Endless Legend Combat Guide

As it says on the tin, a guide to the sometimes infuriating but very sophisticated Endless Legend combat system.

The first two sections will be the most helpful for newer players. This guide is based on single player, default game settings.

Planned Contents

1. The basics - How the system works
2. How to get your guys to do what you want
3.1 Combat Roles - Units
3.2 Combat Roles - Heroes
4. Strategic level planning and area defense principles
5. Operational level planning
6. Deployment phase
7. Siege rules
8. Dual army set-ups
9. How to take a fortress quickly
10. The 1.2 Balance changes and what they mean for you.
11.1 Guardians Expansion
11.2 Guardian units and how to use them effectively
12. Shadows Expansion
13.1 Shifters Expansion - Concepts
13.2 Shifter Expansion - Units

1. The Basics - How the system works

Endless Legend uses a unique simultaneous turns combat system that is fought out in tactical battlegrounds pulled from the local strategic map. Combat is initiated by one army attacking another, these are the primary armies. The attacker selects the enemy army or city to attack via right click, this shows the extent of the battleground and which armies are likely to be involved. If the attacker doesn't like what they see the attack can be cancelled at that stage without penalty. The defender can choose to retreat his primary army at a cost of 50% of it's health unless besieged.

Any additional armies caught within the battleground area have the option to enter battle as reinforcements or avoid combat without penalty. The reinforcement order can be adjusted by both sides. Note the battleground will be extended to include any cities within it's range.



Armies can - and should - be led by a hero but can fight without one. The right hero with the right skills and equipment can transform a mediocre army into an ungodly killing machine. For example a high level Wild Walker hero can push his Rangers attack values over 1000 and increase their combat range to 5. A support or infantry hero can increase the number of reinforcements per combat round to 4 and many other deadly buffs are available.

Units can be refitted and upgraded in Endless Legend. As each Era & weapon/armor technology is unlocked more options become available. To allow a refit of an existing design, select Edit in the Army Management screen. To create a brand new design, select New, then the template the new design will be based on. If you are planning on any early game combat one of the first things you should do in the game, probably the turn after your first city is founded, is refit your starting units as they start without armor. For more information on unit outfitting, see section 3, Roles.

Each battle consists of a deployment phase, then up to 6 rounds of combat. The AI deploys first, then the player. During this phase positions on the battlefield are adjusted, once the player is happy, the battle is launched.

Each round of combat both sides give orders to all of their units. Once both sides are happy with their orders, the round is launched and the units will attempt to carry out those orders in sequence, with the highest initiative unit going first, left to right through the initiative order bar.

Orders include - adjusting stance (aggressive, defensive, hold position), act on a unit (buff a friendly, attack a hostile), move to a unoccupied tile (CTRL), move to a currently occupied tile (ALT) or any combination thereof.

So very detailed orders can be issued but this is often unwise with units further down the initiative order, see section 2 for more on that.

As in real life, terrain has a massive impact on the battle results. For example, never attack the Wild Walkers uphill, into a forest on a map that has a choke point. See section 5 for more on this.

So, attributes. Each unit has a base health, initiative, damage, attack, defense and battle movement value. Health is pretty self explanatory, run out of it, you are dead. Note, units operate at full strength until they are destroyed. Initiative controls the sequence in which units act and is in many ways the most important attribute. Actual damage can be a critical, the base value, reduced, or nothing at all.

The system will compare the relative attack and defense values of the two units then a dice roll will happen. Very high relative attack values will result in 20% critical/80% base/0% reduced/0% no damage. Very high relative defense values will result in 0% critical/0% base/75% reduced/25% no damage. Usually, the possible results will be somewhere between those ranges.

The units base values will be adjusted by many factors including: being adjacent to friendly units (+morale which gives + attack and defense), being adjacent to hostile units (-morale for some units, i.e. ranged/support), having a height advantage (high ground, + attack), being in forests (+defense), charge bonus, hero equipment/skills, standing on a city tile (+ lots of morale), etc. In other words, there is lot going on and the actual army strength may bear little resemblance to it's paper values.

Battle movement is again fairly self-explanatory being the number tiles a unit can move each round. However, some tiles, such as forest or rocks, cost 2 movement points. Flyers are immune to this slow down and can also fly over ridges, cliffs and even hostile units. They cannot fly over water, however. Values range from 1 for certain Defenders to 7 for some Tacklers, usually cavalry or flyers. See, section 3 for more on combat roles.

After 6 rounds, or after all one side is dead, the battle ends. Note that draws are common, especially if there are many armies involved.

Each army has one action point per turn and attacking uses that up, as do some other things. Defending and strategic movement do not use up that action point so counter-attacks are common and it's best to be prepared for them.

2. How to get your guys to do what you want

Many people's first experience of combat in EL is a frustrating one as units seemingly develop (very small) minds of their own and blithely disregard the player's instructions. This results in shouting at monitors and needless deaths. In game results are not pretty either ^^

Luckily, there is straight-forward and easily understood key to avoid this. If you take nothing else away from this guide, take this:

The initiative order is the key to battle, if you know this and issues orders accordingly your units will always, without fail, do as they are told. The problems mentioned above happen when the player issues an order to a unit that is impossible to comply with by the time their turn to act arrives. Then, they do start thinking for themselves and you do not want that. For example, the tile you told your tank to move to now has a hostile in it, or the flyer you told your ranged unit to shoot is now dead. What your unit will then try to do is very unpredictable and will be influenced by it's Stance, what targets are available, what state they are in, etc and is therefore to be avoided.



As you can imagine, having higher initiative than the enemy makes this all much simpler. It's not necessary for all your units to have higher initiative than all the enemies, this is where the Tackler role comes in (see section 3). Furthermore, some units actually benefit from lower initiative, notably healers and special counter-attack Defenders.

So what do all these words mean in practice? Each battle is different but there are some rules that apply across the board:

- Always issue orders to your units in the Initiative Order sequence.
- The ones with higher initiative than all hostiles can be given orders as complex as you like, i.e. move to this tile and attack that specific unit. For these units Stance is irrelevant, you have total control.
- If you plan to have multiple units attack the same hostile, make sure it is still alive when your last unit attacks. Look carefully at the maximum damage your units can realistically do and plan accordingly. It's often far better to damage 3 hostiles on round 1 and definitely kill them on round 2 than risk chaos.
- Pin down the higher initiative enemy units so you know where they will be, killing them should be a high priority.
- For low initiative Defenders, setting Stance to hold position or just giving them a movement order is often wise.
- For low initiative units with a ranged attack, most likely support, tell them to move to safe tile behind your tank wall and let them choose their own target. They will then attack, heal or buff as appropriate and won't go running forward (if on aggressive stance) to shoot a wounded hostile.
- Defensive stance can't be trusted, avoid it and use Hold Position or a safe movement order for ranged/support/defenders, or Aggressive for Assaults if that seems sensible.
- The further down the initiative order your unit is the more cautious you need to be. Don't issue multi-step orders unless you certain they can be complied with.

3.1 Combat Roles - Units

While there are only three unit templates per faction and the option to add three more via assimilation there is a bewildering array of ways to equip these units. It's best to add a new design for each role and label it clearly.

On an empire level there are two main army set-ups. Those who have ranged units as the primary damage dealer, i.e. Wild Walkers, Vaulters. Then we have those who have melee Assaults in that role, i.e. Drakken, Necrophages. As a result the ranged factions need Defenders, the others do not. Conversely, a ranged set-up doesn't need an Assault.

