A handful of hints

The most important hint - do not approach without a sturdy stick.

1. Find your favorite race. The best thing to do is play through several scenarios witheach one, to find out which one suits you best and which one you had the most positivefeelings with. Thanks to this, you will max out on your effectiveness, both in thedevelopment of the Empire and combat, and also you will enjoy the game more, becauseit is way better to play as the character that you know and like.

2. The same goes for the class, whose influence on the game is also great, especially asfar as research and spells, available for the leader, are concerned. Various race-classcombinations ensure different bonuses; thanks to experimenting, you may find acombination that will make you indestructible. The selection that you make should bedefined by your playing style, e.g. if you prefer a defensive game, the Theocrat is a goodchoice, where Warlord or Dreadnought is a good option of offensive players.

3. Explore the map - it is imperative that you discover as much of the map as possible,before your opponents do, collect more resources and defeat independent parties,thanks to which your units will gain some experience and the cities will be allowed to

develop freely, after you have cleared the structures of the unwanted units.

4. Take care of your leaders - in most cases, losing them is irreversible and it takes sometime, after all, to level up a leader and obtain equipment for him. Make sure that he doesnot roam about the map all by himself, because he is an easy target then.

5. You should also ensure good relationships with the independent cities, which aregoing to task you with various missions. After you complete some of them, you willreceive new units, gold, sometimes some items and, in some cases, that city may joinyou. If you do not worry about your karma, you can easily attack that city but, this isconnected with the loss of karma and potential losses in battle.

6. If you control Dwelling you can profit from that, in a certain way. The available unitsare quite expensive but, they stand out with useful skills and good statistics.

7. You should make sure that your army is heterogeneous and that there are manyvarious units in it, best if they inflict different types of damage. This will allow you to usetheir skills, in battle, to the fullest and ensures higher maneuverability in the battlefield.

8. Remember to do everything that you want to do, before the end of the round - so,select a research, the buildings that you want to erect or the units that you want torecruit. Also, you should remember to use the movement points, available for the units,and move them on the strategic map.

9. At least to some extent, it is worthwhile to learn about the skills of units, the availableclass-dependant researches and spells. This will enable toy to select better tactics andselection of the army, while fighting a representative of a given class and race.

10. Save the game often. This will allow you to replay your battles, in the case ofdisadvantageous results, and to replay the key moments in different ways, if they fail toserve their purpose.

The beginning of the game

The future of your Empire depends on how you start off.

Appropriate beginning is half the success. At the beginning, regardless of the scenario,race and class that you have selected, you need to attend to several things, which willhelp you gain the upper hand. These are several things that you need to take care of,since the beginning of the first turn.

1. Join a hero. At the beginning of the game, there are going to be various heroes to wantto join your army. It is a good idea to capture this opportunity and extend special careover those heroes, ensure them with proper guards and also try them out in the battles atthe beginning, for clearing the structures and in fights against the Independent teams, tolet them raise their statistics, just by a bit, and gain some useful items.

2. Select your mission. From the very beginning, you should ensure better upgrades,which will be useful at that moment. Remember that, if you choose no research, theresearch points are lost. A bad idea is to lose your leader in the initial battles - then, theprogress in research will e halted, until the leader respawns. Also, you will not be able tocast spells then.

3. Discover as much of the map as you can. Dispatch units in every possible direction,

the best ones are those with lots of movement points and skills to decrease the cost ofmoving over various terrain types. This will allow you to collect the nearby mineraldeposits, free upgrades for the city and research points. The knowledge about the nearbycities and the location of enemies is soon prove to be a key in the foreseeable future.

4. Clear the areas around your Throne City. What is meant here is the structures thatspawn all sorts of opponents. This will ensure you steady development, your units willgain some experience and your leaders may find some interesting item.

5. Ensure the development of the city and expand its defenses. Try to build, as fast aspossible, buildings that provide production points and barracks which will ensure youwith better units. Also, a wooden wall will come in handy, which ensures someadvantage, in the case of an enemy onslaught.

6. Complete the missions tasked to you by the independent cities and Dwellings.Usually, they are not difficult and they only consist in defeating the opponent. As areward, you will receive gold, units and sometimes, that city may even join you. This is amuch cheaper option than "buying" an independent city and it is the scarcity of gold thatyou will have to worry about, at the beginning of the game.

7. Try to rebuild the destroyed city, to the extent possible. This is a much better ideathan to start a new city from the scrap. If this is not a possible option, remember tofound a city where there are many structures that ensure various bonuses.

8. Start recruiting your units. Each unit takes some time to be created. The earlier youstart, the earlier your army will grow stronger. Also, you should remember about theconstant expansion of cities. If you are not at war, with anybody, at the moment, you candecrease the ratio of recruitment but, you should still conduct it, until you reach thenumber of units that satisfies you. Peace is never long-lasting and the opponent, who iscoming your way is rarely amicable. You should always keep the Roman phrase "Si vispacem, para bellum" in mind.