This guide will teach you how to beat Brutal Difficulty by giving you a handful of easy to follow sample builds with detailed in depth explanations on why they work. If you follow this guide once then you should have all the tools and skills you need to make your own builds that can beat Brutal Difficulty so follow this guide once and have fun.

All of my non-Chosen Destroyer builds utilize only 3 cities, employ a turtle strategy, forgoes diplomacy, and goes Military victory because

• 3 cities are enough to beat Brutal Difficulty so what's the point in spending considerable amount of more effort for a 4th city when 3 is enough?
  
• this guide is for new players and nothing is easier than turtling.
  
• diplomacy is not necessary and is decently complicated to utilize effectively so it might not be a good idea for new players to play around with it while they're learning the game.
  
• Military victory requires you to get strong enough to kill multiple stacks of 18 enemies back to back, sometimes 2-3 times on the same turn. If you can do that then you can do anything you want which is why this guide teaches you how to do that.

The guide uses only the Barbarian and Feudal:Monarchy cultures because they're pretty much the strongest cultures in the game and this guide is a minmax guide.

Here's a quick overview of my builds

• Storm Spirit build is your standard typical build. Endgame T3 army stacked with +damage unit enchantments with summoner heroes that can take on Brutal Difficulty 6v18 by themselves and win.
  
• Ranger build is the pre-hero-rework uber magelock hero build adapted to the hero rework. Rangers one shot kill anything and everything.
  
• Reaper build is your standard T5 Mythic unit build and it can be adapted to use any other T5 Mythic unit you want
  
• Shrine of Smiting build is your ranged unit build
  
• Wizard King build is your spell spam caster build that goes Storm Spirits as well. Main difference between this and the Storm Spirit build is this build goes Cosmic Overdrive while the Storm Spirit build goes Shaper's Touch.
  
• Balor Build is exactly what it says on the tin.
  
• Frost Dragon build is exactly what it says on the tin.
  
• Cult of Personality build is the zomfg roflstomp build that's illegal for Story Realms.
  
• And the Lost Wizard build is the capture any T5 unit in the game build for people who want to play with units that are usually not available to players like Lost Wizards and Umbral Tyrants.

The Chosen Destroyers build I've provided is not for beginners. I recommend you beat Brutal Difficulty at least once using my 3 city build orders before attempting it. I've included it in case some of you don't want to turtle and want to be hyper aggressive right from the get go, or at least, that was the reason before the Ogre Update. Now I think it's the 2nd strongest Society Trait in the game that blows all other Society Traits except Cult of Personality out of the water by a considerable margin so anyone looking to roflstomp really, really hard should take a look at it. 3 cities research caps out at like 300 per turn while Chosen Destroyers hits 1000 research by mid game and just continues to skyrocket.

I have provided a few Chosen Destroyer exclusive builds as well. They're exclusive to Chosen Destroyers because they require Chosen Destroyer's immense resource generation to function. For example, 17 T5 Frost Dragons require more than 1k+ gold per turn and pre-building 30 Warbreeds for immediate 15 Balors upon finishing Fight for Power research similarly requires around 1k gold per turn. There's not a chance in hell you can get this kind of resource income this early without Chosen Destroyers.

If you have any questions or comments about this guide, post here: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/1669000/discussions/0/597391133706847176/

Please note that every update changes everything signficantly and as a result I might miss something when I update this guide. So if you see any kind of inconsistency, it's because of this.

I had the pleasure of talking to some multiplayer people recently

• they disagree with some of my opinions. But they play a very different game. They play on normal world difficulty, use their own balance mod, auto-resolve 100% of their fights, stay at 6 units until the endgame, 2 of which are heroes, so they only have 4 non-hero units until the endgame, and the vast majority of their resources come from clearing camps.
  
• By contrast I play on hard world difficulty, don't use any mods, rush to 18 units as quickly as possible to make fights as easy as possible, do only manual combat until the endgame therefore I use a lot of units that are terrible in auto-resolve but fantastic in manual combat, and the vast majority of my resources comes from my cities.
  
• Also Hero Ambitions. Because multiplayer people auto-resolve 100% of their battles, they can only complete an extremely few number of Hero Ambitions. Me on the other hand make entire builds revolving around specific Hero Ambitions.
  
• Apparently multiplayer people can get their Ruler to level 18 and get their T5 Tome by turn 50. I could not replicate these results even when i went Cult of Personality with 5x Eldritch Sovereigns and never stopped fighting all game. Earliest I ever got my T5 Tome is turn 69. But I didn't go Fabled Hunters. I went Chosen Destroyers.
  
• In the youtube videos of multplayer people, they just split up their 6 unit army and ram them into as many camps as possible per turn and auto-resolve all of them. When i tried doing that on Brutal Difficulty without their balance mod, I lost units every single fight and the rest of my army was half hp or lower.

Ultimately, this guide's goal is to teach you how to make your own thematic gimmicky fun builds viable in the hardest single player difficulty this game has to offer, NOT teach you the multiplayer meta. And I believe my opinions are 100% accurate for people who use an 18 unit army as soon as they can and get the majority of their resources from their cities but they may not be accurate for people who only use 2 heroes + 4 non-hero units for the vast majority of the game and get most of their resources from clearing camps.

As such i will make notes throughout the guide where multiplayer people disagreed with me so you can choose which advice to follow yourself.

I think this is the most impactful setting for world generation.

Small Maps

• Multiple AIs, usually 2-3, will bear their full armies down on you simultaneously very early in the game.
  
• 1 or 2 infestations will pester you on top of this and the AI will take care of most of them without you needing to do anything.
  
• You will be boxed in very badly. Hermit Kingdom Society Trait is not viable on this size.
  
• Not many neutral encampments to level your heroes with.
  
• The end result is you fight the AI early with a weak army and low level heroes. This is VERY difficult.

Medium Maps

• No real fighting with other AIs until late in the game because it takes too long for them to reach your Throne City and they got other problems.
  
• 5-ish infestations will relentlessly attack you nonstop right from the get go. This is extremely ragequit inducing for new players as not only do you need to fend off stacks and stacks of multiple T4-T5 units ceaselessly right from the very start of the game preventing you from exploring or doing anything for a significant portion of the game because you need a full 18 unit army guarding your cities at all times, but also because the Infestations are so far away from your Throne City that there is literally nothing you can do to stop or alleviate the attack waves. You stop the infestations when you get your full T3 army with high level heroes and the Advanced Logistics empire skill.
  
• Won't be boxed in until later. I don't think Hermit Kingdom is viable on this size either.
  
• Lots of neutral encampments to level your heroes with.
  
• The end result is the game becomes Player versus Environment and once you defeat the infestations you can start fighting the AI with your maxed out army and high level heroes.

I'd say medium maps are easier for non-Chosen Destroyer builds because Infestations are much easier than the AI and you get to fight the AI with strong units and high level heroes.

For non-Feudal Chosen Destroyers however, I'd say small maps are easier but only if you know what you're doing. On medium maps cities are so far apart there is no way you can raze a city before a wave of infestations take your throne city so you're forced to turtle and stay at 1 city raze for like 60 turns. On small maps however you can raze 3-4 cities in that same span of time and start snowballing. The only caveat however is that combat is going to be brutal so you really need to know what you're doing and do manual combat almost exclusively until you get your endgame setup. Feudal on the other hand, is so insanely strong right from the get go that they can both raze cities and rush down infestations simultaneously right from the get go, and their game winning unit, Aspirant Knight, has 48 movement so they fly across medium sized maps so they don't struggle at all.

I don't play anything bigger than medium because medium is too big for me already. It takes forever to traverse your army on a medium sized map.

Default is 6 but that's too much for a medium map in my opinion. 3 on the other hand is too few. I'd say... 4-5 is a good number? Even if a few AIs get killed you'll still have like 2-3 full strength AIs to kill. For me at least, having to kill 4-5 AI myself feels like a drag. It's not like more AI makes the game harder. In fact it might make the game easier because there's only so many AIs that can be your neighbors and the additional AIs will most likely occupy your neighbors' attention.

On small maps 6 is fine. Unlike medium sized maps a lot of the AIs will kill each other very early.

OGRE UPDATE: Default is now 4 AI players.

For your first Brutal game I definitely recommend you disable it. You're still figuring things out, trying new things, taking your time, and if enabled your game will end abruptly before you get the full experience.

For subsequent games, up to you. On one hand it encourages you to get better. On the other hand, you need to rush rush rush and snipe Throne Cities exclusively.

My vote is, after you get like 1-3 wins with Score Victory on with the full 6 AI count, disable it every game after so you can relax and have fun instead of rush rush rush. Since you already know you're good enough to beat it, why keep it on and stress yourself out? My average win time is turn 110 with 6 AIs but sometimes the games devolve into a prolonged game of whack-a-mole, ESPECIALLY if I enable the underground, forcing me to go over turn 150 in such situations.

OGRE UPDATE: Default is now 4 AI players which you should not have any trouble taking out within 150 turns even if you're new to the game. Still, disable it for your first Brutal difficulty game.

In Simultaneous turns when you move 1 stack away from your other 2 stacks the AI will immediately dogpile on it causing you to do a 6v18 fight and get wiped. Then your other 2 stacks get dogpiled and fight a 12v18 fight and get wiped.

So why would you play Simultaneous turns then? Well, if you wait until every AI finishes all of their moves, then the above scenario is avoided and you can play like normal just like Classic Turns. So basically Simultaneous Turns just means you go last every turn. Click next turn, wait, then at last you get to do your turn.

That's basically the same as Classic Turns right? Once you click next turn you need to wait until all the others AIs do their stuff. And then you get to go. So what's the point of Simultaneous Turns then if it's the same as Classic Turns?

The difference is you get to do menu stuff while you wait for the AI to do their turn. Instead of twiddling your thumbs you can do all your citiy management stuff at which point the AI is finished and you won't get ganked when you move your army.

So because of this Simultaneous Turns are faster than Classic Turns. Because the AI's turn and your menu stuff overlap, making every turn shorter.

Which is why I recommend Simultaneous Turns. But it's really not a big deal. At all. Like I said they're bascially the same so do whatever.

Lets talk about Province Improvements. Simply put, the yields of your farms, quarries, and forester province improvements don't matter. You get those provinces solely to boost your buildings.

For those of you who don't know, virtually every building in the game can have its production cost reduced by 30% just by having a certain number of province improvements. For example, having a single farm reduces the production cost of a workshop by 30%. Reducing every building's production cost by 30% will have a bigger impact than the farm, quarry, and forester province improvement's yield will ever have so we build those province improvements solely to boost buildings and not for their yield.

My strategy for provinces is

• 2 Farms to boost Workshop, Stonemason, Vendor, and Market
  
• 2 Quarries to boost Shrine, Mana Obelisk, and Blacksmith, and enable Masonic Hall
  
• 1 Forester to boost Library, Arcane Institute, and enable Blacksmith

And then it depends on the situation. On my throne city I usually get a 3rd Farm to boost Masonic Hall but not on my non-throne cities as they don't seem to be able to get enough provinces in time.

Lets talk about swapping Province Improvements. It takes 3 turns to change a Province Improvement. There is no real downside to this as it costs nothing and you only lose that province's miniscule income for 3 turns. But it's important to note that if you no longer meet the boost requirements of a building, the boost will be undone. So if you have 3 turns left on Stonemason and you set one of your farms to change into something else in 3 turns, the farm will be swapped out first, undoing the boost, and lengthen your Stonemason by an additional turn. So if you're going to swap out a farm in this situation, begin swapping it out when Stonemason only has 2 turns left until completion. And you should most definitely swap out your farm in this situation.

So needless to say, grab provinces that can have a variety of province improvements first. And build Special Province Improvements like the Alchemy Lab or School of Cryomancy on provinces that can only build farms or huts. Huts are truly worthless and must be avoided at all costs.

When acquiring new Provinces, get the ones that can build Mines, Conduits, and Research Posts first. Build a farm/quarry/forester in that province to get the building boosts and once you've finished building all the important buildings swap out every farm/quarry/forester you have into Mines, Conduits, and Research Posts. Don't leave them for later because the AI will forward settle and snipe it from you.

Once you built all your structures and grabbed all the Mines, Conduits, and Research Posts, personally, I'd spam farms because with the Soiltenders Empire Skill they give a decent amount of food which means a faster City growth rate which means more provinces which means you can grab the Mines, Conduits, and Research Posts that are further away from your city.

If you're building every single Special Province Improvement you have access to you probably won't have any spare Provinces for farms, which is more than fine. Special Province Improvements always give way more than farms even with Soiltenders.

Alternatively, if you want to spend a lot more effort, you should maximize your Special Province Improvements by surrounding a Special Province Improvement with its adjacency bonuses. For example Ritual Pyre surrounded by Foresters.

We have a lot of resources. Production, Research, Gold, Mana, Draft, Food, and Town Halls. So which ones do we build first?

In my experience Food buildings are completely inconsequential. I grow fast enough without it, I get all the provinces I need by the end without it, on a small map I am completely boxed in by the AI by mid game so extra food doesn't really do anything, and if I really want food I can get Farm provinces boosted by the Soiltender Empire Skill instead of spending precious structure building time on Food buildings. Therefore we will be completely disregarding Food buildings in its entirety.

In my opinion Town Halls are the most important because you really, really, really need to produce high tier units as soon as possible otherwise infestations alone will kill you.

But Production is very important too. Without them your Town Hall is gonna take forever to build. And you can't afford your high tier units without building all your gold buildings. And you need draft buildings to be able to build your army of high tier units in time. And you need mana buildings afford all of your Unit Enchantments. There are just so many things to build that in my opinion production is more important than getting Town Halls up as quickly as possible.

But at the same time, +production buildings take a lot of turns to turn a profit. Stonemason takes 17 turns to turn a profit and Masonic Hall takes 23 turns. Chances are you'll be dead before those 23 turns because you spent all your money on production instead of gold or Town Halls.

When they're boosted however Stonemason takes 12 turns to turn a profit and Masonic Hall takes 16 turns which is considerably better. Which is why in my opinion boosted production buildings are worth building before everything but unboosted production buildings are not worth it until after all your critical infrastructure is built. Which is why I always start with 2 Farms and get Workshop and Stonemason up as soon as possible.

And don't forget about Research. If you want to hit the T5 Tomes in a reasonable time you need to max out your research early. But at the same time, the Knowledge Extraction Empire Skill gives you an obscene amount of research throughout the game so research is not THAT important. I'd say mass producing T3 units is more important.

So after consdering everything, I've settled on this:

• All cities build Workshop and Stonemason first.
  
• All cities build Masonic Hall once they have 5 provinces to boost it. If they don't, skip it until they do and then build it next.
  
• Then all cities build the cheap research buildings: Library and Arcane Institute.
  
• Throne City rushes Town Hall III and builds the two draft buildings (Blacksmith, Armory) a.s.a.p. to start mass producing your T3 Culture unit a.s.a.p. to not die to infestations.
  
• Non-Throne cities build the cheap mana buildings (Shrine, Obelisk) to quickly pay for Unit Enchantments and then the cheap gold buildings (Shipyard, Vendor, Market) to quickly pay for the increasingly expensive higher tier army.
  
• Then they switch. Throne City builds the cheap resource buildings and non-Throne cities build Town Hall III and Armory so they can start producing T3 units as well
  
• Once all that is done, everyone starts building the expensive buildings like Academy.

The more detailed build order is located in the Barbarian/Feudal:Monarchy Early Game section.

My choice of guild is Mage's Guild for more mana for Unit Enchantments. You get guilds way too late so research is not worth it and I have much more gold than mana so I choose mana. I don't need draft or increased unit rank on recruitment at the point in the game where I am able to build guilds.

Melee units (Shield, Shock, Fighter, Polearm, Skirmishers) are superior to ranged units in every aspect by a considerable margin to the point that I say never use ranged units.

Unit Enchantments for melee units give double the bonuses than their ranged counterpart. Melee Unit Enchantments give +2 damage so if you get 5 of them, your melee units will do +10 damage, doubling their damage output.

Ranged units on the other hand, they only get +1 damage so if you get 5 of them, your ranged units will get +5 damage.

It's important to note that single shot weapons get double this bonus. So single shot melee units will get +20 damage in this case and single shot ranged weapons will get +10 damage.

Also, Ranged Units have to deal with accuracy. If your target is standing behind another unit or is standing on top of plants or something then your ranged units get a 40% loss in accuracy. So what was 90% is now 50% and what was 65% is now 25%. Also, long range reduces accuracy further so their range stat doesn't matter because you're always gonna move them up close to avoid the accuracy penalty. Tome of Scrying gets rid of Obscuring penalties which makes it a must in any ranged build but nothing removes long range penalty, and the fact that you have to get Tome of Scrying instead of a damage tome just expands the gap between melee and ranged units further. By Tome #3 melee units are at +6 damage per hit while ranged unit, because one of those Tomes has to be Tome of Scrying, is only at +2 damage per hit.

In addition Melee units have Unit Enchantments that give them +50% crit chance letting them easily hit 100% crit chance where as Ranged Units only get +20% with the new Archon Prophecy Tome. With it they can now reach +100% crit too but it requires you to get both +20 morale AND 3x Fortune on everyone.

To understand just how bad ranged units are, you need to understand that ranged Mythic Units do more damage than every ranged unit with every +damage unit enchantment. And Mythic units have significant bulk and powerful abilities on top of this so if the choice is between grabbing all the ranged unit enchantments or grabbing a ranged Mythic Unit, the choice is clear. Get the Mythic Unit. Ironclads will outperform every maxed out ranged unit in the game and ironclads only need the 1 Tome, Tome of the Dreadnought, freeing up a TON of Tome slots to go whatever else you want. Likewise, Shrine of Smiting, in my opinion the most powerful ranged unit in the game, has 100% accuracy against anything and everything including those Summer Mistwatchers with 4x stacks of Windwalls for 240% evasion, and will deal 92 damage a hit while ignoring 50% of resistance, 126 damage with 5x Strengthen, and can even reach 100% crit chance with the right build. You tell me how your non-mythic ranged units are gonna compete with that.

Even at the beginning of the game when nobody has unit enchantments ranged units are awful because of just how much flora there is in the game now since the recent few updates. The vast majority of my ranged attacks were done at 50% accuracy even at close range because of this. Which makes Tome of Scrying absolutely mandatory to use ranged units at any point in the game and because Tome of Scrying gives nothing else, only astral builds can utilize ranged units at the start and switch to something else.

The Keen-Sighted racial trait does mitigate all of this considerably and with Tome of Scrying accuracy is no longer a deal breaker but Keen-Sighted still costs 2 racial trait points and none of this changes the fact that ranged units' damage output is pathetic.

I will say if you're using the strong racial trait for +2 damage, Tome of Zeal to give both melee and ranged units +2 damage, and the Artificer ascension trait to blow up Flora your focus fire target is standing on, then and only then are Archers viable in the early game but that's as far as it goes as from that point on Tomes boost Archers horribly.