As this is Endless Legend there's always someone being awkward and here that would be the Broken Lords. They start with an infantry unit in an Assault role as key, then later switch to a ranged lead with the rather awesome Dust Bishops, this requiring the infantry to perform a Defender role.

As always, exceptions exist.

Key unit roles are as follows:

Garrison: These units will have basic equipment, no strategics and can be mass produced and sold as required. Unless you have extremely high production via Industry or Dust it is unlikely to be worth bulk outfiting them with even Iron accessories. Filling those slots greatly increases production cost and as of the recent balance changes, the benefit is reduced. Ensure at least one unit has the Improved Vision ability to help track any nearby hostiles. Garrisons should always be a mix of units, balanced enough to take care of themselves should something go wrong.

Scout: Base game: A high mobility unit with + move and + vision, likely to be operating alone. Cavalry and flyers are best in this role. In Shadows things are rather more complicated for these units. Forgotten units can be equipped as previously as all start with Stealth. For other units it might be wise to fit a Camouflage (stealth in forests) accessory in place of either the + movement or + vision depending on map type and threat level.

Tackler: This is an essential role to have in your order of battle, though it will not be required in every fight. These units have two jobs: Firstly, to tackle and pin down high initiative enemy units so they are not free to create havoc and instead can be killed by the rest of your army. Secondly, to block enemy reinforcement positions. These units need higher initiative than at least all non-Guardian hostiles and great mobility, again cavalry or flyers. Generally should be fitted with + movement (especially those with Charge), + initiative accessories, and strategics that add yet more initiative. With 1.2 various other set-ups are viable for units that already have sufficient initiative and mobility, i.e. +Defense, Death or Glory, or Free Counter. Most of these units are fragile so once they have done their job get them out of trouble or use them as bait and kite.



Above, the screenshot shows the Tackler role in action. The Centaurs will be blocking both enemy reinforcement positions on round 1, giving us control of the battleground.

Defender: These guys, often infantry, are there for one purpose, to stop hostiles getting at your vulnerable Ranged and Support units. Use them to form a tank wall, they don't need high initiative, get them to Hold Position or slowly fall back and take advantage of their special counter attacks as the hostiles fling themselves at them. Fit for durabilty and damage by whatever means are suitable.

Assault: For some factions these will be the primary damage dealers so require mobility and decent initiative. Use them to focus fire on units pinned by Tacklers, then any other high value targets. Good examples of this role are the Drakkenling or Necrodrone. Specific outfitting advice is difficult, it depends.

Ranged units: For other factions this is the main damage dealer. High initiative is essential to enable focus fire and increased mobility surely helps, so glassteel and paladium are good strategics to fit as weapons. Accessories would ideally be + initiative and the other is matter of taste. However, resist the urge to add straight-out extra damage via a titanium accessory, instead, if resources allow, add + attack or + movement. Better to get into the 20/80/0/0 results range than have potentially high but unpredictable damage, this can cause more problems than it solves.

Support: These units vary wildly in abilities and function. Essential for certain factions, i.e. Dust Bishops for Broken Lords, others, not so much. Again, hard to give specific advise due to unit variety. Units that heal, damage/debuff or give passive buffs to adjacent friendlies are extremely useful. Ones with a targeted buff are poor value and should be avoided unless no other ranged attacks are available, the battles do not last long enough for this role to shine. Be aware Support will be a high priority target for the AI and use this against it.

A note on flyers: These can perform a variety of roles but are not one in and of themselves. For example the Haunt is a fantastic Assault, whereas the Nidya makes a an excellent Tackler. However, all flyers are very vulnerable to Longbow attacks and therefore be wary of taking too many into battle, especially against factions that are ranged heavy. The AI is, surprisingly, capable of spotting a one trick pony set-up and countering it. It will even assimilate and mass produce a counter from a minor faction if required, should it be hit over the head enough times.

3.2 Combat Roles - Heroes

Each faction has a number of heroes, each of the same role but with differing attributes. Note, any hero can be recruited through the mercenary market by any faction. For example, if you are playing the Drakken, you can recruit a Necrophage hero if you so desire. Other heroes from other sources can be acquired but those will not covered here. As this a combat guide, only military aspects of the heroes will discussed.

Basic abilities and main advantages of each faction's heroes are as follows:

Ardent Mages: Support, with ranged damage/debuff and targeted buff, + 1 battle movement
Broken Lords: Assault or Defender, can be healed with Dust, only hero that can use 2H'd swords
Cultists: Defender: Can be equipped with claws for special counter-attacks
Drakken: Support, with ranged damage/debuff and targeted heal, + 1 battle movement, can heal, gains XP 25% faster, huge health pool. Note their heal has been reduced as of 1.2.
Forgotten: Assault or Defender, starts with Stealth, can use 2H'd Swords, claws, can dual-wield 1H sword and axe giving both Slayer bonuses at the same time, can give entire army Stealth with correct promotions. More on these guys later ^^
Necrophage: Assault or defender, + 1 battle movement, immune to disease, can use any melee weapon apart from 2H'd swords
Roving Clans: Ranged damage, +1 battle movement, + 2 strategic movement
Vaulters: Ranged damage, + 1 range. Ironically this makes them the best leader for a Wild Walker army as their hero is out-ranged by his own units
Wild Walker: Ranged damage, +1 battle movement, + 50% attack in forests

On hero recruitment

What role and therefore which heroes are suitable to recruit should be fairly clear, however, not all heroes are created equal. Indeed, from a combat aspect some are far better than others.

Red Warning: Endless Legend let's us stack almost anything except the inherent hero abilities (see the far right of their character sheet) and accessories with the same name. In other words, if a hero has the ability Army Initiative Boost 3, fitting the glassteel accessory giving Army Initiative Boost 2 will do nothing. This needs to be considered when recruiting.

As of 1.2 Hero inherent abilities to look out for as they are arguably the best for army leaders:
Army Defense 3 and Army Attack 3, these values have been heavily buffed.
Army Boost, a buff to various abilities which stacks with accessories.
Any other specific combat skill at level 3, i.e. Initiative, health, damage, etc.

To fit an accessory as good as the level 3 abilities you will need the appropriate tech at level 3 and a lot of strategics, both of which can be hard to acquire.

4. Strategic level planning and area defense principles

So we know the basic rules of the combat system, how to control our units and what roles they should be performing. Surely that's all that's needed, you ask? Sadly, no, more words are required because that only covers the tactical level and Endless Legend is a strategy game. So, brave reader, let us plunge into the murky world of strategy...

Endless Legend does an excellent job of presenting the player with many things that can be done but not enough resources to do them all. So the smart strategy is to use those resources as efficiently as possible, that way we can have more things. The main limiting factor is usually strategic resources, to a lesser degree, industry and dust.

As was described in section 3, roles, garrisons do not need strategic resources and few field army units need titanium. This is helpful because industry, fortification and science buildings all require loads of it. You are still likely to run out if pursuing an industry production strategy and turn your cities into super-fortresses.

Luckily, city fortification buildings are not needed if an efficient military strategy is followed. Each borough you build and level will raise the defense of the city and it's primary defense will in any case be a large garrison. City garrisons should be maintained one unit below capacity, be balanced so they can fend for themselves and be activated as a reinforcement army if required.

Units in a garrison cost minimal or zero dust maintenance and help level those heroes that are city governors more quickly - each construction and unit managed increases XP gain. Getting heroes early and leveling them fast is essential to your military strategy. As soon as is possible recruit one or more suitable heroes to manage cities and level the left side of their skill trees, making a straight run for the Cold Operator skill. As you will see having this skill is vital for area defense and extremely handy for leading offensives.

