Starting a new game.

When you start a new game, the strategy you will have to use depends very much on
the options you select and the choices you make.  The map-size, difficulty, number of
opponents, they are all important matters.  The strategies described below should work
on a hard or expert difficulty setting but not at the impossible difficulty (since that's
practically impossible indeed)


 Small Maps.

In small maps, speed is essential.  The more opponents you have, the more important
it is.  If you select an expert or impossible difficulty rating, you have a big problem in a
small map. (especially with no subterranean level and many opponents) When you are
unexperienced, start small maps at normal/hard difficulty and 2-4 opponents.


The Warrior Strategy.

This is the fastest way to start a new game and the best strategy for smaller maps/
several towns.  This strategy is designed to surprise and overwhelm one or more
opponents with multiple heroes in the early game and to swarm out after this.

     First Week:

Buy a second hero on the first day.  If you can recruit another good hero, do so.  In
fact, recruit any available heroes that give you gold or other resources or heroes with
the Estates secondary skill.  Build some creature generators with powerful offensive
creatures and recruit these.  Pick up as many loose resources as you can.  When
opening treasure chests, always take the gold.  Attack weaker groups of wandering
creatures protecting nice artifacts and resources.  Try to locate an enemy town and
build a citadel by the end of the week. (and a castle if you have enough money)

     Second Week:

Use one of your heroes (or recruit a new one) to buy the available creatures to reinforce
the armies of your (other) heroes since they will start attacking the enemy town(s).
Destroy any hostile heroes you encounter and take any nearby towns.  If the town-type
matches your previous town, start building in the new town as well.  If the town is of a
different type, build a city hall to improve your income. This fresh town should give your
heroes a kick-start that makes another conquest possible.  When you see you are
rapidly running out of creatures (your armies suffer losses as well), start building
creature generators in newly acquired towns.  Try to have a castle in your starting town
by the end of this week and at least a city hall too.

     Late Game:

Continue to rage across the land (with multiple heroes if you can afford it) and burn
everything in your path!  Don't be frightened when an opponent can obtain one of your
towns.  Just try to get it back before the end of the week.  The advantage in gold and
creatures you have (by the many towns you own) should make it easy to win now.

     Problems with The Warrior Strategy:

There are some towns that do not allow to start at a great speed or are too expensive.
Sometimes you start finding your path blocked by 'legions' of heavy creatures
restricting the movement of your heroes and making any fast progress impossible.
You could also start a map and discover that you are surrounded by enemy towns, this
leaves your town extremely vulnerable to attacks when you are off attacking one of the
opponent towns.  In all of these cases, the Warrior Strategy is unapplicable.  It takes
some time to master this strategy, as with all other strategies.  When first attempting
to use it, you might experience 'Burn-outs'. (situations where you run out of resources/
creatures too fast and have to slow down your attacks) It can also occur that you
encounter an opponent that has grown too strong to crush.  In that case, first deal with
the other opponents, combine your armies and destroy him/her last of all.


Medium Maps.

As in small maps, speed is still important but army size and hero-levels matter as well.
After the early game, the game slows down and another strategy is required.


The Explorer Strategy.

The Explorer Strategy is all about finding a fit balance between building and exploring.
The use of magic is an important part of this strategy.

     Early Game:

Try to secure nearby mines as soon as possible. (especially wood and ore mines)
Buy another hero if you have some terrain to explore. (if your path isn't blocked on all
sides) That hero gives his/her army to your other hero that will become your main hero.
Slay creatures guarding valuable resources or other treasures, but keep your losses
low!

     First Week:

The things you should build in the first week are: a town hall, a citadel, a castle and 4
different creature generators. (no upgrades yet!)

     Second Week:

Somewhere in week 2 you should get stuck, being unable to move further with
whatever small army you possess.  This is where the fastest part usually ends.  You
will have to make up your mind about what to build or do next.  There are two things
you can do:
  1. If you see that you could break out with a little more army, then do buy some
  troops and clear out the monsters blocking your way.  Your building will slow down
  for some time by the loss of gold needed to recruit creatures, but the fresh flow of
  resources from the new area will even accellerate your building speed.
  2. If there is no way of getting out without losing a substantial part of your army then
  stay settled and build.  If you have been through step 1 and you are stuck just yet,
  then building is also what you should get doing right now.  It is very important to have
  creature generators for level 6-7 creatures by the end of week 2.  Be careful on how
  to spend your resources, so that you don't build something that prevents you from
  building something more powerful.

     Third Week and following:

What you need most now is money, so go for a capitol as soon as you can.  After
that, you can start upgrading creature generators. (first those for the creatures that
will probably compose your army) By the end of week 3/the beginnning of week 4
you should have enough creatures and money available to buy a small army.  First
buy whatever aid you can get. (first aid tent, ammo cart) Build a level 1 or even a
level 2 Mage Guild and a spellbook. (if you don't already have those) Now it is time to
build your main army.  You need 3 types of creatures in this army:
  1. Fast strong offensive 'cavalry'-type creatures (usually level 5-7) with a lot of
  healthpoints and with a nice amount of damage.
  2. Quite a large group of ranged attackers. (level 2-6)
  3. 'Kanonenfleisch' (level 1-2), fast creatures able to deal quite some damage but
  relatively low on healthpoints in huge amounts.  They are meant to keep the enemy's
  ranged attackers busy.

