You start each game with the same set of basic cards available to you: scout, farm, herbalism, and so on. Before starting any scenario you can click on tree of cards to buy new cards or click on change deck. Each god has a different tree of cards and you start with enough worshippers to buy one cheap card. After winning a scenario you get more worshippers to buy more cards from the tree, plus an immediate choice from a small random card selection. Any cards you get as local loot during a scenario have no effect outside that scenario.


New cards do nothing until you put them into the deck. Select change deck , click on the card to remove, then select the tier and select the new card from the bottom row to insert it into that tier. The starting card deck is ok. You can play your first scenario with it. It is not optimal and can certainly be improved with a few simple changes even without new cards.

During a scenario, using a settlement it will reveal 3 random cards from your deck and you can either add one of those cards to your hand or take some resources. At the start of the game you will be offered tier 1 cards. After you play the unique sage card, your villages will offer you tier 1 and tier 2 cards. After you play the unique blessing card, your villages will offer you cards from all tiers. Ideally you want to get the sage and blessing cards into hand as soon as possible, so that if you have an opportunity to get enough faith you can play them as soon as possible. A shrine often sells cards that produce faith.

Any cards you have to discard by going over the 10 card hand limit may randomly reappear back in your village. This does not change your deck in any way.

Over 10 scenarios there is enough time to experiment with new decks. Just accept that some will be disasters. I would recommend using tier 1 cards to build a few villages, muster a small army, and get into tier 2 quickly. Don't lose a scenario with a bad tier 1. Tier 2 cards should have all the customisation and card combinations at the heart of your strategy. Win the scenario with a good tier 2. Tier 3 can arrive quite late in a scenario and needs cards to manage a big map or fight the very hardest battles.

• The map is divided into regions.
  
• Only one settlement can be built in each region.
  
• There is one production hex in each region.
  
• A settlement gives you the resources from that region's production hex every turn.
  
• You can't build or settle on the production hex.
  
• You can build two buildings in each region.
  
• Locations and lairs count against the building limit so you often need to clear them to build.

This seems pretty straightforward but it is surprisingly simple to mess up when trying to build and settle. It's easy to get confused by how the locations are drawn. If you are a new player you should check things over to make sure you don't waste actions on a failing build. Count the actions, count the resources, check the region.

There are three ways you can use the UI to help you. If you mouse over a settlement on the map, the region's border is marked and the buildings listed. If you mouse over a building in your hand, the areas where it can be built are highlighted in green. If you mouse over an empty hex it will tell you whether there is a settlement in the region, even if it is under fog.

Monsters are either guarding or attacking. Guarding monsters are static but will attack an army that ends a turn next to them. Attacking monsters will move towards your nearest settlement and destroy it, however if you can move an army as close they will attack your army instead. The cursed army is a special army that is dormant until a number of turns has passed. You can mouse over the army to see the timer and click on it to look at the units. Once it activates it moves like any other attacking army.

Locations fit into three main types and mousing over them will tell you what they do. Some locations will delay the activation of the cursed army if you clear them. Monster lairs create the attacking monsters, so once you see attacking monsters you need to kill them and also decide what to do about a lair that will produce more monsters later.


The third type of location is a shop. When you move onto it you can trade, or clear it out, or both at the same time (both is good) . You get a loot card when you defeat it but it still worth going into the better shops with enough money to buy a card as well. The first card you buy is 2 gold, then the next card in any shop costs 3, then the next card in any shop costs 4, and so on.

• You get just two actions each combat round so use them carefully
  
• Armour reduces damage taken then the armour reduces by 1 (on each hit)
  
• Melee attacks hit the first target in line and the enemy can retaliate
  
• Each unit can retaliate once each combat round
  
• Ranged attacks hit the last target in line with no retaliation
  
• Shielding is 2 extra armour that only applies against ranged damage. Shielding is never reduced.
  
• A unit cannot do a fall back action after it has deployed or attacked.
  
• A unit can fall back, then deploy, then attack.

Each unit can carry a weapon, armour, and a utility item. Don't assume that a helmet is armour. Read the cards.

The starting units are all fit for purpose but give no extra benefit when played together. I'll go through the basic units as they're quite important. Notice that they all get extra abilities as they go up levels. The units get experience and levels by killing enemies so it is important to divide the kills between your units to get them all up levels.

Footman - This is a solid unit with good armour. It looks like a front line fighter but it is actually best using shielding at the back of the line when the enemy has range attacks. The extra action from killing an enemy (level 2, level 3) is a nice bonus.

Archer - This is a good damage dealer as there is no retaliation on ranged attacks. Archers get an extra attack at level 2 and level 3. Extra attacks can work very well with items. Spending a tool for each ranged attack is a problem so prepare for your battles.

Scout - This is actually an essential unit. The basic movement of an army is 4 points (you can mouse over each hex to see the movement cost) and each scout adds 1 extra point. Even if a scout isn't a strong combat unit, having two or three scouts makes a big difference to army speed.

However the scout is a strong combat unit. Withdrawing a scout gives two extra actions so you usually want to withdraw with just one action left to bring you up to the maximum of three. Deploying costs one action so you can generate an extra action each turn by withdrawing a scout and deploying a scout. Very few other cards can generate actions so effectively and scouts can do great things with the right items as well, so as I said they are an essential unit.