Joyous news:The problem with Cold Operator has AT LAST been fixed and we can now give our heroes that promotion as soon as it becomes available. If the hero changes assignment after getting this skill the benefit is no long lost, let there be dancing in the streets!

While you are leveling your future army leaders start building the units that will be in your field armies. If strategics are still short, give them iron & dust gear and re-equip them later. Be aware that refitting to a different strategic wastes the previous one, refitting to a different item that uses the same strategic is free, as long as it is the same tier. Example: Your army leader is leveling in a city so the + science accessory is very useful. If you refit to + army damage boost when you place them in an army this will cost nothing.

So, area defense. Your hero has Cold Operator and they are leading your first fully tooled up field army. Place the army in the center of your territory and do whatever it takes to ensure they can hit every tile of that territory in one turn, even in the winter. This might require Endless Mechanisms or Empire Plan + movement, fitting the entire army with the + movement accessory or further efforts, exactly what is required depends on circumstances. I refer to this army as the Crash Response Team (hat-tip to Peter F Hamilton).



This way any threats to your empire can be smashed on the beaches where they cannot deploy properly. If required activate one of those large, cheap, balanced garrisons you built earlier and call them as reinforcements. This is somewhat harder on a Pangaea map, in that case, again look for an opportunity to hit the enemy where they cannot deploy fully, there almost invariably is one.

Clearly, you want full visibility of your perimeter so your CRT can do it's job. Either build watchtowers or play the Wild Walkers, in that case The Sharing will warn you of inbound hostiles in time. If you have Shadows, Watchtowers are pretty much essential regardless of who you are playing and the CRT leader should have a Detection Accessory fitted.

The CRT strategy means your land is safe so if you are pursuing a peaceful, Civ-like play style you don't need any more military and can get on with building all the nice things you wanted, having hardly spent any strategics on military.

If you do want to go out and crush your enemies another couple of armies will likely be needed. Either two more balanced armies able to operate independently or a dual army set up (as of 1.2 this is probably wise), see appropriate section for that.

One last thing on the strategic level, the Empire Plan. If you know serious warfare is likely in the next 20 turns, adjust your influence spending to at least level 2 for + attack or ideally level 4 for + health. If the threat is the Necrophages the + health is of less value but still has a use if your influence pool allows.

5. Operational level planning

This is the activity that takes just before combat starts and can make all the difference between victory and defeat. To quote Sun Tzu "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." Please feel free to read that in the voice of Leonard Nimoy.

So, things you should be doing at this stage include:

Activate your combat boosters: These include the somewhat creepy Pixie Blood (+ health regen) and the very powerful Blood Crystal (+attack). Don't waste combat boosters as approval modifiers, it's easy to get all your cities Fervent by other means. As you will have seen from the previous sections, Attack is a very important attribute.

Reshuffle your assimilated minor factions: Change the ones that give economy buffs to those that give combat bonuses. For example, you currently have a minor assimilated that gives + food, while you have another pacified, unassimilated, that gives + initiative who clearly is going to be more help right now. After the war is over, swap them back once influence allows.

Look at the enemy forces arrayed against you: Consider what do you need to bring unit-wise to counter them. For example, the Vaulters are bringing 2 full armies of Dawn Officers, both led by heroes. These will have insanely high initiative, mobility and Ranged Slayer so the last units you want on the battlefield are ranged units. However, Defenders will slaughter those armies, so bring them instead. If need be, refit your units, remember there is no strategic resource cost when swapping items that use the same material, as long as they are the same tier.

Decide on Reinforcements: Ask yourself these questions - Is there a city whose defenders can help as a reinforcement army? Can they help and get back where they belong in time to avoid the risk of their city being attacked without their presence? Do you need reinforcements at all? Lastly, be aware there is a situation where you don't want a crowded battlefield, this is fighting a Necrophage army. Their disease ability will spread throughout your armies if that's the case and this is bad.

Choose your ground: If your army is Assault based you most likely want a nice, flat, open space with no choke-points. If your army is Ranged based the opposite is true. As mentioned above, always hit the enemy where they cannot deploy properly, then you can turn the battle into a turkey shoot. This would include where the enemy is on the beaches, against a ridge, or one of your cities etc. The absolute perfect place for a killing field is the end of a peninsular, there they might only deploy one unit at a time. If you have the option to have the high ground, take it. Be aware direction of attack matters as well as location, i.e. attack directly towards the beach = victory, along the beach = messy. Also, beware of cliffs if using an Assault based army, especially if facing ranged or flying units. You can get blocked very easily and this results in events of spectacular grisliness.




What not to do:
Don't just sit there: Passivity is always punished in Endless Legend. Don't let the enemy decide where to fight, don't let them start a siege. You, the player need to be driving events not the AI.

6. Deployment Phase

Brief section, this. Hey, stop cheering back there!

Anyway, deployment is the players final chance to make changes before combat begins. This may not seem a major part of the game but it is great opportunity to throw away all the good work from earlier in a moments inattention. Here we have a big advantage as the AI always deploys first, we can use that against it. So:

Look very carefully at the battleground. Look for any cliffs, ridges, stairs and other choke points. Due to the way the map is laid out, from certain angles it's very easy to mistake cliffs for stairs and the reverse. Remember that cliffs will not affect flying units but will prevent melee attacks by non-flyers.



The above screenshot is a good example of why care in the Deployment phase is vital.

Here we see our army hitting the invading Drakken on the beach. They have two Wyverns, with battle movement 4 who can fly over our Defenders, which is bad.

One can be pinned on the first round by the Treant as it has higher initiative but the other MUST die before it can act. The deployment seen here makes certain that happens and that our reinforcement positions are not blocked. If the default deployment had been accepted the battle could have gone either way, as it is there is very little the enemy can do here except die, which is good :)

Considering all battlefield features adjust your deployment positions in the Initiative Order sequence, ensuring your units will not be blocking each other on turn 1. This is particularly easy to mess up if you are planning on a Defender/tank wall and fall back approach.

Try to anticipate what the AI will do on turn 1. It's priority tends to be targeting wounded units, heroes, support, ranged and anything it has Slayer against in that order, then anything else. This is not 100% reliable but consider likely AI actions along with the Initiative Order and if need be make further deployment adjustments.

If you are bringing reinforcements, take care not to park units of your primary army on your own reinforcement positions, i.e. the tiles with your flag on, unless it is absolutely unavoidable.

Never accept the default deployment in a serious fight.

7. Siege Rules

Sieges are often the most complex battles that take place in Endless Legend and there are a number of rules players should be a aware of. This section will try not to give specific advice, merely explain the rules that apply to combat, economic effects will not be discussed. If a Vaulter hero is present in the city things can get particularly complicated, I would suggest reading one of the faction specific guides if you are playing them. Most of the complexity comes from determining if the fortification bonus applies or not. Get this wrong and a open goal can be missed through being over-cautious ... or you can find yourself unexpectedly facing 27 units all with over 1000 extra HP's. This, needless to say, is not likely to end well.

So, the rules:

Starting, ending or resuming a siege does not use up your army's Action Point, i.e. you can attack, then siege if required in the same turn. So can the other side, so beware.

An army cannot be attacked if it is standing on a borough tile, this will instead become direct attack on the city.

