Hello everyone!

My name is Firebolt and this is my first attempt at creating a guide for a game where I offer my real advice and tips for new players. I forewarn you that I don't consider actually GOOD at this game (or any game for that matter), but thought I've played enough where I could put in my two cents, as well as be the first English guide for this game.

My points and tips are purely from my own experience and you may find them to be helpful or not. Up to you to figure out!

Anyway...

My first tid bit of advice is understanding how the factions play, and of which there are 4 currently:

• Vikings
  
• Slavs
  
• Anglo-Saxons
  
• Germans

Vikings
The Vikings are a good "raiding" faction. Their units can take villages fairly quick (I will explain taking villages later), and they can build houses for cheaper meaning they are able to build a army somewhat quicker than the other factions, given you have enough food. Their starting unit is a Spearman. The Vikings counter the Germans initially.

Slavs
The Slavs are a faction that revolve around shield units and archer cavalry. In my opinion, the Slavs are the worst balanced faction currently, as their Shield Warband starting unit tends to get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pretty hard, even against units they are supposed to counter. This, coupled with their need for food, make it very difficult to come back if you start falling behind. I would reccomend playing the other factions before trying the Slavs. The Slavs are supposed to counter the Vikings initially.

Anglo-Saxons
The Saxons are a faction that primarily focuses on ranged units, as well as trap laying (they can build them cheaper than anyone else). They do have pretty good infantry, but those units are not available until Tier 2 Research is complete. No faction directly counters the Saxons, as their starting unit is a Slinger, however, any ranged unit will lose to a melee unit without backup, so you have to have good map awareness to do well as the Anglo-Saxons. Also, the Saxons are the only faction with no cavalry.

Germans
Finally, we have the Germans, who in my opinion, are ridiculously OP due to the fact that Cleavers are a god-tier unit that will ruin your day. They also have the best aesthetic, so its pretty obvious who you should play as first. I dont really even have advice on how to play as them, basically just mass Cleavers and you should win a lot of engagements, and then spice it up with some archers once your opponent(s) try to counter them with spears. The Germans counter the Slavs initially.

There are two objectives in this game you need to worry about, which are Villages and the Enemy Base(s).

Villages
Villages are the single most important aspect of this game. They are the primary way you are going to increase your resource income, and in Domination games, controlling more villages will make you win faster. All villages start off neutral, and you will need to attack and control them to get their benefits.

Villages look like this: (click the image to enlarge)



You will notice it has a health bar. Once you start attacking the village, its inhabitants will garrison inside the town hall and start shooting at your men. You should only lose a couple before buring it all the way down, at which point, you should start capturing it. The more individual men you have on in the capture zone, the faster you will capture it.

Example:



Be careful of attacking an "upgraded" village starting off. These villages will have a half-sun in the bottom-middle of their health bar and will typically need at least 2 squads of men to take safely.

Example:


Enemy Bases
Outside of villages, there is the enemy base, which in Annihilation games you need to destroy in order to win. This will be difficult to do early on, as all bases have three archer towers that typically kill soldiers in one hit. To detroy an enemy building, you simply left click on an enemy building, and your men will start throwing torches at it, similar to how they do a village. There will be a green bar representing the building's health, and a red bar representing how "on fire" the building is. The building will then take damage over time until it is destroyed, or the fire is put out with water either through rainfall or a well (if the player has built one). A player is eliminated once all major buildings in their base are destroyed.

Example:

There are several other general aspects of the game that you may or may not want to know, but I'm going to talk about anyway.

Base Building
Your base will build itself. Meaning, that you dont choose where your building gets placed, you just click on the icon and the building is automatically put in a pre-destined spot.

Example of a what a base looks like:



Unit Experience and Upgrades
As your soldiers kill other units and capture villages, they will gain experience. Once they have enough experience they will level up, and you can choose one of three catagories for them to sepcialize in. They are pretty straight forward.

Example:


Terrain and Traps
There are different types of terrain throughout each map, and the main one I want to bring to your attention is tall grass. Tall grass allows for the units inside of it to reamain concealed unless the enemy is also in the tall greass. This terrain makes it ideal for waiting for an ambush and hopefully catching the enemy player off guard, or laying spike traps which will automatically kill any enemy unit that walks over them.

Tall Grass:

Spike Trap:

I hope this guide proved useful in someway and hopefully will improve your gameplay to some extent. If there's anything I'm missing or something you disagree with, leave a comment down below, I'd love to have a chat.

I have a public discord if anyone would like to join. Myself and some friends play it quite frequently and are planning on buying the game when it is fully released.

Discord link: https://discord.gg/A5cTdBh