero, enabling him to use higher-level units in his army.

All heroes start at level 0 and are given a random starting skill. Each class has seven possible skills, all of which can be upgraded to level 3. Once a hero reaches level 10, he can pick a subclass which grants unique benefits and allows the hero to learn skills reserved for other classes or maximize the skills of the current hero class. For example, if a Commander chooses the Warrior class specialization, he becomes a Warlord (+1 defense to all units) and can also pick Warrior class skills. If he sticks to only Commander skills, he instead becomes a General (+1 attack and counterattack to all units) and can level those skills up to level 5, but can’t take any other class skills. When a hero reaches level 20, the chosen subclass is further improved (for example, a General becomes a Marshal, with a +2 attack and counterattack bonus).

There are four main hero classes in the game – Warrior, Scout, Commander and Wizard.

Warriors can use the most powerful melee weapons and heaviest armor. They can also learn skills that make them nearly invulnerable in battle. A properly-equipped high-level Warrior can dismantle entire armies single-handedly and even go toe-to-toe with tier 4 units such as dragons and hydras. Their glaring weakness is their vulnerability to magic, which may allow enemy casters to severely weaken them or temporarily remove them from combat with certain spells or abilities, such as the spider’s web or the basilisk’s petrifying gaze. The weapons and armor also require constant repair, which can become costly.

Scouts can use ranged weapons and light armor. They can easily pick off the most dangerous units at range before the enemy can even act. High-level Scouts can take out tier 3 and tier 4 units with proper skills and weapons. They also have several skills that benefit exploration and looting, as well as the extremely powerful Pathfinding skill that gives their units an unprecedented tactical advantage in combat. However, Scouts are fairly weak in close combat and must rely on other units to protect them. They also must make sure to restock their arrows from time to time.

Commanders can only use basic melee weapons and medium armor, but can also maintain the largest – and strongest – army out of all the classes. They are very fragile and have virtually no usefulness in direct combat, but their abilities buff the stats of other units by a considerable degree. High-level Commanders can field massive armies of powerful units. The invaluable Logistics skill also significantly reduces the upkeep cost of the army. Units under the Commander’s control tend to steamroll other armies as long as the Commander himself is alive – if he is killed, all the stat bonuses are also lost.

Wizards can only use wands, staves and common armor. On the other hand, they can also use the largest array of spells, including the incredibly powerful tier 3 and 4 spells. Their skills are also geared towards spellcasting, as Wizards don’t really stand a chance in direct combat. The schools of necromancy and chaos can result in extremely powerful armies of minions summoned by magic. The main weaknesses of the Wizards (aside from their low hit points) are the availability of spells and the stock of gems. You need either high-level magic schools or powerful spells scrolls – paired with a fair amount of gems – to make Wizards viable on larger shards.

Shards

The campaign consists of randomly-generated maps known as shards. You can pick one of several shards to attack each turn. At first, only tiny and small shards are available and you have many to choose from. Later on, you mostly play on larger shards and have only a few options.

You can pick certain bonuses in the Astral realm before attacking a shard to make the conquest easier. The possible bonuses include extra starting gold, extra income, free starting unit in garrison, etc. These bonuses cost Astral energy and must first be unlocked by conquering other shards. You have no available bonuses at the start of the campaign.

Conquering a shard rewards you with new buildings to construct in the stronghold and may also provide you with some the bonuses described above. Each shard also produces a different amount of Astral energy for each turn spent in the Astral.

Some shards may also have a unique type, such as World of Rust, Crystal World, etc. These types have a major effect on the shard. For example, in the World of Rust, all weapons and armor degrade five times faster, while in a Crystal World, gem income is doubled, but gold income is halved, etc.

The ability to attack the shards of other Masters becomes available only after your own shard has grown big enough (after conquering about ten shards). You can then choose to attack any Master from that point onwards. Conquering the home shard of another Master permanently removes that Master from Eador.

Your home shard may also be attacked by other Masters who have a highly negative attitude towards you. You have several advantages when fighting on your home shard. You see the entire map (no fog of war) and all unlocked Astral bonuses are available for free. However, there are no rewards for successfully defending your shard (other than being able to continue the campaign, of course).

The Astral

Your interactions with the other Masters (and your advisor Zarr) take place in the Astral realm, where you can converse with them between shards. These conversations can affect your relationship with the Masters quite drastically. Masters who have a strongly negative view of you may attack your home shard and will be hostile towards you when you encounter them on other shards. Negative attitude may also limit your dialogue options.

As you capture more shards, new Masters appear and introduce themselves. There are 16 other Masters in Eador. Some can provide sage advice, while others are not interested in dialogue at all and some are hostile right from the start. Still others may offer you unique ways of completing the campaign (see "Endings" for more info). It’s completely up to you how to approach each master – which to befriend, which to destroy.