A hostile army cannot occupy a Borough tile. We need to be aware of this as it often limits possible positions to begin a siege, especially considering armies cannot occupy a village, ruin or ridge tile. Exceptionally cunning players can place boroughs in a way that makes a city extremely hard to siege safely as the only valid siege tiles will prevent full deployment should a counter-attack occur.

A siege can only be started adjacent to a land tile that counts as a Borough, i.e. boroughs themselves, the city center, a Legendary Building, that is in the same region as the hostile city.

Each turn that ends with a siege in progress will reduce the city fortification bonus. In other words, if a siege begins but the besieging army is destroyed the same turn or wanders off, no fortification points will be lost. The amount of fortification points lost depends on the number of besieging units, their strength and can be boosted by certain hero abilities and equipment. For a city with high levels of fortification, reducing this value to zero can take a very long time. As it is the end turn status that matters, the attacker can run off, destroy some units, then come back and resume the siege without penalty.

Once city fortifications are reduced to zero the defenders will begin to take damage and it is possible to kill them this way, without an actual fight. This will rarely occur, however as at some point the defenders will attempt to break the siege knowing that doing nothing is suicide.

Should the besieging player choose to attack the city before the fortifications are destroyed the remaining fortification value is added to all defenders as a flat, free health buffer, i.e. both the terrifying Enequa Wings and lowly militia gain the same number of bonus HPs. This buffer will completely regenerate between battles, even if they occur on the same turn. Attacking units will need to grind through this buffer before any real damage is done. Note, even 1 point of the buffer will completely negate an attack as far as "real" damage is concerned.

The amount of this health buffer remaining can be seen in combat as a white section above the defenders colored health bar, as this is used up it will turn grey.

An attack on a city with fortifications will result in all units on the defending side, whether in the city or not, gaining the health buffer. An attack in those circumstances is extremely dangerous, as can be imagined. In any other circumstances, the health buffer will not apply.



While the siege is in progress neither side can move armies through the tiles indicated by the fences on the strategic map.

Besieged units and heroes sometimes cannot be refitted or change assignments. If it is unavoidable that one of your cities will be besieged, swap heroes and gear before it starts.

As long as a siege is continuous at turn end any militia units that are killed, who would normally reappear on the next turn, will not do so.

City defenses will regenerate a number of points each turn. This regeneration value can be boosted by certain buildings and hero skills.

As you can see, sieges can either drag on for far too long or be very risky. For how to avoid either issue, see How To Take A Fortress Quickly.

8. Dual army set-ups

So, after the horrors of siege rules, we get to a fun bit, how to put an unstoppable killing machine together.

If you are planning to invade the lands of an equivalent or higher tech faction most people agree it's best to take two armies. If you take just one, no matter how strong it is and how well you play, it risks being ground down, mainly because of the reduced health regeneration outside your own territory.

The simplest option is to take two balanced armies that work together but can fight independently if required. While mobility is always helpful, the obsession with speed your CRT requires isn't as great here. In many ways durability matters more while on the offensive. As it may be harder to choose the perfect place to attack be more cautious about what units to bring. If at all possible get eyes on the enemy first so you know what you need to counter. As usual, hard to give more detailed advice due to faction variety. If the enemy is the Forgotten or is otherwise using a lot of stealth units it might be wise to fit one of the heroes with a detection accessory and one unit in each army should have +vision via accessory to avoid nasty surprises.



The above screenshot shows two balanced armies working together. Note the one lead by the support hero is the primary army, to get the benefit of those sweet extra reinforcements per turn. The reinforcement army has been held back and parked on a city district, it simply cannot be attacked there. Total paranoia mode is not really needed in this case but it never hurts.

The more complicated but strongest option for your invasion force is the dual army set-up. These armies are designed to travel and fight together, a lead army and a reinforcement army.



Full dual army above, army Anvil leads and will take control of the battleground, army Hammer then enters as reinforcements at 4 per round and smashes all hostiles.

The lead army will have an infantry or support hero who has the +reinforcement position skill, that way 4 units of the second army will enter per turn rather than 2. This ensures your reinforcements will enter the fight early enough to make a meaningful contribution. I would suggest +defense on both the hero and units of the lead army, they need to be durable enough to survive 6 rounds of combat, other fittings depend on circumstances

The reinforcement army can be led by anyone but if you have access to Ranged units, a ranged hero gives the best results due to the + range, +vision bonus and higher +attack army boost. The reinforcement army units and hero can both be given +attack, other fittings to taste, as they shouldn't be coming under attack too much themselves.

The lead army should consist of exclusively of Tacklers and Assaults or Defenders. Use the Tacklers to block enemy reinforcements positions or by other means gain control of the battlefield. Assaults should be used aggressively, moving forward to make room for your reinforcements and further strangle the enemies movement options. Defenders should, as usual, be establishing a tank wall, though somewhat further forward than normal.

The reinforcement army needs Ranged, Support (especially healers, or high mobility Assaults. Things are simpler if this army is ranged heavy as these battles can get very congested, flying Assaults are also very good here for similar reasons. Those with ranged attacks can focus fire on the disorganized enemy, quickly and safely eliminating them. By round 2 or 3 at the latest you should have all enemy reinforcement positions locked down and you can then decide how many hostiles to allow through per turn. Take care not to occupy all enemy reinforcement positions with your own units and kill all hostiles already on the field on the same round or the battle will end at that point as a draw.

Once you have full control, use the remaining rounds to kill as many enemy reinforcements as is safe to do so while healing and otherwise doing all you can to ensure the army emerges from the battle in a fit state to fight again.

The one thing you need to be very careful about is that the reinforcement army must not get attacked itself, it will be very fragile so get it to hang back as far as possible while still being in range to help should the lead army be attacked.

9. How to take a Fortress quickly

As you will have seen from section 7, if you are not careful a siege can become complicated, time consuming and generally cause players to lose the will to live. Or maybe that's just explaining them^^

Anyway, we want to avoid them if we can and get them over as quickly as possible, right?

One thing to remember, don't attack a city directly if enemy reinforcement armies are present. Instead, attack them first instead unless you are absolutely certain it's safe to go directly for the city and time is of the essence, i.e. if you know several dangerous enemy field armies will be arriving next turn.



The city above can safely be stormed, no need to siege. Not only are it's defences poor, more importantly we have full visibility of the battleground. Notice our armies have circled around the city, rather than attacking directly from the coast. This is to ensure full deployment.

Luckily, most cities are not fortresses. If the fortification value is not high enough, they can simply be stormed by those two armies you set up as per the previous section.

If the fortifications are very high but the number of defenders is inadequate, just attack and make sure you kill something. It might require several attacks to remove all the defenders but as long as your armies have sufficient durability this should not be a problem. Remember, the fortifications only add a heath buffer, no matter how large this is, it can be removed in 6 rounds. In this case you want a continuous siege to prevent militia re-spawn and generally hamper things for the enemy.

However, eventually, our luck will run out and we find we need to take a genuine fortress. I define a fortress as one with fortifications too high to storm, a full, balanced garrison, likely lead by a hero and with various other hostile armies nearby. Worse, these are usually large cities, with limited or non-existent tiles to safely siege from. While a counter-attack by the defenders or nearby field armies will lose them the fortification health buffer, if you cannot deploy properly, disaster is all too possible.

So, what to do?

Firstly, make certain you know what the enemy can call as reinforcements. Expendable Scouts or having at least one unit in each of your armies with the +vision accessory are extremely useful here. The sacrifice of one hero accessory slot for Detection may well pay off too if fighting the Forgotten.



