Hardcore Mode

[Xarne]

This is the formula I follow:
Pick the Knight, best fighter class in the game imo.
Get a farmer, give him a hoe/fertilizer and upgrade his fields asap. All food problems resolved.
Upgrade to Manor, get an Innkeeper asap.
Get a merchant asap. Once you have these 3 in place, thats like 75% of the game won right there. The rest of the game you can play how you like but I always go:
Hunter (never trapping, always with me and bow equipped, right til end game)
Herder (only for the +1 to town really, the extra food is nice too. The dragon ranch thing takes *way* too long to develop and by the time you get the egg, you'll have a plethora of well developed chars).
Herbalists are your top priority next, but until they show up in town, get craftsmen. I get 3 of them, convert the first to fletcher so I can make my trapper a hunter (are hunters better with bows?). The next two will get converted to amorer and weaponsmith - have them research til maxed, then go right to selling.
In between the herbalists/craftsmen an acolyte usually shows up, grab them and convert to darkside asap.
Herbalists- get 3 (me, I get 5) first one gets converted to alchemist (for town quality) then research and sell items. The rest get converted to docs asap.
So while this is all going on, your Knight is the man, he'll solo all the level 1 and level 2 areas himself during the times you cant spare the manpower.
Your hunter goes out with you, then prolly the fletcher until you get the acolyte (or at least until they go dark, then they are pretty much a prayer machine - I recommend the prayer that gives you a weapon a day, they drop some really nice ones)...ctd.

[Chaosegg]

Hardcore, medium length, no map, requests on, and raids on.

It took me about 10-15 tries, but I finally beat it using a Journeyman.
WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD



I used a similar strategy. Though with these differences A, B, and C.

A. Trappers: I did uses Trappers to adventure sometimes early game, but in defense of town I just equiped my highest level people to help defend. Trappers(Hunters) ARE quite valuable for having dual purpose; ranged attack and food production, but when you can afford them, Guards(Archers) are better for adventuring I found since they have a bow speed bonus.
This particular game I didn't get a game forest to upgrade to Hunters for a long long time though so I tried something different.

B. Herbalist(Doc): I only got one and generally just heal potion farmed from him... my strategy was altered by fact I couldn't get a bloody herb patch forever, so I had to use my Acolyte and luck of potion drops for a long time.

C. Craftsman(armor/weapon/fletch): I played it safe (because of the lack of herbalist for pots) and generally let the Craftsman produce items and used/passed them out till I had enough of the best things they could produce, did pretty much same for the upgraded buildings, though by then I was getting some nice loot drops so set them to selling after a bit.
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For traits/attributes I generally went with Attack when in doubt, though I threw defense and health in every 3rd or 4th choice. I always pick the observant trait for extra loot money as SOON AS YOU SEE IT.
The others seemed to be fairly useless, other than the regenerate anywhere one.

My strategy for most of the game was to be a melee meat-shield with weapon + shield while my healer and/or ranged guys did some damage from the back (so I don't have to worry as much about their armor, nor heal them instead of myself since I lose if I die, and they don't get in my way), though if they get attacked I usually always try to kill whatever is attacking my party (not attacking me) first.

Basically I hired in this approximate order:
1. Food producers- Hire first Herder, Farmer, or Trapper I come across, but Only have 1 Herder max, and if I get two of either Farmer or Trapper I go for only one of the other. As Xarne said, upgrade your farm as much as you can, it is worth doing... I didn't get dragon egg till WAY after I might have needed it, and trapper/hunter doesn't produce all that much food.

2. Craftsman- or two is next (eventually 3), though get number 3. before going for Fletcher, Smith (straight) to Armorer and Weaponsmith, and eventually Archers to adventure with.

3. Goodman- (hostel to get merchant up and running), and it's o.k. to get this before Craftsmans. Always upgrade your Hostel or Inn as long as your food supply is stable... more choices on visitors is key.