Economy

The game uses two main resources – gold and gems – to buy buildings and units and to pay for unit upkeep, as well as for other expenses such as buying/repairing equipment, affecting the outcome of random events, etc. Gold and gems are earned mostly by looting locations such as random dungeons, and by capturing provinces, which provide a steady income. Plundering a province will also give a small amount of gold at the expense of the mood of the locals. In addition, there are Civilization-style strategic resources, which are required for nearly all advanced buildings and units (see "Strategic Resources" for more info).

It should be mentioned that hiring more than one hero in the early stages of the game is really only possible on the lowest difficulties, because the cost increases for each consecutive hero. You simply won’t have enough gold to hire two heroes early on, never mind recruiting and maintaining two armies instead of one. The first hero costs 100 gold and 10 gems, a second hero costs 500 gold and 50 gems, a third hero costs 1500 gold and 150 gems, a fourth hero costs 4500 gold and 450 gems. Recruiting a hero of a class you already own costs ten times the required amount. For example, if you hire a Scout and intend to recruit a second hero, a Warrior, Wizard and Commander would each cost 500 gold and 50 gems, but a second Scout would cost 5000 gold and 500 gems.

There’s also corruption penalty which reduces overall income once the size of your domain reaches a certain number of provinces. Another special resource – Astral energy – can only be used in the Astral realm to purchase bonuses before invading a shard, like having extra gold or an extra unit at the start. You get more Astral energy per each turn spent in the Astral realm, the amount depending on the number of shards conquered.

Strategic Resources

These include unique resources like iron, redwood, horses, mithril, etc. When a strategic resource is freely available in a province, its icon appears on the map with a blue background. If the resource is guarded, the icon has a red background. Strategic resources may also be completely hidden, requiring you to first explore the province to find them. Certain stronghold buildings mark all your provinces which contain a hidden strategic resource, making it easier to identify provinces that are worth exploring.

You can still construct buildings and recruit units without having these resources, but the gold/gem cost will increase depending on the number and type of missing resources. For example, a Farmers Market costs 100 gold and 2 horses to build. If you don’t control a province that contains the horse resource, you need to pay +35 for each missing horse, so the Farmers Market actually costs 170 gold. However, if you control at least one province with the horse resource, all horse requirements are instantly met, so the building costs only 100 gold. Note that strategic resources also increase in price every time you build something without the resource.

Provinces

Each shard is divided into provinces which your hero must conquer in order to expand your realm. Provinces provide income in both gold and gems and may grant access to strategic resources, as well as various locations (see "Locations" for more info). They are populated either by humans or other races (see "Alliances" for more info).

There are four main types of terrain – plains, forests, hills and swamps. There are also "barren" provinces – such as deserts and deadlands – which provide no income and have no population, but also include far more locations than other provinces.

Each type of terrain requires a different amount of movement points to travel through – plains (1), forests (2), hills (3), swamps (4). For example, a hero with 3 movement speed would be able to cross three plain tiles in one turn, but only one forest, hill or swamp tile. All sea tiles are impassable unless the coastal province has a shipyard built in it.

Each province has a different number of locations randomly uncovered and a random percentage of land explored. Some provinces are restricted to specific terrain. For example, Free Settlements can appear anywhere, but Barbarian Tribes never settle in forests or swamps. Provinces may also have unique random events. For example, a descendant of a previous ruler in any Prince’s Lands province may attempt to overthrow your rule by starting a rebellion.

Population

Each province has its own population that slowly keeps growing as long as there is enough explored land in the province for the people to settle in. Provinces are explored only to a limited extent by default and can only support a limited population as a result. In order for the population to grow further, a hero must first explore the province to uncover more land. Exploring provinces also has other benefits (see "Exploration" for more info).

The population size is displayed as blue markers on the province screen. More markers mean a larger population and a bigger income. The exact value depends on the type of terrain – for example, plains tend to produce a lot of gold and swamps are usually rich in gems.

Example: The hero conquers a province which has only one population marker (New Lands) and is explored to 28% by default. If left alone, the province will grow to the size of a Village, but cannot grow into a Large Village until a hero explores the province to at least 30%. Note that the Scouting skill considerably speeds up province exploration.

Improvements

You may build improvements in individual provinces to further increase their income or provide other benefits, such as increasing the speed of population growth. These improvements must first be unlocked by building the required structure in the stronghold. For example, in order to build sawmills in forest provinces, you must first build a Carpenters’ Guild in the stronghold. Each province may only hold up to three improvements.

You can also upgrade existing improvements or demolish them to replace them with different ones. Upgrading doesn’t count towards the limit of three improvements. For example, you may build a pub, storehouse and windmill in a province and later upgrade the windmill into a brewery (as long as you have the prerequisite buildings in the stronghold).

Mood

Each province also has population mood that signifies the attitude of the locals towards you. Conquering a province by force generally results in negative mood. The provinces of some non-human races (such as elves and centaurs) have extremely negative mood when conquered. Province mood is also affected by other things:

Positive

• Random events in the province and your decisions regarding those events.
  
• Certain provincial improvements, such as pubs and arenas.
  