The above city is a real fortress, it has fortification strength well over 3000, a reasonable number of defenders, a full strength enemy field army and a Guardian nearby.

Do not rush to start the siege, this will hamper the cunning plan, which is as follows:

Attack an enemy field army on a tile that will trigger a battlefield that includes the city in it's radius. It is likely the enemy will call the city defenders as reinforcements. If this occurs, prioritize killing the non-militia garrison units while they do not have the health buffer.

If there are more field armies, or remnants of the first one to attack, still don't start the siege. Sieges are bad, no one likes them.

Continue attacks on the field armies as above, to bait the remaining garrison out until all those field armies are destroyed. When you get to the point you are having the last possible fight in the open, feel free to kill the militia and finally start your siege, preventing them from respawning.

By this point virtually all the garrison should be dead; simply roll into the city on the next turn. As well as avoiding all that protracted siege nonsense, this gives the additional benefit of capturing a city with nearly maximum fortifications rather than one with none. This makes holding the city yourself much easier.

If you have Shadows, planting a spy and getting them to disable the fortifications or otherwise cause havoc is very useful but this requires some long term planning.

10. The 1.2 Balance changes and what they mean for you.

A major rework of the combat system is being applied to all versions of the game the same day the Shadows expansion is being released. All players need to be aware of these changes and their implications. Many things have been changed:

• Cultists now have one additional Militia slot compared to other factions.
  
• Necrophages Militia units now have the "Disease immunity" capacity.
  
• Added the Sharp Sense capacity to shields.
  
• Changed Titanium Shields Damage bonus (5%/10%/20%) to a 5%/10%/20% Life bonus.
  
• Decreased Damage bonus granted by Glassteel on weapons (-50%).
  
• Decreased Attack bonus granted by Titanium on weapons (-50%).
  
• Increased bonus granted by Glory of Death capacity on Titanium Talismans: Tier1: +0.5 Morale per adjacent enemy, Tier2: +1, Tier3: +1.5
  
• Reduced Vision bonuses granted by Improved Vision capacity on Iron rings:
  
• Tier1: Improved Vision 1 (+1 vision) + Sharp Sense 1.
  
• Tier2: Improved Vision 1 (+1 vision) + Sharp Sense 2.
  
• Tier3: Improved Vision 2 (+2 vision) + Sharp Sense 3.
  
• Reduced Damage bonus granted by Improved Damage capacity on Titanium rings: Tier1: +10% / Tier2: +20% / Tier3: +30%.
  
• Reduced Initiative bonus granted by Improved Initiative capacity on Glassteel rings: Tier1: +10% / Tier2: +20% / Tier3: +30%
  
• Reduced by 30% the base price of Heroes on market.
  
• +1 on unit military upkeep when in armies.
  
• -1 Military upkeep on army units in Game Difficulties higher than Normal (this is for the AI only)
  
• Decrease to 15% Healing Halo capacity bonus
  
• Reduced by 30% Damage base attribute value of Drider, Eyeless Ones and Drakkens Heroes.
  
• Decreased by half the effect of the Guardian earthquake on tiles that are not the target.
  
• Reduced from 50% to 35% of Damage value the Dust Bishop Healer capacity
  
• Multiplied by 2 instead of 3 Healing speed bonus from the Hero Skill Fast Healer Level 1 and Level 2
  
• Increased by 2 Life Drain capacity bonus of the Broken Lords Ryder.
  
• Increased by 30% healing cost when a hero gets disabled
  
• Remove retreat possibility when being in a besieged district
  
• Reduced from 50% to 35% the bonuses granted by the 2 Cultists quest Items called "The Wordless Will" and "Order of Isiver"
  
• Increased Army Defense bonus granted by Adamantian Insignia, to Tier1: +15% / Tier2: +30% / Tier3: +40%.
  
• Increased Army Attack bonus granted by Palladian Insignia, to Tier1: +15% / Tier2: +30% / Tier3: +40%.
  
• Increased Unit Defense bonus granted by the Adamantian Ring, to Tier1: +25% / Tier2: +50% / Tier3: +75%.
  
• Increased Unit Attack bonus granted by the Palladian Ring, to Tier1: +25% / Tier2: +50% / Tier3: +75%.
  
• Increased Unit Strike-Back Damage bonus granted by the Palladian Talisman, to Tier1: +30% / Tier2: +50% / Tier3: +70%.
  
• Tweaked Improved Movement capacity granted by iron accessories:Tier1: +1 Map Movement, +1 Battle Movement, +3 Initiative, Tier2: +2 Map Movement, +1 Battle Movement, +5 Initiative, Tier3: +3 Map Movement, +1 Battle Movement, +7 Initiative.
  
  
  So, all change! What does this all mean, you ask? I shall attempt to explain the implications in a few words as possible ...
  
  
  • Elite, i.e. strategic fitted, armies are noticeably weaker in the initiative department and have lower maximum damage output. Happily, we can still make them capable of doing terrible things to the enemy, it will just be somewhat more complicated. Far greater care with their composition, equipment and use will be required. Even more than before, they need to be led by a hero, luckily these are now cheaper.
    
    
  • Shields will now reduce ranged damage in the same way that only previously could be achieved via use of an accessory slot. If it is likely you will be coming under heavy ranged attack and can go 1H & Shield, do so.
    
    
  • With the reduced effectiveness of the Iron accessories bulk fitting Garrison units with those items is probably not worth the Industry or Dust, better to spend it elsewhere.
    
    
  • The (slight) reduction to max army speed and (large) reduction to Improved Vision mean area defense will be somewhat harder. Especially if you have the Shadows expansion it may be worth patrolling your territory until you have full Watchtower coverage rather than simply leaving the area defense army/AKA Crash Response Team parked in the center of your road network.
    
    
  • If you have Shadows it's probably worth fitting the hero leading your CRT with a Detection accessory to reveal any stealthed/camouflaged armies. It can always be swapped for a +Army Health one if serous combat is going to happen.
    
    
  • The above and increased army slot cost means scouting is more expensive and slower. However, if you have the Shadows expansion it can be done more safely at the cost of further reduction in speed of territory exposed.
    
    
  • Guardian units are more viable vs elite armies and are worth acquiring. On the other hand, your elite army can now expect casualties vs a Guardian as they can't kill them as fast, so be warned!
    
    
  • Healing, particularly that of the minor faction Drider & Eyeless Ones, has taken a big hit. The way the damage changes stack it's my view they no longer have a place in elite armies, (other than in the reinforcement half off a dual-army invasion force) their healing output is now too low to be worth the sacrifice of those vital elite army slots. Are still of use in standard reinforcement armies/garrisons, however.
    
    
  • With reduced vision and healing, invasion forces will have to be a lot more careful.
    
    
  • 50% nerfs to the damage and initiative accessories and big boosts to various other ones mean it's no longer the case that you should slap one of those two items & the + movement accessory on all elite armies. + Movement on your CRT is probably still a good idea, as it needs above all to be able to respond to threats fast enough and reinforcements should be available in your own territories.
    
    
  • For invasion forces, as there are now more really good hero accessories it may well be worth considering removing the + movement from most units. All 4 hero slots might be better used for something else and an army can only move at the speed of it's slowest member, which now might be the hero.
    
    
  • With the ability to now boost attack and defense by viable numbers a dual army invasion set up really now is the way to go. The lead army should have + defense accessories on both the hero and their units, the reinforcement army can have the + attack versions. It's probably worth hand-crafting each armies units and selected use of strategic resource armor pieces may also be worth considering.
    
