The initial version of this guide drew entirely from posts by cbower ( on the Academy game he launched to teach new PBEM players how to master AoW3, before he left AoW3). It has since been updated to include strategy tutorials from Hiliadan and Marcuspers.
Tactical combat[]
Definitions[]
Split - taking one your unit(s) away from your main force to draw aggression from the AI and split AI forces in two (or more) groups.
Blocking - position a unit one full move from the AI but still within reach of damage without giving the AI any other targets for melee that round. The AI will (almost) always attack to cause damage. Your unit is in guard mode waiting to get hit. The purpose is usually to position the blocker in the path of a tough target to take the first punch from that target. This allows you to use flanks on your next turn and remove the unit quickly.
Positioning - battle position is different then splitting and blocking. Splitting and Blocking are part of positioning but they are simple and straight forward. Positioning covers a wide variety of tricks to get the AI to move or act base on the movement of your units. For example dividing you team into two groups of 3 vs Phantasm Warrior and Wisps. Moving them together towards the center but separated by enough hexes that the Phantasm Warrior can't hit either but close enough they each remain a target. The Wisps phase in and often if done right the Phantasm Warrior move and guard towards the center to keep both options available. You have split the Wisps because you draw their aggressive, but you positioned the Phantasm Warrior by forcing the hedge move. Then you can pull back on the Wisps and kill them by range keep your distance. Once the distance between your two parties is large enough the Phantasm Warrior will choose a side and it will be a split again.
Split Sacrifice - this is another positioning move, it is often good to have low health disposable units. The AI prioritizes kills. You can use these disposable units to ensure dangerous targets split when and where you need them to by giving the AI a sure kill only available to your target.
Action Point (AP) Draining - any action you take that is more about reducing an AI unit's action points then doing damage.
Initiation - when The AI is in defense mode you need to perform an action to get them to be aggressive. This action ideally should not be a melee action of you own. It should be a trigger set only after you have decided on positioning using splits, obstacles and so forth. Can be a damage spell or any ability. Damage spells often result in aggression after one action. Non-Damage spells and abilities often take two turns. Long range abilities are best here. Throw Chicken is good, Throw Curse can work if your patient, Berserk are good, and so on.
Site Matchup[]
This is the pre-combat analysis on how your strengths and weakness match the AI. Certain sites are better or worse for different classes. Sometimes matches are obvious and sometimes not. This is an area where one is always learning new things. For instance Vaults, are easy for Halfling Warlords, and terrible for Tigran Warlords, [Tigrans] are more melee focus and have low resistance. They easily get shocked to death. Halfling Adventurer range is much better then Tigran Cheetah's versus the static shield. Adventurers also have Animal and Monster Slayer vs Baby Shock Serpent, and Watcher. The Phantasms are a problem for both. The ability to understand the pre-fight matchup is very important part of the tactical game. You should have a general idea on how to approach the site.
Combat Spells[]
Whether to use or not use combat spells depends on so many factors. Their impact on tactical cannot be overstated. Spells can have a huge impact but you almost never need to research high tier combat spells. The question is more about when and where to use you casting points. This is where you need to understand you matchup and whether you need them or don't. Also you need to consider your overall strategy. Using spells comes at a cost usually of being able to scout.
Battles Approach[]
One of the biggest issue that faces new players is XP and health. New players want to win the battle and save health. But you can often trade health/units for XP. More experienced players will look at the fight as a way to gain XP. This is what allows us to grow, and also foolishly loose our leaders. You are not playing at truly high level until you have experienced losing you leader trying to grab a few more XP, either lost to a critical or a small mistake. It is gut wrenching, but it is that ability to keep putting yourself out there and pushing your boundaries that leads to growth. At some point you will fail in an embarrassing way, you need to accept that and keep getting back up. There are lots of way to manage health, don't be afraid to use it as a resource. Just use healing or unit rotation to cover. How aggressive to be in gaining XP and other battle bonuses is a struggle everyone faces. There is such a thing as trying to go to far too fast. Each person needs to find their sweet spot, it depends on your overall strategy and other factors. Playing it too safe in the long run may be a sure way to get beat though.