• Certain stronghold buildings, such as the Theater and Traveling Circus.
  
• Certain rituals, such as Extravaganza and Heavenly Light.
  
• Certain guards, such as Forest Spirits and Brethren of Light.

Negative

• Random events in the province and your decisions regarding those events.
  
• Certain stronghold buildings, such as the Bandit Lair and Thieves Guild.
  
• Certain rituals, such as Dark Ritual and Deadly Terror.
  
• Certain guards, such as Gang of Thieves and Cutthroats.
  
• Plundering a province with your hero.

Province mood gradually becomes neutral over time. Negative mood results in unrest building up in the province. The more discontent the inhabitants are, the faster the unrest grows. If the unrest reaches a critical point, the locals will start an uprising which will overthrow your rule and turn the province neutral again, unless you suppress the uprising by force, which requires you to either have a hero or provincial guards stationed at the province. Suppressing an uprising halves the current unrest and gives you more time to improve the mood through above means.

Note: I don't know if this is a bug or not, but apparently every stronghold building with the "+X mood" modifier affects ALL provinces. This includes buildings that supposedly improve mood only in the capital province. In other words, building something like a Show Booth or Brewery permanently improves the mood of all your provinces by 1.

Capturing Provinces

To capture a neutral province, you must first defeat its defenders. The strength of the defenders is determined by the distance of the province from the nearest stronghold. The provinces immediately next to a stronghold have fairly weak defenders, but the next "ring" of provinces has a considerably stronger mix of guards. For example, if there is a Lizardmen province located right next to your stronghold, it will have 4-5 low-level Lizardmen as guards. However, if a Lizardmen province is one "ring" further, it will be guarded by 4-6 slightly stronger Lizardmen, as well as 2-3 Basilisks. The provinces in the fourth ring (and further out) have the strongest guards, often including tier 4 units.

The exact strength and type of units in any province can be difficult to determine, but there is a rather handy table in the following guide - LINK[www.gamerguides.com]. It shows what type of units you can expect for each ring of provinces and contains a lot of other useful information as well.

It’s also possible to capture neutral provinces through negotiation, although this is not always an option (see "Alliances" for more info).

Provincial Guards

Masters can recruit guards to defend captured provinces from other Masters, local uprisings and random events such as barbarian raids or troll attacks. To recruit a specific guard, you need to first either build the corresponding structure in your stronghold or acquire a guard contract (awarded as random loot after battles). For example, building a Barracks allows you to recruit the Light Infantry guard and building an Inn provides you with a single Adventurer guard contract. You can only recruit one guard per turn.

The provincial guards have a fixed composition of units and a fixed upkeep. For example, the Patrolmen guard consists of 6 Pikemen, 3 Bowmen and 2 Swordsmen and costs 7 gold per turn to maintain. You can disband provincial guards at any time. Guards are permanently tied to the province they’re guarding – they can’t be transferred elsewhere or added to a hero’s army.

Some guards also have extra effects, such as affecting mood or income in a province. Note that the other Masters will often recruit guards to protect their provinces as well. If the hero’s army strength is considerably superior to that of the guards, they will either attempt to flee or – mostly in the case of thieves, cutthroats and bandits – offer to switch sides for a bribe. Guards with the "Intrepid" trait will never flee and guards with the "Incorruptible" trait can’t be bribed.

Locations

Locations are small individual sites in provinces that can provide you with opportunities to fight enemies for loot. Much like provinces, the strength of the guards depends on the distance of the location from the nearest stronghold. However, there are several exceptions to this rule, like stores, lairs, locations guarded by Cults, etc. Defeating the guards results in experience, gold and gems, as well as a small chance of receiving an item or two (a weapon, armor, spell scroll, guard contract, etc). The amount and quality of loot depends on the strength of the guards.

Exploration

Exploring provinces has several benefits. There are many possible outcomes of a hero exploring a province, but by far the most common one is discovering a new location. If you find a new location, you can either investigate it immediately or continue exploring to uncover more land and possibly find other locations on the same turn.

The speed of exploring a province depends on the terrain. Plains are the quickest to explore (100% efficiency), whereas exploring hills and forests takes longer (75% and 60% efficiency respectively) and swamps take twice as longs to explore as plains (50% efficiency). The more you explore, the slower the progress becomes. Fully explored provinces get +2 to their base gold income.

These are the possible results of exploring provinces:

• Nothing special found. However, like with all the following results, the hero still gains experience and uncovers more land, thereby enabling population growth.
  
• Random dungeon found. These dungeons (Ruined Tower, Abandoned Temple, Dark Cave, etc.) contain enemies that can be killed for experience and loot. Once the enemies are defeated, the location disappears from the province.
  
• Strategic resource found. Some resources (Marble, Arcanite, etc.) may be guarded be enemies, who must first be defeated in order to claim the resource. Note that the rarest resources (Dionium, Black Lotus) are not only well-guarded, but also well-hidden and require you to explore about 80-90% of the province before you can access them.
  