Battle Mages. after the recent updates, only have 5 +damage Unit Enchantments.

• One in T1 (A) Tome of Evocation for +2
  
• One in T4 (M) Tome of the Crucible for +3
  
• One in T4 (C)(S) Tome of Calamity for +2
  
• One in T4 (O) Tome of Supremacy for +2
  
• One in T4 (C) Tome of Chaos Channeling for upto +5, but requires 5 non-combat summon units to die first

for a grand total of +14. It's... bad. +14 doesn't sound so bad but FOUR of these unit enchantments reside in T4 Tomes so it is bad because you can't grab all 4 even if you dedicate your entire Tome build to getting them. Realistically at most you'll only get 3 of these if you dedicate your entire build to them so in the end, Battlemage's damage is just as bad as ranged units'.

But unlike both Melee and Ranged units, Battle Mages have a LOT of +% damage unit enchantments. Leyline Focus is +30%, Siege Magic and Raiders of the deep each give +10%, Soulbinders is another +10%, etc.

And unlike both melee and ranged units, Battle Mages also have very good AoE skills, some even only have 1 cd.

Here's the important part, all Battle Mage unit enchantments also buff their AoE attack.. In addition to all the +damage mentioned above, you know those Battle Mage unit enchantments that bestow some kind of status effect on hit? Battle Mage's AoE can inflict all of those statuses too. We're talking AoE Constricted, Soulbound, etc. Those small damage bonuses and status effects on their regular attack is a joke but when you put them on their AoE attacks they are game winning.

Lastly, Tome of the Dragons gives Battle Mages a 2nd AoE attack that's usually more powerful than their own AoE attack. It's also on a 2 turn cd so if your Battle Mage has a 1 turn cd AoE attack, they can fire off 3 AoE attacks in a row. In addition Fire Bomb can be used while an enemy is in melee range.

So if we put all of this together Battle Mages can become some kind of seriously heavy hitting rapid fire artillery pieces that fire off powerful AoE almost every turn. They can even do more AoE damage than T5 Mythic Units. But unlike T5 units they can't take a hit. And the reason Melee units are superior is because Battle Mages need their enemies to come to them and their single target damage is crap so if enemies don't group up and let you stack 5x AoEs on them, your Battle Mages are gonna get screwed. Shock Units on the other hand approach the enemy and don't care if their targets are spread out or grouped up.

So in conclusion, Melee units are best, Battle Mages can work in manual combat only, and never I mean EVER go Ranged.

In this game, the damage output difference between lower tier units and higher tier units is negligible. In other words, in this game, lower tier units deal just as much damage as higher tier units. So a T1 unit is gonna deal basically just as much damage as a T4 unit.

In fact, T1 units will do more damage than T5 units. All T5 units are Mythic Units and Mythic Units benefit from virtually 0 Unit Enchantments so they don't scale at all so in the end, T1 units will do more damage than Mythic Units.

So then why go higher tier units at all then if T5 units do less damage than T1 untis? The answer is 3 things: Model Count, Bulk, and Powerful Abilities.

If a unit has 6 Model count, that means when it loses 1/6th of its hp, it will deal 1/6th less damage because a model "died". Therefore a 1hp 6 model unit will deal 16.7% damage, a 1 hp 3 model unit will deal 33% damage, and a 1hp single model unit will deal 100% damage. So in a fight between a single model unit and a high model unit, assuming all other stats are identical, the single model unit will always win because after 1 hit the high model unit's damage output is gonna capsize.

Higher Tier units have lower model count.

1 defense or resistance in this game is 10% damage reduction, stacked multiplicatively. So if a unit has 1 defense it will receive only 90% damage and if a unit has 10 defense it will receive 0.9^10 = 35% damage.

So if we look at a T1 Legend Rank Arcane Guard who has 3 defense and 123hp, he essentially has 169hp.

If we look at a T5 Legend Rank Reaper who has 10 defense and 200 hp on the other hand, he essentially has 574hp. That's more than 3 times more effective hp.

So if we pit an Arcane Guard and a Reaper against each other, even though the Arcane Guard will deal more damage, because it takes more than 3 times the effort to kill 1 Reaper and because of the Arcane Guard's 6 Model count, the Reaper will win.

Some, not all, T5 Mythic Units have powerful abilities. Reapers have a 60% chance instant kill attack that they can use after a full movement that also spawns zombies on success. So in a 15 vs 15 fight, after the Reaper's alpha strike, the battle becomes a 24 vs 6 fight. That's a really one-sided fight.

Balors have massive, massive AoE. 44 damage. So in their alpha strike they'll wipe out an entire army just from their AoE.

So if you pit Arcane Guards v.s. Reapers, yeah, it's not even worth calculating. Reapers win.

Instead of Arcane Guards, lets pit Reapers against Storm Spirits because I consider Storm Spirits to be the most powerful non-mythic unit in the game. I also consider Reapers to be a contender for most powerful unit in the game. Balors might be better I don't know.

• Storm Spirits
  
  • With all the +damage T1 Tomes (Evocation, Cryomancy, Pyromancy, Zeal, Roots), and Brutal Strike from Barbarians, Storm Spirits have a base attack damage of 55.
    
  • With +50% from 5x Strengthen, +30% from Cosmic Overdrive, +20% from Legend Rank, +50% from crit, +20% from Lightning Blades because Storm Spirits' teleport electrifies everyone next to them, and +60% from charge bonus Storm Spirits get a total of +230% damage
    
  • 55 * 3.3 = 181 damage.
    
  • Legend Rank Storm Spirits have 5 def, 6 res, and 135 hp.
• Reapers
  
  • Reapers have a base attack of 22 damage: 11 physical, 11 frost, and their base attacks ignore 50% of the enemy's def and res.
    
  • With +50% from 5x Strengthen, +30% from Cosmic overdrive, and +20% from Legend Rank, they have +100% damage. They technically can get 50% crit rate super late in the game but that's just impractical so I'm leaving it out.
    
  • 22 * 2 = 44 damage. They will do 44, 88, or 132 damage depending on how far they have to move to attack.
    
  • Legend Rank Reapers have 10 def 8 res and 200hp

So if we pit 15 Reapers and 15 Storm Spirits together, both with 3x Army Leader heroes, Ignore 6 Status Resistance for Reapers and +30% crit chance for Storm Spirits...

• Storm Spirits will get the first hit off because teleport gives them the longest engagement distance in the game. 181 * 15 = 2715. 100% of this damage is non-physical so with 8 resistance Reapers will be only taking 43% of that. 2715 * 0.43 = 1167. 5 Reapers are killed and 1 is almost dead.
  
• The surviving 10 Reapers retaliate with Finger of Death. With a 60% success chance 6 Storm Spirits die and 6 Zombies are spawned. Fight is now 16 vs 9 but lets ignore the zombies for now in exchange for ignoring the Storm Spirits' retaliation attacks because that's what's the zombies were gonna be used for, to eat retaliation attacks. So the fight is now 10 vs 9. 4 of the Storm Spirits take 45 frost damage that ignores resistance and with their -6 frost resistance they take 47% more damage for 66 damage. 4 Storm Spirits only have 69 hp.
  
• Storm Spirits retaliate, I will assume they get their +60% charge bonus though in reality they probably won't. 181 * 9 * 0.43 = 700. 4 Reapers die. Fight is now 6 vs 9
  
• All 6 Reapers probably get 3x attacks off since Storm Spirits are melee units too. Of the Reaper's 44 damage base attack, 22 is reduced by 3 def and 22 is boosted by 27% because the Storm Spirits' halved resistance is 3 and their frost weakness is 6. 16 + 28 = 44 damage a hit, 132 damage total. The 4 Storm Spirits with 69hp all die and one more full hp Storm Spirit dies. Fight is now 6 vs 4.
  
• 181 * 4 * 0.43 = 300. One Reaper dies. Fight is now 5v4.
  
• It takes 2 Reapers to kill 1 Storm Spirit so the fight becomes 5v2. And we'll stop here. It's obvious Reapers will win.

So as you can see, despite Storm Spirits dealing a ton more damage (more than 4x after a full move, more than 2x after 2x attacks, about 50% more than triple attacks), Reapers win because of their massive, massive bulk and super powerful abilities. So that's why Mythic Units are the best. Bulk and Abilities, not damage.

But the main thing that brings T5 Mythic Units down is their Imperium Upkeep. You start with 40, get 20 more from Mage Tower, and that's it. There is no structure you can build that increases it and no -upkeep hero skill or empire skill reduces it so you're stuck with at most 8 Mythic Units. That's only half of the 15 we used in the above example.

Getting the 3 plant magic materials gives +15. Scions of Evil gives +15, and every Wonder gives +5 which is a huge hassle.

And if you declare an unjust war, your Imperium income is gonna take a nosedive.

So that's the downside of using T5 units. Imperium becomes a pain.

With the Feudal rework however, with Feudal Monarchs, every unit in your Ruler's stack has 0 upkeep including Imperium. This is literally the only thing in the entire game capable of reducing Imperium upkeep and with it, you get 5 T5 units essentially for free bringing your total up to 13 up from 8 so if you want to use T5 Mythic Units, you should seriously consider going Feudal Monarch as your culture.

Reapers and Balors are contenders for most powerful units in the game because Finger of Death and Sunder the Earth are THAT good.

Other Mythic Units on the other hand, are probably worse than Storm Spirits.

Calamity Dragons for example, they require 3 action points to do a 44 damage ranged attack. It has colossal range (8 tiles) and ignores line of sight (so no -40% from obscured), but even if we max out its damage with Strengthen, Cosmic Overdrive, and crits it's only 110 damage, reduced by resistances, and you can't use it if an enemy is in melee range. Storm Spirits are going to run circles around this mythic unit. Don't get me wrong, Calamity Dragons are strong enough to win Brutal Difficulty with, but they're just not as good as T3 units.

Golden Golem is one of the worst Mythic Units in the game.

• It does only a measily 29 damage. A T1 unit without any unit enchantments does more damage than him.
  
• His main gimmick is Gilding enemies he attacks and melee enemies that attack him so you need a pure astral hero at the helm giving him ignore 6 status resistance otherwise nothing is gonna get gilded.
  
• His main strength is Golden Retaliation. In defense mode, he gets infinite retaliations and he always gets to hit first making them an absolute nightmare to kill with melee units because any melee unit that wants to attack the Golden Golem has a 60% chance of getting gilded without landing their first hit. But that just means if nobody attacks him he does absolutely nothing. And ranged units can attack him with impunity. And melee AI units always ignores your Golden Golems and run straight past them to get to your backline, forcing your Golden Golems to attack if they want to do anything in battle, which means no Golden Retaliation.
  
• This also necessitates that he takes damage which is terrible for attrition which is mandatory for Brutal Difficulty. The new reworked Shaper's Touch is NOT a solution because it doesn't heal past your starting hp so if you start a new fight with half hp, it ain't healing you past half hp.
  
• His Strike Gold skill deals 50 damage to all gilded enemies within 2 hexes... but it costs 3 action points so you can't even have a few Golden Golems gild the enemies and then move in and Strike Gold. As a result this is a completely worthless ability that just punishes melee attackers more which is not something Golden Golems need help with.
  
• So comparing to Reapers and Balors who just wipe out the majority of the enemy army in their alpha strike, or Shrines of Smiting who can focus fire enemies down from tremendous range with 100% accuracy + more than double damage with each shot than any other T5 Mythic Unit in the game + ignores 50% of the target's defense and resistance, Golden Golems, they either do pitiful damage or get ignored all to gild enemies 60% of the time and fights take forever and they will all die to ranged units, damage overtime effects, and attrition.

So don't assume that a unit is good just because it's a T5 unit.

Generally speaking Racial units are far superior. Generally speaking. There are exceptions.

• First, Racial units benefit from Racial Traits and some Racial Traits are incredibly powerful. Without Tenacious your non-racial units are gonna deal no damage after getting scratched. This is most notable when using Copper Golems. And without Fast Recuperation you have to return to your domain after every single fight to heal which can permanently prevent you from razing any cities. Not to mention any of the Flying Mount racial traits will reduce your mounted units' unit count and give them flying movement, which lets your cavalry ignore zone of control, terrain, and lets them move through enemy units. The difference in ability between flying shock units and non-flying shock units is astronomical. The difference in performance is so huge you can't compare the two.
  
• Second, Racial units benefit from Racial Transformations which are incredibly powerful. Control Loss Immunity, Flight, +15% crit chance, etc.
  
  • One of the most notable Racial transformations is Linked Minds which lets you bestow haste on your entire Racial unit army super early in the game. The difference in ability between 32 movement shock units and 48 movement shock units with an additional retaliation attack is HUGE.
    
  • Minor Racial transformations are stackable. So if you grab every +def minor racial transformation then you can get T3 units like Berserkers to have 13 def at base.

Just look up the Iron Golem and any racial T3 shield unit and compare. Iron Golem has the same stats but also -4 resistance to elec with no benefits whatsoever. So yeah, generally speaking, Racial units are far superior than non-racial units.

So what are the exceptions?

Well the obvious ones are T5 Mythic Units. None of them are racial units and they wipe out the entire enemy army with their stupidly powerful abilities and incredible bulk.

And then there are units like Storm Spirits who possesses abilities that are superior to any and all racial transformations like a Teleport you can use after a full move with Wind Wall protecting you from triple attacking ranged units afterwards.

I think it's important to note that Shock Units are the most powerful units in the game.

Lets consider a battle where there are no shock units.

Shields, Polearms, and Fighters up front with Ranged Units and Battle Mages right behind them.

One army stands still and one army approaches.

The army that approaches will get the first hit off but they only get 1 attack. Furthermore the army that stands still has overlapping defense modes so the army that approaches' attacks do much less than they should.

The army that stands still on the other hand gets to attack 3 times with EACH of their units on their turn and unlike them the army that approaches will not have any enhanced defenses so they get wiped.

So from this we can learn that without Shock units the approaching army always loses. Always. So if you're not using Shock units then never I mean EVER approach the enemy and always have the enemy approach you.

Lets talk about Shock Units now. Whether they're standing still or do a full movement they only get 1 attack. But for every tile they move they gain a 20% damage bonus (max 60%) which means they should always move at least 3 tiles every turn before attacking. My Shock units attack each other's enemy units instead of the one in front of them for this exact reason. And with this 60% damage bonus they do more damage than 2 hits from a triple attack unit. Emphasis on MORE. In addition, they cancel defense modes.

So now the situation is reversed. The army that approaches, instead of doing a pathetic gimped attack, will now deal their full maximum damage and annihilate the entire frontline of the army that stands still with their alpha strike. They will wipe out half of their opposing entire army with their alpha strike. Now this does leave the shock units vulnerable to the triple attacks of the ranged units but still, half of their enemies' units are annihilated before they got to do anything. And Shock Units can do all of this again and again every single turn

And that's why Shock Units is the best unit type in the game. They get to hit hard, hit first, and doesn't require you to lure the enemy to you.

You need to actually play a no Shock Unit build and then a Shock Unit only build to really understand the difference. In the former you try your best to lure and bait the enemy to your ranged units and get frustrated when the opponent is mostly ranged, and in the latter you just win everything on auto resolve with minimal losses.

Just in case you're curious, I consider the Storm Spirit to be the strongest Shock Unit in the game bar none by a considerable margin for a myriad of reasons such as being single model, able to teleport, able to electrify enemies before attacking, wind wall, etc.

If using only Shock Units and the enemy is stronger than you, move all your units to one side of the battlefield. If you do, 1/3 of the enemy will approach you directly while 2/3 of the enemy will approach you diagonally, letting 2/3 of your shock units pile on and kill 1/3 of the enemy before 2/3 of your enemy reach you. This is how you punch way above your weight with shock units.

Some Mythic Units (Balors, Fallen Angels, Astras, Dragons) are essentially pseudo shock units because they can do a full move action and then use a massive, massive AoE ability they can stack on the same group, wiping them out better than Shock units can.

Note: This section assumes you are grabbing mostly +damage unit enchantments for Shock Units. Shock Units have terrible defensive stats which makes them terrible brawlers. So their only defense is an overwhelming offense by killing everything with their alpha strike. Without +damage unit enchantments however they'll kill only 0-2 units with their alpha strike and then get triple attacked to death. So if you're not grabbing a ton of +damage unit enchantments then don't go Shock Units.

Polearm units sort of counter Shock units. They take away the Shock Units' +60% damage which really hurts the shock units, their defense mode can't be canceled so you cannot flank them if they didn't attack on their turn, and they get the first attack off, but once you get 5x strengthen and 100% crit rate, that -60% damage loss isn't that big of a deal. And defense mode is only +2 defense and resistance. So Polearm units will get mowed down once you get your damage. But until then they're the toughest unit type for Shock Units to hit that damage threshold that's necessary for them to be viable.

Multiplayer people consdier Polearm units the best unit type because of this but I don't know. Shock Units clear armies with minimal damage to themselves while Polearm units need to eat every single triple attacking unit in the face every single battle so I disagree. At least for single player.

This section will go over the main benefits of deeply investing in an Affinity. Emphasis on "deeply". Getting 1 point in an affinity will let you easily get the lower cost empire skills but don't have a chance in hell in getting the higher cost empire skills so I will go over why you would want to invest deeply into an affinity. All the affinities are ordered from strongest to weakest.

• This is the default. If you don't invest in any affinity, this is what you get. So when reading the rest of the affinities, keep in mind the cost of investing in those affinities is losing out on everything in this section.
  
• No Affinity means getting every +damage Unit Enchantment there is for your chosen unit type, usually melee. It's no affinity because all the +damage Unit Enchantments are spread out across all the affinities so if you grab them all, you're not gonna have a very high affinity of any affinity
  
• Tome of Zeal, Evocation, Pyromancy, Roots, Cryomancy, and Revelry each give a net +2 damage to your melee units. That's 6 Tomes.
  
• Tome of Artificing and Devastation together gives +45% crit chance. That's 8 Tomes.
  
• Pyromancy, Revelry, and Devastation give 6 Chaos Affinity, which is enough to give all of your heroes +30% crit chance to all non-hero units. That's a total of 75% crit rate on all of your melee units.
  
• All of these together MORE than DOUBLES your damage output. Emphasis on MORE and DOUBLE. A usual T3 unit has 16 damage per hit. Those 6 +damage unit enchantments give +12 damage total for 28. Crits deal +50% damage so 75% crit chance translates to +37.5% average damage for a total of 38 damage. 38/16 = 2.375. That's a 137.5% increase in damage.
  
• Next Tome is a T5 Tome slot but you don't have nearly enough affinity to grab one. Which is actually not as bad as it sounds. T5 Tomes are quite underwhelming from my experience. I don't prioritize them at all.
  
• There's also Dungeon Depths and Rock, which provide +10% damage and +1 damage. Add those in and the average damage rises to 42 which is a 162.5% increase in damage
  
• So if you want to invest heavily in an Affinity, keep in mind, you are sacrificing a LOT of damage for it. Like I mean a LOT.
  
