Favorite Strategy Tips

[blitz100]

In this thread I'd encourage people to add their favorite tips. Please number your tips so it will be easier for people to reference later on should someone wish to expand upon an idea.

1. Always try to fight only one enemy at a time unless the group's level is below yours. Use your map to find isolated or semi-isolated enemies then move close enough for only one or two to notice you and let them come to you. If you charge them, others might notice and you'll have a difficult time fighting all of them.

2. If a fight with tough multiple enemies is unavoidable, use special potions or items like the skull or bloodlust. If you know the group is too tough but they've already spotted you, send everyone back to town. Use your character to temporarily distract the monsters if your followers are near death.

3. One way to defeat tough enemies is to run circles around them. If done right, your followers get free attacks while the monster chases your character.

4. Another way to get free attacks is to temporarily give someone in your group who is far away like your healer a bow. This can provoke the monster to try and kill the archer. Many times it will be dead or nearly dead by the time it reaches the archer.

5. If one of your followers is hurt and the others aren't, give the hurt one your best armor/shield or maybe a bow to keep him alive and out of combat. If the follower is hurt badly, consider sending him back to town and picking him up later when he is fully healed.

[blitz100]

I've beaten the game at the highest difficulty settings 10+ times and played most of the characters. Usually I finish between 31-43 days and have a few scores over 120,000. Finishing the game quickly usually gives me a bonus of 3.5x-4.9x, but my subtotal is usually only 410-440.

6. Miscellaneous items
Some items like the bull horn and the highest level books for the doctor, alchemist, and inn keeper never get used up, but things like the weaker cookbook can get used up. The misc items for trappers or hunters last a lot longer than the items farmers and herders get to enhance food production. If you are running out of inventory space in town, get rid of items like bandages, cookbooks, snares and items of followers you'll never use. For example, you can't have both a necromancer and a high priest.

7. Food production
After playing the game a lot I can say that farmers are clearly the best food producers to add to your town even if you have access to wild game. I still might use multiple herders or trappers in town if I get a lot of good items for them. Remember you can always kick them out of town and demolish their home later in the game if you need to make room for your army of herbalists. Hunters have the highest food production rates if equipped with a very good bow and good misc item, but a farmer has a higher base production rate and the maximum isn't much lower. Also 4 upgraded farmers produce more food than 3 hunters equipped with the best gear and the required fletcher. The farmer is really easy and cheap to upgrade too. Another thing I like about farmers is that you can cheaply replace them with higher level farmers that visit. You'll never get a visiting hunter unless one dies and you don't demolish the building. When using the Gods of the Land prayer each of your food producing buildings gains a .5 food bonus to production.

[Azeem]

Here's some tips- :)

8. Place Guard Towers at the northwest corner of the settlement; raids seem to typically attack from that direction. Even when the Guards are dead, the Guard Towers' ballistas still function and can shoot bolts at enemy raiders.

9. If you get a Healer early on, train your healer a bit by equipping him/her with decent armor and melee weapons to boost stat levels faster. Even when Healers don't engage in direct combat, there's still a very dangerous risk of powerful splash damage from Dark Elf wizards so you would definitely want healers to be able to take at least some punishment. Higher Attack stat levels will also make the Healer far more efficient in the long run.

[Dylmani555]

10) Necromancers are Good!!
a) Get an acolyte
b) Upgrade to evil temple
c) Get Necro
d) Fire Dark preist
e) Demolish Evil temple
f) Get another Acolyte
g) Upgrade to Good temple
h)Equip Necro with lamp (Faster research) and set to researching
i) Get Good priest praying to God of mind (even Faster research)
j) After a few necro researches, equip necro with dark relic (Faster summoning) and change him to summoning.
k) I ended up with 3 skeletons, each with 30+ attack and defence!

[Handel]

Can some1 tell me w/o battles is the max lvl of the dragon pet equal to the lvl of the dragoneer?

[Dylmani555]

No, while the dragoneer is working (Not adventuring wit you) the dragon's level slowly goes up. As does its attack.

Eg. The first time I got a pet dragon, My dragoneer was level 7 but my dragon was level 51!

[Dylmani555]

Another tip

11)If your raider base is level 2 and the next lowest is level 6, don't take over the level 2 raider base until you can take on a level 6 base. In my experience, the higher the level of the raider base, the harder the raiders.

[Handel]

Another tip

11)If your raider base is level 2 and the next lowest is level 6, don't take over the level 2 raider base until you can take on a level 6 base. In my experience, the higher the level of the raider base, the harder the raiders.

But on my 1st game on hardcore there was a nearby low lvl base and the raiders were coming from it; i left it untouched but cleared the surrounding sites and suddenly the raiders started to come from another base and higher levels. So it seems to me the level of the raiders is connected to the level of the hero, not to the lowest available base.

[Tinkerbell]

But on my 1st game on hardcore there was a nearby low lvl base and the raiders were coming from it; i left it untouched but cleared the surrounding sites and suddenly the raiders started to come from another base and higher levels. So it seems to me the level of the raiders is connected to the level of the hero, not to the lowest available base.

I always wondered about this. Could it be revealing a new raider base makes them start coming? When still hidden, they are not used?

We would normally be at a higher character level when we expose the outer sites (unless we are hunting for treasure :D).

[Handel]

A question about the summons in the town - do they always defend the town or controller must be in "defend the town" mode or it doesn't matter?
For the dragon pet I observed it doesn't fight if the dragoneer is set to evade.

[Tinkerbell]

A question about the summons in the town - do they always defend the town or controller must be in "defend the town" mode or it doesn't matter?
For the dragon pet I observed it doesn't fight if the dragoneer is set to evade.

I think they have to be set on defend.

[Handel]

Question about replacing second proffession followers:
Is it possible directly to replace a killed second proffession follower or everytime the building must be demolished and upgraded at new?
If I have a basic proffession follower and an empty second proffession building is it possible to move and upgrade the follower there for the reduced price?

[Tinkerbell]

Question about replacing second proffession followers:
Is it possible directly to replace a killed second proffession follower or everytime the building must be demolished and upgraded at new?
If I have a basic proffession follower and an empty second proffession building is it possible to move and upgrade the follower there for the reduced price?

Not that I can tell. Perhaps the more experienced players have a solution for these that I haven't found yet.

[Handel]

Dont use this if you want a challenge - I started a game at new on "hardcore" coz it feels like cheating:)
So... on my previous game - normal, long and hardcore,long - I noticed there is at least 1 "free" chest with top gear slightly N from the center of the map. Running there is easy and once you grab it all the initial nodes up to lvl 3 (even maybe lv 4 depending on the gear) are a joke - you just need to run though them and to collect the loot.

BTW - do the pumpkins appear only with Tricksters?