Training for tactical combat[]
Before hard fights, you can choose to practice the fights. The fight is just a matter of getting the right site with the right defenders and putting together the right units levels and items. This is easily done with the map editor provided by Triumph. Below is a quick video showing just how easy it is to do. Sorry no audio on the video from cbower.
How to Practice PBEM fights
You log into your PBEM game. You screenshot your units, the AI units, then save and exit. Then you load a simple editor map. You drop down the site, leaders, heroes, and items needed. Save and play. Now use the cheats to level you units or produce needed units or acquire needed spells. It literally only takes a few minutes to setup once you know what you are doing.
Now you can feel free to experiment with the battle, try different strategies, push your boundaries. Explore what can be done and what can't. Study your notes, then when your ready jump back into the PBEM game to try the real thing. See the thing is, if your only practice on TC fights comes from PBEM games, your going to be too reluctant to push your boundaries. This gives you a safe environment to really challenge yourself and learn. After a while you need it less and less, but it is a handy resource.
Some may say this is to similar to save scumming, but it could be argued this is different. The actual fight is it's own thing, you do not know if they will guard or attack, you don't about webs, you don't know about converts, there is plenty of chance still. Also it takes time, health is a hard factor to manage. Still you can learn some of the dances, which gives you the ability to plot your strategy and moves in advance.
Siege battle as attacker[]
When attacking walls versus AI, try to take out the ranged units with magic and your own ranged. Once you have removed their ranged attacks, you position defensively hitting them with ranged. They will then come to you. The walls often force a split of their units if you take their units out at the middle. You should avoid breaching the wall unless you absolutely have to.
Attacking AI with Walls
Strategy (strategic map)[]
General advice[]
Get the most out of the Diplomacy screen! If you have Peace with another player, you can always see their gold and mana resources. Just open the diplomacy menu and demand from your ally an obscene amount (like 90000) of gold, gold per turn, mana, and mana per turn. It will fill the offer box with their maximum they have / or they are making. This gives you the ability to always see how well or poorly your friends are doing, and always you to ask or give funds that make sense.
In the diplo screen when you are on a player there is a tab that says who they have made contact with. You can see if they have made contact with anyone you have met. This can give you an idea of what your opponents know of the map. If it is later in the game and they haven't made contact with that vassal in the north east corner, it looks safe to absorb that guy.
Always watch the updates on players alignment, this gives you information about their expansions. How many times they buy peace, how many vassals.
Remember there is a treaties tab, if you give 20 gold per turn to help a friend out, it's not gone forever. Times get tough click on the player and then the treaties tab and remove the treaties. Also be aware when making treaties on a per turn basis, players can cancel that at anytime, so communicate well.
Necromancer[]
Necros always start with a Necro hero. Necros always start with a T3 on Normal or better starting army because Necros have a strength bonus to their starting stack.
Rogue[]
Fighting Rogue[]
Being killed by those damn pesky Rogue strategic spells? Release those cities as vassals and it will remove the strategic spells. It is much more cost efficient then trying to disjunct. So as long as it is not a production site just release it. You can buy it back and even get some nice tributes and quests, and since you owned it and released it it should have the best relation which means you get 80% of it resources, which is much more then what you get when hit by multiple spells.
Shadow Stalker Rush[]
Videos from Marcuspers demonstrate how to get a stack of Shadow Stalker by turn 20. The paragraphs below explain into more details how to achieve this, in theory, and in practice (as achieved in the videos linked).
The guide was written by Marcuspers, thanks to him!