• Generally speaking, going T5 Mythic Units is usually the only way sacrificing all of these +damage for deep investment into an affinity is worth it. Because Mythic units don't benefit from +damage unit enchantments anyways so they don't lose out on anything.
  
• If you grab all 10 Tomes with +damage unit enchantments then you will have 6 Materium and 6 Chaos Affinity which is enough to grab the high tier Materium and Chaos Tomes. It's no coincidence that Materium and Chaos are the two best affinities in the game. Even if you invest heavily into them, you will still have a LOT of +damage so you give up very little investing heavily into them.
  
• The new Empire of the Cosmos Society Trait lets No Affinity builds get any T5 Tome they want.
  
• My opinion on all 10 +damage unit enchantment Tomes
  
  • By far the best one is Tome of Cryomancy solely because of its Shadow Affinity. Knowledge Extraction is the best Empire Skill in the game so 100% of builds need a Shadow Affinity from some where. Also Dark Vigor is just such a good world map healing Empire Skill that I pretty much grab this Tome as my first or second Tome in 100% of my builds because unlike Knowledge Extraction you need more than 1 Shadow Affintiy to get Dark Vigor in a game. Snow Spirits on the other hand are either the 2nd best or absolute worst T1 elemental. They are VERY mobile (40 movement + swift) and once you have a lot of melee and ranged unit enchantments on them, by casting blizzard on the enemy stack before engaging, you have a very nice chance of freezing a big scary guy and inflict a lot of DoTs on it. But Snow Spirits cost 2x mana upkeep than normal because they need both melee and ranged unit enchantments, so arguably they are the worst. And they're way, way too fragile making them terrible fighters at the start of the game.
    
  • Second best is Tome of Revelry for Revels of Carnage which gives an xp boost to all units in your stack including HEROES. Champions with their +20% xp gain rate are consistently 1-2 levels ahead of everyone else. Revels of Carnage gives +30% xp so needless to say, if you are diligent at keeping Revels of Carnage on all of your heroes, you will level SIGNIFICANTLY faster than normal.
    
    • If you're going Storm Spirits specifically, skip. Storm Spirits get their physical damage completely KO'd by the +damage unit enchantments which means the next +damage unit enchantment instead of giving -4 and +8 for a net gain of +4, will just give the +8. So no point in grabbing Bloodfury Weapons on Storm Spirits
  • Third best is Tome of Evocation because Astral Empire skill tree is really amazing and this Tome alone can get you +20 casting points, 1000 mana, -25% research, and +1 rank to Magic Origin Units. Also houses the only non-T4 +damage unit enchantment for Battle Mages. Lastly it gives you access to Storm Spirits, imo the best non-mythic unit in the game. Lesser Storm Spirits' physical damage component is completely KO'd by 2 +damage unit enchantments which means the third is gonna give it +8 damage instead of -4 phys +8 damage. After 3 +damage unit enchantments Lesser Storm Spirits are contenders for best T1 unit in the game and can hold their own against T3 units despite being dirt cheap to spam.
    
  • Fourth best is Tome of Devastation because crits do more than +damage because of moral stuff. Gotten before Tome of Artificing because you need to stack crits before they're useful and Flameburst Weapons is useful even without the +20% crit because it lets you explode corpses on kill, doing damage and completely shutting down any and all strategies involving corpses, including your own.
    
  • Fifth best is Tome of Artificing to stack crits with Devastation.
    
  • Sixth best is Tome of Pyromancy solely because of its Chaos affinity, which lets you get Chaos Signature Skills to hit 100% crit chance with your entire army. Magma Spirits are worthless trash. I tried many times to make a build revolving around them because they look cool but they all failed miserably. Watchers from Tome of Scrying are superior to Magma Spirits in every way and 100% of Battle Mage builds grab Tome of Scrying so...
    
  • Seventh best is Tome of Zeal because it gives +2 damage to ranged units as well AND it doesn't reduce your physical damage so you can get more mileage out of Sundering Blades.
    
  • And last place for flat +2 damage Tomes is Tome of Roots because Nature Affinity is the worst affinity in the game.
    
  • Ninth place is Tome of the Dungeon Depths for +10% damage. Units need a base 20 damage for Raiders of the Deep to give +2 damage but Raiders of the Deep stack additively with other +% damage while +flat damage stacks multiplicatively with them so that's why Raiders of the Deep is below all of them. I will say unlike all the other Unit Enchantments listed here, Raiders of the Deep boosts ABILITY damage as well.
    
  • And at the very last place is Tome of Rocks because it only gives +1 damage. Might be better than other Tomes listed here if you're specifically stacking +def major race transformations or you want to use Stone Spirts which is the best T1 Elemental at the start of the game. But Lesser Storm Spirits completely eclipses it later.
    
    • Multiplayer people on the other hand, view Lesser Stone Spirits as the worst T1 elemental. Something about Bannermen almost one shotting them with a flanking attack. Apparently in multiplayer Spirit Damage is the best damage type to go and Stone Spirits not only have 0 resistance but also negative spirit resistance making them the worst.

• I'd say the biggest benefit of investing deeply into Materium is its access to the Hero Signature Skill:Awaken Earth. It is a game winning signature skill and by far the best Signature Skill in the entire game. It summons a T3 Earth Elemental for 3 turns and is on a 2 turn cooldown meaning it has a 100% uptime on your turns. I have beaten Brutal Difficulty with only Ritualists, no army whatsoever, with this skill.
  
• The second main benefit of going Materium is its Resourceful Vigor Empire Skill. Healing your units in enemy territory is one of the most excruciating experiences in your life and this Empire Skill finally solves this issue.
  
• The rest of the Materium Empire Skill Tree is just +gold/mana and reduced costs and unit upkeeps. The Empire Skill Tree SIGNIFICANTLY increases your gold and mana income and HALVES your unit unkeep. Materium has the biggest and most expensive armies.
  
• Materium Tomes are amazing. Enough of them can boost your damage in some way which is always good. Tome of Enchantment is the best starting Tome in the game and Tome of Transmutation lets you create every single non-umbral hero item in the game on top of giving you a ton of magic materials bonuses like +20 casting points and +15 Imperium making it a mandatory Tome in 100% builds that have heroes as part of their endgame strategy.
  
• A minor benefit is Siege Projects. Materium gets Siege Projects with the most fortification damage per turn than any other affinity by far.
  
• There are two downsides of going Materium
  
  • The first is Materium's T5 Mythic units are terrible. Golden Golems are complete trash and the contender for worst T5 Mythic unit in the game, and Severing Golems are anti-mass-unit-enchantment units and just like anti-aircraft guns are not war winning super weapons, Severing Golems are not game winning super units either.
    
    • Ironclads on the other hand, they're not T5 units, but they're like T4.5 units and they are one of the units I absolutely fear the most in the entire game because of their insane AoE damage output and the fact that they bestow a colossal amount of Sundered Defense on my units with their AoE attacks. It's 2 per shot so a full volley will bestow -6 def in an AoE. Ironclads are the second highest priority targets for Explosive Manifestation sniping for me, second only to Rulers. I consider Ironclads to be almost as good as Balors and view Ironcalds as the true endgame Mythic unit for Materium. Balors can do a full move + 44 bigger AoE damage with -3 sundered defense but the cd is so long it's basically once per battle. Ironclads on the other hand do 54 AoE damage with -6 sundered defense on a 1 turn cooldown meaning they can blast their AoE every other turn but unlike Balors moving drops their damage output significantly. Only reason Balors are better is because enough Balors can 100% wipe an army in 1 turn letting them just move in and kill everything by turn 2 where as Ironclads needs the enemy to come to them. But as amazing as Ironclads are, they are a bit frustrating to use due to their AoE's 50% scatter chance and their regular attacks being affected heavily by obscured and stuff with absolutely no way to mitigate it. Fortunately the AoE ignores accuracy completely so they're not helpless against massive evasion enemies like the Summer Mistwatchers. Spam Pinning Barrage to give Ironclads an accuracy boost.
  • The second downside is their T5 Tome is very underwhelming.
    
    • Call the Titan of Earth is horrendous. The Earth Titan does absolute trash damage, worse than a Bolt Repeater and as a Mythic Unit, there is literally no way to boost it. He breaks defense mode in an AoE on spawn but who gives a crap about defense mode? He can't tank for **** and will die on the turn he's spawned. I saw 2 T3 fighter units take him down from full hp in 1 turn. And undying won't do jack because these days it's a rare sight to see a corpse survive a turn. His sole purpose is to immobilize enemies with 90% base chance in a 2-hex AoE but you don't need immobilize when you're at T5 Tomes. I will say the one thing he has over all other combat summons is he's infinite duration and doesn't go poof in 3 turns, but again, this advantage is moot because he doesn't do anything and rarely survives the turn he's summoned in.
      
    • Shaper's Touch, the T5 Tome Unit Enchantment, is basically just +10hp per turn on the world map for Constructs and Elementals. NOT worth getting especially over the other T5 Tomes especially because you already have Resourceful Vigor to solve your healing needs, and simply grabbing Tome of Cryomancy early lets you also get the Dark Vigor Empire Skill which also gives +10hp per turn. Getting both is actually really nice though.
      
    • Tectonic Shatter is really bad. 30 damage to all units. With Materium Amplification Lens it's 40 damage but who cares. The Harass Defenders siege project does 20 damage to all units and no one goes it. The Artillerist Ascension Trait does 20 damage per turn to marked units and you can mark the entire enemy army with the right build, but no one goes it because 20 phys damage a turn is really bad. Bolt Repeaters do 36 damage and it loses relevance past the early game. So 40 phys damage to all units is gonna do nothing. And who cares about blowing up obstacles this late in the game? Tectonic Shatter is a terrible spell.
      
      • For Wizard Kings however, Tectonic Shatter is an AWESOME spell. They can boost its damage to 60 and can cast two of these in one turn. 40 damage to all units maybe unnoticeable but 120hp to all units is very noticeable. T5 Mythic Units and the like will shrug it off, maybe get 25% of their max hp as damage if even that, but the lower tier units ESPECIALLY Heroes will get their hp halved, putting them within one shot range of your shock units/Mythic Units/Heroes. AND overcharge will bestow 2x Sundered Resistance per cast for a total of -4 res, which doesn't help Tectonic Shatter's damage because it's physical, but the rest of your army will appreciate the 52% non-phys damage increase.
        
      • This is one of the reasons why Wizard Kings are so good. They can go Materium with any build they want. Other Rulers will be hesitant to go Materium because Tome of the Creator is that bad for them and would rather get worse Tomes that lead to better T5 Tomes like Cosmic Overdrive than go Materium but not Wizard Kings. They can make Tome of the Creator work in any build, including non-construct and non-elemental builds, so if you want to go Materium with whatever Mythic Unit you want, go Wizard King.

• There's only four benefits to going Chaos: Crits, Balors, Call Forth Avatar of Chaos, and Demonic Onslaught.
  
• If you want 100% crit chance, you have to go Chaos. The Hero Signature Skills bestow a total of +30% crit chance to all of your non-hero units which is absolutely mandatory to get to 100% crit chance. Tome of Devastation also gives +20% crit to your melee units. Also, one of the Chaos Signature Skills called Chaos Empowerment gives your heroes +10-20% crit chance and the Demonkin Transformation gives another 15% which are mandatory if you want 100% crit chance with your heroes.
  
• Balors are contenders for best unit in the game.
  
  • Their AoE is second to none. It is the biggest AoE and highest damage AoE in the game. It also bestows 3 stacks of Sundered Defense which stacks up to 10, letting subsequent Balors' AoE attack deal a LOT more damage. So with 5 Balors casting 5 Sunder the Earths on the same group of 6 enemies... simply put, they're all gonna die. Even if they're all T5 mythic units, they're all gonna die.
    
  • They deal very high physical and fire damage, so high defense or high resistance to fire won't screw them over. And if by some chance something is both then the aforementioned 10 stacks of sundered defense will solve the issue.
    
  • Chaos Brand is a strong ranged single target fire nuke Balors can cast with a single action point. It also PERMANENTLY bestows Berserk at a 100% chance so if there's a problematic support or Hero unit then this will take care of them permanently. Lastly, any unit that dies at any time after being hit by this will spawn Inferno Puppies on death that can be recruited after battle.
    
  • All 3 of the Balor's attacks can crit. As a demon they have an innate 15% crit chance and with 3 Chaos Signature skills they have a 45% chance to crit. So they have a 45% chance to do a 66 damage massive AoE attack. With +morale it rises to 65%.
    
  • Out of all the Mythic Units, these guys come out the earliest. Normally you research a T5 unit with T4 Tomes, and then start production which takes about 2-3 turns for each. So it takes 30-45 turns after obtaining a T4 Tome to make a full army of T5 units. Balors on the other hand, their production starts with T3 Tomes. Balors are created by merging 2 T4 units together so if you have 30 T4 units by the time you get the T4 Tome of the Demon Gate, it will only take like 7 turns to get your full 15 Balor army. And 30 T4 units are game winning in their own right so the roflstomp train never stops all game.
    
  • Please note that Balors are NOT solo units. They are NOT nice single additions to existing armies. You either go all Balors or none. They die pretty easily when focus fired. You should know, after all, you take out T5 units from infestations with only T1 units all the time. And Balors will be focus fired so if you send them out alone, they will die. The only way they stay alive is if you go all Balors and wipe out the entire enemy army in a single turn by stacking all of their AoEs together. And they will always wipe out the entire army in a single turn by doing this. As I said above, they're all gonna die.
    
  • Unlike Reapers, auto-resolve AI will get your Balors murdered.
    
  • Balors are spellcasters. Their regular attacks are crap.
• Demonkin Transformation is also really good. Flight and +15% crit rate. With Tome of Artificing added in your Racial units will have a base crit rate of 95% without morale or fortune. And they have Frenzy so getting 5x Strengthen is trivially easy.
  
• If your Ruler isn't in battle, Call Forth Avatar of Chaos summons your Ruler at full hp along with all combat summons that your Ruler spawns at the start of battle like Flesh Abominations. If your Ruler is stupidly strong then you can ram single scouts into entire enemy armies and have your summoned Ruler wipe em out. Even if you lose you only lose 1 scout. Your Ruler is completely unaffected by the avatar's death so just ram a 2nd scout into the same stack and summon your Ruler again. The downside is, your Ruler gets 0 levels from this so you always have your Ruler with you in all your fights to level him so this spell is absolutely worthless for your main army.
  
  • I think the true purpose of this spell is to let you use your Ruler on multiple fronts. if you have multiple full 18 unit armies fighting in different directions, this spell lets you use your Ruler in every single one of them. Those extra armies weren't gonna give your Ruler any xp anyway so nothing is lost. So instead of ramming single scouts into enemies, ram full T3 armies or maybe even full T2 armies into enemies instead. Personally I have Ruler + 17 Mythic Units on one front and Heroes + Storm Spirits in a 2nd front.
    
  • If you're using only 1 army because you don't want to multitask or you want to take it easy then this spell is completely worthless.
• In the same Tome you get Demonic Onslaught, an army wide buff that gives Killing Momentum and haste on everyone including heroes. If you've built your heroes to one shot enemies, or if you're using a pure Shock unit army that doesn't have 48 movement already, this is a god tier spell. In all other cases there are better T5 Tome options because your units rarely one round kill anything, and if they're not single hit units then an extra repeatable attack doesn't do anything. On the plus side, it's a stupidly easy way to get 3x strengthen on your entire army with Chaos Bolstering Matrix. The new Ritualist however made this completely obsolete now.
  
  • This spell is really the only way to get 48 movement on non-magic origin, non-racial, and non-Construct units. Magic Origin units have Cosmic Overdrive, and racial/construct units have Cascading Command:Reposition.
    
  • It's important to note that unlike Cosmic Overdrive this spell specifically gives haste. As in it gives everyone +1 retaliation attack while Cosmic Overdrive does not.
    
  • I'd say Cosmic Overdrive is superior by far for Mythic Units because increased world map movespeed is amazing, its damage bonus is not Strengthen, Mythic Units don't need retaliation attacks because they murder everything with their alpha strike, and Mythic Units get Killing Momentum on their own. But because Cosmic Overdrive requires HEAVY astral investment which is never worth it for non-caster builds, I'd say Demonic Onslaught is the better option most of the time.
• Chaos Tomes give a lot of damage so you sacrifice very little going deep into Chaos. Pyromancy, Revelry, and Devastation already gets you to 6 and we get all 3 with No Affinity builds. So obtaining Balors are literally just a 1 Tome investment and you can immediately grab Tome of the Chaos Lord afterwards.
  
• The main downside of going Chaos is their Empire Skill tree is lackluster. You get the +xp and +gold on kill Empire Skills cheaply so you don't need to invest in Chaos to grab those, and the higher ones are absolutely worthless at the stage of the game you get them. The turn reductions for pillaging and razing are nice but it's NOT worth 500 imperium when you're sniping Throne Cities to end the game, which is what you'll be doing when this Empire Skill unlocks. The +30 Grievances is only good for specific strategies like the new Vision of Ruin Society Trait OR you're trying to get 17 Mythic Units and want to rely on the Major Justified War's +20 Imperium per turn bonus.
  
• The second downside is, i think their T5 Tome is very lackluster. I get it solely for the exact same reason I go Tome of the Creator, because it's easily accessible. Cosmic Overdrive is a VERY huge investment. You have to sacrifice a TON of +damage to get it, and I would gladly settle for 40 movement on the world map instead of 48 for three more +damage Tomes before I reach T5.
  
• All in all, Chaos is a fantastic affinity. They just mess up the landing because their higher end Empire Skills and T5 Tome are underwhelming.

• Astral is the casting affinity. It has the best combat spell in the game and it gives you casting points.
  
• Hands down the biggest benefit of going Astral is your heroes' signature skills that bestow a total of Ignore 6 Status Resistance on your entire army. If you want to land any kind of debuff on your enemies lategame, this is MANDATORY. Without it might as well assume your chance to land a debuff is 0. The most notable "debuff" in the game is the Reapers' Finger of Death aka the insta-kill abilitiy that you can use after a full move. Ignore 6 Status Resistance + Finger of Death = GG I win.
  
• Hands down the second biggest benefit of Astral is the T4 spell Explosive Manifestation. It is single handedly the best Ruler and Hero sniper in the game, and is also one of the best AoE damage spells in the game, making it in my opinion the defacto best combat spell in the game. It nukes everyone in a 1-hex radius for 30 damage which can be boosted all the way to 60 with Wizard Kings, and it summons a T3 unit, which doesn't sound like much at first, but it spawns with full action points and it's gonna have every Unit Enchantment you have so if you got ton of +damage unit enchantment for melee units then this T3 unit is gonna triple attack and murder your enemy's Ruler right from the word go. Your enemies' Ruler is going to die on turn 2 guaranteed 100% of the time if you spam this spell. And on top of that, several enemy units are gonna waste their turn trying to kill your summoned unit, keeping them in place for a turn. Downside is, if you don't grab a ton of +damage Unit Enchantments for melee units, the effectiveness of this spell takes a massive nosedive.
  
