Astral Entity Cthulhu the pure, friend of Elves, ally of Halfings and tamer of unicorns just conquered his 5th Shard.

But in order to relax, delve in memories past and drown the sorrows of tomorrow he needs a place to go.
A place to share his acquired wisdom during his first little steps to universal ascension.
A place that feels like home but is far enough away from it at the same time.
A place were he can sit down and have a chat with his peers forgetting his godly avataric duties for moment.

Thus he decided to open up his own tavern and invites you to partake, share and enjoy while having a good drink.

So stay a while and listen...


Bartender Cthulhu welcomes you to his grand opening of the

"Dragonform Spellscroll Tavern".



First round is on the house.
We have
Slug Slush
Medusa Stew
Basilisk Brew
Beserker's Rage
Dwarven Marble Ale
Halfpint of Halflingplum

and as today's special we have

Roasted Elven Ribs

and as a vegetarian menu

Mandrake Marsala



Information is free today, so here I go.

[Strategy discussion]

What was your most successful development you discovered on your shard?

I found out that my Robin Hood like Ringleader (An experienced Scout and skilled Archer) was able to tame unicorns in a forest region (Special Event).
Having only Tier 1 Troops at disposal commanding a unicorn really turned the battlefield. I was able to repeat that event in other forest regions and had a total of three unicorns, one for each Hero.
The Unicorns are excellent fighters and can be boosted to attack twice per turn with simple astral spells.
Combined and leveled up they could easily dispatch a single dragon before dying.
They do have a habit of dying from Slug poison though, if they are overwhelmed.

So I'm wondering, what's the best course of action in the beginning?

How much expansion is necessary and how much exploration should be done?
What's the best mix, I wonder...

The Monster get nastier the further you move away from your capital.
I think exploration of your own provinces is the key here, if you happen to find a sorcerer where you can recruit gargoyles you are one lucky bastard.
If you explore a forest region bring an experience explorer with a free tier 3 slot for eventual unicorn taming.
So what do you think?`

[/Strategy discussion]

Well I pretty much always go for the Scout as the first hero, then level him up to the Archer - I love to get his double shot ability and also I have a lot other long range units. Also, but this is only my conjunction, it seems like they get THEIR double shot ability faster when in Scout army. I'm not really sure, but considering I was using bowman through few first shards and with scout they had the option to get 'double shot' fast, while with Commander they either didn't or it was really late in levelling tree.

Also he gets sweet, sweet bonuses to peacefully taking the province, while at 10th level his ability to double shot pretty much kills most of the things in one go. And there is 'mobility' skill tree which let's him move at speed of 2, even 3 turns at once!

I sometimes do like to start with Commander and make a 'stack of doom', but when doing so one must take outlying provinces very fast because of gold upkeep. So it's only viable when conquering the flat lands - these give the most gold income.

When starting it's good to consider resources - does any province in the vicinity have wood or iron? Go into normal bowmen/crossbowmen/swordsmen. None of these? Focus on magic or something else entirely. A lot of marble? Build up your mage towers. Which races are close? Good ones like dwarves and elves or even halfings are especially nice, but even lizardmen when allied correctly can make a lot of difference.

When exploring always remember that it's faster on plains, then hills, forest and swamps (if I remember correctly), so to maximalize income prioritize plains (swamps for gems). Consider the population - while 'free settlement', 'barbarian tribes' or 'horse tribes' (sth like that) gives a lot of money conquering them by force makes them very unhappy. Orcs and goblins as population are very counterproductive and get angry easily (unless you are of evil aligment), but are also very simple to take care in battle.

There is also a question of using hills and swamps in battle to deter and defend - while some units have special abilities which render these bonuses useless most of them will have to deal with it.

Also building income thingies in every turn helps. Even if it's +1 income Pub. With enough technology you can upgrade it to +3 Tavern, which isn't something to sneeze at! Economy, economy, economy - having a lot of gold really helps.
/end rant

Astral Master Kazper sits down at a table after a harrowing battle for his 14th shard at Skilled level and orders a beer.

I always start with Warrior, Scout or Wizard. Warrior is best on small or tiny shards where he can grow obscenely strong fast and not get to the point where his upkeep (in broken items) drags you down. Scout is almost as good, but a little trickier - you have to play the Scout manually, whereas once the Warrior gets in his stride you can just auto-resolve 90% of the battles with safe wins. Double shot is amazing for very strong enemies, but I don't really use it in most battles due to the stamina drain making all my following attacks weaker...

Wizard is the hardest of the three in the starting phase, and in the early shards he's hobbled by the lack of higher level spell guilds. Still even with just level one guilds, once he gets a few levels a combination of Magic Shots for targeted assassination and Web can make a massive difference in battle. And once you get just level 2 guilds with Summon Gargoyle, Rain of Stones and Sleep he's rockin' awesome. And he's dirt cheap in upkeep - fewer troops and rarely gets hit, so almost no equipment repairs. I'm feeling he's the stronger choice on the Average size shards I'm battling on now.