• Extra income site found. These sites (Silver Mine, Monolith, Old Windmill, etc.) are similar to random dungeons, but once you defeat the guardians, the site remains in the province and provides extra income.
  
• New store found. These stores (Weapon Store, Tanner, Plate Armory, etc.) offer random – and often rare – items for sale, can occasionally give quests and are heavily guarded.
  
• New lair found. These lairs (Harpy Nests, Fairy Trees, etc.) are similar to random dungeons, but can also offer an opportunity to recruit certain units.
  
• Treasure found. The hero may occasionally stumble upon a chest containing gold, gems and/or magic items.
  
• Extra experience earned. The hero may occasionally encounter a Spirit of Knowledge for a small XP boost.
  
• Unique location found. These locations (Temple of Light, Labyrinth, Arena, etc.) all have very different interactions, either offering quests, opportunities for gold and loot, etc.
  
• Exploration event. These can range from a bandit ambush to finding a unicorn in a glade and having an opportunity to tame it.

Quests

Quests can be accepted from certain provinces and locations on the map. The quests usually involve finding and killing certain types of monsters. Only the hero who accepted the quest can fulfill the requirements and must turn it in by himself. Note that quests aren’t all that common. It’s not unusual to conquer a shard without ever accepting a quest, never mind completing one.

Completed quests usually reward you with experience and either gold or items. Certain quests can also result in alliances with other races (see "Alliances" for more info).

Alliances

When entering a neutral province inhabited by a non-human race, you may be able to negotiate an alliance for the duration of the current shard. Each race has a different requirement for you to be able to form an alliance, usually in the form of a quest. After an alliance has been formed, you gain access to new buildings in the stronghold that allow you to recruit units of that race and provide other unique benefits.

Forming an alliance affects all provinces inhabited by that race. For example, if you ally with dwarves, all neutral dwarven provinces will submit to you willingly and even offer to guard the province. Multiple alliance quests may be active at any one time, but you can only make one alliance per shard. Alliances can’t be disbanded once formed.

Elves

The quest is available if the hero has at least 50 karma. Hero army strength is irrelevant. If the hero has negative karma, the defenders will not negotiate. If the hero has Diplomacy of 3 or higher, he can accept the quest with any positive amount of karma. The quest requires you to find and rescue captured elfmaids from a random Mages’ Tower.

Dwarves

The quest is available if the hero has at least 50 karma. Hero army strength is irrelevant. If the hero has negative karma, the defenders will not negotiate unless the hero has at least Diplomacy of 4 and pays 300 gold. If the hero has Diplomacy of 1 or higher, he can accept the quest with any positive amount karma by paying 100 gold. The quest requires you to find a sacred poleaxe from a random Lair of Bandits. Alternatively, you can pay 3000 gold for an instant alliance if you have at least Diplomacy of 3.

Orcs

The quest is available only if the hero has a strong army and negative karma. To form an alliance, you need to first threaten the orcs when presented with the dialogue option. If you have at least 50 negative karma and Diplomacy of 3 or higher, the orcs will instantly accept an alliance. If you lack either the required karma or diplomacy (or both), you need to first complete a quest that entails plundering your provinces for a total of 150 gold.

Goblins

The quest is available only if the hero has a strong army and negative karma. The quest requires you to kill a total of three elves. Alternatively, you can pay 2000/1500/1000 gold for an instant alliance if you have at least Diplomacy of 1/2/3. You can also threaten the goblins and they will sell the province for a set amount of gold. This does not produce an alliance, though.

Centaurs

The quest is available only if the hero has a strong army. Karma is irrelevant. Heroes with Diplomacy of 1 or higher can attempt a bribe, but this will have no effect. The quest requires you to kill a total of five ogres.

Halflings

The quest is always available. Karma and army strength are irrelevant. The quest requires you to kill a total of fifteen brigands.

Lizardmen

The quest is always available. Karma and army strength are irrelevant. The quest requires you to kill a total of six giant slugs.

Note: You can also form a permanent alliance with orcs by releasing a spirit trapped inside the amulet of one of the masters after conquering his home shard. The spirit will then offer you the allegiance of orcs, which enables you to construct orc buildings at the start of any shard, but also makes it impossible to form other alliances throughout the rest of the campaign.

Note: AI opponents have a small chance to instantly ally with other races when entering their provinces. It’s thereby possible to see opponents with Centaurs in their army within the first dozen turns, for example.

Tip: When you’re on a quest to find something in a random location (such as the elfmaids or the dwarven poleaxe), save-scumming can help you out significantly. The target is never in a specific province – it’s completely random. For example, you can loot the same Mages’ Tower multiple times by loading the autosave until you get the prompt which says that the elfmaids have been found.

Random Events

At the beginning of each turn, random events may occur in your provinces. The more provinces you control, the more events are likely to happen. These events usually affect your resources (gold, gems and income) and karma either positively or negatively. They also tend to have an effect on the mood of the province, depending on your decision.

