Winning The Game

This guide provides a detailed description of the different types of ways that the game can be won, as well as advice for styles of play to adopt when attempting each of those Victory types.

Updated for 1.0

Winning The Game

While Armello is all about banding together with fellow Armellians and enjoying the game, competitive players will always be around and it’s up to you to beat them at their own game. In Armello there are 4 ways to win Kill The King, Spirit Stones, Rot Victory and Prestige.

Kill The King

The first way to win is to simply kill the King. Unfortunately there is nothing simple about it, and if you aren’t careful you may end up handing your closest rival victory.
If you attack the King and manage to slain him and survive his mighty onslaught, then the victory goes to you!
However, if both you and the King perish the victory is instead awarded to the player with the most prestige (more on Prestige later). Unfortunately, when you fight the King all your prestige is taken away so regardless of what happens you either have to win or lose. While Amulets, rings, and equipped gear can give you a higher than 0 minimum prestige, usually a draw is game over for you.

Preparing for the King

Fortunately, there are many ways a player can prepare for the brutal encounter with the King. Avoid Rot so you aren't losing life at Dawn and giving him Rot bonus dice. You probably want at least 5 fight (spirit for Sana) and 5 body. Boosting Wits is surprisingly important as Burning card to prevent misses (even if burning offense symbols) can save your life more reliably then praying for shield rolls. Equip gear for shield icons and dice removal rather than swords or + dice, especially if he has 2 HP or less. However, don't neglect your offense completely as he will often get ~4 block rolls and dealing no damage to him, or bringing him 1 HP short of death, is humiliating. Armor Piercing weapons (Longbow, Hand cannons), Heavy Flail, or the War Hammer are the best offensive weapons to use.

The King has 3 pieces of gear unique to him, but only 2 influence the battle.

Wyldhide- As the King is Corrupted, normally a Wyld roll would be a miss. Instead it counts as a shield for him. This means for the same number of dice, he'd have twice as many shields as a player with no static armor.

Pride's Edge- Any dice you miss become his dice to roll. This weapon is vicious- pre 0.3.5, having 7+ dice or higher was a reliably indicator that you'd kill the king and survive. Now in 1.0 release, large dice pools can easily be your undoing. Your dice will miss 1/3 of the time UNLESS you have the Royal shield equipped (protip: you want this equipped), so a 9 fight hero vs. the normally 7 dice King will likely end up facing a 10 dice King thanks to his sword.

As mentioned before, having a high Wits score and thus a hand full of good cards to burn (note, burning Wylds is not a good idea unless you are fully geared for defense). The Battle Armor and War Hammer- which replace dice with Static symbols, helps protect you from missing as well.

Give yourself time to face off against the king (and his prestige leading defenders). If you can solve your 4 quests, you'll get a key to bypass the palace Perils. With luck and teleport magic this can be achieved as early as 5th dawn. If Fate is not kind to you, you'll probably want the plan B of using Expendables and card burns to pass the Peril the old fashion way, starting by Night 6/Dawn 7 (King has 3-2 HP left).

Certain cards will greatly benefit your chances of victory, if you draw them mid-game consider saving them in your hand until the moment of truth. Using a Hot Rot Wine or Strategist after the palace walls drains your AP allows you to act the same turn as the wall breach without player interference. Strategist is much rarer than hot rot, so when attempting to get either, aim for the item deck.

Barkskin's extra body will go a long way to helping survive the battle, and Mirror image even more so. If you don't have a +AP card to make the Palace rush in a single turn, having a Wyldsap to refill your HP after being hit with fireballs will be useful. With quick reflexes it can even save your life by healing between 2 damage card plays.

When you enter the palace is also very important. If you enter the palace at night, and can't get a bonus AP, the next morning will cause you to take Sunshine infection damage AND be attacked by newly spawned guards. Some declarations, like "The Bell Tolls" will also damage you, or Dishonored defender will buff the guards, and the Prestige leader will use these to stop you. Therefore, unless you absolutely need the nocturnal bonus dice to help pass the Perils, you have a Pardon to get the guards off your backs, or you have a +AP item, it can be worth waiting until daytime to Enter the gates.

If the guards and declarations don't scare you (because you have great armor and ARE the prestige leader), your turn occurs is towards the end of the order, and your opponents are magic users (4+ spirit), you might find it safer to enter at night. With luck they'll have used their magic up during their turn and wont be able to interfere with Banish/Lightning Bolt/Immolate. Also consider if others have finished their last quest (their stats add up to 20 provided they didn't start with a victory bonus amulet), you want to be in the gates first.

Rot Victory

Rot Victories occur when someone manages to kill the King and they have more levels of Rot than the King currently has.
Have a look at the Rot and Corruption Guide for ideas on increasing your Rot. And the Above section on King Killing. Because your dice pool is gigantic as a Rotlord, static defense gear and burning defense cards will be more important than ever for your survival.