     Mid- and Late Game:

You should start exploring the map at this time. (preferably in circles around your 
town, so that a quick return is possible) Your town should near completion, so there
is more money available for buying creatures.  Your main hero will return several
times to reinforce and will gain levels and learn skills.  Recruit a second hero (if you
have only one hero) and place him/her in the garrison of your town.  This hero will
permanently defend the town. (with slow, sturdy creatures you are not using in your
main army) If you have the luck to have the town portal-spell, then you could even
do without a second hero.  As you explore further, you will soon discover that other
heroes have often wandered far away from their home town too, and they often have
a far inferior town-defense than you have.  Destroy any heroes you encounter but
avoid dangerous battles with wandering creatures during the mid game.  The fact
that you don't split up your army limits your mobility and influence (only one hero
against many) but the power of your army is godlike when compared to the enemy
armies.  Soon you will have 2-3 towns under your control.  This might be a good time
to build out one or more of the conquered towns and to recruit a new hero with a
new army.  With 2 armies it should be pretty easy to take out your adversaries one
by one.  It is very important that you take out your foes one by one.  If you start
weakening 2 or 3 enemies at the same time, another opponent may take advantage
of the situation, conquer all of their towns and become incredibly powerful.  Once
you have 1/2 of all the towns, the game is almost won.  You are allowed to take
greater risks, you can recruit new wandering heroes to easily corner the remaining
enemy heroes and to speed things up.

     Problems with The Explorer Strategy:

There is only one true problem.  When you are unable to get enough resources of the
types you need (in the early game) and you are unable to build out your town, you are
in deep trouble and should consider a more Warrior-like strategy to start with until
you have obtained the necessary resources.  Another starting situation could include
the problem of imprisonment. (surrounded by large numbers of powerful wandering
creatures) In this case, you better start with a more Builder-like strategy.


Large Maps.

Large maps start pretty much like medium maps, but there are some major differences.
Extra large maps and sometimes medium maps (with a large subterranean level) can
be regarded as large maps.


The Builder Strategy.

     Early Game:

The Builder Strategy starts with the 'Early Game'-part of the Explorer Strategy and
after that, things change.  Do start exploring around your town with your main hero,
but make sure to build out your town before wandering off too far.  Sometimes it is
better to leave a group of wandering creatures there, when they are blocking a 
passage to your town serving as some kind of buffer for enemy heroes.  In this
strategy, the key to victory is the creation of a superhero.  Choose your main hero
wisely.  You may already have a level 2-3 hero, but if you can recruit a hero with
better secondary skills/a better specialty, continue with the new hero.  Unless you
can recruit a really nice hero, keep on playing with a level 4+ hero, though.  This
superhero should do most battles and keep the best artifacts.

     Mid Game:

This is the hardest part of this strategy and may take a serious while to get through.
You need a main hero and perhaps 1-3 followers. (their supportive tasks are picking
up loose resources and visiting mills, water wheels...) Your main hero does all the
battles and rushes back to town if it is going to be attacked.  By the time you have
captured the first enemy towns, you should have learned a number of higher level
spells.  You are lucky if there is a good netwerk of teleport gates because it allows
faster movement. (beware of enemy heroes taking advantage of this too!) If there is
no such network, you need to find artifacts or spells allowing you to travel much 
further each turn.  Once you can traverse the complete map in less than a week,
things will speed up and you will have reached the Late Game.

     Late Game:

At a rate of 2-7 towns a week, you can now rage on, possibly you create some new
heroes with large armies that follow your main hero, leaving no one escape and
cleaning up the smaller things. (unworthy of your superhero) This Warrior-like style
may take several weeks, but it almost always works.  Try to eliminate the strongest
opponents first, it prevents them from becoming too strong and it gives your main
hero a whole lot of experience.  By the end of the game, you will control almost all
towns, and you will just need to track down any remaining enemy heroes.

     Problems with The Builder Strategy:

There are 2 problems that occur relatively often:
  1. Sometimes an enemy hero of a nearby town launches an attack against your
  town in the very early game.  With a castle, a garrison hero and some troops
  (preferably level 6-7 creatures) you should be able to fend off the attack with ease.
  If this enemy is teamed however, you may expect an uncessable chain of violent
  assaults that keep getting tougher if you don't act fast.  The only thing you can do
  is fight back.  Capture the nearby town with your main hero and threaten the other
  teammates by slaughtering every hero that comes in sight.  This makes you lose
  precious time and weakens an entire team of enemies, (this is not a good thing if
  there are other teams around) but it is the best way of dealing with this situation.
  2. An even bigger problem (that could be the result of the previous one) is this:
  You encounter an enemy army that is stronger (or equally strong) as the army of
  your main hero.  That opponent has obviously had the time to apply the Builder
  strategy him-/herself.  This is a major problem, and in some cases failure is
  unavoidable and you will be eliminated from the game.  There are 2 options left:
  the 'Scorched Earth' and the 'Divide and Conquer' techniques.  These 2 techniques
  are explained in the 'Combat section' of the menu.