Certain events are tied to specific terrain types. For example, a hill province may discover a new copper deposit to increase your income from that province. Some options during random events are only available if you have stationed a provincial guard in the province or if a hero happens to be present. For example, if a province has trouble with a giant spider infestation, you have the option to either hire adventurers to deal with it or hire alchemists to poison the spiders. However, if you have a guard or hero in the province, you may attack the spiders directly and deal with the problem without having to spend any resources.

Other events are tied to neighbouring provinces. For example, a province located next to a neutral orc province may be raided by the orcs, who kill a percentage of the population, reduce mood in the province and steal some gold. Provincial guards can also help fight off such attacks from orcs, brigands, barbarians, etc.

Some events can add new locations to a province. For example, a wandering magician may ask your permission to open a Sorcery Store in a province or a magician may steal gems from your treasury and hide inside a Mages’ Tower, which then appears in the province.

Some events can result in items added to your treasury. For example, a statue appearing overnight in a province can be destroyed for a small chance to find a useful item inside.

Some events only happen if there is a specific location in the province. For example, brigands may raid the province if a Lair of Brigands is present. Once you find and destroy that location in the province, the raids will stop.

Karma

Karma is a concept that affects several aspects of the game. The player’s current karma level is visible on the in-game statistics screen, although its exact value isn’t displayed – karma instead appears as a title after the player’s name (such as "The Dark", "The Merciful", etc.).

Karma is affected by many things, some of which include:

• Constructing certain buildings in the stronghold
  
• Casting certain spells (mainly from the necromancy and chaos schools)
  
• Hiring certain provincial guards
  
• Random events and your choices during those events
  
• Conquering neutral provinces

Buildings, spells and guards usually have their karma bonus or penalty listed next to their cost. The karmic consequences of random events are hidden in-game, although the exact values can be found in the game files after unpacking the data. The same applies to conquering neutral provinces. Basically, use your common sense – attacking a peaceful elven province reduces your karma, while clearing out a province inhabited by brigand outlaws increases karma, etc. Choices during random events should also be fairly obvious if you aim for either evil or good karma.

Karma also affects quite a few things, namely:

• Unit morale (high karma reduces morale of "evil" units and vice versa)
  
• Alliance requirements (see "Alliances" for more info)
  
• Astral diplomacy (the attitude of certain Masters towards you)
  
• Probability of certain random events

Combat

Combat takes place on a tactical battle screen reminiscent of HoMM III. Units can be placed in two rows on the battlefield before combat (again, much like how Tactics works in HoMM III). The side with the higher initiative places their units first. The enemy can then see the formation of units and place theirs accordingly.

The battles are turn-based. In combat, the army with higher initiative acts first – all units in the army can act in any order. For example, you can move a unit ahead a single tile, then attack with another unit, then move the previous unit again and attack with it, etc. Once you end your turn in combat, all enemy units act in succession.

Each unit is a single fighter in battle – there are no HoMM-style unit stacks. Individual units can gain experience in combat just like your hero and improve their stats by leveling up. Each unit also has an upkeep cost (gold per turn), which makes up the vast majority of your ongoing expenses.

Terrain has a huge effect on battle. It can affect unit stats and their mobility in combat. For example, moving through a forest tile costs three movement points instead of one and units in forest tiles get +2 to their ranged defense.

Units will retaliate against all attacks in melee. Ranged units have a limited range and ammo – they can only shoot at enemies that are close enough and can only fire a certain number of shots per battle.

Unit positioning is also important, as there is bonus damage for backstab attacks. Each unit deals +2 damage when attacking enemy directly from behind and +1 damage when flanking an enemy. One simple tactic is to attack an enemy from behind, forcing him to turn around and retaliate, which then exposes their back again, allowing you to attack with full backstab damage a second time. You can angle a unit inside their hex without spending any stamina or movement points by clicking inside the hex in the desired direction.

Heroes act the same as units in battle – they can move, attack, use spells and abilities, etc. If a hero dies, he can be resurrected instantly after the battle if you have the required resources, or brought back to the stronghold to be resurrected later, with his army intact. You can also let him remain dead and disband his remaining army.

Combat (part 2)

Units can be eliminated from battle in three ways – either by reducing their hit points, morale or stamina to 0. If any of the three values drops low enough, the unit’s damage output is also decreased. These penalties stack, so a unit who’s low on both hit points and stamina does less damage than a unit who’s simply low on hit points but at full stamina, for example. Note that all undead units are completely unaffected by hit point, morale and stamina penalties.

Hit points

Reducing the unit’s hit points to 0 (killing them) is by far the most common method of neutralizing a unit. If a unit’s health drops below 50%, its damage output is also reduced. The less health the unit has, the lower its damage becomes. Units with the Berserk ability (Barbarians, Minotaurs, etc.) do not get this penalty – instead their damage increases once they go berserk.