Spirit Stone Wins

Spirit Stones are magical artifacts imbued with the power of the Wyld. Like Stone Circles, Spirit Stones are able to burn Rot. What you're doing when you enter the King's Throne room with Four Spirit Stones is you're purging the King's Rot and the King does not survive the Cleansing process. However were sure that as you become the new King/Queen, you will give the cleansed old King's body the respect it desrves through a Royal Funeral. Or not. Its up to you, you’re the King. And its good to be King.
A spirit stone win is achieved by vanquishing the infected King with 4 or more Spirit stones.
When you hold 4 Spirit Stones you can no longer be corrupted. If if you are corrupted, you'll be cleansed of all rot, but this process kills you, beware.

Spirit Stone Tips

This win requires dedicating most of your quest choices, and diverting from quests to pick up stones to succeed. There's an element of luck in winning the stones from quests, dungeons, and having them spawn near your path. However, once you have the 4 stones, you'll be able to win extremely reliably as the Dice can no longer screw you over. Using a +AP card after passing the palace walls is literally unstoppable victory.

Spirit stones can be found be exploring Dungeons (so Amber for Dungeon exploring has a slight advantage) or they appear in Stone Circles at night. Only 1 can be present on the board at once and a stone circle will never span more than one Spirit stone per game, so pick them up quickly to get more chances at ground stones. King guards will destroy stones if they walk on them, and other players will try to take them either for their own victory or just to block yours. Your quests can reward stones if you pass the Stat test. Being a mage player who can buff their stats on command makes winning stones easier. The Spell Card "Crystalize" costs a whopping 6 MP but spawns a stone into a circle on demand. You should probably wait until standing in the target circle to use it to prevent steals, but if you are sitting on an MP pile during the day don't let your magic go to waste. Saavy players may hold onto Crystallize until they have 3 stones since players will more aggressively block stones once you have 3.

Very very occasionally, visiting a Stone Circle at night will cause you to encounter Druids. Ask them for a Stone and they'll give you one.

In older versions of the game, it was possible to steal stones from players via combat or King's Declarations. This was taken out because they wanted the Spirit Stone victory to not be reliant on winning combats.

Prestige Win

When first learning the game, Prestige Victories are what you'll see the most of. This won't last though.

There are two ways to achieve a Prestige win. Have the highest Prestige when the King final dies from his Rot infliction. If this occurs the player with the highest Prestige will be declared the new King and thus the winner. The second is to have the Highest prestige when another Hero attacks and kills the King, but dies when attempting to do so.

Tweaking Your Prestige

A prestige win can be achieved through the use of combat, trickery and equipment. If you are deadset on a prestige victory, it would be recommended that you choose the +2 Prestige Amulet at the beginning of the game. This will ensure early control of the declarations. I means you can cast cards that cost prestige for "free" when you are at your prestige minimum. From there it would be up to you how you increase your Prestige.
Settlements are important to prestige players. Having them grants money, and money can be used to play Trickery like "Patronage And Industry", Allies Pact, Game of Thorns (Effectively +4 prestige gain if all players have at least one prestige) Incite Revolt (Creates Terrorized settlements) and Emissary (Claims settlements from anywhere, getting the "save town from terror" prestige bonus). The Lord's Scepter item likewise helps you earn some prestige based on Settlements owned (though its hard for it to be worth more than 1-2 prestige at any given moment). Healing items to prevent your death and Armor cards will also prevent Prestige loss.
Hunting Banes and players for +1 prestige per kill (and also lowering the prestige of your hunted rivals.
Completing your quests also gives you prestige. Preventing others from reaching theirs with Banish, Wall of Thorns, -AP cards, or killing them keeps them low. As the leader, you want to make sure no one else gets a palace key as the Palace Perils are the best line of defense against the other victory types. Boosting the Perils with Agent of Misfortune and Cursed Land is important as well.
The Royal Banner is a Treasure that grants +3 Prestige. Barnaby can abuse this by only equipping it right before the Dawns. You could also use it to suicide with the King, winning by prestige anyway if everyone else has 2 or less prestige.

Being a Prestige Leader gives you lots of early game bonuses, or at least the ability to avoid punishments. Starting at day 6 however, you'll notice the King has gotten so crazy, you'll be individually targeted for the pain. Losing all your gold, getting bounties placed on you, or having some of prestige lost or handed out to the other players. While these may seem suicidal to pick, they often have value in keeping the king safe by boosting the guards or keeping them from being weakened/killed. As long as your lead is strong enough to take the hit, take advantage of them to cement your power.

[theatredreams]

This is helpful! I've so far gotten only 2 multiplayer victories though. Both with Thane. One Spirit Stone.. Another prestige. Im usually terrible at going for a Rot/Battle Victory in Multiplayer, and is usually my last resort. But it never works, and someone either kills the king first, or cleanses him. Im hoping soon enough i can get one of each victory in multiplayer.

[Vixenvania]

I still have much to learn. Constant losses get me down but the game is stupid absorbing. First win actually came from the king and another killing each other.

[hardfoil]

For any newcomers to Armello, know that the majority of this information is still accurate.

[necross.san]

Another thing to mention is that having four sprit stones will completly clense you of all rot and will kill you if you are corrupted.

[Alvorn]

Yup they do :) Good pick up. These guys need an update, but I'll save that for when version 1.0 gets released.

[God Snek]

Don't spirit stones randomly pop up in the stone circles? I think it's once every day or two. That's how i won my first game actually.