Commander just isn't worth it at this point... Maybe on larger shards and with higher level units available to me...

Once you get stables use them to make "highways" - especially through swamp or hill provinces so your heroes can get to and from the front quick.

The unhappiness from conquering seems not to matter unless they'll be getting furious, which sometimes happens with dwarves or lizardmen for me. But the Free settlements just get a bit disgruntled, which goes away over time, I believe. Never caused me a moment of trouble.

However, in the beginning Barbarians can be hard to conquer and Nomads, Centaurs or the like? Forget it. The easiest early conquests seems to be Free Settlements or Orcs. Not goblins (above beginner level) because they have freakin' Basilisks and Giant Slugs for support... I'm unsure if it's even a good idea to conquer Goblins and Orcs since I believe they make your corruption skyrocket later on... I still do it just because I want them to bow down to me :)

Finally I'll just echo the phrase "Economy, economy, economy". It's ALL about the economy!

Ahhh a tavern - i have waited for something like this.

But before i order something - one question.
Wouldn't it be better if we use the russian forum. They installed an english part extra for us and we could get some useful hints from them as well. (Furthermore you can make subtopics and have everything better organized than here.)

Now a wine please.

And onto the strategies.
I just started my first average shard and now the further provinces have better guards - noooo.
With the easy guards on the small and tiny shards economy wasn't a problem for me - i just conquered all provinces and that was it. Having only tier 1 units I mostly resort to the scout and the warrior with loads of bowman behind and than autocombat after level 5 or so for easy battles.
I honestly never had the need for the unicorns. On one shard my sharpshooter took out the order of the dragon on his own (well he had bowman as distraction) but then again i think he was level 28 and had uberitems (arrows that raised skellies - those were awesome).
So here are some questions.
What are the best item you have found yet.
Mine are those arrows, an awesome bow, part of the dragon set and parts of the unicorn set as well as almost the complete ages set.
Btw does anyone know the benefits of the different professions? It would be cool to build up a working knowledge base. So far I know this.
Scout-> lvl 10 Archer (pure scout route) and gets double shot (5 stamina)-> lvl 20 Sharpshooter and gets double shot (3 stamina) rather boring last benefit.
Warrior->lvl 10 Berserker (i think- well pure warrior route) and gets berserk level 3 or five ->lvl 20 Chieftain and gets level 8 (or so) berserker
Wizard -> lvl 10 Mage (pure wizard route) and his spells get stronger I think ->lvl 20 Archmage gets two casts per turn (seriously awesome and totally broken - summoning two golems or casting two fireballs in one turn is so hardcore)
Commander ->lvl 10 General (pure commander route) says his units get stronger but there are no number in the description -> lvl 20 Marshal the units get even stronger (so it says)

Well thats all I know - haven't tried out the mixed professions like Enchanter and Ringleader yet (well I had a lvl 28 master Enchanter once but forgot to look what he can do)
If anyone has more Info for us - feel free to share.
And again think about moving this to the original forum.

So far from me mr.Teach aka the Guardian goody ol'two shoes - believer in the good of human and follower of the law of karma (no not the karma working at the lusty leopard)

Where did my new post go?

Lost in eternal Ether, perchance?

Seems so...
What a pity. I will reply again and start making copies on Notepad.

Here's your wine, and the beer.
Anything else?

When you hit level 10 on a wizard, one of the options of multiclassing is called 'Necromancer' which is the multiclass with a scout. Since I was building my wizard all around undead and summoning imps I figured this was the natural choice. Nope!

It's really misleading because you will never be able to go beyond Necromancy or Summoning skills level 3 since you multiclassed into scout. So if you want to make any kind of serious wizard, including a summoner/necromancer, just stick with Wizard-Wizard class. Also being able to cast 2 spells a turn + have level 5 necro and summoning skills is way better than level 3 in each with a small reduction in crystal cost of the related spells.

One of the Scout advanced professions is called Adventurer and theoretically is Scout/Warrior combination. It gives the ability to instantly change weapons (or items I don't remember). While it sure gives a lot of versatility there are also better classes to go with.

There is also Ranger advanced profession which is Scout/Wizard class. In description it says that it gives you 'more and stronger spells' (or something in like). I've tried it few times and it's so-so. You can get on, when buffing your army/magic missiling enemy to death is preferable to old fashioned arrow rain.

Also at least I've got 2nd tier units! Monks, guardsmen and... assasins. I won't be using the last ones, but monks sure are nice. They heal, shoot magic misiles and have ability healer is lacking - to regenerate ammunition from the get go! Now only to conquer this shard with earth guild...

My best items come mainly from crystal quest - there were a lot of scout thingies - like crossbows and bows, also one halaberd for my warrior which made him pretty much unstoppable.

While I'm on the items topic does everybody remember that we can repair/restock our items in randoms shops strewn out on the shards? It sure saved my life many times when I was breaking my only bow...