Morale

Reducing the unit’s morale to 0 (causing panic) is another way of removing a unit from combat. If a unit’s morale drops below 6, its damage output is also reduced. The less morale the unit has, the lower its damage becomes. On the other hand, high morale (16+) will increase unit damage. Morale is increased when the unit kills an enemy or if nearby enemies die. Morale is reduced if the unit takes heavy damage with a single hit or if nearby allies die.

Mixing units with "good" and "evil" alignments also negatively impacts their morale. Furthermore, karma also has an effect on unit morale. Having positive karma reduces the morale of evil units and vice versa. Unit morale isn’t instantly restored to its base value after a battle, but rather over several turns if the army has been out of combat for a while. It’s therefore possible to maintain high morale by constantly engaging in battles.

If a unit’s morale is reduced to 0, the unit panics, attempts to run away and can’t be given any orders. The unit will still retaliate if attacked (albeit with heavily reduced damage) and will eventually overcome the panicked state, regaining 1 morale.

Stamina

Reducing the unit’s stamina to 0 (causing exhaustion) is the third way of removing a unit from combat. If a unit’s stamina drops below 6, its damage output is also reduced. The less stamina the unit has, the lower its damage becomes. Units with low stamina also have their combat movement speed reduced (if the unit had more than 1 speed to begin with).

Stamina is expended every time the unit attacks, retaliates, uses an ability (such as forced march or double shot), casts a spell or moves through difficult terrain (hills or swamps). If a unit attacks after moving in the same turn, an extra point of stamina is spent.

Stamina can be restored with the "Rest" command (essentially having the unit skip its turn) – the unit regains 2 points of stamina, but will not retaliate if attacked. If the unit’s stamina is reduced to 0, the unit becomes exhausted and can’t do anything. The unit has his armor value halved and he must then skip a turn (forced "Rest") to restore its stamina.

Leveling

Heroes and units can both level up and acquire better stats, new abilities and new skills. The maximum level is 30 for both individual heroes and units. Heroes are given a choice of three skills on each level-up and one of their core stats – Command, Health or Magic – is also increased. Units are given a choice of improving one of two random attributes on each-level up (either hit points, defense, stamina, melee damage, etc) or offered a new ability depending on the unit type (Forced March for Spearmen, Double Shot for Slingers, etc).

Experience is mainly earned in combat. Each unit gives a fixed amount of experience when killed in battle. After each victory in battle, your hero instantly gets 30% of the total experience value of all killed enemies. Then, a portion of experience (28%) is divided equally between all surviving units and the hero. Finally, a third portion (42%) is divided between the hero and units depending on their activity in battle. The activity is determined by enemies killed, damage dealt, damage received, spells cast, abilities used and stamina spent.

Medals

During combat, units can distinguish themselves by earning medals – permanent bonuses to their stats that also increase their upkeep cost. Each unit can earn at most one medal per battle and a total of three medals maximum. If a medal is earned, you can choose whether to award it or not. Heroes can’t earn medals. For example, to earn the Order of the Defender medal, the unit must lose at least 2/3 of its max hit points due to melee damage and kill at least one enemy in melee combat. The medal gives +2 defense, +1 counterattack, and increases the unit's upkeep by 4 gold.

Meeting the medal’s requirements only grants a chance to earn the medal – it doesn’t guarantee it. Surpassing the requirements further increases the chance. For example, killing more than one enemy in melee and losing more than 2/3 health increases the chance of earning the Order of the Defender medal.

Siege

Before you can capture an enemy stronghold, you must first lay siege to it. After defeating any heroes and/or provincial guards in the enemy’s home province, you must then breach the walls before assaulting the garrison itself. The speed of the siege depends on the strength of the attacking army and the strength of the fortifications, which may be improved by certain buildings in the stronghold.

While a stronghold is under siege, the besieging army will not recover any hit points and must remain in the province for the duration of the siege. This buys time for enemy heroes to rush back to the stronghold and attack the besieging hero. Once the wall is breached, the hero can either launch an immediate attack or continue the siege to bring down further fortifications and a larger chunk of the wall to make the assault easier.

Defenders of the garrison get bonus stats (ranged defense, range and ranged damage) while behind castle walls. Capturing a stronghold instantly eliminates the enemy Master from the current shard, removing any of their remaining heroes and turning all of their captured provinces into Abandoned Lands (with any provincial guards still in place).

While a stronghold is under siege, its owner cannot build any structures, recruit new units or hire heroes.

Magic

Heroes can learn new spells from the library, magic schools or spell scrolls. The library and magic schools must be built inside your stronghold, while scrolls can be randomly acquired as loot after battles. There are six different schools of spells – Wizardry, Sorcery, Necromancy, Sacred, Elemental and Chaos Magic. Heroes can learn spells from any school, provided they have spell slots available.

Spells must first be "memorized" in order to cast them. Each spell can only be used a limited number of times per battle. For example, if the hero builds a library, he gains access to three basic cantrips – Magic Spark, Fatigue and Inspiration. If the hero has 3 available spell slots and chooses to learn two Fatigues and one Magic Spark, he can cast up to two Fatigue spells and one Magic Spark spell per battle. Spells are replenished between battles and heroes can always "unlearn" spells and replace them with new ones.

