Eador Genesis Demo

[haphazard1]

Another update. The blue borders turned out to be Oinor, who controlled 8 provinces. I declared war, and he gave me a grandfatherly "I'm so disappointed in your choices" speech. Sorry Oinor, but this shard (and Eador) are going to be mine and you are in the way.

Unfortunately for Oinor, breaking through to his territory was enough to level up my scout hero to level 10.



At level 10 your hero gets to specialize. Since my hero was doing most of the fighting himself, I chose the archer specialty to get a double shot attack. With that extra fire power, Oinor's hero and guards did not last long.



I used my second hero to capture the rest of Oinor's former provinces while my scout headed south to find my other opponent.



Not very impressive, is he? I went straight for his stronghold and began a siege, spending only the minimum time to break the walls:



If the local lord had more forces, attacking without destroying more of the defenses might have been risky. But I had already eliminated his hero and my double-shot archer had no problems with a handful of weak defenders. The shard of Guernire was now mine.

I still do not have nearly enough astral energy to bring a hero into the astral plane. My next target is a tiny swamp shard with +4 energy per turn and some more economic buildings. No tier 2 military or magic buildings were available from any of the shards I could reach. I would really like some stronger military options before I think about attacking Oinor's home shard, or anything larger than a small shard. On a larger map I would be at a significant disadvantage without stronger units.

[NobleHelium]

Wouldn't a larger shard naturally mean you can build higher tier units within the shard as that shard's game progressed? Or does the building unlocking only take effect for future shards?

[haphazard1]

Building unlocking for the campaign only affects future shards. If I was not in campaign mode, I would be able to build whatever tier of buildings and units I could afford. But for now I am limited to tier 1 stuff, until a shard turns up that offers something better as a reward.

I could potentially get a stronger unit if one showed up at my stronghold as a mercenary for hire. But you have no control over what mercenaries appear, although there are buildings that increase the odds of getting better mercenaries, give you more chances at mercenaries showing up, etc. If I try a larger shard without getting any tier 2 buildings first, that would be worth attempting. Even a couple stronger units can make a big difference.

I have fought several tier 2 units in various encounters, and a couple of tier 3s. They can do a LOT of damage to a tier 1 army.

[haphazard1]

Another update. I successfully conquered the tiny swamp shard Ilekan:



My only opponent was Oinor, who pulled his usual kindly grandfather routine and was "greatly saddened" by the necessity of declaring war on me. Didn't stop him from doing it, though. His hero gave me one tough fight, but otherwise he did not put up much resistance. Conquering the map took 19 turns and my single scout hero reached level 8 -- about normal for a tiny shard. Once again I did not have enough astrral energy to bring my hero to the astral. I did unlock several new buildings, mostly defense-boosting structures.

Back in the astral, a new rival made contact:



Beleth is a rather arrogant individual who gave me the "generous" offer of giving him my home shard and becoming his servant. I suspect we are not going to get along very well. I refused and Beleth told me I will be devoured by chaos. Might want to work on that sales pitch just a bit, Beleth. He does have a slightly larger home shard than either Oinor or I do.

Checking my options for future conquests, I see an opportunity to unlock some tier 2 unit buildings.



Ileterge is a "world of magic" -- many shards have special characteristics that affect game play in various ways. In this case, the shard is saturated with potent magic and all magic-related buildings and activities will be half price. A wizard hero may be a good choice for this shard, or at least it would be if I had anything beyond basic tier 1 magic available. Still, a stronger than usual emphasis on magic will be useful.

The key reason for choosing this shard as my next target is unlocking the two tier 2 unit buildings, one for thugs and one for pegasi. Being able to recruit some tier 2 units will help greatly on future shards. There was another shard which offered a tier 2 magic building, which would unlock more powerful spells; I hope that shard will still be available later, but that is not guaranteed. Oinor or Beleth may conquer it, and the available shards change each astral turn. Sometimes a shard will be present for several turns, and sometimes not. I will have to see. But the stronger units are more critical than stronger magic.

[NobleHelium]

Since you have to choose to declare war in these games, can you win without declaring war? In the campaign or otherwise in the standalone skirmishes / scenarios. In HoMM war is the default state and it's only in specific scenarios where you might have allied factions that you don't need to conquer.

[haphazard1]

As far as I know, it is not possible to win without declaring war. Maybe naufragar could comment on this aspect of the game? When battling for control of a specific shard, you can form alliances with opponents to help defeat other opponents. But since your overall goal is to take control of the shard so you can add it to your growing home shard, at some point you have to take sole control.

In the astral campaign mode, there are multiple endings (8, I think?) depending on your choices. Some of them involve alliances with other masters, some involve eliminating all your rivals, and some require you to achieve specific tasks that do not directly involve the other masters (so they can be left alive or not).