This gets your food and income fairly secure for adventuring a bit though you're still not out of the fire; you need healing potions!

4. Acolyte (Light Priest)- to follow you around healing, and auto-heal all towns peoples at same time when under attack
Herbalist (Doctor)- can follow you around healing you like Acolyte/Light Priest so you can get him first if he comes up, but his most important function is he makes healing potions.
I always have both Doc and Priest. I generally keep Doc at home turning out potions soon as I can, and then haul my Priest around adventuring.

[Xarne]

Thats a good solid strategy. It may be considered cheating, but I reload my maps until I have at least my water source and herb patch within at least 2 clicks from town (ya I know I could dig a well or plant an herb patch, but thats a lot of money that could be spent upgrading buildings).
I tried to keep doc/herb buildings down to 1 or two and keep them farming pots but I noticed that:
No matter what 3 adventurers you take (except hunter with bow speed) everyone will do well as long as they are geared up enough. With that said, I really started on that '3 healer rotation' and I have to say its amazing (they are melee geared in the fights, you have 3 magic wands/staffs for the post-battle). You run in, mow everything down, within 10 secs afterwards, everyone is full health.
I used to gear up my townsfolk with all the leftover gear, and on the lower difficulty settings its alot of fun to watch them go nuts on the raiders. But when you get into the higher settings, those raid parties are up there in levels and it only takes a few swings on one merchant/herb all by himself to come back to a town of dead people/empty buildings. What I do instead is make sure I secure the portals so that I can beat the raiders to town from anywhere on the map.
There is no right way or wrong way though to play this game, and the replayability is freaking amazing. I still stand true to the farmer, inkeeper, merchant rule. With those 3 in town you can pretty much play the game anyway you want and at any pace.
One other thing good about the 3 healer group is that it gives your dragoneer and necro time to build up there pets, and let me tell you - for endgame (last 5 or 6 regions) having yourself, a level 9 doc, a level 8 necro, 3 level 17 minions, and that dragon is niiiice.

One little trick that I do because you dont get the egg til so late in the game is, when the time is right I'll put 2 docs back into town and bring the necro and dragoneer out with me. Then I'll run in to get initial aggro, but let my party attack with the fastest weapons available. Withing 4-5 fights my level 2 dragoneer and necro are almost level 5-6. After 2 cleared out regions its like they've been with me from the beginning.

[Chaosegg]

Nice. Ya my last 2 games have been 23k (journeyman) and 20k (trickster) points at end. Basically same strategy with the portal control being key. I always go back to help, but get a couple watchtower and archers more than i need to take with me as extra town insurance.

Important to note that faster weapons let you level your attack skill up faster, and obviously more armor means you can sit there leveling defense up more. (sort of like Elder Scrolls games)

Also pumpkin farmer is amazing at letting you spam exploding pumpkins on groups... it absolutely owns.

It's definately all about some gear, but more about defense rating... and yeah if you get the global healer guys its pretty sweet.

[Xarne]

I always set those pumpkins directly to sell because they didnt seem very powerful but:
I didnt know they were AOE, nice
Do they scale with the user's level attack power?
I play large, hardcore and I can never get my score out of the high teens low 20s (cause of my exposed map I bet)

[bundmeistr]

I've been playing as the Outlaw with Map Not Revealed and Not all Resources, the difficulty rating is 4.95
My townsfolk is as follows:
2 Farmers
3 Herders
3 Trappers
3 Craftsmen
Innkeeper
Merchant
Acolyte
Priest/Necro depending on what I find first
Fortune Teller
Bard - if I find an instrument
3 Guards which I take with me all the time
The rest are Herbalists/Docs which I have create healing potions. By the time I get to the hard enemy sites I have over 50 healing potions and I can't be stopped. I now have several scores in the 80,000+ Range

[Damaggott]