    
  • For Tackler units to be able to perform their role successfully they must have better initiative than, at least, all non-Guardian hostile units. Due to the nerf to the + initiative accessory it may be necessary to add Palladium Helms to achieve this, especially for those who cannot equip boots. (Note Dust boots add + initiative)
    
    
  • Some factions will now be more dangerous, notably the Necrophages and Broken Lords. The reduced healing will make the Necrophage disease much more dangerous and their Foragers will benefit from the ranged damage reduction. While the halo healing of Dust Bishops has been reduced they are the only healer not to get their base damage (and therefore heal) clobbered, plus taking down their Stalwarts will be considerably more difficult if they are fitted with a shield.
  
  
  I believe that covers the biggest implications of the changes, if you spot anything I've missed please let me know!

11.1 Guardians Expansion

This section will, as far as possible, focus on the military implications of the first expansion, for a more comprehensive guide to the thing as a whole, see one of the specific guides to it.

Overview - Guardians provides five main additions to the game:

• More buildings as rewards for researching various technologies, generally the ones that needed some love, making research decisions even more difficult. The new military buildings are Defensive Wards (+45 fortification per population) and National Military College (+100% attack for garrisoned units in it's city). While both those are useful they can only be built once in your empire and are probably not worth researching their techs specifically for unless you are playing the Cultists.
  
• World-wide events and quests. Some helpful, some extremely nasty.
  
• Legendary Buildings unlocked by era. One for each of the first 5 eras, all of which provide powerful economic boosts but nothing directly military related so with some hand waving can be disregarded here. My policy in game in any case is to let the AI build them for me, then "liberate" them :p Much like Civ Wonders, it's 1 per game.
  
• Legendary Deeds, again unlocked by era.There are two for each of the first 5 eras, each with 1 of a possible 2 prerequisites. Several give exceptionally powerful boosts to your military and cannot be acquired afterwards through conquest so more on these shortly. Note, only one empire can get each Deed, so it's a race to get them.
  
• The Guardian units themselves. Again, 5 of them, each unlocked through research or if you are lucky, quests. Each guardian tech unlocked allows construction of any 1 Guardian of the designs so far unlocked. In other words, if you have all 5 techs researched you could build 5 Fire Guardians, 1 of each or any other combination.

More on Legendary Deeds

So, Legendary Deeds. These are probably the most game-changing aspect of expansion and to get them will generally require effort, risk and changed strategies. This is further complicated by the varying prerequisites. First of all let's look at the LD rewards themselves:

• Visionary Leader (Era 1) +15% initiative to all units
  
• Wealth Harvester (Era 1) +150 of a random tier 1 luxury
  
• Master of Markets (Era 2) Allows building giving +50% trade route bonus
  
• Warriors' Warrior (Era 2) Accessory giving Free Counter, can be fitted by heroes and units, requires strategics.
  
• Market Alchemist (Era 3) +200 Adamantian or Palladian
  
• Leader of Leaders (Era 3) Extra 20% of total max health regenerated per turn
  
• Glorious Father (Era 4) Allows building giving +100% Dust bonus as long as city is at least happy
  
• Immovable Force (Era 4) Guardian only accessory reducing the cool-down on their special strategic abilities by 2 turns, requires hyperium
  
• Beloved of the People (Era 5) 50% reduction in expansion disapproval
  
• Hero of Heroes (Era 5) Hero only torso armor piece giving +168 Health & +52 Defense, requires strategics

As can be seen, several of the Deeds give perks that can totally change the game around, i.e. if you are fighting the Necrophages it's almost impossible to emerge from a major battle without badly damaged units. Get the Leader of Leaders Deed and that problem is pretty much solved. Which Deeds you want to focus on and how to get them will vary with their prerequisites, your faction & play style so it's not practical to walk through them, it would require many, many words, which no one wants, I trust ^^

Instead let's go through a fairly simple one as an example, note some of the later ones have wildly differing pre-reqs. It's good policy to look through them on turn 1 and plan your strategy from there; some might be totally impractical, others not too difficult.

Visionary Leader walk-through: +15% initiative, we want that, we wants it badly but it's not always going to be practical to get it. To get it we either need to be the first to pacify 8 villages or destroy 10 armies. Normally it's good policy to only pacify villages that are a threat or in regions that are about to be settled or the AI will come waltzing in and get the benefit after we have done all the work. Clearly, if we want this Deed that playbook is going out the window. After the first few turns it is usually clear how many villages will be in reach for pacification without Seafaring, which will be too late in all likelihood, especially if the Necrophages are present, they are really good at this one.

If it's "be the first to pacify 8 villages" that's needed and it looks like there are that many, build more military and ruthlessly stomp on the required number, it's unlikely you will have the time to pacify through quests.

If it's "be the first to destroy 10 armies" and there at least 5 villages in range, again build more military and don't pacify them until they have spawned at least 1 roaming army each.

So, as you can see, getting this Deed is probably going to require building several units in Era 1 when normally the focus would be getting the economy going, having your units scattered and general over-reach. So even though that initiative bonus is so, so handy, a decision in the first few turns is going to be needed - whether to go for it or not. It's a similar situation with the other deeds too, best regard them as a Civ Wonder and go all in or not at all.

11.2 Guardian units and how to use them effectively

More on Guardian units and how to use them effectively

All five Guardians are very powerful but not strong enough to take out an elite army alone. They all have certain traits in common - they can't join an army or be led by a hero, they are immune to all negative battlefield effects (i.e. winter penalties, any debuffs, poison, etc.) apart from -Morale, have strategic as well as tactical abilities, a choice of 3 weapons, no armor slots & can fit 2 accessories.

There are 5 Guardian Only accessories to choose from giving Shared Wisdom (+1 morale to adjacent friendlies), Intimidation Aura (-25% to adjacent hostiles fighting the Guardian), Death or Glory 3 (+1.5 morale per adjacent hostile), Free Counter (extra counter attack) & the Jewel of the Azure Wind, unlocked via a Deed (-2 on strategic ability cool-down).


First, some general advice on their use, then a quick walk through of each unit:

Don't leave them isolated where they can be attacked without support. While a hostile army will take losses it is likely to kill the Guardian if it's alone. On defense keep them on city districts where they cannot be attacked, on offense place them behind the lead army where they can be called as reinforcements. As a rule they should always be used as reinforcements, exceptions being the Earth Guardian with a certain fit or if you have several of them available for a battle.

Build them in your city with the highest bonus to starting XP, don't build them till you need them and make sure you have the strategics saved to kit them out to fit your strategy. Each one requires a tech to be researched, a lot of production and strategics to build and you absolutely do not want to be wasting yet more strategics refitting them.

So, the famous five are:



Dust, Skoros (Support): Can fully heal all adjacent armies on strategic map, in battle can use Mind Control (50% chance to temporarily take control of hostile unit), weapon choice allows Heal (a pretty rubbish one TBH), Increased Fire 3 (+75% attack for friendly unit) or Acceleration (doubles friendly unit speed). Great for speeding up other Guardians, creating havoc with Mind Control and mass strategic-healing an invasion force.

Earth, Gios (Infantry): Doubles fortification strength of a city, ignores terrain penalties. Attacks (not counters) do 25% Earthquake damage to all hostile units on the battlefield, only has battle movement 1. Weapons give Sharp Sense 3 (+40% defense against ranged attacks), Ranged Slayer 4 (+50% damage) or Circular Attack Strike Back (half damage to all adjacent hostiles. Very tough unit & hard to kill but hard to use effectively. Only attacks trigger the Earthquake, only the Ranged Slayer weapon give high enough initiative to make this likely and the battle movement of 1 is horrible! Team up with Skoros and and an elite army, fit with Ranged Slayer and trigger Earthquake OR send in as lead army with Free Counter & Circular Attack Strike Back.