• The third benefit of going Astral is Cosmic Overdrive. It boosts magic origin units' damage by 20% and gives them all 48 movement including on the World Map. This is like one of the extremely few Unit Enchantments that affects Mythic Units so Mythic Unit builds will almost always go Astral.
  
• The fourth benefit of going Astral is +20 casting points from its Empire Skill Tree.
  
• The fifth benefit is +1 rank to summoned units. WIth Mage Tower: Apex your evolvable summoned T1 units like T1 Elementals are gonna be spawned just 1 rank shy of evolving. This is huge because if you stick them in the same stack as a Hero with Experienced Leader then they're gonna evolve into T3 Elementals in just 8 turns.
  
• The sixth benefit is Tome of Summoning. It's a really good Tome
  
  • Arcane Restoration spam is how you deal with attrition for your T5 Mythic Units because they are an absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ b**** to heal in enemy domain.
    
  • Arcane Supercharge combos really, really well with Artificer + Elementalist. Turns your 2x Bolt Repeaters into murder machines.
    
  • A pure Astral Serpent army is stupidly strong. Every 3 turns they get free AoE damage and slow off. Because they teleport next to the enemy and are invincible for a turn, they're like pseudo shock units because they can essentially do a full move and do a full attack. And them losing 50% damage due to casualties is completely negated by spamming Arcane Restoration to keep them above 50% hp.
• Lastly, the capstone Empire Skill lets you cast spells on your first turn. If you're only casting the one map wide buff spell every fight, this is worthless. On the other hand if Arcane Restoration is your anti-attrition solution, then it's a godsend and believe me, if you want your Balors to be able to fight 36 enemy units every other turn like in the Rings of Enmora Story Realm map, Arcane Restoration spam is how you don't die to attrition.
  
• A Shadow Affinity only benefit is the Astral Shattering spell. It summons a stack of 6 umbral demons, 3-4 of which are Lost Wizards and Mage Banes. This is significant for 2 reasons. First, it is a guaranteed way to spawn non-racial T4+ units you can kill to raise Bone Dragons with. Which means you essentially summon 3-4 Bone Dragons for 150 casting points. That is insanely good. Second, because Shadow gets +200% hero xp, each time you kill the stack of Umbral Demons you get a level up. So within 8-10 turns of researching this spell your heroes are gonna be level 20. For all other Affinities however, without that +200% hero xp, farming Astral Shattering is too slow imo so this spell is 100% worthless for any and all affinities EXCEPT Shadow, where it's a god tier spell.
  
  • Fun fact, both Bone Dragon raising and Astral Shattering do not require Mage Tower, making Bone Dragons the one of two only Mythic Units you can summon without a Mage Tower. The other is Balor by summoning 16 Zealots/Phantasm Warriors with the Demonkin Transformation and spamming Fight for Power 15 times. Unlike Balors though which is theoretical only because it's too impractical to use in a real game, summoning Bone Dragons from killing Astral Shattering mobs is NOT theoretical but in fact incredibly practical. When I go pure Bone Dragon builds this spell is a godsend. And if you go Chosen Destroyers, Astral + Shadow is the only Mythic Unit build that is 100% functional without a city of any kind, especially since Bone Dragons only cost 3 Imperium per turn. You can get enough Imperium income to get 17 of them with either Feudal:Monarchy or Scions of Evil/Devotees of Good.
• The downside of Astral is, it only has 1 Tome that boosts the damage of your melee units. So people who are seeking to use Cosmic Overdrive to boost the damage of their melee units is gonna have to waste 3 Tomes on absolutely worthless Tomes to get it. It's not worth it.
  
• The second downside is that there is no Astral T5 mythic unit. So after all that investment into Astral, you need to heavily invest in a second affinity if you want T5 Mythic Units. So there's not a chance in hell you're getting many +damage unit enchantments. Astral Affinity is the main reason why +damage unit enchantment builds and T5 Mythic unit builds are mutually exclusive.
  
  • Astral actually has a hidden T5 unit. With 2x Ritualists and 2x Elementalists you can dominate as many Lost Wizards as you want from the Astral Shattering spell. Check out the Lost Wizard section at the end of the guide.
• In my opinion, only Mythic Unit builds should grab Cosmic Overdrive because no unit enchantment boosts their damage anyways so you don't lose anything by getting 3 Tomes that don't boost your damage.

• The biggest benefit of going Shadow is Reapers. They are contenders for strongest unit in the game. With 3 heroes with 3x Astral Signature skills giving 6 ignore status resistance on all 15 Reapers, their fingers of death are gonna have a 60% chance to kill anything which means on average 9 out of 18 enemy units are gonna die and turn into zombies without a chance to do anything turning the fight into a 27 vs 9 fight.
  
  • The other T5 Shadow Mythic Unit, Fallen Angels, are just weaker Balors. Their AoE is equal size but less damage, and no sundered defense. They weaken enemies instead. However, their AoE is still good enough to wipe out armies so if you don't want to go 3x Astral Signature Skill heroes then go Fallen Angels instead of Reapers. Concerning the Fallen Angels' other skills, Dominate doesn't work on mythic units so I don't really care for it, and Lifesteal is worthless at the stage of the game you get Fallen Angels because battles end in 1 turn so... what's there to lifesteal?
• The second biggest benefit is Feast of Souls. Found in the tier 2 Tome of Souls, it heals your army for 20hp (40hp for undead) for a measiy 25 casting points. You can heal your entire army in a single turn by spamming this spell. Healing your army in enemy territory is one of the most excruciating experiences in your life and this spell just completely eliminates it. It is ridiculously good. By contrast Tome of Faith's Army Heal spell costs 80 casting points for a pitiful 25hp heal. That spell is so bad it's not worth getting imo. The caveat however is that it also costs 20 souls per cast but souls are a non-issue. You are always gonna be swimming in souls but only if you grab Tome of the Great Transformation so Feast of Souls requires heavy Shadow Affinity investment. UNLESS you go the new Vision of Ruin Society Trait. Then you can get all the souls you need for Feast of Souls without getting any necromancy Tomes.
  
  • Eldritch Sovereigns can also skip all the passive soul generation Tomes because they can convert Thralls into Souls and in Brutal Difficulty you will always have way more Thralls than you could ever spend them, assuming you're not spamming Dark Knolwedge Ritual.
• The third biggest benefit is the Exalted by Shadows Empire Skill. It gives +200% xp to your heroes. That's not a typo. Your heroes gain triple the XP. Your freshly recruited heroes are gonna hit level 20 really quickly. It's crazy good.
  
• The fourth benefit is Death Magic. Restores 10 combat casting points per death including your own combat summons. Which means all of your Ritualists' Entwined Protectors and your own Explosive Manifestation's Astral Serpents and Astral Siphoners all give 10 casting points if they die instead of going poof. For dedicated caster builds this Empire Skill translates to an infinite amount of casting points every battle. The sheer amount of Explosive Manifestations you can spam with this Empire Skill is absolutely insane. But... if you build your army right, battles do not last past turn 3. And you have enough casting points for 2-4 Explosive Manifestations without Death Magic. So in practice, Death Magic is either an unnecessary win more, for gimmick builds only that intentionally gets a weak army to utilize spells more, or an anti-spell jammer measure.
  
• The fifth benefit is the Dark Vigor Empire Skill. It gives +10hp heal per turn while in enemy territory.
  
• The sixth benefit of going Shadow is Undead.
  
  • Let me explain Souls. Undead require souls to raise, not mana. There's a spell you get called Desecrate Structure which makes resource nodes like Pastures, Iron Deposits, Mana Nodes, etc. give +5 souls per turn. So if you have 10 of these then that's 50 souls per turn. You need 150 for Reapers and Fallen Angels, 100 for Bone Dragons, 70 for Bone horrors, and 15 for Skeletons. So you get the point. You are gonna be swimming in so much souls that souls are a non-issue.
    
  • Reapers and Fallen Angels can be directly summoned but Bone Dragons, Bone Horrors, and Skeletons need you to actually kill units to raise. Bone Dragons need you to kill a T4 or T5 unit specifically.
    
  • The main benefit of Undead is you don't need a Mana, Casting Points, or Mage Tower to raise. Normal summons take several turns and requires you to build Mage Tower first which costs a TON of mana, and the spell itself costs a ton of mana as well. If you lost half your army in a fight, re-summoning them is gonna take forever but Undead? They get to skip all of that. As long as you have the souls you can create a full army after every fight, letting you replenish your losses immediately after the battle.
    
  • Downside of Undead is, you gotta actually kill units to get them so for to get your first set of undead you need a full non-undead army first. Amassing your first set of Bone Dragons and replacing them they die is a huge, huge pain.
    
  • Second downside is Bone Dragons and Bone horrors require NON-RACIAL unit kills. So if your opponent only sends Racial Units your way, you can't raise even a single Bone Horror which can really **** you up because skeletons are not good enough to rely on.
    
    • The Astral Shattering spell completely solves this issue by summoning a stack of hostile Umbral Demons with 3-4 T4+ units you can kill immediately.
  • Third downside is, your skeletons are NOT gonna have your racial traits. They're gonna have the racial traits of your opponent. Which in my opinion makes them not viable.
    
  • Fourth downside is, if you build your strategy right, you will rarely lose units so the advantage of quickly replenishing your losses is negligible.
    
  • Fifth downside is, Bone horrors and Skeletons are not best units out there. You might find yourself losing an equal full T3 vs T3 army fight. At least on auto-resolve. Bone Dragons on the other hand are fantastic units. But it's hard to raise them early because you gotta hunt down non-racial T4s which are only found in Infestations until lategame. Having said that the AI seems to leave Ocean mobs alone so you can wipe the sea clean of all Krakens and Ghost Ships to quickly raise a full Bone Dragon army.
• The main downside of Shadow in my opinion is their Tomes don't give +damage so you're sacrificing a LOT for the +200% hero xp and I mean a LOT. Hero centric builds want crits and summoner heroes want unit enchantments, none of which is provided by Shadow, so generally you end up getting Exalted by Shadow for builds that don't rely on heroes.
  
• The second biggest downside of Shadow is their T5 Tome is one of the most if not the most worthless Tomes in the game. Its effects are crap at the stage of the game you get the Tome especially since corpses rarely survive until the end of the battle nowdays.
  
• My advice for Shadow is either go all in on Mythic Units and don't bother with getting Unit Enchantments, or just get Bone Horrors and Desecrate Structure and skip the rest of the Undead Tomes in favor of Unit Enchantments. And forget about Exalted by Shadow.

• The main benefit in my opinion are the T5 Mythic Unit Astras. They're really, really good. Their AoE is small but it's only on a 1 turn cooldown. Also Astras heal 20 hp in an AoE as a free action. So every other turn your Astras, instead of triple attacking, are gonna group up, heal each other, and then lay down the AoE smackdown. Astras are really good units.
  
  • Another benefit of Astras is they can immediately grab Tome of Exaltation for Ascended Warriors. Balors have the title of earliest possible full T5 army and Astras have the title of 2nd earliest possible full T5 Legend Rank army, the first being Shrine of Smiting because not only is it in the same Tome as Ascended Warriors, but with Tome of the Dreadnought's War Forge special province improvement they come out at soldier rank, needing only 3 casts to hit Legend.
• The second main benefit in my opinion is Angel Transformation. In my opinion it's the best Major Transformation in the game because it gives flight and Control Loss Immunity. Having your hero get dominated is just rage quit inducing.
  
• The third benefit is Anthem of Supremacy. It's the only non-gimmicky way of bestowing 3x Fortune on all of your units with the Order Bolstering Matrix for +30% crit. It also gives 15 morale which is 5 morale short of giving another +20% crit for a total of +50% crit. Finally it also gives 3x Strengthen. It's hands down the best T5 Mythic Unit buff spell in the game. Downside is, it's expensive as hell so unless you're swimming in mana and you don't want to cast any other spell in combat other than this one, this spell might not be worth it.
  
• The fourth benefit is its complete synergy with the most OP Ruler build in the the game: Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon. Tome of the Beacon has the Mighty Meek unit enchantment which is the best +damage unit enchantment in the game but only for T1 and T2 units. Artificer lets you summon a Bolt Repeater every game, which is a T2 unit and therefore benefits from Mighty Meek. Elementalist lets you summon a 2nd Bolt Repeater at the start of the battle and Tome of the Beacon also gives access to Chaplains which can easily bestow 5x Strengthen and 3x Fortune on both Bolt Repeaters. Put all this together and your Ruler is going to deal such insane amounts of AoE damage every turn that this completely trivializes Brutal Difficulty until you get your full endgame army out.
  
  • Other Affinities have trouble going this Ruler Build because Tome of the Beacon is absolutely worthless for anything else after the early game when nobody uses T1 or T2 units. Heavy Order builds on the other hand don't mind getting an early game only Tome that gives +2 Order Affinity.
    
  • I go into great detail about this Ruler build in its own section. Check it out.
• The fifth benefit is Ascended Warriors. It's a really expensive spell that gives all non-hero units in a stack 1 rank up. Quickest way to get units to Legend rank but again, expensive as hell.
  
• The sixth benefit is Keeper's Mark. It makes sure that all of your melee units survive a fatal blow and stay alive for the rest of the turn. Unfortunately they can't do jack next turn but your opponent has to waste an entire unit's action points to finish the job next turn. So don't expect Keeper's Mark to keep a unit alive. it exists to make your opponent waste another turn to kill your units. You will know first hand just how immensely impactful this is when you fight an enemy with this Unit Enchantment.
  
• So why is this affinity fifth place?
  
  • Their entire Empire Skill tree is absolute complete trash. It's designed for Rally of the Lieges stuff which just recruits your allies' units. Your units >>> allies units so unless you're roleplaying there is absolutely 0 reason to invest in Rally of the Lieges.
    
  • Their T5 Tome is trash. Less trash than Tome of the Eternal Lord but still trash. +100% damage on one unit out of 18 units at the cost of the majority of your casting points is trash. And corpses rarely survive long now days so mass resurrection is trash too.
    
  • Other than Tome of Zeal and Beacon, all the non-endgame order Tomes are defensive, and Beacon is 100% worthless lategame, possibly midgame depending on your build. One defensive Tome is fine, but mostly defensive Tomes? Nope. You won't be able to kill anything resulting in the AI out healing your damage output which results in your loss. In this game Damage is the best defense.
    
  • Astras are a very recent addition and they make Order viable. Before Order was unviable after Shrine of Smiting got nerfed to hell. But still, Astras are not the best T5 Mythic Unit and other affinities with better T5 Mythic Units have better Tomes, Empire Skills, and Hero Signature Skills, so I consider Order weaker than them all. But still viable thanks to Astras.
    
    • The new Tome, Tome of the Revenant, gives us a way to guarantee completion of the Crusader's Major Ambition quest in 100% of games for Order builds now, letting us give all of our Shrines of Smiting Faithful, which lets pure Shrines of Smiting armies reach the maximum +40 damage bonus to their attack. So I don't think Shrines of Smiting are trash anymore. I even made a dedicated build for them. But because their attack requires 3 action points and can't be used while in melee, enemies capable of getting close to your Shrines of Smiting (i.e. Elementals with Teleport) can just permanently shut them down so while Shrines of Smiting are ridiculously powerful units, other ridiculously powerful units don't have an Achilles heel so they're superior.
• So I say go Order if and only if you're going Astras or Shrine of Smiting. If you're not going either of these then don't go order.

• Main benefit is Nature's T5 Tome gives +15% crit and +3 damage to Dragons including Mythic Units so if you're specifically going T5 Mythic dragons, Nature might be worth it because nothing else boosts your T5 Mythic Dragons.
  
• The second main benefit of Nature is the Devolve spell. Found in a T4 Tome, it transforms an enemy into a T1 animal for the rest of the fight. What's so amazing about this you ask? Well, let me tell you. It's so amazing because it removes T5 units' control loss immunity. If you have access to some kind of Dominate like from the Dominator ambition or Nymphs, then this is how you recruit normally unrecruitable units like Lost Wizards and Umbral Tyrants. To increase the chance of Devolve succeeding inflict as much status vulnerability, sundered resistance, and sundered defense as you can on the garget.
  
  • With the ability to create custom heroes too, this advantage is now 100% superfluous because 2x elementalist heroes with sundering and withering magic, and 2x ritualist heroes with polymorph and dominate can capture any and every creature in the game in a single turn including T5 mythic units all without Devolve. Check out the Lost Wizard section at the end of the guide.
• Third benefit is the Supergrowth Minor Transformation which reduces model count and increases Retaliation attacks by 1. Which is really nice if the unit you chose to win the game with is melee and has more than 1 model. +1 retaliation attacks doesn't sound impressive at first but being able to attack 2 times during enemy turns is huge. It's like a full extra turn of attacking.
  
• Fourth benefit is with Gaia's Chosen Major Transformation you can get Force of Nature on your Racial Units.
  
• The fifth benefit is its Master of Nature Signature Skill. It grants access to the Call of the Wild skill which summons 2 T2 animals for 3 turns but it's only once per battle. The most powerful Ruler build: Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon, can utilize this Signature Skill VERY well because Tome of Summoning/Beacon boosts both animals and Elementalists can get refresh Call of the Wild an infinite number of times every battle, but will most likely only be able to use it twice before the battle is over.
  
• The downside of Nature is that their Empire Skill tree is absolute trash. Absolutely nothing in it is worth investing in.
  
• Their Tomes also don't give +damage. At all. Except for Tome of Root. So if you're going Tome of the Goddess of Nature then you're getting 0 +damage from 3 Nature Tomes.
  
• Their T5 Mythic unit, the Horned God, is also bad. I don't see them wiping out any armies or winning the game singlehandedly like all of the other Mythic Units mentioned in the other affinities. My analysis is they're Ritualist wanabees and copies them poorly.
  
• You could argue T5 Dragons are the true Nature's T5 Mythic unit but it's an absolute hell to evolve them. If you get +damage Tomes to make your T3 dragons stronger, all those Tomes are wasted when they evolve to T5. If you don't grab those +damage Tomes, your T3 dragons are gonna be absolute trash and therefore impossible to level. At this point I'd say always go heavy Order as well if you're going dragons for Ascended Warriors so you can forcibly evolve them magically. And then I'd say... just go Astras and skip the Nature stuff altogether and get yourself better Empire Skills and Tomes. So... yeah, from a minmax perspective, Dragons are bad. But if you do get a full army of them with Ascension:Dragonheart, they're really awesome. Whether they're worth the effort though is up for debate. I made a 17 Frost Dragon build in the Chosen Destroyers section of the guide if you're interested.
  
• I consider Nature the worst affinity in the entire game. The only reasons I will ever go it is to recruit unrecruitable T5 units or for pure T5 Mythic Dragon builds. And this is a very recent development too. Until the last patch Force of Nature did NOT include Dragons.
  
