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Hegemony III: Clash of the Ancients > Guides > Canute VII's Guides
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Beginners' Guide
By Canute VII
This is a quick introduction to the game with tips, tricks and basic strategies, mainly gleaned from the Official Wiki and the Loading Screen Tips - to make it more comfortable for new players to get started. For more advanced information check out the Official Wiki!
   
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Created by
Canute VII
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Category: Gameplay Basics
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
18 Jun, 2021 @ 12:06pm
1 May, 2023 @ 9:05am
791 Unique Visitors
12 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
Before Starting the Game 
Maneuvering the Interface 
Playing the Game 
Realm & Economy 
Some Strategies 
Combat Units 
Link to Wiki 
Comments
Before Starting the Game
  • For your first campaign carefully consider your Starting Position. You want to pick an easy faction. Tip: Rome is not an easy faction.
  • For starters, a smaller map like e.g. the Etruria or Sicily sandbox is recommended. Scripted Campaigns such as "Pyrrhus of Epirus" are meant for more experienced players.
  • Set the difficulty to "novice" if you are new to the game and just want to learn the mechanics to avoid frustration while learning. You can change difficulty later on even during an ongoing campaign.
  • Turn on the Tutorial for extra tips how to navigate the interface and play game mechanics.
  • There is an in-game help function in the menu where you can look things up. Pressing F1, you can (always) get context-sensitive help.
  • You might want to save before a risky decision (you can use F5) and take a look at the autosaving frequency in the options menu - the unforseen will happen, decimate your armies and leave you watching in horror as unseen enemies descend upon your unprotected borders stealing away your prized cities.
  • The pause button is your friend, wars on many fronts are common in this game and pausing lets you issue the orders you want in battles you can't watch.
  • Visit the Official Wiki to get a better overview of all game mechanics and factions.
Maneuvering the Interface
  • You can change the difficulty at any time in the options screen. Changing the difficulty will not affect enemy forces that are already on the move but it will increase or decrease the rate and size of future attacks.
  • The game can be paused at anytime using the spacebar or clicking the button at the top of the screen. All orders can be given while paused and units will execute them when the game is unpaused.
  • There are many ways to move the camera. To pan around the map use the 'WASD' keys, the middle mouse button, click the minimap or move the mouse to edge of the screen.
  • The buttons in the Command Panel in the bottom-right corner of the screen are mapped to the Numeric Pad.
  • When more than one command is available for a target, holding down the right-mouse button will open a menu wheel of available commands.
  • To monitor a large area of your kingdom, zoom out to the strategic map using the mouse wheel or 'R' and 'F' keys. All commands available on the tactical map can also be issued using the miniatures on the strategy map.
  • Double-Clicking on the Mini-map will take you quickly to the desired location. The same works for alert buttons.
  • If you lose orientation, press "N" and the map will reset direction with the North on top of the screen.
  • The game can be configured to auto-pause after key events. Many events will trigger a notification bubble at the top of the screen. You can also change the behaviour of the notifications in the options menu.
  • You can use the Asset List to conveniently find and maneuvre to cities, units, resources etc.
  • To see your objectives and victory points, press the ‘L’ key or use the little box-shaped link on the right side of the screen.
Playing the Game
  • You have a starting city, and maybe some starting units as well. There are also bridges and camps: Bridges allow you to cross rivers, while Camps allow you to establish a forward place for your units to stay and provide you with more vision. There are various building upgrades for your cities, forts and bridges, such as Walls, Watchtower and Market.
  • Your 4 primary resources are Food, Gold, Wood and Recruits. There are various assets which you can capture using your units, in order to gain more of these resources. Wood is very important in the early game because you need to upgrade your buildings. Food, however, is the most important resource throughout the game: Without food your units will do badly, without food your cities will riot.
  • You select units/cities/etc. using the left mouse button. Clicking on a target object using the right mouse button then will bring up a control wheel from which you can choose the appropriate action (if there are more than one possible). This way you can e.g. connect a city to a ressource building or order a unit to capture a brigdehead.
  • To harvest resources you'll need to capture a resource building (farm, mine etc.) and put a worker or slave unit into it. After that you'll need to connect the resource building to your cities by selecting it using the left mouse button and then right-clicking on the next city.
  • Little by little while creating new units and by capturing assets and other cities, you try to expand your empire in order to establish your hegemony. You can get an overview of your assets in the asset list.