To be able to complete a stack of Shadow Stalkers you need:
Summon Grimbeak Crows - 60
Produce Scoundrel - 60
Corrupted Killers - 200
Produce Bard - 120
Produce Assassin - 200
Produce Succubus - 400
Produce Shadow Stalker - 800
Total research points needed - 1840
If we disregard cosmic event to finish any research, you need to get around 90 per turn. This is obviously impossible in the early game, but if you find a Vault of Knowledge you can get a big boost. There is almost always also a stash of knowledge which will help you early on.
An ultimate building process involving two cities would look something like this:
Throne city | First settled city | Total / | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Rush Builders’ Hall | 20 | |
2 | Produce Laboratory ready to be completed in turn 3 to be at 30 | 20 | |
3 | Finish production Laboratory | 20 | |
4: | Rush Produce a Settler | 30 | |
5 | Produce an Observatory | 30 | |
6 | Finish produce File:Observatory.png Observatory | (let's assume you settle in 2 turns after your Settler is completed, and next to an uncleared Vault of Knowledge) - Rush Builders’ Hall | 30 |
7: | Produce Scoundrel | Produce Laboratory | 40 |
8 | Produce Scoundrel | Finish production Laboratory | 40 |
9 | Produce Scoundrel | Start Produce Observatory - Clear File:Vault of Knowledge.png Vault of Knowledge - reward is 100 (Total now at 40+20+10=70) | 70 |
10 | Produce Scoundrel | Finish production File:Observatory.png Observatory | 70 |
11 | Produce Scoundrel | Produce “Seek Knowledge” to boost (Base in this city is 40x1.5=60) | 90 |
12 | Last Scoundrel produced if you can keep them all alive! | Same as turn 11 | 90 |
13+ | Depending on economy, research, mana etc. you can move to produce a shrine, planar gate, File:Observatory.png Observatory, seek knowledge etc. | Same as turn 11 | 90 |
Compare my actual progress with the "optimal guide":
Target | Actual results | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cumu- lative | Research | Production | Scoundrel | Lesser Shadow Stalker | / | Actual research | still needed | |
1 | 60 | Summon Grimbeak Crows | 20 | |||||
2 | 20 | |||||||
3 | 20 | |||||||
4 | 120 | Produce Scoundrel | 20 and Crow finished | |||||
5 | 20 | |||||||
6 | 230 | You must clear a stash of research points , Ancient Ruins or Lost Library to finish Produce Bard or switch over to Corrupted Killers to not “waste research ” | Finished Laboratory (3 later than guide) | 32 and cleared a Stash of Knowledge (+96 ) - Scoundrel researched and +76 towards Corrupted Killers | Corrupted Killers | 124 | ||
7 | Scoundrel - same as optimal | 1 | 32 | 92 | ||||
8 | Scoundrel | 2 | 32 | 60 | ||||
9 | 370 | Scoundrel | 3 | 32 | 28 | |||
10 | Settler to settle at the Vault of Knowledge | 3 (1 died) | 32 - Corrupted Killers researched - Cleared Vault of Knowledge for 123 (lucky!) finishing Bard | Produce Assassin | 6 to complete | |||
11 | 460 | 60+60+120+200= 440 is optimal to complete Crow, Scoundrel, Bard, Corrupted Killers | Settler finished; Scoundrel | 1 | 2 evolved; Corrupted Killers’ bonus is really showing its worth! | 32 | ||
12 | See note 1 | Scoundrel | 2 | 2 | 58 and cleared Ancient Ruins (+65 ). Could sacrifice a production of Scoundrel to Seek Knowledge and finish in 2 - small mistake | 133 | ||
13 | Scoundrel | 2 | 3 | 58 | 68 | |||
14 | See note 2 | Laboratory in 2nd city and Observatory in Throne | 3 (6th is 2 behind plan because I lost 1) | 3 including 1 | 58 | 10 | ||
15 | 3 | 2 and 1 | 58 | Produce Succubus | 400 | |||
16 | Laboratory and Observatory completed | 3 | 3 | 90 and clear Sphinx Temple for 667 | Produce Shadow Stalker | 493 | ||