  • With both the new Empire of the Cosmos Society Trait and the ability to make custom heroes, I don't ever see myself ever going Nature. Tome of Roots is literally the only good Nature Tome in the game so if going Force of Nature, you have to waste 3 Tome slots on 100% worthless Tomes. But now with Empire of the Cosmos Society Trait letting me grab Tome of the Goddess of Nature with only 1 Nature Tome, and with the ability to capture T5 Mythic Units without Devolve, I don't ever see myself going Nature. Ever.

I recommend getting these Empire skills if your build unlocks them.
General

• 1: (100) Seafaring - Cross oceans
  
• 3:(125) Road Builders - Activate this and your entire army will be treated as if it's traveling on road terrain letting you traverse the map faster at the cost of some gold.
  
• 4:(150) Diplomatic Focus - +1 whispering stone
  
• 5:(150) Advanced Sensing - +2 vision range and +3 sensing range for all units
  
• 7:(175) Siege Specialization - +1 Siege Project slot
  
• 8:(175) Advanced Logistics - Roads cost 3 movement to move letting you traverse your own domain MUCH more easily.

Materium Affinity

• 2:(125) Master Masons - Saves you over 2000 gold.
  
• 3:(150) Arcane Artisans - +10 mana from mines
  
• 4a:(175) Metropolitan Society - Throne and touching cities gain +10% all yield
  
• 5:(200) Special Districts - +5 gold from special province improvements
  
• 6a:(250) Consolidated Industry - +1 Stability from Province Improvements. Low priority but +stability never hurts.
  
• 6b:(250) Rite of Wealth - +2000 gold, You're gonna always be short of gold until the endgame.
  
• 7:(300) Siege Masters - +1 Siege Project slot
  
• 8b:(350) Rite of the Dreadnought - All units you have right now get +1 def and res. Only grab when you have your full endgame setup because it's a one time only thing.
  
• 9:(400) Resourceful Vigor - Unused movement to hp every turn. Healing your units in enemy domain is one of the most excruciating experiences in your life.
  
• 10:(500) Martial Ancestry - -10% upkeep PER rank, includes mana upkeep. High rank units will hit the -50% upkeep reduction cap just from this one development.

Chaos Affinity

• 2:(125) Impressment - T1 units gain xp 50% faster. Only get if you're using T1 Evolution units like Lesser Storm Spirits and Copper Golems
  
• 3: (150) Battlefield Looting - +3 gold per unit tier of enemy killed.
  
• 5:(200) Skilled Raiders - Pillaging takes 1 turn. Mandatory if you plan on using spells because of Spell Jammers. Also mandatory if going the Raider ambition.
  
• 6a:(250) War Slaves - Razing cities gives 1 of your cities 1 pop per 3 pops razed. This is worthless for normal builds as cities don't matter when you get this but for Chosen Destroyers it's top tier as it lets you grab a ton of foresters to skyrocket your Throne City's draft, letting you recruit T5 Mythic Units in 1 turn.
  
• 6b:(250) Rite of Chosen Warriors - all cities get 500 draft. Very useful as an emergency army recruitment.
  
• 9:(400) Destined Conquerers - The +30 grievance REALLY helps with the new Vision of Ruin's Society Traits' Chaos Quest. The +30 grievance also essentially translates to a +20 imperium per turn if you only declare war with the Ruler you have Major Justification with (51+ more grievances against them than they have against you). +50 resources per war is unnecessary at the stage of the game you get this at.
  
• 10a:(500) Reign of Destruction - Raze takes -2 turns, 50 gold per pop

I've heard Call of Chaos can get you T5 units from high level infestations. Never happened to me though. I usually only get a T1 or T2 unit, not worth wasting 100 Imperium on. Same logic for Lure of Horde. I'm usually at a full T3 army when I get Lure of the Horde.
Spoils of Destruction is left out because endgame +20 gold is nothing
Rite of Possession is left out because 1 Balor is worthless. You need a full stack of them spamming their AoE together for them to be amazing. Also Power of Slaughter is impossible to max out and not worth the effort for a single Balor.

Astral Affinity

• 2:(125) Adaptive Research - -50% cost for shuffling research
  
• 3:(150) Casting Reserves - +20 casting points
  
• 4a:(175) Astral Inspiration - after every research -25% research on random research
  
• 4b:(175) Rite of Astral Abundance - +1000 mana. If your mana income is KO'd by unit upkeep you need this to pay for mana expensive buildings and Racial Transformations.
  
• 5:(200) Astral Binding - Magic Origin units are obtained with +1 rank
  
• 6: (250) Philosopher Soldiers - +knowledge per rank up. Only get if you are using T1 Evolution units that you can summon at Champion Rank. Otherwise not worth it.
  
• 7:(300) Focused Studies - +5 mana/research from provinces. I get it for the mana.
  
• 8b:(350) Rite of Conjuration - Spawns 1 Magic Material near each city. Despite getting several, it's still too random to rely on so I get it solely for the T4-T5 unit corpses to create Bone Dragons with, and for extra Desecrate Domain targets for +5 more souls per turn each.
  
• 10:(500) Quickening - Cast spells turn 1.

Surge Spellcasting makes spells of different types reduce each other's cost including casting point cost by 25%. For example, casting Arcane Restoration 1st turn will reduce the cost of Explosive Manifestation's 40 casting points to 30 which with a Wizard King you can cast twice next turn, saving 20 casting points. And then Explosive Manifestation will reduce the cost of Arcane Restoration to 19, essentially making Arcane Restoration free. It is left out because spells cast per turn is the bottleneck not casting points so I only spam the one spell only. And I recommend you do the same.
Ingredient Experimentation is left out because it only gives a pitiful amount of knowledge especially at the stage in the game you get it. Not worth it.

Shadow Affinity

• 1:(100) Knowledge Extraction - 150 research per hero kill. In my opinion this is the best Empire Skill in the game by far and it's the first one you get. Never clear Brigand Camps and Pirate Cove infestations for this reason and declare war with every Free City you can.
  
• 2:(125) All-Seeing - +15 research from Whispering Stones on Free Cities
  
• 3:(150) Shadow Binding - -20% Magic Origin unit upkeep
  
• 4:(175) Court of Whispers - +1 Whispering Stone
  
• 6:(250) Death magic - restore 10 casting points upon any unit death including your own combat summons. If you have summoners this can translate to an infinite amount of casting points every battle.
  
• 7:(300) Dark Vigor - +10 hp regen per turn in hostile domain
  
• 9:(400) Exalted by Shadows - +200% hero xp
  
• 10:(500) Spying Shadows - Reveal world map, infinite sensing range

Stolen Power is left out because when you're at the phase of the game when you unlock this you don't need 200 knowledge or mana.
Rite of Forbidden Knowledge is left out because Imperium is more valuable than knowledge and 750 is nothing once you are capable of grabbing this Empire Skill.
Rite of the Exalted is left out because Imperium is more important than 1 hero rank.

Order Affinity

• 2:(125) Diplomatic Channels - +1 Whispering Stone
  
• 4:(175) Career Soldiers - Shock, Shield, and Polearm units gain xp +30% faster. Only get if you're going Storm Spirits or Copper Golems and the like.
  
• 6:(250) Rite of Enduring Duty - Full hp and +1 rank to all non-Hero units. Good for emergencies and getting that final Legend rank on your units.
  
• 10:(500) Knightly Orders - Legend Rank units gain special abilities.

Nature Affinity

• 2:(125) Soiltenders - Farms give +5 food
  
• 3:(150) Natural Recovery - regain +15 hp per turn in friendly territory
  
• 4:(175) Expert Sailors - Rivers become roads.
  
• 5:(200) Expansive Reach - +2 province range for cities
  
• 8:(350) Druidic Care - +3 mana from every resource node
  
• 9:(400) Rangers - Movement cost reduction for traversing your own domain

Rite of Awakening and Druidic Empire are left out because when you unlock these the resources they give you don't matter.

The Hero rework divided all the Heroes into different classes and each class has their own skill tree and weapon restrictions.

In this guide we'll be only looking at 3 Classes: The Ritualist, the Elementalist, and the Ranger. We look at the Ritualist because in my opinion it's the most powerful hero class in the game, we look at the Ranger because in my opinion it is the most powerful lategame hero class in the game, and we look at the Elementalist because it's viable and the most powerful Ruler build in the game goes Elementalist.

I probably will not be covering the other classes even in the future just out of sheer disinterest/lack of motivation. But if you beat Brutal once by following this guide then I'm sure you'll be able to change my build orders/strategies to revolve around the other Hero classes and make them work.

Just in case you're curious, I have no interest in other heroes because I don't think they can survive a single battle let alone multiple battles back to back without extensive and I mean EXTENSIVE amount of stacked defensive gear + racial transformations, and crafting 2 pieces of gear for each hero is enough for me to call it quits so outfitting each and every hero with every +def and +res equipment I can craft makes me close the game and do something else. It's just too much effort and stress. And all those defensive gear is mandatory for those heroes because on Brutal Difficulty you're going to have to not only win 3 full 18vs18 fights back to back on the same turn, but also continue to fight 18vs18 fights deep in enemy territory without time to heal your army which is why I'm not interested in heroes that take heavy damage in every fight. Because attrition will wear them down.

And the new Item Forge rework introducing Binding Fragments made everything even more tiresome, tedious, and frustrating. So no, I'm not gonna go any build that puts incredible amounts of focus on crafted item gear, which is every single melee Hero Class.

By contrast Ritualists and Elementalists stay alive by summoning endless hordes of powerful units which means they never get hit and can fight an infinite number of battles back to back forever without needing to heal which means they don't need any gear at all. And Rangers stay alive simply by killing anything and everything before any of your enemies get to do anything which also means they never get hit and can fight an infinite number of battles back to back forever without needing to heal meaning they don't need any defensive gear either and only need the 2 offensive gears (weapon, helm).

I have personally confirmed that 6 Ritualists/Elementalists/Rangers can take out multiple Brutal Endgame armies back to back all by themselves on the same turn unscathed and beat Brutal Difficulty all on their own without an army.

If you do want to use melee heroes, copy the ranger build. It's built for maximum hero damage and stuff that increase hero damage don't discriminate between melee and ranged attacks. So the only difference between the Ranger build and any melee fighter build is equipment. Ranger builds only need the Magelock and accuracy helm while melee builds need charge resistance, life steal, and every +def gear you can cram into them.

You can now create upto 15 custom heroes tied to your Ruler. On the last screen of the faction creation screen, click advanced settings and you should see Custom Heroes from there.

Heroes appear in order every time but for me my first Hero is skipped.

Always use Custom Heroes only because tailor made Hero Ambition, Class, and Governor type is superior to random crap.

• Crusader is hands down the best ambition in the game. It gives Zeal (+2 Spirit damage to all attacks INCLUDING AoE abilities and the like) and Faithful (-10% upkeep) to everyone in the stack, including the hero itself. Zeal is impossible to get on Mythic Units, and heroes need to waste a signature skill to get it, so this ambition is literally one of the incredibly few things that is capable of buffing Mythic Units, Heroes, and their abilities including Forgotten Tome skills. And regular unit builds can skip Tome of Zeal entirely because you get Zeal with this ambition and it doesn't stack with Legion of Zeal. The best thing about this ambition is that it gives Faithful to your own Shrines of Smiting, letting a pure 17 Shrines of Smiting army get the max +40 damage to their attack without any non-Shrines of Smiting taking up slots in the army if your Ruler is also some kind of summoner that can summon 4 faithful units. This combo is so crazy strong that I had to make a build specifically for it. The downside however is that its Major Ambition quest is impossible to complete reliably. Your Hero needs to personally kill a T4 Undead or Fiend unit and if no AI goes Undead or Fiends, and the AI killed all the Undead and Fiend infestations before you got to them, then you're ****ed.
  
  • With the new Archon DLC, you can now complete it without an infestation or AI if you go heavy Order or Shadow and NOT get any passive soul income. Basically you get 150 souls, summon a Fallen Angel, and be at -5 souls for a few turns until he deserts. Then have your hero land the killing blow on the Fallen Angel.
    
  • Another method is spamming Umbral incursion, killing all of their patrol stacks, and waiting for a replacement patrol stack with T4 Undead like Bone Dragon or Undead Titan to spawn and then killing it.
    
  • Despite the above two strategies, I try my absolute best to complete it without relying on them as it requires you both waste a Tome and wait around and do nothing for a decent number of turns. They are failsafe strategies.
    
  • My absolute last resort for completing the Major Ambition quest without Fallen Angels or Umbral Incursions is to take to the sea. Around 60-ish the ocean mobs are filled with Ghost Ships which are T5 Undead units and you only need 1. Chances are very high that you will find one easily because the AI doesn't seem to take out Ocean mobs. I know for a fact that at turn 91 all the surviving Kraken mobs evolve into Ghost Ships.
    
  • If you have high Order affinity you can get a quest to slay a stack with 1 T4 Fiend including in Story Realms. I think there's a 100% chance you get 1 affinity quest like this so if Order is your only high affinity, I think this is a decently reliable way of completing it. However the quest sometimes only spawns T3 or lower units.
  
  
• Heroes that kill things themselves like Ranger should grab Gloryseeker to deal +10-50% damage depending on the target's rank, which is a significant boost in damage. Mythic Units are your biggest threat and +50% gives more than +2 damage from Zeal.
  
  
• General purpose is Raider for the increased healing per turn because trying to heal your units outside of your domain is one of the most excruciating experiences in this game. However if you care about the bonuses from higher Renown levels I suggest you take a different ambition because in Brutal Difficulty your Ruler does NOT have the luxury of wasting 24 turns pillaging provinces. High Chaos builds can reduce this to 12 turns. You can make Raider work if you make use of city siege time. If it takes 2 turns to siege a city, don't start the siege with your Ruler and instead have your Ruler spend those 2 turns pillaging provinces next to the city while also moving your army around so they'll include your Ruler's stack if attacked. And pillage 2 more provinces while you wait for the city to be razed. You can't start a pillage while a city is being razed, but you can finish existing pillages so in order to pillage 2 provinces while you raze a city, start a pillage with 1 unit the turn before you attack, and then pillage a 2nd province with 1 unit after you win the siege battle. At that point the first pillage has 1 turn left and the 2nd pillage has 2 turns left so move your Ruler to the pillage with 1 turn left and then move her to the 2nd pillage next turn.
  
  
• The opposite of Raider is Imperialist. It is stupid easy to max out its renown but its benefit is lackluster. It gives Siegebreaker on your hero and anyone in its stack but that ultimately results in only 1 turn faster sieges. Whoop dee doo. And tons of endgame units already have Siegebreaker. But because you can max it out so early so easily, Wizard Kings and Cult of Personality users should seriously consider it for the earliest possible extra 15 casting points and 3 extra skill points which make a HUGE difference early game.
  
  
• Shepherd is also amazing. Its Major Ambition is trivially accomplished by beating a weak encampment with just your Ritualist + 1 Lesser Spirit (you can use more if you want) and the +20hp it gives makes your Elite Rank Lesser Storm Spirits stronger than most T3 units in the game which is amazing because of just how cheap and spammable they are. The -20% upkeep when stacked with Logistics Training for a total of -40% upkeep makes elementals affordable enough to use relatively early despite being a mana origin unit, and there's a Major Race Transformation that turns all of your racial units into Elementals so your racial units can benefit from Shepherd too. You can easily max out Shepherd's renown if you summon Champion Rank Elementals into the stacks of Heroes with Experienced Leader, evolving them in just 8 turns. Evolve 6 Elementals and their renown is maxed. If they don't have Experienced Leader however then put them in a stack with a Hero who does and transfer them over when they're just 2xp shy of evolving, and then win a battle.
  
  
• Conquerer is great for Deathcaller users because you can kill the summoned Devastator Sphere yourself on your first turn and summon a Skeleton from its corpse turn 1. For non-Deathcaller users Devastator Spheres are solely used for breaking walls in a siege battle because even with damage boosts Devastator Spheres do so little damage it's not worth using on units. Personally I'd skip this ambition if you're not using Deathcaller.
  
  
• Instructor is also a great general purpose ambition. it gives +50%xp to all non-hero units in your stack but it's a ***** to max out on non-Champion Rulers due to no Experienced Leader.
  
  
• Challenger, Defender, Fearmonger, etc. are easy to max renown levels with but I don't really care for their Major Ambition bonuses, and they max out over time rather than being quickly forced like Imperialist.

There are a lot more and most of them are good so take a look at them yourself and make your own decision.

In my opinion the Ritualist is the most powerful hero class in the game because

• As summoners they take no damage in combat letting them fight nonstop start to finish both in the early game and late game resulting in tremendous momentum.
  
• They get their game winning ability, Awaken Entwined + Empowered Awakening, an infinitely summonable T3 unit with 100% uptime, as early as level 5 making them an absolute powerhouse early game.
  
• They can trivially bestow 5x Strengthen, 5x Bolstered Defense, and 5x Bolstered Resistance to your entire army. This is game winning in its own right. Have you ever seen an entire Bone Dragon army with 16 defense? That's an 81% damage reduction right there. They are absolutely impossible to kill.
  
• They are 100% independent of Racial Traits, Culture, and Tomes making them splashable into any and every build in the game.
  
• 6 Materium Affinity, while not mandatory, doubles their strength to the point that 6 level 12 ritualists with 6 Materium Affinity can fight 6v18 against all endgame Brutal stacks and win unscathed.

Put all this together and you got a hero that fits in anywhere, super strong all game long, starts fighting right from the start, never stops fighting, and can win games all on their own.

So how do Ritualists win the game for you?

First is their Awaken Entwined Ability. If you have the Empowered Awakening skill, Entwined Ability summons a T3 Entwined Protector unit from a flora obstacle (trees and like). What makes this ability so amazing is:

• 1. It summons a T3 melee unit. Pure T3 melee unit armies are strong enough to beat Brutal Difficulty all on their own.
  
• 2. It only costs 1 action point to summon meaning you can move as far as you can and summon an Entwined Protector on the same turn.
  
• 3. The Entwined Protector spawns with full action points. Meaning it can triple attack or do a full move action on the same turn it's created.
  
• 4. It's on a two turn cooldown. Meaning the Entwined Protector has a 100% uptime on your turn and a 66% uptime on your enemies' turn. Allow me to explain.
  Combat summons' durations go down at the end of your turn, not your opponent's. And ability cooldowns start the turn after the ability is used. So the whole thing goes like this
  
  • Turn 1: Awaken Entwined is cast (2 turn cooldown). Entwined Protector is summoned with duration 3. At the end of your turn it goes down to 2.
    
  • Turn 2: Awaken Entwined cooldown starts. It has 2 turns left. At the end of your turn Entwined Protector's duration goes down to 1
    
  • Turn 3: Awaken Entwined cooldown ticks down. It has 1 turns left. At the end of your turn Entwined Protector's duration goes down to 0 making it go poof before your enemy's turn. You will not have an Entwined Protector defending you from the enemy this turn.
    