  • In sandbox mode as well as in campaigns, there are various random or scripted objectives which reward you well, when you complete them. In the beginning, you may (closely) follow the tutorial missions to learn the game.
  • You win the game by achieving hegemony. You can monitor your progress towards hegemony in the objectives log to the right side of the screen.
Realm & Economy
  • Attributes are the bonuses and abilities granted to a unit or building by changing stances, constructing upgrade buildings, promoting officers, or assigning generals.
  • Constructing upgrade buildings in cities or camps is much faster if the wood is already stockpiled locally. Use the stockpile control in the trade tab to move wood before construction begins.
  • Cities rebel when their morale is below 100. To improve morale you can add units to the garrison, create hostages, or increase the food provided to the city using the trade tab.
  • Empty farms and other resource buildings can be captured and occupied immediately by workers or slaves, but you'll need combat units to capture enemy buildings that already have workers in them.
  • Small groups of slaves can be merged together into gangs of up to 20 men. To merge slaves, select one unit and right-click on another.
  • If a friendly faction controls a building that you need, instead of going to war over it you can choose to buy if off them using the requisition button in the command panel.
  • Food is critical. Combat units, garrisons, and hostages all require food in order to function. Without it their morale will drop leading to routing, surrender or rebellions.
  • If your food stockpiles are low in the winter, you can ration your supplies by adjusting the consumption rates in your cities by going to the trade tab.
  • The stockpiling level is set in the trade tab when a friendly city or camp is selected. Lines that have been blockaded by enemy units can not transfer food. A city will fall quickly to a siege if it runs out of food.
  • Maritime supply lines can transfer resources much more efficiently over long distances than overland supply lines.
  • The Caduceus, the winged staff encircled by two snakes, is recognized in modern times as a symbol of medicine. In the ancient world it was known as the Rod of Hermes and represented trade and commerce which is why you'll find it on supply lines in Hegemony.
  • An overview of the economy can be found in the upper left GUI by clicking on the icons for gold, food or wood. Furthermore, you can get an overview in the asset list.
  • If you are interested in the economy of a single territory, you can click on the button "View Territory Details" in a city, camp or bridge or double-click on the territory on the map.
Some Strategies
  • Keep your troops well stocked with food - otherwise their morale will suffer. Morale is the key to winning fights, one unit can take on five if their morale is better.
  • Watch those flanks, your units morale will plummet if they are succesfully flanked for an extended period of time.
  • Intel is the key to victory, always scout out your target cities before considering invasion to be sure that you have ample forces to win the battle.
  • Retreat is a very valid tactic, if you can't win the battle don't be afraid to fall back. Nothing will be gained if your troops are slaughtered, you might also possibly pull your enemies into a trap if they chase you into your territory.
  • A blockade describes the strategic activity of blocking supplies from reaching an enemy army or building. Without food, enemies will be unable to fight or defend their cities.
  • As long as there is food to feed them, the presence of a garrison will reduce the damage inflicted on a city during a siege and allow it to fire back on the enemy. Garrisons will also increase morale in captured cities.
  • To deter raiders, garrison combat units near valuable targets such as farms, mines or unwalled cities.
  • Pursuit is the act of chasing down enemy units that have routed in combat in order to maximize casualties or capture slaves. If a routed unit escapes, its members will rejoin their home city's recruit pool allowing the enemy to recover faster.
  • In the summer, many marshes become dry enough for units to navigate without the Marsh Movement attribute.
  • During the winter, all open water is considered too rough to sail and will damage and sink ships that are out of port for too long.
  • To starve an open water port, you'll need to cut off the food supply that it receives by ship. Either block their trade routes with warships or wait until winter when stormy weather puts a stop to open sea travel.
  • It is worth scouting the map for AIs that are willing to pay tribute for a truce, so you can finance paying tribute to your bigger neighbours, if you want to keep them from attacking you.
Combat Units
  • Advanced units often require you to construct upgrade buildings in a city before you can train them. When changing a unit's home, the new city must also have the buildings to support it.
  • Your defeated units will live to fight another day! When a unit is defeated, it will return to its home city and begin recruiting new soldiers to fill its ranks. This way, defeated units are able to retain their experience and their officers.
  • If a unit without the required attributes becomes stuck in the marshes when they are impassable, they can still leave the area but suffer a debuff to their speed and morale.