Campaign update time. I was seeking to conquer the Ileterge shard, a tiny 'world of magic' shard which offered my first chance to unlock tier 2 unit recruitment buildings. I started with my usual scout hero, but this shard had a larger than normal number of good locations to explore in my capital province of Whitestone. On the previous shards I focused early on capturing the first ring of provinces around my capital, gaining those provinces' income and additonal locations. Here I spent the first handful of turns exploring locations, never leaving my capital province.

If you have locations available and are strong enough to clear them, this provides richer rewards than battles for control of provinces. It also keeps your starting hero in the capital province where he can visit the stronghold every turn to purchase new equipment, learn spells, and recruit more troops as you get the relevant buildings constructed. I quickly accumulated a nice pile of gold from looting locations, fueling a rapid build up in my stronghold rather than the more typical slower scraping together of resources for an occasional improvement. Very nice. Then my hero found a strong melee weapon as loot from a group of brigands, and I decided to take advantage by recruiting a warrior hero to accelerate the growing snowball effect.



The bastard sword would normally require constructing three buildings plus spending a couple hundred gold to buy; with many competing priorities for buildings and gold this weapon would not usually be available for another 10-12 turns or so. But in this shard I now have a strong warrior hero to help my scout push expansion. It may be a bit small and hard to see in the screenshot, but the sword adds 4 to attack and 3 to counterattack. My level 1 warrior would normally have 7 and 5 for these stats, but instead gets 11 and 8 -- far more deadly and enough to demolish early enemies in a single blow. With a couple magic spells for ranged attacks on enemy bowmen or spell casters, the warrior will be able to chop up entire armies single-handedly.



Provinces were grabbed two at a time, quickly bringing me into contact with my opponent on this tiny shard:



Yet again Oinor gives me the "I regret doing this" speech, but he goes ahead and declares war instantly anyway. With my double hero force conquering steadily, the outcome of the war is never in much doubt. After a shorter-than-normal 15 turns, the shard is mine.



I now have two tier 2 unit buildings unlocked (thugs and pegasi), a couple miscellaneous buildings, and an unexpected surprise: a tier 2 magic building. Very nice! Sometimes you can get unexpected bonus rewards from conquering a shard, with additional unlocks found as battle loot from special locations or conquests. I was expecting to have to conquer more shards to unlock any tier 2 magic, so this is a very nice find.

Back in the astral, I select my next target: a small shard that offers another tier 2 magic building and another tier 2 unit. My power is growing.

[NobleHelium]

How does spellcasting in Eador work again, can you cast a spell and move/attack on the same turn with the hero? Or does it expend the turn to cast the spell? And are there mana points to limit spamming of spells or whatnot?

[haphazard1]

NobleHelium, there are a couple types of magic in Eador. The most common form is spells which can be used by a hero in battle. To cast a spell the hero must have previously memorized the spell at a location that supports studying magic; mostly this means at your stronghold but you can build buildings that provide this capability in a province. To have spells available for memorization you need to construct the appropriate buildings in your stronghold. The initial building is the library, which offers three basic (tier 1) spells with weak (but still useful) effects. Then you need to construct schools of tier 1 magic, each of which offers three more spells and one ritual. (More on rituals in a minute.) The schools of magic each have at least one other prereq building, so getting them into play usually takes a few turns as you try to get troop buildings, shops, etc. all constructed when starting a shard. Tier 2 magic schools require the tier 1 buildings plus other stuff, so take even longer (and a lot more money and resources) to build.

Once you have some spells available to be learned, your hero must visit the stronghold (or other location) and learn some spells. Each hero gets a certain number of "slots" for magic spells; here is one of my heroes from a couple shards back:



The spells are on the right half -- there are rows of slots (mostly locked) for tier 1 through tier 4 spells. Scout heroes like this one begin with three tier 1 spell slots unlocked; this hero just gained a point in his magic stat at level 2 (you get a random stat boost with each level up) so he has 4 tier 1 slots unlocked. Three of them are filled with the Cure Wounds spell (provided by the Sanctuary school of magic, a "good" magic school) from earlier; he has not yet added an additional spell for the newly unlocked slot.

Increasing in level will unlock more spell slots, including higher tier slots, as will increasing the hero's magic stat. Wizard heroes get more spell slots and are more likely to gain magic with level ups; scouts and commanders are generally middling at magic, while warriors learn the fewest spells and are less likely to gain magic with level ups.

Once a hero has some spells learned (and you can change your chosen spells freely any time you visit a location that offers them), the hero can then cast those spells once per battle. So the scout above can cast three cure wounds spells in each fight; if he had learned one Cure Wounds, one Magic Arrow, and one Haste then he could cast each of those once per battle.