  • Turn 4:Awaken Entwined is up and usable again.
  So in the end, it's up 3 out of 3 of your turns and only down during 1 of your enemy's turns. Hence 100% uptime on your turn and 66% up time on your opponent's turn.

Second is the 6 Materium Affinity SIgnature Skill: Awaken Earth. It is identical to Awaken Entwined in every way except that it summons a T3 Earth Elemental instead of a T3 Entwined Protector, and it costs 3 action points to use. And it can be used on any obstacle not just Flora. Everything else is literally the same. 3 duration, 2 cooldown, and requires an obstacle to spawn.

So if Awaken Entwined is such an amazing game winning ability, imagine having two! So if you spam both Awaken Entwined and Awaken Earth, you will always have 12 T3 units bashing your opponents in 100% of the time and always have at last 6 T3 units tanking your enemy's hits.

Third is their Hostile Wildgrowth ability. Early game it's great AoE nuke dealing 15 damage and 8 additional damage via bleeding for a total of 23 physical damage. Doesn't sound like much at first but it's an AoE on a 2 turn cooldown and you'll have multiple Ritualists stacking this which really adds up. In addition it generates Flora obstacles to fuel your Awaken Entwined and Awaken Earth abilities and lastly it summons 3 Living Vines which the AI loves to waste its time killing.

So if we put all of this together:

• Turn 1: You get into position and cast 6x Awaken Entwined which summons 6x T3 Entwined Protectors which ram themselves against your enemies.
  
• Turn 2: You cast 6x Awaken Earth which summons 6x Earth Elementals which ram themselves against your enemies. You now have 12 T3 units body blocking your enemies.
  
• Turn 3: You cast 6x Hostile WIldgrowth, summoning 18 Living Vines all around your enemies. Your 6x Entwined Protectors go poof. You now have 6 T3 units and 18 Living Vines body blocking your enemies.

And repeat. Infinitely. Forever.

Let me ask you, when does your opponent have the opportunity to reach your Ritualists? The answer is... NEVER. They will never I mean ever be able to get past your massive wall of T3 melee units and Living Vines.

And if you're thinking these T3 units are just tanky meatshields, you are very, very wrong. T3 units with all the +damage unit enchantments are game winning so you're not summoning an endless wall of meatshields, you are summoning an endless wall of game winning units.

And that's how Ritualists beat Brutal Difficulty all on their own.

If you're not going 6 Materium, Ritualists are still very strong because mass Awaken Entwined is THAT good. But they won't be able to win the game on their own. So if you want to go 6 Chaos for +30% army wide crit or 6 Astral for ignore 6 status resistance instead, go right ahead. Your Ritualists don't need to be able to win 6v18. Just remember to cast Hostile Wildgrowth on the same turn your Entwined Protectors go poof so that your Living Vines don't go poof on the same turn as them.

Never get Protective Wildgrowth. You want Flora obstacles next to your enemy so your freshly spawned Entwined Protectors and Earth Elementals can lay down the smackdown immediately. You also want the 3 immobile LIving Vines to be next to the enemy as well. And Hostile Wildgrowth is the skill you cast on top of the enemy, not Protective Wildgrowth, so never get Protective Wildgrowth.

The only other Ritualist's skill of note is Rite of Vigil. Gives +1 Bolstered Defense and Resistance to your entire army. And because Rituals of Strength is its prerequisite, it also bestows +1 Strengthen to your entire army. At first this doesn't sound impressive but remember, you're gonna have 5+ Ritualists in your army so if all of them get Rite of Vigil, your entire army will always have 5x Strengthen, Bolstered Defense, and Bolstered Resistance. That's 50% more damage and 50% more damage reduction!

If you're not going 5 Ritualists per army, if you're only grabbing 3 Ritualists as army wide buff sticks, grab a mix of Hardening and Bolstering Support so your 3x Rite of Vigil bestows 5x Bolstered Defense and Resistance.

Rite of Strength is situationally better. For example, if you have 17 Balors but you didn't get Tome of the Archmage or the Chaos Lord because you're going Wizard King and wanted 2x Tectonic Shatters instead, then grab Rite of Strength for 1 turn of haste on all 17 of your Balors. They only need 48 movement for the one turn they unload their AoE payload.

Rejuvenate is an AoE dispel. The healing is so negligible it's not worth talking about. Same with Restore. These are dispel skills not healing skills and in my opinion AoE 1 dispel is better than single target all dispel, because you really only need 1 thing dispelled. Having said that, if you need to grab Bolstering Support go ahead and grab Restore. I rarely need a dispel anyway.

Reincarnate is simply worthless. Animals are not good without going full nature builds so it's always better to replace your dead units than reincarnate them. And reincarnated combat summons inherit their old duration timer. So if you reincarnate a dead Entwined Protector with only 1 turn left, your reincarnated T3 Animal is also gonna go poof in 1 turn so what was the point?

You could do something really gimmicky with Reincarnate like casting it on dead Warbreeds spawned from the Monstrous Rebirth spell to permanently recruit T4 animals from summoned T1 units like Zealots, but still, Reincarnate is absolutely worthless because T3-T4 animals are not worth putting this much effort to obtain.

Regeneration heals too slowly to be usable

Polymorph is only if you want to capture unrecruitable T5 units. T5 units all have Control Loss Immunity making them immune to Dominate but if you turn them into a T1 animal with Polymorph then they lose their Control Loss Immunity, making them fair game for Dominate. You need to stack a mother **** ton of Sundered Resistance on your target to make this work though. On the plus side, when polymorph runs out next turn, the T5 unit stays dominated.

AVOID SPREADING WILDGROWTH Summoning 3x Living Vines every 3 turns is very good. Summoning 3x Living Vines every 5 turns is very bad especially since they only last for 1 enemy turn. The increased AoE is NOT worth it. Living Vines waste so many of your opponent's actions it's not worth halving its efficiency for a bigger 15 phys damage AoE.

And that's pretty much it for all of the Ritualist's skills.

If you're thinking non-Ritualists can also grab Awaken Earth and do well... I mean... they can. It's an amazing ability. But running out of obstacles is a VERY real concern. A LOT of maps are either practically devoid of obstacles or only have obstacles at the edge of the map, not the middle so having at least 1 Ritualist is MANDATORY if you want to use Awaken Earth.

• 2:Hostile Wildgrowth - very good AoE damage early game, spawns Flora next to enemy for Awaken Entwined and Awaken Earth
  
• 3:Living Wildgrowth - Spawns 3 Living Vines
  
• 4:Fey Wildgrowth - Prerequisite
  
• 4:Awaken Entwined - Game Winning Ability
  
  
• 5:Empowered Awakening - Game Winning Ability
  
  
• 6:Swift Leader - Army ignores slowing terrain like Flora and Water.
  
• 7:Rejuvenate - AoE dispel
  
  
• 8:Experienced Leader - Evolves your Champion Rank Lesser Storm Spirits into Storm Spirits in 8 turns.
  
• 8:Logistics Training - -20% unit upkeep in your army.
  
  
• 9:Foraging Training - +10 hp heal per turn. Trying to heal your army outside of your domain is one of the most painful experiences in this game.
  
• 10:Rituals of Strength: Prerequisite
  
• 11:Rooted Resistance - Prerequisite
  
  
• 12:Master of Materium:Awaken Earth - Best summoning skill in the game.
  
• 12:Rite of Vigil - Bestows +10% damage, +1 def, and +1 res to all of your units in the current battle. Situationally Rite of Strength is better.
  
  
• 13:Endurance Training - +10hp for army
  
• 14:Offensive Formation - +10% damage for army
  
• 15:Weakening Magic - Hostile Wildgrowth bestows Weaken
  
  
• 16:Natural Vitality - Tankier Ritualist to withstand more AoE spells
  
• 16:Restore Strength - Prerequisite
  
  
• 17:Decompose - Prerequisite
  
• 18:Reincarnate - Why not
  
• 19:Fortifying Support - Why not
  
• 20:Enhanced Rejuvenation - Why not

We rush Empowered Awakening because it's our game winning skill.

We get Swift Army immediately after because your Ritualists create way too many Flora which obstructs your own army. Also, I've lost battles because my Shock units got bogged down by river and flora, preventing them from reaching the enemy's ranged unit from outside their range, resulting in them getting triple attacked and killed. You gotta play the Bridge map with only Shock Units to truly understand what a god tier skill Swift Army is.

Your Ritualists then get Rejuvenate because mass damage-over-time or stun effects have screwed me over before and Rejuvenate undoes all of that.

And that's all for the core most important Ritualist skills so from this point on we get the Army Leader skills. Obviously non-army leader heroes should skip these.

Experienced Leader to be able to evolve our Lesser Elementals in 8 turns.
Logistics Training to be able to afford a full 18 unit high tier army
Foraging Training to be able to heal our units in between battles. This is actually incredibly important as even in the early game in Brutal Difficulty you have to fight 2 battles on the same turn.

Then we rush Rite of Vigil so that we can get as many Ritualists as we can with it to give all of our units in battle +50% damage, +5 def, and +5 res.

And then we're truly done so we grab whatever. +10hp and +10% damage for army, weakening on our Hostile Wildgrowth, etc.

If you're NOT getting 5 Ritualists for your army then grab Enhanced Rejuventation/Restoration and Hardening/Bolstering Support so you can get more stacks of Bolstered Defense or Resistance on all of your units with less Rites of Vigils.

Champion of War can give +20% crit to Mythic Units so if your Hero is on a very fast flying mount. If you're using only Mythic Units, consider grabbing this and flying your hero next to every Mythic Unit before they attack. WIthout such a mount though or if not using mass T5 units I would not bother because your heroes should always stay in harms way and only by having a full T5 Mythic Unit army can you wipe out the entire enemy in one turn, letting your hero safely move around in the front line like this.

***Multiplayer people apparently swear by Protective Wildgrowth for Grace, True Strike, and prioritize Rejuvenate/Restore over Awaken Entwined. Personally I'd rather prevent damage with summons and by bleeding everything to death before they get in range of my units.

• Any - Go anything you want but if you want your Ritualists to win the game for you, going something with Unit Enchantments that buff T3 melee units like Barbarian is best.

• Fast Recuperation - Increases your healing per turn by 10hp. Nothing and I mean ABSOLUTELY nothing increases your Ritualist's healing per turn until the late game. Every +healing per turn you can get your hands on before the lategame only affects non-heroes and your Ritualists are gonna get hurt in the early game causing them to run back to your territory after every single fight because you heal 0hp per turn in enemy territory, completely destroying any ability you have to go on the offensive early game. This trait changes all that which is why in my opinion this is the best Racial Trait in the game and an absolute MUST for any hero-centric builds.

• Orb of the Far Traveler - 30% of damage hits a 2nd target.
  
• Lithorite Orb - makes your summons detonate on death. Usable with a mount but you don't start with one.
  
• Wand of Spawn Hatchling - Summons a T1 Spider
  
• Trinket: Army Recuperation - increases your healing per turn by 5hp.

I used to recommend Staff of Necromancy but after Decaying Zombies got nerfed to hell in the Griffon Patch, I no longer recommend it.

I recommend Orb of the Far Traveler simply because you get to start with a mount. You really need that 48 movement to be able to reach the flora closest to your enemies with Awaken Entwined and since all the other Orb + Mount setups have no special effect I recommend you alwys start with Orb of the Far Traveler.

If you don't own the DLC, Lithorite Orb is a good substitute. Do NOT start with the Lithorite Orb however because Lithorite Orb does NOT come with a mount. CRAFT the Lithorite Orb later in the game.

If you don't own that DLC either, then just start with a standard orb + mount. I don't think any particular element is better than the others so pick your favorite and go.

Wand of Spawn Hatchling is dirt cheap to craft, requires no magic materials, provides corpses for Staff of Necromancy, and you gotta do something for 1 turn after casting Awaken Entwined and Hostile Wildgrowth. So why not spawn a T1 Spider? Especially since it's so dirt cheap to make.

Get Army Recuperation if you happen to get your hands on a Rainbow Clover. If not, don't sweat it.

Ritualists don't need anything else. All the higher tier summon spider stuff used to be good with the old Ritualist because they had Weaver giving them 2 uses per summon spider wand, and Conjure Greater Spirit is an absolutely atrocious skill. But now that they lost Weaver and replaced Conjure Greater Spirit with Awaken Entwined they have absolutely no need for any summon spider wands.

IMPORTANT: Auto-resolve AI is absolutely ATROCIOUS with Ritualists. If you don't want to fight the majority of your battles manually, then bring a full army, or go Rangers, or go my Reaper build because if you want your Ritualists to do the majority of the heavy lifting then you're gonna have to manually control them every time.

A way to make Manual Combat easier is using Auto-Resolve for all of your non-Ritualist units. So manually cast summoning abilities on all 6 of your Ritualists and turn on Auto-Resolve for the rest of the turn. And turn it off during your opponent's turn.

My recommended starting weapon for Rangers is Crowmaster's Bow because free fodder to tank the enemy's Alpha Strike is better than all the other Ruler starting weapons.

The reason the Ranger is the strongest lategame unit in the game is because the Magelock weapon is the strongest weapon in the game by a considerable margin. It ignores 50% of the target's def and res, does about 40% more damage than the next strongest single shot weapon (two handed melee), does more damage than 2 hits from a mutli-strike weapons, you can move and shoot on the same turn, and it's also a ranged weapon. And let me tell you, weapons that let you move and shoot on the same turn are infinitely superior to weapons that don't. It's one of the major reasons Shock units are the best unit type in the game.

So if you have a full stack of these guys then you can charge into the enemy ranks and annihilate the entire enemy stack in your alpha strike, leaving your Rangers completely unharmed.

And if the Magelocks they are using have the Infecting infusion then your Rangers will also create an army of zombies with full action points in their place which will then ram into your enemies' reinforcements and act as a meat wall between your Rangers and your enemies which ensures your Rangers will continue to remain completely unscathed until their next turn as well.

And if you cast Demonic Onslaught to give all your Rangers Killing Momentum, they can fight 6 vs 18 T5 units all by themselves and win. So needless to say the Ranger is the strongest lategame unit in the game.

The downside of rangers however is that they suck really, really, really badly early game. They're literally no better than a T2 archer unit unless they start with a net at which point they're literally no better than a T1 skirmisher unit. They also get royally ****ed by Wind Barrier, Obscured, Quick Reflexes, etc., and there is 0 flexibility in your build. You HAVE to go Keen-sighted, and Overwhelm Tactics as your Racial Traits. You HAVE to go Tome of the Chaos Lord. You HAVE to get 8 Materium Affinity. And you HAVE to go Barbarians. Put all of this together and you got 0 wiggle room or flexibility. You either go this exact build OR you go play a different class.

So first lets crunch some numbers.
You can easily achieve 100% crit chance with your heroes

• Overwhelm Tactics: +20%
  
• Champion of War: +20%
  
• Keen Edge: +20%
  
• Chaos Empowerment: +20%
  
• Demonkin Transformation: +15%
  
• Fortune x3: +30%
  
• Total: 125% crit chance.

Now for the damage numbers.

• The Strong racial trait gives +2 phys damage to your attacks. Magelocks, as single shot weapons, receive double the bonus for a total of +4 damage.
  
• Initiate of Chaos gives Searing Strikes which gives +2 fire damage to your attacks. Magelocks, as single shot weapons, receive double the bonus for a total of +8 damage.
  
• Adept of Materium gives Meteor Strikes which gives +4 fire damage to your attacks. Magelocks, as single shot weapons, receive double the bonus for a total of +16 damage.
  
• Adept of Chaos gives Chaos Empowerment which gives +3 fire damage to your critical attacks. Magelocks, as single shot weapons, receive double the bonus for +22 damage.
  
• Barbarians' racial trait Savage Strikes adds +4 blight damage to your critical attacks. Magelocks, as single shot weapons, receive double the bonus for +30 damage.
  
• Big Game Hunter adds +1 damage per unit tier of target. Magelocks, as single shot weapons, receive double the bonus for +32-40 damage.

Now lets talk about +% damage increases. Please note that in this game all +% damage stacks additively. So if one thing gives +100% damage and another thing gives +100% damage then you'll be doing 300% damage and not 400% damage.

• Crits increase your damage by +50%.
  
• We'll be adding the +20% Critical Hit Damage infusion to our Magelocks for a total of +70% damage.
  
• We can trivially get 5 stacks of Strengthen on all your heroes for another +50% for a total of +120% damage.
  
• Ranger I, Ranger II, and Martial Expertise all give +10% damage each for a total of +150% damage.
  
• Paragon of Materium gives Ancient of Earth which increases damage by +30% for a total of +180% damage.
  
• The new Custom Hero feature lets us get Gloryseeker on all our rangers 100% of the time for +10% damage per unit tier of the target, for a total of +190%-230% damage

Total damage:

• Snapshot Heavy Magelock: (29 + 32-40) * 2.9-3.3 = 177-227 damage
  
• Fire Heavy Magelock: (44 + 32-40) * 2.9-3.3 = 220-277 damage.
  
• Snapshot: (16 + 16-20) * 2.9-3.3= 93-119 damage.

Lets talk about Snapshot. Snapshot is a free action attack that does 16 damage and its cooldown gets refreshed when you kill a unit. As of Ogre patch it is affected by every +damage you have; however, it's treated as a multi shot weapon at this time so it only gets half as much +damage.

So if we combine Snapshot and Snapshot Heavy Magelock, you'll be moving and dealing 270-346 damage. How many units do you know have 270-346 hp? None right? Exactly. Rangers will one shot any and every unit in the game except those with really, really high defense. And with the Demonic Onslaught spell giving them Killing Momentum they'll be killing 2 units every turn. With a full stack of Rangers you're going to be killing 12 units a turn and creating 12 zombies a turn! And there's only 18 units in a battle! So you see just how hard Rangers roflstomp right? That's why I consider them the strongest lategame unit in the game by a considerable margin.

• 2:Experienced Leader - Prerequisite
  
• 3:Logistics Training - -20% unit upkeep. Your Rangers are nothing to write home about until you get Tome of Transmutation AND craft all your gear so we get this first to get a bigger army and be able to afford our buildings.
  
• 4:Foraging Training - +10 hp heal per turn. Trying to heal your army outside of your domain is one of the most painful experiences in this game.
  
• 4:EnduranceTraining - +10 hp for army
  
• 5:Offensive Formation - +10% damage to adjacent units
  
• 6:Champion of War - +20% crit chance. Barbarians can get 3x Fortune very, very early in the game so might as well max out crit rate first.
  
• 7:Keen Edge - +20% crit chance.
  
• 8:Initiate of Chaos:Searing Strikes - +4 Fire damage
  
• 8:Adept of Chaos: Chaos Empowerment - +20% crit chance and +6 Fire damage on crit. Chosen over Adept of Materium for the army wide +10% crit.
  
• 9:Critical Skirmisher - crits do more damage the more you do them. We have 100% crit rate so...
  