I played Outlaw as well, hardcore, not all resources, unexplored, and raids active. I just solo'd the local monsters and bought food producers (almost entirely farmers) until my food output was positive. From then on I added every other food producer to my party until I had three (always a farmer, if possible, as they're the cheapest to hire and the cheapest to replace) and I told every food producer I hired to defend the city. I didn't upgrade my farms; it's just as cheap to hire another farmer (cheaper, actually--it saves you from upgrading your house) and one more farmer means one more pitchfork to either bring with you or defend against raids. Those extra pitchforks were the reason I survived, in fact. (I got zerged twice by a level two base right next to my town--a giant spider, numerous smaller spiders and a dark elf wizard each time, all level 2 or 3. At the end of the second one I had like four hit points left and no potions. Imagine what would have happened if I hadn't had six hapless peasants stabbing the spiders and serving as meatshields for me...) This strategy worked pretty well, considering it won the day and it was my first try at hardcore. I would recommend the outlaw over the other combat classes because of the gold bonus. You need it so you can fill out your party with cannon fodder as quickly as possible. And if you don't have four guys in your party yet, kick out any visitor who costs more than 15 gold. Kicking up the infrastructure for inns, potions, merchants and so forth is murderously expensive on hardcore just because gold is so risky to obtain; you'll need to have a party that's already seen combat and is ready for more before you'll be able to get the money to pony up for an herbalist, assuming you had the rare fortune to be near an herb field.

As I see it, the top priorities on hard and hardcore are first to fill in your party, then get a healer. Note that both herbalists and acolytes cast healing spells, and an herbalist will heal a lot more damage in combat than he would staying home and making potions. If you see an acolyte, nab that sucker and stick him in your party--they're solid gold. In fact, if you're worried that your character might not survive an upcoming fight, it can be worth it to stick two healers in. Don't upgrade the acolyte until you have plenty of other healing classes to replace him.

Since gold is dangerous to obtain you've also got to play what you've got and intentionally avoid playing what you don't have or don't need. If you have no iron, use your smiths to make armor only until everybody's got a basic set and your party has helmets; after that stick them on cash production. There's no point in importing iron if you're going to be equipping your whole town with dropped equipment by the time you can afford it. If you get iron early, on the other hand, take advantage of it. Likewise, if you get a fortune teller but no wizard, upgrade the fortune teller to get trinkets. If you get a wizard, there's no point in using the fortune teller; amulets of power are better, and in my experience a wizard is no better in combat than a well-equipped farmer. (The term "glass cannon" comes to mind.) In fact, I've almost always done better with farmers than almost any other class. The best part is, if you lose a level 7 farmer, you can replace him for 15-20 gold. Losing a level 7 Necromancer is going to cost you 300.

Also, the Cat God is your friend.

Edit: Ruthless eviction is also your friend. Got a level 1 farmer in your town and a level 7 farmer is visiting? Send your level 1 packing and add the 7 to your party. This applies to any class, but is most cost-effective with farmers.

[Xarne]

I've been playing as the Outlaw with Map Not Revealed and Not all Resources, the difficulty rating is 4.95
My townsfolk is as follows:
2 Farmers
3 Herders
3 Trappers
3 Craftsmen
Innkeeper
Merchant
Acolyte
Priest/Necro depending on what I find first
Fortune Teller
Bard - if I find an instrument
3 Guards which I take with me all the time
The rest are Herbalists/Docs which I have create healing potions. By the time I get to the hard enemy sites I have over 50 healing potions and I can't be stopped. I now have several scores in the 80,000+ Range

why do you need all those food producers? 1 farmer with a plantation and a hoe practically feeds the entire town by himself, I only get a herder cuase of the + to town quality and for the last 25 mins of any game when I finally get an egg (they need to let you recover that egg way sooner). The trapper is immediately upgraded to hunter and is in my party the entire game with a bow. with 1 farmer and the herder doing his thing for the 1st half of the game I my end games have well over 800-900 food, and I use the knight (low food production).