Fire, Fotios (ranged): Can reveal map in 10 tile radius, any unit attacked or countered is set on fire for 6 rounds taking 15% damage per turn, weapons give Infantry Slayer 4 (+50% damage), Precision 3 (+3 attack range, that's range SIX) or Wood Burner (+25% damage to any unit on a forest tile). Use as a reinforcement, fit for extra range, set everything on fire.

Water, Neros (Cavalry): Can destroy watchtowers & extractors, reduced movement cost on rivers. Starts with Charge 1 (+25% attack if moves +10% per movement point spent), if moves does damage to all hostiles in a cone 1 deep per movement point spent. Weapons give Flying Slayer 4 (+50% damage), Infantry Slayer 4 or Damaging Charge (+25% damage if moves +10% per movement point spent. Neros has decent initiative but needs to be teamed up with Tacklers to ensure that it can get that Charge off. Underrated and most deadly unit in the game if used correctly.

Air, Atmos (Flying): Can Teleport with 10 tile range, +2 strategic moves in the winter, does 50% extra damage if previous target dies same round it was attacked, weapons allow Cavalry Slayer 4 (+50% damage), Stun 4 (40% chance to stun for 2 rounds) or Sweep Back Strike 4 (counter damages units adjacent to attacker, extra 25% damage). Pure damage dealer with lots of mobility (base 10 strategic move unaffected by terrain). Excellent initiative with first two weapons, last one coupled with Free Counter is deadly.

A quick comment on fighting against Guardians: If they are in the field attack them first, block any reinforcements and focus everything on killing the Guardian as fast as possible. You really want extremely high intitiative Tackler's to prevent it getting any special attacks off ... and try to avoid attacking them on city tiles, you do not want them to have the fortification health buffer or to be shielded by a full, deployed army.

12. Shadows Expansion

Overview - Shadows also provides five main additions to the game:

• The espionage system, with which it is quite possible to ruin another factions ability to fight, at least in the short term.
  
• Stealth, it's poor relation Camouflage and their counter, Detection.
  
• The ability to Pillage other empires' regional buildings, which does not require a war declaration.
  
• A bunch of new technologies giving buildings and equipment that support the above. There are now so many useful technologies players really need to decide on turn 1 if they are going to go for a science victory.
  
• A new faction, the Forgotten, who specialize in the expansion's content.

Now a quick run through of the features, as usual focusing on the military implications:

Espionage: This is done by heroes, each of whom have now have a "Spying" value which can be boosted though equipment and selecting certain promotions. To place a spy select "Infiltrate City" from the Academy and select the target from the list of visible cities. Note you need eyes on the target city at that point, having seen the city earlier is no help if it's now in the fog of war. Unsurprisingly, Forgotten heroes are the best at spying and should be acquired for this purpose whoever you are playing.

Now your hero is in place their spying ability is compared to the security level of the city, the better that ratio is, the faster they will gain points towards the various possible actions. Mouse hovering over the city Security level will show the possible consequences of carrying out an action, hovering over the actions will show all the possible future actions of that type if enough points are gained. The city base security level is influenced by approval level, buildings and hero skills.



Note the city can be told to attempt to perform a spy "Round-up" at the cost of reduced production. Results of getting caught red-handed or in a round-up include diplomatic penalties, the spy being wounded, returned to the academy or even imprisoned.

Advice: Many spy actions are possible but from a military perspective two really stand out. It's well worth acquiring and placing spies in your next victims cities so that you can disable an individual city's fortifications (no more horrible sieges if you plan ahead \o/) and give empire wide morale penalties. Remember, each -1 morale is -15% attack and defense and these penalties stack.



Stealth/Detection: Stealth makes units invisible anywhere on the world map unless detected, Camouflage provides that too but only in forests. Detection occurs if the otherwise invisible army is next to a hostile army, within the vision range of a watchtower or the vision range an army lead by a hero equipped with a Detection accessory. It can be tricky to work out if your stealthy army is visible or not as there is no Detection Detector accessory :p. Full Stealth is only available to Forgotten units and armies led by Forgotten heroes with the Ghost Force skill. Camouflage & detection are available to all but require research of the Pillage technology.

Advice: If you are fighting the Forgotten, Detection is vital. On defense it can be provided by watchtowers, on the attack a least one hero really needs the accessory if assaulting a city with fortifications to avoid surprises. Or get your spy to blow up those fortifications, which is far more fun.

Pillage: Requires the technology of the same name, when carried out disables the regional building for a number of turns and gives the pillaging faction Dust &/or resources. Pillage rates can affected by hero equipment and buildings. The AI absolutely LOVES doing this, as a player you may have more important things to do with your armies, however.

Advice: This addition makes maintaining good relations in Cold War much more difficult than previously. If long term good relations are desired, move to Peace as quickly as possible. Otherwise, or if playing a Pitiless faction, move up an army strong enough to annihilate the pillagers, this will prompt them to stop their nonsense and run away. Failing that close borders. If you don't care about future relations, feel free to destroy the blighters^^

The new technologies: Pillage (pillaging, camouflage & detection), Unexpected Allies & Security Theory (both giving buildings requiring strategic resources that provide a degree of protection from pillaging & improved city security).
Advice: Whether you need these or not will vary from game to the next. Sometimes the AI seems not to get involved in sabotage, on other occasions it can really cause trouble, in which case higher security levels may be needed. Note that one of your own spy's can expose & wound hostile agents in your cities through the Reveal Spy action, empire wide at level 5, which is viable alternative to the +Security buildings.

The Forgotten Units & Heroes: All these guys have full stealth, various special moves & attacks, can do an appalling amount of damage but are rather fragile. A quick breakdown of their abilities and suggested roles follows:

Heroes: See section 3 for the basics. Of very limited use as city governors, the best spies, decent army leaders and open up the possibility of stealth for non-Forgotten factions.

Assassin: Infantry with Stealth, +1 Battle movement, Dual Wield, very high damage output, Acrobat (can move through hostile units). Best used as an Assault with Sword & Axe for Infantry & Ranged slayer simultaneously. Have seen hits for over 1500 when coupled with Predatore.

Predatore: Ranged unit with Stealth, Dual Wield, Predator's Mark (+20% damage for future attacks per Mark up to 60% on target by any unit - basically a target painter). Very difficult to get these units initiative higher than the Assassin's so best used as Support, painting the targets that will be melee attacked next round. Two crossbows do a lot amount of damage themselves and a Forgotten army with Predators is very good at taking Guardians down fast.

Myst: Flyer with Stealth, moderate damage and Faster Than Shadows (an ability much like Chain Lightning), base battle move 3. Fit with spears and use as a Tackler, the good initiative and ability to fly make up for the middling speed in most cases.

When fighting against the Forgotten it's usually best to get all of them engaged as their high damage and special moves means if they are free to focus fire it's very likely you will lose units.