• 10:Snapshot - 16 damage + half your +damage stuff as a free action
  
• 11: Disruptive Snapshot - cancels defense mode
  
• 12: Adept of Materium: Meteor Strikes - +8 Fire damage
  
• 12: Big Game Hunter - +2 damage per unit tier of target
  
• 13: Invigorating Takedown - prerequisite
  
• 14: Kill Shot - refresh Snapshot on kill
  
• 15: Ranger I - +10% damage
  
• 16: Paragon of Materium:Ancient of Earth - +30% damage
  
• 16: Defense - Prerequisite
  
• 17: Defense - Prerequisite
  
• 18: Ranger II - +10% damage
  
• 19: Slip Away - Prerequisite
  
• 20: Marital Expertise - +10% damage

This build assumes you'll move and shoot every turn, but non-army leader heroes don't need to get the army leader skills so they should skip them in favor of getting all the skills 4 levels earlier. With the last 4 remaining skill points they should get Sniper's Focus, Focused Aim, and Master Focus because why not.

Resetting your heroes to get rid of the army leader stuff is also a viable option.

• Barbarians - solely for their racial trait Savage Strike which increases the base damage of your Magelocks' critical hits by +8 blight damage which is more than any other damage increase from any other culture.

• Keen-Sighted - +20% accuracy. You need it for quick reflexes, obscured, and Wind Barrier
  
• Overwhelm Tactics - +20% crit chance when next to another unit with this trait. Mandatory for 100% crit chance.
  
• Strong - +2 Phys damage. +4 for Magelocks. Chosen over Pack Tactics because flat damage is better than % damage.
  
• Careless - Flaw. -1 def and res during Defense mode. A negligible flaw because we don't use defense mode, at all, with Rangers or their spawned zombies.

• Weapon: Magelock - Infecting, +20% Crit Damage
  
• Head: +30% Accuracy, Hyper Awareness, (+5 hp/+1 def/+1 res)
  
• Trinket: Undying
  
• Ring: Status Immunity
  
• Wand: Summon Spider Monarch
  
• Trinket: Army Recuperation
  
• Legs: Very Fast Movement, Slip Away, (+5 hp/+1 def/+1 res)

Only the Weapon and Helm are mandatory. Everything else is just a bonus. I usually don't bother making anything else.

You can fit an additional +5 hp/1 def/1 res on the head but I intentionally don't just to reduce crafting time by 1 turn. Item Forge crafting time is the bottleneck to your strength and skipping the extra +5 hp/1 def/1 res saves you 6 whole turns.

The other slots don't matter. Game usually ends before I get Status Immunity on everyone. Torso does nothing for us so pick the defensive infusions of your choice be it hp, armor, resistance, or bolstering regeneration.

The following is how I setup my 3 Transmutation Circles and the order I build my items

None

• Weapon: Magelock - +10% Crit Chance, Inflict Bleeding

I make 4 of these before my Transmutation Circles come online. Can't make anything stronger due to lack of Binding Fragments and Magic Materials.

1 Archon Blood + 1 Fireforge Stone

• Weapon: Magelock - Infecting, +20% Crit Damage

2 Focus Crystals

• Head: +30% Accuracy, Hyper Awareness, (+5 hp)

2 Archon Blood + 1 Rainbow Clover

• Trinket: Undying
  
• Trinket: Army Recuperation (only 3. Multiples of this trinket do not stack)

3 Tranquility Pool

• Ring: Status Immunity

3 Silvertongue Fruit

• Wand: Summon Spider Monarch

2 Haste Berries + 1 Astral Dew

• Legs: Very Fast Movement, Slip Away

Elementalist Heroes are completely inferior to Ritualist Heroes in everyway. However, Elementalist Rulers are superior to Ritualist Rulers.

So lets first look at the best skills of the Elementalist. Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit and Ritual of Elements.

• Ritual of Elements is a 1 action skill with a 3 turn cooldown that also leaves you 1 action point after use. And what it does is it refreshes every skill you have, including Once per Battle abilities! such as Ascension Trait skills. And because it leaves you with 1 action point after using it, you can immediately use the skill you just refreshed if it also costs only 1 action point to use.
  
• So this means Ritualists can use any Once per Battle ability an infinite number of times per battle.
  
• Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit used to be the absolute worst skill in the game. But after the rework it is a now a fantastic skill.
  
  • It no longer summons a random elemental. Instead it always summons the one that your Elementalist chose as her element. So if you choose lightning, you get to summon a Storm Spirit 100% of the time.
    
  • The elemental is now spawned with 3 action points instead of 1 action point so the Elemental is no longer worthless on the turn it is summoned. So if you summon a Storm Spirit from afar, it can charge into the enemy immediately.
    
  • Like Ritual of Elements it is on a 3 turn cooldown and leaves you 1 action point after use but unlike Ritual of Elements it costs 3 action points to use Which means you cannot move on the same turn you use Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit.
• So what this means is, you can cast Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit, Ritual of Elements and a 1 action point skill all on the same turn!
  
  • For example, Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit->Ritual of Elements->Summon Bolt Repeater

So why are Elementalist Heroes completely inferior to Ritualist Heroes?

• Ritualists are at full strength at level 5. At level 5 they are capable of carrying my pure T1 army to victory against the AI's T3 armies. Elementalist Heroes on the other hand, are functional at level 7 and are at full strength at level 8. The time it takes to get from level 5 to level 7 is SIGNIFICANT. And I need my heroes to be fully functional as early as possible because in a straight up fight on Brutal Difficulty, you will always lose. Therefore needing 3 more levels before your heroes can start carrying you is SIGNFIICANTLY inferior to a hero that doesn't need 3 more levels.
  
• 3 more levels also means all of your hero's army leader skills are also delayed by 3 levels. You are not gonna be benefitting from +10hp heal per turn and -20% upkeep when you need it most.
  
• Ritualists also have Swift Army which is gamebreakingly powerful on Shock Units.
  
• Ritualists can do a full move AND summon their Entwined Protector on the same turn. Elementalists cannot move and summon an Elemental. This is incredibly significant because being able to get into position and summon something that can immediately reach your enemies on the same turn keeps your entire army safe while giving your enemies a full turn to approach you puts your army, especially your squishy heroes, in danger of dying to flying melee units, ranged single shot untis, and AoE spamming Battle Mages.
  
• Elementalists can't utilize Awaken Earth well because they can't generate obstacles. Meaning they can't summon Stone Spirits near the enemy, need to ration obstacles, and Awaken Earth can be fully dead due to a lot of maps not having obstacles.
  
• Elementalists who want to 6v18 need to get 6 Nature to get Call of the Wild instead. It's a once per battle ability that summons two T2 animals for 3 turns but thanks to Ritual of Elements, Elementalists gets infintie uses out of it.
  
  • Tome of Roots gives +damage to all melee units but Tome of Vigor gives +damage only to animals. This is actually not as bad as it sounds as the majority of the Elementalists' summons are animals. That's 4 Nature Affinity, so Elementalists only need to get 1 worthless Nature Tome which isn't that bad.
    
  • The fact that it summons T2 animals is a good thing because Mighty Meek, the best +damage unit enchantment in the game, will boost them. And Elementalists LOVE getting Mighty Meek because of the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build.
• This is the lategame Ritualist action cycle
  
  • Turn 1: Move into position + Awaken Entwined
    
  • Turn 2: Awaken Earth
    
  • Turn 3: Hostile Wildgrowth
    
  • and repeat forever.
• This is the lategame Elementalist action cycle
  
  • Turn 1: Move into position
    
  • Turn 2: Call of the Wild
    
  • Turn 3: Conjure Greater Spirit + Ritual of Elements
    
  • Turn 4: Conjure Greater Spirit
    
  • Turn 5: Call of the WIld.
    
  • Turn 6: Summon Spider
    
  • Turn 7: Spawn Spider Hatchling
    
  • repeat steps 3-7 forever
• As you can see, Ritualist is superior. Ritualist gets a summon out turn 1 while Elementalists do not. Then while Elementalists can get 2 summons out on turn 2, they're summoned in front of you and need to waste one of their turns running to the enemy while both of the Ritualists summons on the other hand have been summoned near the enemy and have been bashing them since the start. Then Ritualists summons 3 Living Vines on top of the enemy forcing 3 enemies to waste their turns killing them while Elementalists summon an Elemental in front of them who have to travel for a turn to deal damage. Only at turn 5 will I say the Elementalists finally overtake Ritualists, but only for that one turn because Elementalists need to switch to Spiders for a while afterwards which isn't that good.
  
• In addition, Ritualists do NOT need any gear where as Elementalists need 2 summons from gear.
  
• Lastly, once your T5 Mythic Units come out and render all of your Heroes combat contributions obsolete, Ritualists can still help out by bestowing 5x Strengthen, +5 def, and +5 res to your entire army. Elementalists can't do jack to help out your T5 Mythic Units and exist solely as army wide Signature Skill Passives buff sticks.
  
• So put all of this together and Ritualists come online sooner, don't need anything, gives Swift to your army early in the game, buffs your entire Mythic Army, and are game winningly powerful where as Elementalists come online way too late, need Tome of Transmutation to craft them spider gear, doesn't have Swift Leader, doesn't help your T5 Mythic Army in anyway, but they are at least also game winningly powerful. So Elementalists are viable which is why I'm mentioning them but they're inferior. I would put them lower than Rangers because once Rangers get their gear they're superior to Ritualists in every way possible where as Elementalists are still inferior.

So then, why are Elementalist Rulers superior to Ritualist Rulers? Because of Ascension Traits.

• Lets take a look at an Elementalist Eldritch Sovereign at level 11
  
  • Turn 1: Summon Bolt Repeater
    
  • Turn 2: Conjure Greater Spirit + Ritual of Elements + Summon Bolt Repeater
    
  • Turn 3: Conjure Greater Spirit + Ritual of Elements + Forgotten Tome Skill
    
  • Turn 4: Conjure Greater Spirit + Forgotten Tome Skill
    
  • Turn 5: Summon Spider Monarch
    
  • Turn 6: Spawn Spider Hatchling
    
  • Turn 7: Forgotten Tome Skill
    
  • Turn 8: Conjure Greater Spirit + Ritual of Elements + Summon Bolt Repeater
    
  • Turn 9: Conjure Greater Spirit + Forgotten Tome Skill
• Look at how many Bolt Repeaters and Forgotten Tome Skills this guy cast. For those of you who don't know, Forgotten Tome Skills are army wiping skills. Blazing Chain Lightning deals 84 damage to 4 enemy units at global range across 3 turns and how many did we cast?
  
• Similarly 2 Bolt Repeaters buffed by Mighty Meek and 5x Strengthen + 3x Fortune from Chaplains is also army wiping. The sheer consistent AoE damage these 2 Bolt Repeaters output will annihilate all the enemy squishies on the map, and forces your opponent to approach you instead of the other way around because you're the only one with the long range option.
  
• So this is why Elementalist Rulers are superior to Ritualist Rulers. Because Ritual of Elements refreshes their once per battle abilities like Ascension Trait Skills and Forgotten Tome skills letting you spam these powerful abilities endlessly every battle.
  
• The downside of Elementalist Rulers compared to Ritualist Rulers however, is you get your Ruler's unique skills waaaaay too late. Eldritch Sovereigns for example, Mesmerizing Draft Ritual is so amazing that Ritualists get it at level 5 but Elementalists? The earliest they can grab it is level 12 and by then you're not gonna get much use out of it so it's better to just skip it entirely.
  
• The Artificer Ascension Trait + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon is in my opinion the most powerful Ruler build in the game and as such I dedicated an entire section to it. If you're interested check it out.

So lets talk about the Elementalist's blasting potential. It sucks. The Bolt Repeater from the Artificer ascension trait does 36 damage every other turn in a 1-hex AoE and it is lackluster. So wtf is 22 damage gonna do? Lategame Wizard Kings cast two Explosive Manifestations boosted to 60 AoE damage each for a total of 120 elemental damage fails to make a difference. It's the resulting summon that does all the heavy lifting. So again, wtf is 22 damage gonna do? Boosted by 50% to 33 damage? Again, what is that going to do? The answer is nothing. Elementalists are atrocious damage dealers. Do not ever think they are AoE damage dealers because they are not.

So the one and only thing the Elementalists' Evocation is good for is stun or freeze from Focused Evocation. It has a 120% chance of stunning or freezing an enemy and with Inexorable Cast letting you ignore 10 status resistance, it's basically gonna always succeed. The Elementalist's capstone abilities on the other hand, are all terrible because they do pathetic damage, cost 3 action points, and cost too many skill points to obtain. And their debuff effect is pathetic. Withering Blizzard only freezes those who are slowed so if you want it to work you gotta have a 2nd Frost Elementalist with you to slow everyone first.

This however creates a conflict. Storm Spirits are far superior to Snow and Stone Spirits because you can summon them from afar and they'll charge in and deal maximum damage. Snow and Stone Spirits on the other hand, can only land one attack if you summon them from afar and if you use the Snow Spirit's ranged attack, the enemy might freeze, which is good but because now the Snow Spirit has to spend an action point to close the distance, he will do even less damage before he goes poof. And lastly, on the summoned Elemental's last turn, Storm Spirits can teleport and deal maximum damage where as Frost and Stone Spirit can only land 1 attack after a teleport.

So I'd say... go Earth or Frost if you're using your T3 summoned Elementals solely as meat shields and not damage dealers. That way you have access to Focused Evocation, and Frost and Stone Spirits contribute more than Storm Spirits by freezing/immobilizing enemies when none of them can deal damage.

As for Earth v.s. Frost, Frost has an additional benefit of letting your Heroes inflict slow and freezing with their base attack. Combined with the Sundering Magic and Withering Magic Hero Skills which bestows 1 Sundered Resistance and 1 Status Vulnerability per attack, your heroes can reliably freeze enemies if they focus fire on the same target. BUT Frozen conflicts with Burning and a LOT of great things inflict burning.

Flame can outperform Storm if you go Eldritch Sovereign and Tome of Dragons. Tome of Dragons has Flamer Focus which gives your Magma Spirit a 2nd more powerful AoE attack. And with Greater Possession giving +80% damage increase to your summoned Elemental which stacks additively with Storm Spirits' +60% damage from charge, your Magma Spirit will outperform your Storm Spirit even if the Storm Spirit has 5 +damage tomes and the Magma Spirit has no +damage tomes as long as the Magma Spirit hits at least 2 enemies with Fire Bomb and 3 enemies with Incinerate. And on turn 2 you're gonna hit around 5 enemies on average with Fire Bomb because the AI loves to group on turn 2. However if you're not going Eldritch Sovereign or you're not going Tome of Dragons then I'd never go Fire unless you're not going mass +damage unit enchantments and you're getting a Tome that gives a very nice status effect like Soulbound to your Magma Spirit's AoE attack.

Here's a priority list I made to make everything I said easier to understand

• Eldritch Sovereign + Tome of Dragons: Fire
  
• Mass +damage unit enchantments: Storm
  
• Tome of Dragons, Tome of Souls, or some other really great status effect unit enchantment: Fire
  
• Using anything that inflicts burning: Earth
  
• None of the above: Frost.

By the way, this guide is a minmax guide which is why it will focus only on Ritualists and not Elementalists. Sometimes I'll recommend you go the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build because it's insanely strong but 100% of heroes in this guide are Ritualists only no matter the build except the Ranger build.. Elementalists maybe viable but they're complete trash early game while Ritualists carry you to your endgame army so we will only be using Ritualist Heroes in the guide.

• 2:Discipline of Storms - prerequisite
  
• 3:Chaining Evocation - prerequisite. Cloudburst's wet conflicts with burning.
  
  
• 4:Sundering Magic - prerequisite
  
• 4:Elemental Gateway - prerequisite, an escape from meleeing flying enemies that get in your face is always great. Also can be used to reposition right before and after Ritual of Elements. With Eldritch Sovereign's Eldritch Phase you can pop in right in front of your enemies, drop an Elemental in their face to triple attack, then Elemental Gateway back to safety only to pop Ritual of Elements so you can do it all again next turn.
  
  
• 5:Unrelenting Elements - prerequisite
  
• 6:Conjure Lesser Elemental Spirit - Summon a Lesser Storm Spirit to charge at your enemy
  
• 7:Ritual of Elements - Summon 2 Lesser Storm Spirits to charge at your enemy. We're choosing more damage over tankiness.
  
  
• 8:Conjure Greater Spirit - One of the best summon skills in the game
  
• 8:Experienced Leader - evolve your champion rank elementals in just 8 turns.
  
  
• 9:Logistics Training - to pay for a higher tier army
  
• 10:Foraging Training - heal your units outside of your domain
  
• 11:Endurance Training - +10hp and +2 status resistance to your army
  
  
• 12:Offensive Formation - +10% damage
  
• 12:Champion of War - +20% crit chance
  
  
• 13:Withering Magic - -2 Status Resistance per hit.
  
• 14:Elemental Mastery - Why not?
  
• 15:Lightning Bolt - Why not?
  
  
• 16:Amplified Magic - Why not?
  
• 16:Empowered Evocations - Why not?
  
  
• 17:Inexorable Cast - Why not?
  
• 18:Inexorable Prowess - Why not?
  
• 19:Resistance - Why not?
  
• 20:Defense - Why not?

Needless to say, after level 12, you should probably take a lot of Signature Skill skills.

Frost Elementalists who want to freeze enemies with their base attack should get WIthering Magic at level 8.

• Any - Go anything you want but if you want your Elementalists to win the game for you, going something with Unit Enchantments that buff T3 melee units like Barbarian is best.

• Fast Recuperation - Increases your healing per turn by 10hp. Nothing and I mean ABSOLUTELY nothing increases your Elementalists' healing per turn until the late game. Every +healing per turn you can get your hands on before the lategame only affects non-heroes and your Elementalists are gonna get hurt in the early game causing them to run back to your territory after every single fight because you heal 0hp per turn in enemy territory, completely destroying any ability you have to go on the offensive early game. This trait changes all that which is why in my opinion this is the best Racial Trait in the game and an absolute MUST for any hero-centric builds.

• Orb of the Far Traveler - 30% of your damage hits a 2nd target.
  
• Lithorite Orb - makes your summons detonate on death. Usable with a mount but you don't start with one.
  
• Wand of Summon Spider Monarch - Summons a T4 Spider
  
• Wand of Spawn Spider - Summons a T2 Spider
  
• Wand of Spawn Hatchling - Summons a T1 Spider
  
• Trinket: Army Recuperation - increases your healing per turn by 5hp.

I used to recommend Staff of Necromancy but after Decaying Zombies got nerfed to hell in the Griffon Patch, I no longer recommend it.

I recommend Orb of the Far Traveler simply because you get to start with a mount. You really need that 48 movement to be able to reach the flora closest to your enemies with Awaken Entwined and since all the other Orb + Mount setups have no special effect I recommend you alwys start with Orb of the Far Traveler.

If you don't own the DLC, Lithorite Orb is a good substitute. Do NOT start with the Lithorite Orb however because Lithorite Orb does NOT come with a mount. CRAFT the Lithorite Orb later in the game.