17 | 2 and 1 | 3 | 90 | 403 | ||||
18 | Seek Knowledge | 3 and 3 (Column of Champions for double level up) | 124 (Seek Knowledge and another Observatory built) | 313 | ||||
19 | Planar Gate | 3 and 3 | 99 | 189 | ||||
20 | Planar Gate | 6 Cleared a Watchtower to level the remaining 3 | 99 - Cleared Wizard Tower Ruins (roughly 600 ) | See note 3 | 189 |
Note 1: you want to complete Produce Assassin at turn 13, it is 200 , and current research is 90 , meaning you need to find an extra 20 from somewhere ( Ancient Ruins, Lost Library, Seek Knowledge, stash of Knowledge, happiness event)
Note 2: so, from turn 14-20 you must now accumulate 1200 - Your 2 cities produce 90 and you can by this stage have bought the closest independent city and also produce Laboratory/ Observatory, etc. which will bring you to 100-120 , but even 7 turns times 120 is only 840 meaning you lack 360 which means at least a Sphinx Temple or a Wizard Tower Ruins is needed. And it’s far from sure you will be able to plan the knowledge perfectly!
Note 3: completed research for Produce Shadow Stalker and all Lesser Shadow Stalkers evolve!
So in the end, the last 5 turns I gathered an enormous amount of : 90+667+90+124+99+600=1670 and was lucky to find a Sphinx Temple and a Wizard Tower Ruins in a not so far distance. I think to be able to finish the research by Turn 20 you must have a better infrastructure and not rely on massive boosts like I did.
Fast expansion[]
Here is an example of a fast expansion (extracted from the game you can watch here), so that you can compare if you're on time or if your development is lagging behind:
– turn 1: Builder’s Hall, no rush (you should actually rush it on turn 1, I rushed it on turn 2)
– turn 3: Settler, rush it. Find closest same-race independent city and get Peace with them.
– turn 4: settle to the closest site. Start Lab at the Throne.
– turn 5: start a Builder’s Hall at the new outpost
– turn 7: Lab finished at the Throne, start a unit. RG1: -15% on Settlers. Get Vassalship Quest from closest independent.
– turn 8: start a Settler (4 turns) at the Throne.
– turn 9: complete quest and get a same-race Vassal. Build a unit at the Outpost. Rush the Settler at the Throne.
– turn 10: start a Settler (5 turns) at the Outpost. Build a unit at the Throne.
– turn 11: settle a 3rd city. Build a unit at the Throne.
– turn 12: rush Settler at the Outpost. Build a unit at the 3rd city.
– turn 13: build a Shrine at the 1st Outpost and a unit at the Throne. 3rd Settler starts to move toward destination.
– turn 15: start a 4th Settler at the Throne (4 turns). Buy the Vassal (4 city under control).
– turn 16: build a Laboratory (3 turns) at the 1st Outpost. 3rd Settler starts settling the 5th city.
– turn 17: 5th city operational.
– turn 19: start an Observatory at his Throne and the 1st Outpost to benefit from RG2. 4th Settler starts moving toward position.
– turn 20: start an Observatory and 5th Settler.
– turn 21: RG2 completed
– turn 22: 6th city settled with the 4th Settler.
– turn 24: 5th Settler completed.
– turn 26: Expansionism researched. Capture a city from another race and migrate it to your race
– turn 27: migration completed, yielding your 7th city. Settle the 8th city with the 5th Settler.
– turn 28: latest city operational: Monoculture reached.
– turn 35: Heptatopia reached.
Working in teams[]
Getting Pure Good alignement quickly (tip by marcuspers)[]
Players can help one of their team mate to buy all vassals by giving gim money. This player will then end up with "pure good" alignment very, very quick.
50*8 (8 vassals) give you 400 alignment, and you are almost there with 8 vassals.