Casting a spell counts as the hero's primary action for that turn. If you attack with your weapon then you can not also cast that turn. It is possible to partial move and then perform an action if your hero has enough speed (using your full movement does not allow also performing an action). Casting a spell costs stamina points; your hero must have enough stamina available, otherwise he will need to rest first to regain stamina.

Finally, every spell has a cost in gems to cast. For tier 1 spells this is usually pretty minor, 2-4 gems is pretty typical. Higher tier spells cost more gems, and extensive use of more powerful magic can drain your gem stockpile quickly. Gems can be found as battle loot, and are also generated as per turn income from most provinces much like gold. Your current number of gems is shown at the bottom center of the main screen, next to current amount of gold in your treasury. So far in this campaign I have never had any shortage of gems...but I also have not had any magic beyond tier 1. As I just unlocked my first tier 2 magic building, I will have to start paying more attention to my gem usage.

The second type of magic in Eador is rituals. Rituals are performed on the main map rather than in battles, and do not require a hero to learn them. There is a cool down period of several turns between rituals, although you can construct buildings that will reduce this. If you have built a school of magic building, each one generally will unlock one ritual. Some rituals are cast on provinces, some on heroes, some affect the whole map.  Some rituals are instant effects, while others last multiple turns. Each ritual has a cost in gems to perform it, usually quite a bit larger than the cost for spells.

Examples of rituals are Fair Winds (cast on a hero and his army and speeds movement for several turns), Healing (restores health to a hero and his entire army), and Enchanted Coffer (cast on a province you control, it produces a large amount of money but reduces population and makes the survivors very angry; you lose karma for using this one). I have not done much with rituals so far in this campaign; I have mostly been focusing on "good" magic and the rituals available have not been worth the gem cost.

[haphazard1]

The campaign continues. Early in the struggle for the Alkan shard, I got another strong melee weapon as loot:



So I repeated my earlier tactics with a warrior hero -- you have to adapt to the opportunities you are given. My opponents here were a local lord and Oinor; the old man declared war as soon as I defeated the local lord.



That would appear to answer the question about alliances -- you can make them against mutual enemies, but in the end there can be only one. (Cue Highlander-style sword fights and lightning shows. )

With two strong heroes, Oinor did not last very long and Alkan was mine.



The rewards included another tier 2 unit building and a tier 2 magic school, plus some miscellaneous economic and defensive buildings. Good stuff.

I finally had enough astral energy to take my scout hero to the next shard. I had to drop all of his gear, spells, and troops to afford the transfer, but even with having to build up my stronghold to properly supply my hero it made a huge difference in the speed of conquest for the next shard. The hero's accumulated skills and unlocked slots made him a tremendous force on the battlefield.

My opponent on this shard was Beleth, who at least did not try to pretend he was sorry about declaring war:



But with my scout continuing to level up on a second shard, the outcome was never in doubt.



Add another tier 2 magic school (necromancy this time) and another tier 2 unit building (horsemen), plus some tier 2 shops for better equipment. More options for future shards, all very welcome. Sadly I did not have enough energy to transfer my hero again. Here is what he looked like just before the final fight on Darkor, at level 16:



It takes reaching this level (16) to get one tier 3 magic slot and one tier 3 troop slot unlocked.Not that I had any tier 3 stuff, or even tier 2, on this tiny shard. But this gives an idea of the progression as heroes reach higher levels. Also note the 15 ranged attack -- with the archer specialization double shot ability and other skill bonuses, this hero could deliver very large amounts of damage even to heavily armored enemies. Several battles saw tier 2 enemies killed instantly -- the difference a higher level hero makes is huge.

Returning to the astral once again, I meet another rival:



He seems...nice. I am guessing he will not be a pleasant neighbor....

[naufragar]

As far as I know, it is not possible to win without declaring war. Maybe naufragar could comment on this aspect of the game? When battling for control of a specific shard, you can form alliances with opponents to help defeat other opponents. But since your overall goal is to take control of the shard so you can add it to your growing home shard, at some point you have to take sole control.

Ack! I'm late!

In Genesis at least, there is a peaceful, albeit stupid, way to gain control of a shard. On a shard with more than 1 opponent, you have the option to ally with one AI against another. If you defeat the mutual enemy while in alliance, you have the option to flip a coin with your ally for who gets control of the shard. Or so I've read. I've never found much use for the diplo system.

Ileterge is a "world of magic" -- many shards have special characteristics that affect game play in various ways.

That's interesting. I think that's a new feature in Broken World. As far as I'm aware, Genesis didn't have any global map modifiers.


I'm interested in all the hijinks that can ensue from a fully-operational astral economy.