Note: In order to learn a spell from a scroll, the hero must move the scroll from his inventory into an open spell slot on the Magic screen in the stronghold. Unlike magic schools, which provide infinite copies of each spell, a scroll may only teach a single copy. Also, if the hero "unlearns" that spell by replacing it with another, the spell is lost permanently, so use your scrolls wisely.

With the exception of the three cantrips provided by the library, each spell requires a certain amount of gems to cast. More powerful spells tend to have a higher gem cost and also drain more stamina when cast. Certain Necromancy and Chaos spells can have a negative effect on your karma every time you cast them and some Chaos spells may even require a sacrifice (either a portion the caster’s hit points or the life of a friendly unit).

Spells are organized very similarly to units. They are divided into four circles, with at most 4 first circle schools, 3 second circle schools, 2 third circle schools and 1 fourth circle school possible to be built at the stronghold. The hero’s Magic stat unlocks extra spell slots, much like how the hero’s Command stat unlocks extra unit slots. Lower-circle spells may be placed into higher spell slots, but higher-circle spells can’t be placed into lower slots. Each magic school circle includes three new spells and a ritual.

Rituals are basically spells that can only be cast on the map screen and affect a specific province or hero. For example, the Fair Wind ritual increases the movement speed of your hero for one turn. Like regular spells, each ritual has a gem cost. You can cast only one ritual per turn and each ritual also has a cooldown – a certain number of turns you must wait before using that ritual again.

Endings

There are many possible endings to the campaign in Eador. While some are fairly straightforward, others may involve lengthy quests across multiple shards and have very specific requirements. Most of the endings are also missable, meaning that you may easily lose the chance to earn a certain ending without even realizing it. Note that not all endings are "positive" and there are also multiple ways to fail the campaign altogether.

Here are the possible endings to the game (WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW):

1. Give up. While in the Astral realm, click on Menu, then Exit and then Surrender. You will be given a short description of the following events based on your performance (score) up to that point.

2. Fail to conquer a single shard. After completing the tutorial, you are given several attempts to conquer your first shard. If you fail all attempts, you also lose the campaign.

3. Lose the campaign to a Chaos invasion. While it’s not explicitly stated anywhere, the campaign itself is timed. You have a limited number of Astral turns (about 90) until the forces of Chaos destroy all of Eador.

4. Lose your home shard. After a certain point in the campaign, other (hostile) Masters may start attacking your home shard. Failure to fend off an attack results in instant failure of the entire campaign.

5. Eternal servitude. One of the first Masters you encounter in the Astral is a necromancer named Beleth. During the initial dialogue, you are given the option to ally with him. If you accept the alliance and both of your shards have grown large enough, the ending will trigger.

6. Destroy all life. There is another necromancer by the name of L’Anshar, who appears as the seventh Master in the Astral realm. He will offer you an opportunity to cleanse your home shard of all life. If you accept the offer and both of your shards have grown large enough, the ending will trigger.

7. Death by the Destroyer. Later in the campaign, you will meet a Master called Ul-Dagan. He is willing to sell valuable information for ancient machine parts, which can be found after looting random locations (Dark Caves, Ruined Towers, etc.). However, if you give him too many parts, he will assemble a machine known as the Destroyer and use it to vanquish all other masters – you included.

8. Using the Destroyer. You can enlist the help of Erdu – another Master – to get past Ul-Dagan’s impenetrable shield and destroy him. If you manage it, you can steal Ul-Dagan’s schematics and assemble the Destroyer yourself. Once the machine is complete, you can use it to destroy every other Master in Eador.

9. Conquest by the Destroyer. Similar to the previous ending, but instead of destroying the other Masters, you can instead decide to use the Destroyer to bend them to your will when presented with the option after completing the Destroyer.

10. Assembling the Talisman. This quest can be accepted from Erdu once you learn about the talisman he is assembling. The first part of the quest requires you to destroy Ul-Dagan and destroy his schematics (only if Erdu's attitude towards you is negative). You must then track down the missing ingredients of the talisman on multiple shards and finally defeat a number of demons to make Eador safe.

11. Keys of Truth. This is a lengthy quest that involves finding all seven Keys of Truth and using their combined knowledge to unite all the Masters of Eador. Most of the Keys can be found on random shards by following the clues from the previous Key. You will receive a notification during the first few turns on a shard if that shard happens to hold a Key. The Keys must be collected in order. Missing a single Key means that the ending will become unreachable.