13.1 Shifters Expansion - Concepts

Shifters adds yet more content to the game, most notably:

• A rework of the Winter season
  
• Pearls of Auriga which spawn each Winter
  
• Lots of new improvements & equipment related to the new Winter features & Pearls
  
• Retaliation, a new defense for cities & regional buildings
  
• A new faction, the Allayi, who specialize in the new content

As usual, a quick over-view of the new stuff, where possible sticking to the combat impacts:

The Winter rework: First thing to note is you can now customize Winter in the game settings, go to Game Settings Summary/Advanced Settings/Miscellaneous, select Advanced Winter. Then you can adjust Winter Difficulty & Harshness if you so desire.

On a related note, no longer are all Winter effects something bad to be mitigated but they can have greater impact on play and there are a lot more possibilities. For example, the seas might freeze meaning your land units can move & fight across them as they would on land ... beware of the seasons end though, as the ice will melt as Sumner returns & you could get an unwanted Steam achievement!

If you also have the Tempest expansion bear in mind your ships will get stuck in the ice if near the coast when ice shelves form and this would also prevent you building any more ships. If ice shelves might be forming build your navy during the summer & then get your fleets well away from the coast before Winter arrives.


From a military point of view you now need to keep a much closer eye on possible upcoming Winter effects, how long they are likely to last & prevent bad ones for you occurring. Another example, the world could get a large bonus to flying units and penalty to ranged ones, if you are playing as the Wild Walkers and at war with the Necrophages this could be disastrous.

Pearls of Auriga: Each Winter these will appear across the map. These are collected by units, bonus ones are gained by certain units, equipment or hero skills. Once you have collected 10 Pearls you can build the Altar of Auriga, a city district style building that allows all the good stuff.

Pearls can then be used for Prayers (to influence future Winter effects), Blessings (to unlock new improvements, equipment) and on building those things. The first Winter allows the inner ring to be unlocked, the second the middle one and the third the remaining outer ones. If you are going to influence the next winter effects via Prayers do it as soon as the previous Winter has ended, the more time passes, the more expensive it becomes.



Warning - collecting Pearls in another faction territory really, really annoys them so don't do it unless you want war. They also get fairly upset if you do it in territory near them they view as theirs.

New Improvements & Equipment unlocked through the Altar of Auriga: Not going to go through them all here but:

• Must haves: Ward Of Auriga (50% Retaliation, see below) & Winter Boroughs (massive city-wide outputs bonus during Winter)
  
• Ones you really want if you will benefit: Luxury/Strategic Intensifiers, Abbey Of Anomalies. These are districts (only one of each per city) again giving big bonuses but a great deal of care is needed with city expansion as they can only be built on the specific resource/anomaly tile and cannot be be retroactively be built over an existing district. Iceworks give +10 industry per frozen river or water tile so if that winter effect kicks in and you have cities with suitable terrain, you want this. If you have a spare hero to run around hoovering up Pearls it would be worth unlocking Pearl Crafting and giving them the Eye of Auriga accessory as that gives a bonus to the number collected per cluster as well as more XP each time you do it. Which is, of course, nice. Another Pearl accessory greatly boosts Retaliation, see below.
  
• The rest are somewhat specialized, marginal or situational IMO but your mileage may vary! If you have Pearls to spare, go right ahead. If you are playing as the Allayi, this will not be the case, see below. Again, as the Allayi you might well need the Chapel of Auriga for quest related reasons

Retaliation, a new defense for cities & regional buildings: What the hell is this, I hear you ask. Well, each city has a Fortification value as we know and high values mean very risky assaults, shenanigans of some kind or long sieges, which as anyone reading this far knows, I do not like and neither should you. What Retaliation does is takes a % of the city Fortification value and spreads damage across hostiles units in it's area of effect. An example to make it a bit clearer:

• Your city has 1400 Fortification and a 6 unit hostile army lead by a hero turns up and starts to besiege it. Luckily, you have built Ward of Auriga (0.5 Retaliation) in the city meaning the enemy army will take 700 total damage each strategic turn, in this case 100 each.
  
• This number can be boosted to much more impressive figures by equipping a high level city governor with the Tome of Auriga's Wrath accessory as it gives +10% per the hero's level.
  
• Towers of Truth & Fidelity sometimes boost this value and sometimes cause the effect to be applied region wide or even in adjacent regions. Sorry to be so vague on this point but the code is either bugged or is misunderstood. However, besieging hostiles will always be hit, so be aware of it, especially if there is an Open Wounds event in effect in which case Retaliation will prove deadly.
  
• The damage it causes can be halved by the besieging army's hero equipping the Brooch of Auriga's Chosen.

Long and the short of it is, if the AI has built/equipped stuff that gives a city a decent Retaliation value, all the more reason for avoiding those sieges. Bait the defenders out or use a spy to blow up the defenses, don't get bogged down!

The Allayi Faction: A rather fly-by-night overview of the new faction here:

• They are all about the Pearls. If you play them be aware that while they get bonuses to the numbers gained and discounts spending them you will never have enough. You have to be utterly ruthless about what Altar unlocks to choose and what to build where. The issue is they need Pearls to build their version of city districts, called Garths. Like the Necrophages they can build one per population and each one built in a city makes future ones there more expensive.
  
• Do not, ever, over-expand. Firstly because they get a -25 expansion penalty per city rather than the standard -10. Secondly, too many cities means you will run out of Pearls even faster than you would otherwise. Lastly, their quest requires you to capture 3 cities late game and this can cause all kinds of excitement. My opinion is you don't want more than 3 cities before the end-game bloodbath starts.
  
• As you can't go wide, going tall is the only option but that isn't made any easier by their cities requiring more food than normal to gain a population point. They do assimilate captured cities much faster than other factions, however.
  
• They get exact Winter start/finish information from the get-go, can see Pearl clusters on all explored tiles and can use their Skyfin units to boost relations with others, while gaining resources.
  
• Battlefield Symbiosis gives +15% Initiative per adjacent unit in battle in addition to the normal Morale bonus. This is an incredibly strong trait and coupled with their excellent units makes their armies very strong if played correctly.

As you can guess from the above this faction is not newbie friendly. Their main strength is in their units. These are not easy to use well as their abilities change with the seasons or by spending Pearls to Shift forms and require a fair bit of micro-management. Done right though and they are absolutely deadly.

13.2 Shifter Expansion - Units: To follow

[adam.rinehart]

Awesome guide. A tribute to the form.

[DirtyBigShot]

I am definitely late to the party here but like the others said, great article. Very helpful and lots of knowledge here for those trying to learn the game. It is always good to read about someone else's thoughts are on something cause you may have never of thought about it that way.
This may be old but still has info that can be applied. thank you

[Jiks]

Thanks guys! TBH I've not played for ages and in spite of swearing not to be "that guy" who writes a guide then abandons it I guess I am, Expanse reference there ^^. Perhaps I should read this to remind me how to play, EL is a great game.

[MetalMind85]

Wow, so helpful amount of informations. Very detailed, just how guides should be writted. Thanks. I just don't understand one thing. Should I re - equip my units with stronger weapons and armor every time I discover next technology level? From what I understand units equipped with level 2 weapons have no chance of survival vs. units equipped with tech level 4 weapons?

[SuperPox]

an incredible guide! wow gw man

[Lampros]

I guess the author no longer plays? Explanations seem to be missing in regard to the 2 latest DLCs.

[sSs1897]

also tempest dlc race

[sSs1897]

I guess cultists and rovers dont really rely on their own troops that much and are also some sort of exception?

[retrobarbaari]

Maybe an expansion has fixed the issues then? I only have the Guardians expansion,

[Jiks]

Not that I recall, I'll try to drag myself away from Crusader Kings II at some point this week to check exactly what is going on - will post results here.