There's certain genres that I just don't understand. I played RTS for a lot of years before I grew to actually like them. I still haven't gotten into real old-school rogue-like, space combat sims, bullethell and lots of others.

Also, I have never been able to get into Kings Bounty: Crossworlds. So I bought Braveland and Braveland Wizard because it looked like an über-casual introduction to the genre. And boy, is the game casual or what! Totally vanilla overdose. But despite this, I still don't understand this thing. Sometimes I get slaughtered, and I have no idea what I did wrong.

The thing which seems most alien to me is the way an attack results in a counter-attack. In all other game, attacking is something which hurts the enemy. But here, there doesn't seem to be any difference between attacking or being attacked. Or is there any advantage to be the one attacking? Or is it always better to just use Defend, if you know the enemy squad will attack later?

This genre - whatever it's called - does it have any basic strategies I should know of?

Each of my squards has a star-number. I guess it is higher the number, the more awesome your squad is? Or is it their experience points?

My notes so far:

At each turn, each of your squads can either:
- Walk all the way to the furtherest, semi-selected hexagon
- Walk and then perform an action (attack, shield or other)
- Walk several times until your steps is used up and then perform an action (attack, shield or other)
- Perform an action (attack, shield or other)

Your "Hero" doesn't participate in the battle himself. Still, the stuff he carries around gives bonuses.

Press the upper left question mark to toogle between viewing how far your current squad can move, and seeing detailed info of each squad. (how much life lost and a yellow number representing who's next to get his move - extremely useful)

Right click on enemies to see their stats.

Try to think of your figures as squads, not as single fighters. So instead of thinking that you have an archer with 3 life points, think that you have a squad of 3 archers.

Normally, a squad automatically fights back when attacked. But not when attacked twice in the same turn.

Only a few shortcuts:
Space = Shield (30% defence boost)
W = Skip squad to the end of the turn

I have played alot of this style of game so Braveland so far has been incredibly simple for me. I actual bought it during the summer sale as I though my young daughter might like it and I could introduce her to this kind of gameplay.

One thing Braveland did a poor job of was to have a tutorial for newer players. It just kind of throws you in and hopes you can piece it together along the way. I will try and explain some useful tips for playing.

Most things can be clicked on to give you some simple info about it. During battle you can press the "?" button in the upper corner and then something else to get some info about it.

Don't rush into battle. Use the hourglass button to wait and let your ranged troops wear down the enemy. The hourglass only makes them wait, they don't lose their turn for the round. So a fast unit that waits can go at the end of a round and at the start of the next round.

Every unit gets one retaliation attack per round. So it's best to have everyone attack the same target. If you have 3 melee squads and they all attack the same enemy squad then the first one that attacks will take the retaliation and the other 2 get attacks without fear of getting hit back.

However many soldiers are in a stack impacts how much damage that unit can deal out. For example, if you have 10 archers and they all do 4-5 points of damage. When they attack they will do 40-50 points of damage minus any defense the enemy stack has. If you click on an enemy unit you can see their defenses.

Also as units take damage they slowly lose members of their squad. For instance if the archers take 60 points of damage they will lose 2 archers and their next attack will only do 32-40 points of damage. That's why it's better to completely kill of an enemy unit so it can't damage you anymore. Even if it only had 1 health left it will still do full damage.

Your hero only leads the army, he doesn't go into battle himself but instead gives bonuses to every unit in the army.

Make sure to use your rage abilities!

Hope that helps, if you have other questions or need clarification just ask.

For some reason I didn't notice your reply until now. Anyway, thanks for your tips! The lack of handholding is a curios thing. It's a casual game, but aimed at 'hardcore' gamers who are already familiar with the genre. The casual style makes me feel kinda foolish for not acing it on the first, second and third try.

I kind of like the games non-epic, casual style. The atmosphere is so relaxed and laid-back. It reminded me a bit of the tower defence rpg DEFENDERS QUEST.

I just gave it another go, and I think I have gotten over the newbie hurdle! One super basic trick I found: left click outside the hexagon field to see life points and turn order.

Something else I figured out a night or two ago is that the crossed swords over enemies seem to denote how difficult they will be to defeat. It appears the green aura around the swords is easy, yellow is average and red is hard. If it has skulls it seems to be very difficult, sometimes to hard for you defeat I noticed. I had to continue the game and come back to some areas because they were quite hard.

I will have to try left clicking outside the hexagon. I was currently pressing the question mark in the upper corner to show that info but that had seemed like a poor way to do it.

I only recently got the Pirates addition to this series. I have never tried any previous games from the same series.
I find it much fun but that's not what I am posting this. In case you don't know, at least in this Pirates game, you can to also have control of your main character. I don't know how things are with the previous ones but from what you said I assume you never see your main character on the battlefield. Well, here you do. :)

Interesting, you are correct the last two games your units fight on the battlefield but your hero doesn't. I haven't gotten a chance to get the newest one yet. If your hero dies do you auto lose? Or is he/she revived if your units can win the battle?

Either way braveland wizard has a much better learning curve then the first one. Playing the second one you actually get some info on whats going on and how to use stuff instead of guessing like in the first one. I figure the third one also improved on that, which should be nice.

If your hero dies on the battlefield, the rest of the units keep fighting. IF all your units die, including your hero, you lose the battle.
At the end of the battle, if you have enough gold, all your units get revived. If you don't have enough gold, then only those you can afford get revived.
The learning curve doesn't feel bad, at least on hard difficulty, but I am usually very good in strategy games (I play them since the 80s).
You can get information on units by either clicking on small ? on them or by right clicking on them.
At no point does it feel like the game is withholding information from you.
If you want, I have started another thread in this forum about a Let's Play I started, you can check it for more details.

the biggest problem i found was that the tutorial forces you to make bad choices.