Hi,

can anybody give me some general advices about how to beat this game?

I haven’t beaten the game yet, but after messing around with it for a few hours I have some tips that might help.

Morkin can’t hide, so he needs to be with some combat capable units if he goes north (I got him killed many times before I gave up trying to go north too early). I guess you can try and outrun the enemy armies with him, but visibility ranges are so limited in the mountain areas that you’ll likely stumble on an army at some point and not have time to flee. I found that with a friendly army he can flee while the other guy fights the enemy army, or just stay and help if not outnumbered by too much.

As far as I can tell the only characters that can hide are the Fey and Mage you start with (forget their names). So once the enemy armies charge south they are your best bet for finding and recruiting any surviving characters up north. Neither one appears able to recruit armies so I guess that’s their sole purpose in game to run around and get other characters into play.

The enemy comes south fast, so run east with Luxor right away, don’t stop to search stuff. He can recruit the blood guy as he goes east but don’t mess around in front of the pass area or he gets over-run. Out east he can recruit troops and activate a lot of leaders before the enemy arrives. Once he’s got that done he needs to get consolidated with your other armies to help mitigate the ice fear that’s building up.

By about turn 6-10 you should have most of your garrison troops along the front lines pulled into your characters armies, they are too small to hold out on their own so beef up the mobile forces with them.

Then pick a spot and try and consolidate your forces at a strong defensive location. I had too few guys when I tried so next time I’ll pull everyone I can together. The enemy armies just keep piling on as the battle drags on from turn to turn, so you need a huge force to kill off enough of his troops to prevent being overwhelmed. I’m guessing keeps are the best defensive terrain, but mountains might be good too, I don’t know.

I tried to hold all my big citadels, I think that was a mistake. There are just too many enemy armies, so I think next time I’ll evacuate as much strength as I can and only try and hold a few large citadels far to the south. Once I destroy a large chunk of his attacking forces then I can try and retake some stuff.

Thanks for the advice so far.

Be prepared to write off a few games while you get used to recruitment routes. Speedy recruitment is key for long term military success.

And finding out where to find the Cup of Dreams can really speed things up. I think I was able to recruit Gard on day 2 using the optimal route.

I am curious ... is there like a tried and tested way to beat the game every time? When I saw the term "optimal route", got me thinking. Or is the gameplay dynamic? The enemy AI is able to counter our actions?

You can beat the game every time by destroying the ice crown around day 10, if you know where to go. You just need Morkin to go at the right places, and hide the rest of three starting characters and forget about them.

Think where there is a recruitable character needed for destroying the crown, and where the location of the crown is. You can go that route with Morkin, avoiding wild creatures, in 9-10 days maximum.

But it isn't fun to win the game that way. Gathering a huge army and grinding through Doomdark's hordes is much more satisfying.

There are three characters and one location that can destroy the ice crown. You can find info about them in towers across the realm (as well as location of various lords). Depending the medhod using optimal routes it takes between 9-14 days. However this requires knowledge of the location the ice crown, ways to destroy it and where you can find Cup(s) of Dreams along the way, things player should not know on their first playthru.

To get an almost sure path to victory, one needs to know the places of Cups of Dreams and Waters of Life; and of course where the several Lords lye.
Try to recruit as fast as you can; then put the troops on key positions, because moving takes energy/health.
it's very dangerous to try destroy the Ice Cup early, because Morkin must find it,cannot hide and any troops in the same
plot he is suffer greatly from ice fear.
But Morkin must go towards north to make ice fear softer.
Atack in the plains of Blood to gain time to recruit. Then choose the right time to retire toward SE to make enemy
split his forces, rest and attack again.

(Of course I assume this game is the same of Spectrum's times, not sure as I can't make it work).

Well in my next attempt I’ve learned a few things more to add. First off pick two locations to defend not just one. I had everyone head to one citadel in the far south and when they all arrived it turns out they can’t all fit into one location. I don’t know if stacking limits are based on the number of characters or the total number of soldiers in your armies, the game gives you no clue at all what the issue is, it just won’t let anyone else enter the location. It would have been nice if the manual had mentioned stacking limits somewhere.

So now I’m stuck with one large army inside the citadel and another about half as large right behind it in clear terrain. I tried to get into another keep nearby but everything is in enemy hands and I was getting mobbed from all sides so have fallen back to the single citadel to see if I can use the smaller army to replace losses as the hordes swarm the last remaining citadel.

I sent Morkin north and gathered a small army to him of about 2,000-3,000 strength up there. He also has all the characters who can’t recruit troops with him now, but it turns out I sent him north too soon still. His army isn’t large enough to take any enemy keeps and when I tried to get his army back into a friendly keep that the enemy controls I’ve found the small enemy garrison of 250 is enough to keep them out.

Ice fear prevents his armies from attacking anything now and most of the time they can’t move either, so it was pointless to go north without Luxor and his ring. So now they are dead ducks if a large army comes along and catches them. I’ve been thinking about simply abandoning the small army and running off to the hills with Morkin, but I guess I’ll wait until the enemy armies swarm in and engage first.

One thing this game needs desperately is notations on the detail map for locations you have visited already and searched. There are far too many locations to recall where you’ve been before, so it gets frustrating to search somewhere only to realize you visited it dozens of turns before. It would also be nice if you were not forced to use a location’s item when you find it. Otherwise the game is a blast.

I don't recall any stacking limits of the original, but maybe I didn't put enough lords and soldiers into Xajorkith.

As for Morkin, I think the Ice Fear is much stronger in the one square he occupies than in the surrounding ones, so you could put him behind your army to reduce the Ice Fear on the soldiers.

Also, 2000 soldiers should be more than enough to take a keep garrisoned by 250 Doomguards. Sounds like the battle calculations, or the effects of the Ice Fear or fortifications, may have been reworked for the remake. The effects of fortifications were hardly noticeable and the effects of the Ice Fear not very dramatic in the original, so if they have been tweaked that is a good thing IMO.

There seems some be some bugs with the game. A notable one is the missing description if a lord of an army is beyond than utterly tired I guess, the description stopping after "is ." Then I couldn't get a group of lords to attack all at once because one or another in the group could not perform the action, but if I split the group, I could attack with all the lords, one at a time.

Maybe one of the lords were "utterly tired" and could not move?

But after I have split them from the group, I could attack with all of them.

I'm wondering if it works to put all charakters together and build one huge army. I think I'll try that in my next run.

In my current run I made a mistake. My armies are split up far away from each other. Morkin is dead, Luxor stands in the East with no army, surrounded by enemy armys and my remaining two armys are in the far west. :-/

So I hid Luxor in the woods and now he has to wait until my other two armys come to help him. He can't move in any direction.