  • Gold is paid to your units as an ongoing expense. If you no longer have enough gold to pay them, their morale will drop and they will eventually disband or rebel.
  • Combat units gain experience that can be used to promote officers to improve the unit's stats and unlock new abilities.
  • Forced march allows units to travel quickly through safe territory. This ability can be unlocked by promoting officers or attaching generals with the Forced March attribute.
  • A general's attributes only apply to the unit he is merged with or to the camp/city he is assigned to. Only one general may be in charge of a unit or building at a time.
  • Troops within a territory will automatically draw food from all buildings within the territory. If they leave the territory they will automatically try to fill their packs to provide them with supplies in the field.
  • The food a unit carries is only meant to feed them during travel or through a quick encounter. For protracted engagements you should construct a camp and set up supply lines to support your units.
  • If your units are cut off from food, you can resupply directly from a food producing resource building such as a farm by holding down the right-mouse button and picking Scavenge from the context wheel.
  • Scavenging food will damage the resource building in proportion to how much food is taken. If the building becomes too damaged it will no longer be able to support the scavengers.
  • Stances determine how a unit will behave in combat. Battlelines will try to hold formation, while skirmishers will swarm the enemy. Units in ranged stances will try to avoid direct combat.
15 Comments
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Huitzilopochtli 10 Sep, 2022 @ 2:08pm 
thank you
Canute VII  [author] 10 Sep, 2022 @ 1:39pm 
Well, for the skill tree go the the top right bar in the interface and click the middle icon, which has the form of a chart. You can read up a bit here: Wiki Link [hegemony.fandom.com]
Huitzilopochtli 10 Sep, 2022 @ 1:33pm 
Thanks for ideas. What is the economic tree? Is there tech in this game? I guess I never saw it or forgot that aspect.
Canute VII  [author] 10 Sep, 2022 @ 12:59pm 
That's odd, the alert seemed to work quite reliably in my games. You can try to connect buildings more efficiently, though, by applying the shortest route. The longer the supply line, the more it costs. So instead of connecting e.g. a camp to city, and a mine to the same city, it might be more efficient to connect the mine to the camp and the campt to the city, if this minimizes the length of the supply line. Also if the supply territories (the coloured circles around cities etc.) overlap or connect, then a supply line won't be neccessary anymore. That's why the supply logistics skill in the economy tree might be helpful if supply lines are draining gold.
Huitzilopochtli 10 Sep, 2022 @ 12:50pm 
okay thanks. I also heard that having too many resource lines from nodes to cities uses up money. This seemed very odd to me cause if there is no supply line to the city, then the resource shows a disconnect icon over it. So I connect it and then get a warning that the connection is unnecessary and using up money so I get slapped either way I do it.
Canute VII  [author] 10 Sep, 2022 @ 12:39pm 
Hm, it's difficult to analyse your game from afar and there are quite a few triggers to wield if the economy isn't humming. I'd say build more markets in your cities, research the tax skill in the economy tree, replace workers with slaves. That would be the most obvious means to get a flailing economy back on track. Also remember that you have additional moral in your capital city so you might check if you can raise taxes there in the city trade tab.
Huitzilopochtli 9 Sep, 2022 @ 7:37pm 
My problem in this game was losing money. I expanded nicely and was grinding down my neighbors and capturing resource nodes, but I had a large negative cashflow and had to give up. I think I built too many buildings. My game now as Gauls I have a solid positive cashflow but it is very early.
Canute VII  [author] 9 Sep, 2022 @ 2:03pm 
I have read a fair amount of reviews for this game, so believe me if I tell you, there are people who get frustrated by setbacks to the point they stop playing and file a negative review. The point on the game's save system is for them then and you can just ignore it, if it doesn't play to your preferences. People are so different and I can really just write one guide for them all :-)
Huitzilopochtli 9 Sep, 2022 @ 12:30pm 
I've only played this game once a few years ago and am just trying it again so I am your target audience. I never once felt the need to reload and never felt the intense frustration you are worried about.
Canute VII  [author] 9 Sep, 2022 @ 11:23am 
Any better formulation to instruct someone who is new to the game and doesn't want to get his head handed to him? Just remember this really are some tips for a first playthrough, for someone who potentially hasn't much experience playing real-time strategy games.