I actually wish there was a setting for skirmishes where you could limit the number of heroes each team is allowed to get. Setting it low could make some multiclassing strategies much more viable I would think. The cost increase per hero does this sort of, but is a little strange as hero types you've already hired increase hugely after each hero purchase, whereas the ones you haven't don't increase too badly. It's actually not that expensive to get 4 heroes, 1 of each type, which makes the multiclassing options just not as useful in my opinion.

Interesting. Sounds very fun. Will have to try that someday.

I always make a Robin Hood kind of Type out of my Archer. Going for Ringleader (Leadership).
Early on I pick Scouting to search for Unicorns / Gargoyle Shops, and other recruitment centers.
Then I pick Logistics and Movement so that the troops don't cost that much (Unicorns are expensive, they seem to have a diet of solid gold) And with the advanced troop Movement I get bonuses on every terrain as well as fast Map travel with comes in Handy for my shock troopers.

hmmm i sticked to the pure versions until now because i want the skills on level 5 (for example another extra range from marksmanship is just tasty - also a scout with marksmanship archery and the skill that gives speed is practically invulnerable - he can move faster then the enemies can follow and still shoot them down because of his 4 movement point - the only downside is the limited number of shots he das - which sucks against bigger armies)
lately i developed a bigger love for commanders - on my last shard i got a legendary banner (the banner of unity - it gave tolerance +counterattack +defense and +5hp to everyone in the party ... i am not sure of the values for defense and counterattack and if it actually were those stats - but plus 5hp was awesome)
with a good banner and the pure commander way - units in his care are awesome - simple bowmen were stronger then pikeman under the command of another hero - throw in some rank 2 units (centaurs - love those - or horsemen archer) and you more or less can win against everything without casualties
my level 19 general cleared province guards without a loss where my lvl 27 sharpshooter lost his complete army - only because he has to stand behind an can only kill one per turn (well it was quick battle - so go figure)
i then even preferred my warrior over my scout - at least he ran in front and tanked everything (thanks to his 40% life leech sword he went out of every battle unscathed)
and another thing noticed since i now do a lot of quick battle and sometimes hit the wrong button - if you want your karma in a high place don't give your wizard necro magic - not even for emergencies - and then let him quick battle - the AI loves to cast raise skelly or other undead even if he has better spell available

and now a little question - was anyone able to clear an arena yet - even on novice i faced armies that had it slots filled with the appropriate units - so rank four in the rank four slot (and a hero with army plus phoenix was just to hard -especially after he casted polymorph on my hero -.-)
everything else I was able to kill - the minotaur labyrinth is rather easy (and if you search for the heart of the labyrinth you might get the chance to hire minotaurs)
lone dragons and hydras are boring with a high level scout and warrior (well i still play on beginner) and even the order of the dragon or titan is manageable - but those areans are just not possible for m right now

oh @kazper- do i read this right - can you get some skills up to level five with some of those mixed classes ?

No that was my mistake. I thought I had managed that, but now I'm pretty sure you are limited to level 3 skills for all multiclasses at all levels. That said the Warrior/Commander skills still complement well so it's not such a big deal for him. Maybe you can't get eg Athletics above 3 but then you can get Maneuvre (I think it is) instead to increase overland speed for the whole army.

But a lot of multiclasses seem weak due to this. Like Warrior/Wizard? Huh...

I'm gonna have to try a pure commander, but I never find any banners - except one single Shard where I found three! Those three are the only three banners I've found yet. That makes me a little worried about going Commander.

Also can I just brag a little about defeating Doh-Gor on his homeworld throwing that uppity barbarian into Chaos where he belongs :D Boy that felt good (but damn he expanded fast at Expert level - that was close).

good to clear that up

well i always find banners - most times also really awesome ones (the one with +3 to morale for the party is rather boring and i seem to get it on every shard)

may i ask which other masters you have encountered yet - i would like to know if they are predetermined or rather random as well

i have met Oniron (or so) first and now Beleth

btw i think Oniron has it right with his law of karma - i am rather good and for that i get bonus items from time to time

Hey there Astral People...

Another round?

Just started to play a completely new game on "Skilled"
While I managed to stay alive and dealt some serious damage, every turn was extraordinarily painful.
Second shard, no useful buildings, no useful province guards and my Heroes are always out of breath, those idiots. How can you kill the entire enemy army with your fighter if his stamina is exhausted after killing 3 units?

I don't like "skilled" difficulty yet. Back to beginner level.

Anyway, about those Arenas...

I found one arena where I actually beat the novice enemies. Some hydras, some cannon fodder nothing special...

But on another shard they where bringing in War Elephants in their Novice arena.

I think is has to do you with your Player level.
A low level player has easier enemies.

Observation: If an enemy hero is on a warpath towards the player's stronghold/regions, they tend to avoid neutral provinces (presumably because fighting through them would weaken their own army).

It looks like you can avoid conquering certain provinces to create chokepoints.