After building the appropriate buildings, you will be able to hire various units to march with your hero as part of his army. So, you can't hire -- say pikemen -- until after you build their first level one building.
The Garrison Screen
The garrison screen is divided in half -- one side dedicated to the units that are available for hire and have been hired and the other dedicated to your currently selected hero and his army. You can then interchange units as you see fit.
Hiring
You are going to lose many, many, many soldiers. Resign yourself to this now. The reason I know this is because no matter which hero you choose, you will never be so powerful at the beginning of the game to protect all your guys.
As a result, you will be quite familiar with the garrison screen as you will constantly be looking for the next batch of mooks to absorb the arrows.
Costs
Whenever you hire troops, not only do you need to spend money immediately to retain their services, but you'll also need to pay them as you go along. Lowly level-zero units cost very little, so you can have many of them. However, as the units upgrade, you'll need more and more gold to afford to keep them. Keep an eye on your troop costs and plan accordingly.
Troops
The troops that you hire will accompany your hero into battle. Your troops cannot travel around the map without a hero. So they must remain in the garrison and the hero must come to pick them up.
While in battle, each unit will gain experience on an individual basis based on what each individual unit does. So if one unit kills three bad guys, he will gain more experience than a unit that kills only one enemy. Just as your hero does, when a unit upgrades, you'll be able to select specific skill boosts (like counter-attack +1).
Tip #2: whenever you are given an opportunity, use your ranged units to get an enemy down to minimum health and then bring in a melee unit to finish the guy off. Doing this will give experience to all of the ranged units AND they guy who finishes the job. However, only do this when you have like two or three enemies left to contend with; while facing eighteen bloodthirsty lizardmen, just kill them as fast as possible.
Each of the units is an individual; units do not stack. So as a result of the layout of the combat arena, you can only have so many units (plus your heroes) on the map in a single assault.
Alignment
Every unit that ever ends up in the army for either side has an alignment. Their alignment is based on their inclination to help the local population, look out for themselves, or stay completely ambivalent to all things political.
- GOOD
LVL1 - DWARF, HALFLING, HEALER, FAIRY
LVL2 - DRYAD, MONK, PEGASUS
LVL3 - KNIGHT, CLERIC
LVL4 - NONE - CHAMPION OF LIGHT (GOOD + MAGIC)
LVL1 - ELF
LVL2 - NONE
LVL3 - UNICORN
LVL4 - TREANT, PALADIN - EVIL
LVL1 - THIEF, GOBLIN, ORC, BRIGAND
LVL2 - ASSASSIN, HARPY, THUG
LVL3 - OGRE, EXECUTIONER, TROLL
LVL4 - CYCLOPS - EVIL INCARNATE (EVIL + MAGIC)
LVL1 - IMP, SKELETON, ZOMBIE
LVL2 - HELLHOUND, GHOUL, FIEND
LVL3 - DEMON, GHOST
LVL4 - VAMPIRE, DEVIL, WARLOCK - NEUTRAL
LVL1 - SPEARMAN, BOWMAN, LIZARDMAN, MILITIAMAN, SLINGER
LVL2 - BALLISTA, BASILISK, HORSEMAN, CENTAUR, HORSE ARCHER, GIANT SLUG, GARGOYLE, GIANT SPIDER
LVL3 - CATAPULT, GRYPHON, STONE GOLEM, MANTICORE, MEDUSA, MINOTAUR
LVL4 - HYDRA, DRAGON, PHOENIX, WAR ELEPHANT - LAWFUL
LVL1 - CROSSBOWMAN, SWORDSMAN, PIKEMAN
LVL2 - GUARDSMAN
LVL3 - NONE
LVL4 - NONE - UNSCRUPULOUS
LVL1 - BARBARIAN, SHAMAN
LVL2 - SORCERER
LVL3 - MAGICIAN
LVL4 - GIANT
When units of opposing alignments are thrown together into an army, the units take a hit to their morale. This effect is negated for units that have the "tolerance" skill. Ideally, you should have a good army, an evil army, a lawful army, and an unscrupulous army to prevent these problems. It's a pain, but it can be done. Obviously, neutral units are a huge bonus as they can drift between armies.
No comments:
Post a Comment