The First Key is found in an Abandoned Temple on a random shard in the province named Valley of Ancients, guarded by an Army of Chaos.
The Second Key is in Stenriya’s possession. It can be acquired after asking her about it, defeating Doh-Gor as requested and then defeating Stenriya when she refuses to hand over the Key.
The Third Key is found in Ancient Ruins on a random shard in the province named Khorian Bogs, guarded by a Hydra.
The Fourth Key is found in the "world of the dead". It can be acquired with the help of either Beleth, L’Anshar or Zarr (only if the other two happen to be defeated). L’Anshar can either provide you with the Key instantly (if his attitude is positive) or you can take it after conquering his home shard.
The Fifth Key is found in a Ruined Tower on a random shard in the province named Wood of Lost Dreams, guarded by Elves.
The Sixth Key is in Dariol’s possession. He can either provide you with the Key instantly (if his attitude is positive) or you can take it after conquering his home shard. If Dariol is already defeated by this point, the Key instead appears in the Astral Vault, which is accessible with the help of Zarr.
The Seventh Key is found in a Dragon Lair on a random shard in the province named Draconia, guarded by a single high-level (25+) Dragon.

12. Victory through conquest. Simply destroy all other sixteen Masters to become the sole ruler of Eador. This is likely one of the lengthiest and hardest endings to earn, as the home shards of other masters tend to be fairly difficult to conquer.

Score

After conquering a shard, your score is increased based on your performance. The score is affected by things like the number of victories, provinces conquered, buildings in stronghold, etc. The two main score modifiers are time (turns spent) and difficulty.

Bonus awards can be earned by performing certain feats during your conquest of a shard, such as not losing a single battle, conquering all provinces, etc. These are fairly difficult to achieve, but provide a large boost to your score. Note that score itself has no effect on gameplay.

Top Tips

These tips were also shared in the free "Official Strategy Guide" (link HERE[www.gamerguides.com]), but I thought they would be worth repeating, because they’re definitely very helpful. The guide is also worth checking out if you want some more in-depth information about the game.

1) Your goal on each shard is to capture all enemy strongholds as quickly as possible. This means picking your battles and not wasting precious turns on fighting or exploring when it’s not needed. Just go for the throat once your army is strong enough.

2) Your heroes and anything else you acquire on a shard don't carry over to other shards. You're effectively starting each shard from scratch, so don’t bother leveling up your heroes or trying to find more loot once you’ve nearly conquered a shard.

3) Don't worry too much about karma. While karma certainly plays a part in the game, it’s ultimately better to not restrict your decisions based on their effect on karma. It’s equally possible to beat the campaign with good, evil or neutral karma.

4) The best way to maintain a healthy economy is by clearing dungeons for loot, not by capturing or improving provinces. While expanding your realm is still necessary to conquer the shard, the loot from dungeons adds up much faster than turn-based income.

5) Don’t be too aggressive in combat – let the enemy come to you. Whenever possible, use defensive units over aggressive ones and utilize terrain to your advantage. Healer units and the Fatigue/Web spells are invaluable tools for winning the early battles.

Conclusion

That's all, folks. I hope this guide has been helpful and answered some of the questions you might have had.

Have fun playing!

[Kírby]

That is wrong:
The provincial guards have a fixed composition of units
The strength of the guard is different, but i don´t know why.
Perhaps someone know it?

[stadtpark-hartmut]

Thank you so much. Now I have the confidence to play the campaign through with knowing the ending spoilers. - Before that I always felt like I was missing something important that would ruin the whole campaign. (- I mean really: they should tell you that on easy after 80 Astral turns the 10-round-"Chaos will win"-countdown begins... - just losing the game after 90 Astral turns sucks.)

I was really tempted to just skip astral turns to be able to take my hero with me each time...
- in fact I brought him with me and then only realized at the end the next shard, that I had no Astral Energy left after spending it all the first time round.

Now I try to wait at least until I earn about 100 Astral Energy per turn, before even thinking about transfering a hero. - Which means playing the first 20 shards without spending astral energy or so!?

[Lince]

nice guide. Kudos

[Poliedro Toroidal]

This helps quite a lot

[Demon]

so good

[nergalsmom]

Sweet guide dude, I've a feeling I'm gonna return here a lot as I play ;)

[Greymere]

Hey I know this guide is a little old and you might not read the post but I was wondering and figured I would ask I know you can only get the permanent alliances with orcs but can a player with high karma form it and will forming it lower your karma by a lot or a little. While from a story perspective I prefer alliances with elves dwarves and halflings and looking at it from a power perspective I like centaurs units and buildings the best the usefulness of starting with a alliances with the orcs even on worlds were they might not exist but I can still get their units and building and on worlds they do exist as a high karma player I won't need to fight them has made me wonder if I can form the alliance with them without needing to be evil. Ty ahead of time if you do see this and answer it for me.

[2kewl4skewl69_69]

thank you so much, i was on the final key for the key of truth ending and i thought it was dorikos who had it (first dragon) who i had already killed and i couldnt find any information for it anywhere until i found this guide and saw that it wasnt him but a dragon on a random shard, thankfully now i know i didnt waste my tiem for nothing :)

[wany1981]

thank you so much for everything

[Foehammer]

Excellent. Thanks for the reply.