If you don't own that DLC either, then just start with a standard orb + mount. I don't think any particular element is better than the others so pick your favorite and go.

Unlike Ritualists the 3 Spider Wands are MANDATORY. You gotta do something useful while waiting for your Conjure Greater Spirit to finish cooling down. You can get less if your hero has some other thing he can do like Signature Summon skills or the like.

Get Army Recuperation if you happen to get your hands on a Rainbow Clover. If not, don't sweat it.

There are 5 Ruler types in the game:Champion, Wizard King, Dragon Lord, Eldritch Sovereign, and Giant King.

Champion and Wizard Kings are the most selfless. The passive effects of their Signature Skills give army wide bonuses, most notable are +30% crit chance with Initiate, Adept, and Master of Chaos, and Ignore 6 Status Resistance with Astral. These two effects are so game breakingly powerful that I consider Champions and Wizard Kings to be the most powerful Rulers in the game bar none by a considerable margin. Other Ruler are SIGNIFICANTLY better combat units but Ignore 6 Status Resistance on 15 Reapers is game winning and +30% crit chance is how you get 100% crit chance on all of your Mythic Units which is why in my opinion Champions and Wizard Kings are hands down the most powerful Ruler types in the game.

It is important to note that Giant Kings, Dragons, and Eldritch Sovereigns do NOT have Affinity requirements for their signature skills. The rest of their heroes do but not these Rulers themselves.

• The only reason to go Champion over the other Rulers is because you want a homogeneous army. As in you don't want 1/3rd of your army to be gimped lepers.
  
• Compared to normal heroes Champions only have one unique skill, Command, which completely refills a units' action points. So basically Champions are just normal heroes with Command and an Ascension trait.
  
  • This is actually a LOT more powerful than it sounds because your Heroes boost the strength of your army considerably.
    
  • Biggest example is Champions of War which gives +20% crit to units adjacent to your Hero. This is the only way to get 100% crit chance on Mythic Units. For example, lets say you have 5 Shrines of Smiting. 3x Chaos Signature Skills give +30% crit. Morale gives +20%. 3x Fortune gives +30% for a total of 80%. Having your Hero move next to all 5 Shrines of Smiting before they fire is how you get 100% crit chance. By contrast if you swap out the Hero with a Giant King your Shrines of Smiting's crit chance drops to 50%.
    
  • Heroes also provide TONs of other benefits
    
    • -20% upkeep is MANDATORY if you want to afford 15 high tier units stacked with +damage unit enchantments. Otherwise both the gold and mana costs become too exorbitant to handle. Especially true for Magic Origin units. If you want a full Magic Origin army with stacked unit enchantments, you need to put 100% of your Magic Origin units under a hero with this skill.
      
    • +10hp heal per turn to your entire army is incredibly invaluable because trying to heal your units outside your domain is one of the most excruciating experiences in your life. ESPECIALLY true for non-racial units like T5 Mythic Units because these units heal a grand total of 0hp per turn in enemy territory. So how are you gonna heal them to full? Spamming Army Heal? Please. Stacking +healing per turn is how you overcome this.
      
    • +2 xp per turn for units in your stack is how you evolve T1 units in 8 turns without combat.
• Because these advantages are so significant the entire game, it is my opinion that it is the other Rulers who start at a considerable disadvantage and must work really, really hard on their specific gimmicks to make them worth choosing over Champions.
  
• They also have +20% xp which doesn't sound significant but in my experience leads to 1-3 more levels than normal. Back when I was bad at the game and didn't start clearing until I got my first hero, my Champion would consistently be 1-3 levels higher than the other Hero. +20% is significant.

There are only 6 Reasons to choose Wizard King.

• 1. +30 Casting points which helps a LOT and I mean a LOT with summoning units. At the start Wizard Kings have 60 casting points and can cast T1 summon spells in 1 turn. As a Feudal culture this leads to a flood of militias really fast. Lategame +30 casting points is +30% faster T5 Mythic Unit production.
  
  • Grabbing Wizard King solely for the casting points and nothing else is more than acceptable.
• 2. Arcane Restoration Spam. In my opinion Arcane Restoration is the best combat spell in the entire game. When I get attacked by 10 AI armies back to back with 0 chance to heal and start with a near dead army, Arcane Restoration spam is what wins me the game. I can beat an infinite number of battles back to back on the same turn endgame on Brutal Difficulty by spamming Arcane Restoration. If I had to choose only 1 spell to cast for the rest of my life, it'd be Arcane Restoration. And Wizard Kings built for healing can heal 38 hp per cast, 44 if overcharged for a total of 88 in a turn.
  
• 3. Mental Mark spam. Mental Mark reduces resistances in a 1-hex AoE by 3 per cast. 4 WIth Astral Amplification lens. 6 when overcharged. 12 when double cast on top of that. Units with -12 resistance is gonna be paper to magic attacks ESPECIALLY AoE attacks and spamming Mental Mark is how you make Battle Mage builds viable.
  
• 4. You want to go Materium with non-construct and non-racial untis such as Balors. As mentioned in the Affinity Overview section, 2x overcharged Tectonic Shatter on the same turn for 120 damage, -2 def, and -4 res on every enemy in combat is so good for any and every build that if you want to go heavy Materium with any build because Materium Tomes are THAT good then go Wizard King. They'll make it work.
  
• 5. Explosive Manifestation Spam. Explosive Manifestation deals 30 damage in a 1-hex AoE and summons a T3 Astral Serpent or Astral Siphoner. The AoE can be boosted to 60 damage when overcharged with Astral Amplification Lens. If you get a ton of +damage unit enchantments then this spell becomes the most powerful single target nuke in the game and a bonafide guaranteed ruler sniper. And the enemy will then waste the entirety of their turn attacking the aforementioned Astral Serpent or Siphoner. But if you don't get a ton of +damage unit enchantmetns this spell isn't worth jack.
  
  • The Wizard King build in the Chosen Destroyers section is a dedicated Explosive Manifestation build.
• 6. Casting 2 Buff spells turn 2 like casting both Cascade Command:Reposition and Anthem of Victory on the same turn. This advantage is rendered superfluous due to Ritualists.

If none of these 6 things appeal to you then I suggest you go a different Ruler.

Eldritch Sovereigns are so different from other heroes and Rulers so I made a long dedicated section for them in the guide. If you're interested in Eldritch Sovereigns, check that section out.

The gist of it is, Eldritch Sovereigns are the most powerful combat unit in the game and they're ridiculously overpowered global range magical artillery pieces. BUT most of their damage is damage over time.

Also, they're Magic Origin meaning they benefit from both Cosmic Overdrive and their own Ascension:Summoner.

I'm gonna be honest. I haven't really played Giant Kings seriously because none of their perks interested me.

Multiplayer people says Giant Kings are one of the best Ruler Types, espsecially the Stone Giant, due to the economic bonuses they receive, their Hurl AoE attacks, and the fact that you can add 1 more infusion to crafted weapons. They also say Animated Weapons are not worth a damn.

But in my opinion, Giant Kings Elementalists are the best combat summoner Ruler in the game because of the animated objects. Animated Objects can be upgraded to be permanent duration and they're as strong as T3 units despite being labeled as T2 units, which is an advantage because they can be boosted by Mighty Meek. Furthermore they can grab Call of the Wild without any Nature Affinity and the 2 T2 animals summoned by it also benefit from Mighty Meek. And Bolt Repeaters from Ascension:Artificer also benefit from MIghty Meek so anyone looking to turn their Giant King into a monster factory should definitely get Tome of the Beacon.

So with Ascension:Artificer, Permanent Duration Animated Objects, Call of the Wild, Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit, a wand of Summon Spider Monarch, and Ritual of the Elements, the Giant King can literally spend 100% of their turns summoning creating an endless stream of combat summons, 2 of which are permanent duration, and in the 4 turn summoning cycle for two of those turns you summon 2 summons at once.

I've played Dragon Rulers even less than Giant Kings so I don't have a clue how to get the most out of this Ruler type. I've heard Dragonheart Ascension + Warrior is really good but to be frank, because they can't equip gear in most of their slots, are built for fighting instead of casting like Eldritch Sovereigns, and AI Dragon Rulers are always the first to die in battle when I fight them because they're not tanky at all, I have 0 interest in them.

I think they're the worst Ruler type in the game.

But I will say the one significant advantage they have over all the other Ruler types is that they start with 1 extra affinity of their choosing, which lets you skip entire Tomes in your build. I'd say Dragon Rulers are worth going solely for this.

Once you win a game your Ruler can ascend. This means they get to permanently keep all racial transformations they have for their next game AND get an Ascension Trait. What Ascension Trait is available to you depends on what Tomes you've gotten. Look up online what Tome gives what Ascension Trait.

Artificer in my opinion is the most powerful ascension trait in the entire game.

• By itself it's nothing to write home about.
  
  • First, by itself, the Bolt Repeater is the most powerful unit in the game for the first 20-ish turns and then it becomes absolutely worthless because its damage output just can't compete with the defenses of higher tier units.
    
  • Second, the Bolt Repeater destroys whatever Flora the enemy is standing on when it attacks it so early game when all of your enemies are standing on Flora making all of your ranged units' accuracy 50%, firing the Bolt Repeater on them will destroy the Flora and boost your ranged units' accuracy to 90%. However, once you get Tome of Scrying this function of the Bolt Repeater also becomes obsolete and you get Tome of Scrying as your first T2 Tome if you're serious about using ranged units so once again, the Bolt Repeater becomes absolutely worthless after the first 20-ish turns.
    
    • If you're going Mythic Units that are affected by Line of Sight like Ironclads however, then Artificer becomes the best ascension trait to go because blowing up Flora with Bolt Repeaters is like literally the only way to mitigate Obscured penalties with Mythic Units.
  • Against the new Archon DLC, Artificer is a fantastic Precognition remover.
• But as of Ogre update the devs fixed a long standing bug that prevented Siegecraft units from benefiting from Unit Enchantments like Cosmic Overdrive. In addition they changed Mighty Meek, the BEST +damage Unit Enchantment in the game, from only affecting T1 units to also affecting T2 units and Bolt Repeaters are T2 units. Combined with the fact that Chaplains have also been moved from Tome of Faith to Tome of the Beacon, the same Tome that has Mighty Meek, and add in the Elementalist class's ability to refresh once per battle abilities, in the end you get 2 super powered Bolt Repeaters with 5x Strengthen + 3x Fortune + Mighty Meek annihilating the enemy army from afar. Having experimented with this combo excessively, I think Artificer is the most powerful ascension trait in the game.
  
• Arcane Supercharge from Tome of Summoning also drastically increases the Bolt Repeater's damage output. +2 flat damage and 5x Strengthen.
  
• If you have both Tome of the Beacon and Tome of Summoning, watch your Bolt Repeater halve the hp of T3 units every time it fires.
  
  • Normally, replacing a melee unit with a support that buffs only a single unit, and casting a 35 cast point spell that buffs only 1 unit are terrible because buffing 1 out of 18 units isn't gonna do jack, but if that 1 unit is an extreme range AoE death machine, it's an exception to the rule.
• I made this combo its own section to emphasize just how good it is. If you're interested check it out.

Summoner is probably the ascension trait I grab for the vast majority of my builds. This ascension trait is gotten only for the +10% damage and +10hp for every magic origin and combat summon in the same battle as your Ruler. Emphasis on battle and not stack. Ascended:Summoner boosts the magic origin units in your non-ruler stacks as well. Its summoned Phantasm Warriors is completely power crept by Dungeon Keeper so if you want to grab Summoner for the summon, don't. Grab Dungeon Keeper instead. Fun fact, Eldritch Sovereigns, being Magic Origin unit themselves, benefit from their own Ascension:Summoner.

Dragonheart similarly gives +20% damage, +2 def, and +2 res to all dragons in the same battle as your Ruler so if you're going pure dragons this ascension trait is the best ascension trait to grab.

Dungeon Keeper is my default go to Ascension Trait for non-magic origin builds. it spawns an infinite duration T3 Clay unit at the start of combat. It doesn't deal that much damage but it has nice defensive stats, reinforced, and undying. A free expendable T3 unit that you don't have to heal, keep alive, or replace is always useful.

Guardian Angel spawns a T3 Battle Mage unit, Vigil, at the start. If going Battle Mage build it's definitely better than Dungeon Keeper. Its 3 action point 40 damage attack is awesome but it's on a 2 turn cooldown. I consider Vigils inferior to Watchers. For non-battle mage builds, I'd get Dungeon Keeper or Artificer instead.

Deathcaller is only good if you have some way of starting with corpses like the Eldritch Sovereign's Fleshweaver level 4 signature skill. Free action permanent duration summon every other turn sounds really good on paper but because you need corpses, it does not help you at the most important phase of the game: the beginning, where entire battles are won and lost right then and there. So either find a way to start with corpses or go Dungeon Keeper. Also Deathcaller suffers from summoning too many different unit types. Melee, archer, and battle mages benefit from VERY different Tomes and Unit Enchantments so Deathcaller has a serious issue with scaling and as T1 units you really need Tenacious on them. Unless of course you're only summoning skeletons as meatshields. Then it doesn't matter. Having said all that, being a free action summon on a 1 turn cooldown, Deathcaller will guarantee that you win every prolonged battle because eventually you will severely outnumber your foe.

Archmage is another really good one. It lets you cast 2 spells per turn. 2 Explosive Manifestations on the same turn is a guaranteed immediate Ruler snipe. I'd recommend against using Tectonic Shatter however. It needs to be overcharged as well to be worth a damn in my opinion.

It's important to note that Dragon Rulers, Giant Kings, and Eldritch Sovereigns get to keep some of their signature skills upon ascension. For example if an Eldritch Sovereign ascends with Fleshweaver, then they'll have Fleshweaver at level 1 in their next game.

Instead of recruiting a regular hero you can, instead, for an exorbitant amount of Imperium, recruit one of your ascended Rulers. They cost 100 + 100 Imperium per level. Cheapest one is 400 Imperium at level 3 at turn 11.

I recommend you recruit a Pantheon Hero every single game. Whether you recruit them before or after you setup your 3 cities depends on what you want to do. 2 Eldritch Sovereigns are so strong each can solo a stack of units so I'd say get them before your 3 cities because them reaching high level is your win condition, not your army stuff. 2 Champions or Wizard Kings on the other hand, after even if they're going the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon combo because they need an army even in the late game.

It's important to note that ascended Eldritch Sovereigns get to keep their level 4 Signature Skill and ascended Giant Kings and Dragon Lordss get to keep their level 8 signature skill.

Aesthetically Eldritch Sovereigns keep their level 12 Signature Skill aesthetics, and Giant Kings and Dragon Lords get to keep their level 16 Signature Skill aesthetics. Emphasis on Aesthetics as in they get 0 benefit of these Signature Skills until they reach the required level.

This is a crazy good Society Trait for experienced players. It increases your Hero cap by 1 and your Pantheon Hero cap by 3!

Meaning you can have a total of 5 Ascended Ruler Heroes by turn 50!

5x Artificer Elementalists blasting your enemies with 10x Bolt Repeaters while their 10x summoned Storm Spirits pummel everything is absolutely crazy bonkers strong. it's so strong that these 5x Artificer Elementalists can beat Brutal Difficulty all on their own with 0 army.

You need to see this in action. It's like having a portable doom ray super weapon that annihilates the entire enemy army from afar every turn.

I made a build for it at the end of the guide. If you're interested in seeing the sheer pwnage of 5x Aritificer Elementalists then check it out.

Make a new Custom Realm

• Choose Feudal as your Culture. Change it to the Culture you want after you ascend.
  
• Small Map
  
• 2 AI
  
• Relaxed
  
• If the Ascension Trait you want is from a high level tome then set research speed to very fast and disable Happenings. Otherwise Mistwatchers might spawn.

As soon as the game starts press Ctrl+Alt+C to bring up the cheat menu and type Barentz to reveal map. Make a note of where the enemy is.

Reload game because cheats disable ascension and spam Call Militia for 3 turns until you have a stack of them. Then just move your entire army to your opponent's Throne City and win.

If the ascension trait you want is not obtainable from a T1 tome then just keep spamming Militias and kill the AI's army so they can't stockpile. Don't siege though because if your opponent's Ruler suicides into you while you siege, you win.

IMPORTANT: Make sure all your heroes have different names. If they all have the same name only 1 will be recruitable.

This is in my opinion the most powerful Ruler build in the game and as such it needs a section dedicated to it to emphasize just how powerful it is. The combo is self explanatory

• The Artificer Ascension trait lets you summon 1 Bolt Repeater and boosts all siegecraft damage by 20%.
  
• The Elementalist hero class has the Ritual of Elements skill which refreshes all abilities including once per battle abilities like Summon Bolt Repeater, AND leaves you with 1 action point, which is what Summon Bolt Repeater costs.
  
• Bolt Repeaters are tier 2 units so they benefit from Mighty Meek which gives +1 damage per tier of the target. So against T5 units Mighty Meek will give +5 damage.
  
• Tome of the Beacon, a tier 2 Tome, provides both Mighty Meek and Chaplains, who can bestow 5x Strengthen + 3x Fortune on a unit. So with two Chaplains you can get both your Bolt Repeaters to 5x Strengthen + 3x Fortune easily.
  
• So lets do some math.
  
  • Bolt Repeaters do 10 damage a hit and they hit 3 times in a 1-hex AoE.
    
  • Mighty Meek gives +1 damage per tier of the target. So Bolt Repeaters will be doing 11-15 damage a hit.
    
  • The Artificer Ascension trait gives +20% damage to siegecraft units which Bolt Repeaters are, letting them do 13-18 damage a hit
    
  • Chaplains bestow 2x Strengthen + 2x Fortune every other turn. They're gonna get your Bolt Repeaters to 5x Strengthen + 3x Fortune easily. +% damage stacks additively in this game so Bolt Repeaters will be doing 19-26 damage a hit. With 3 attacks they will do 57-78 damage per volley.
    
  • Bolt Repeaters can only attack every other turn but with two Bolt Repeaters you can attack with 1 every turn. So every single turn you will do 57-78 damage in a 1-hex AoE.
    
  • From my personal experience from using Bolt Repeaters for every battle across several games, on average you will be hitting 4 enemies per volley because enemies always group up like crazy until they reach your army. This means on average your Bolt Repeaters will do 228-312 damage every single turn. Every. Single. Turn.
• Arcane Supercharge from Tome of Summoning adds a further +2 damage per hit and bestows 5x Strengthen. Your Chaplains can't get both your Bolt Repeaters to 5x Strengthen right from the get go but Arcane Supercharge can.
  
  • Arcane Supercharge will make your Bolt Repeaters do (10+2) * (1.2 + 0.5) = 20 damage per shot, 60 damage per volley, and on average after hitting 4 units, will do 240 damage per turn.
• If you have both Arcane Supercharge and Mighty Meek, your Bolt Repeaters will do 66-87 damage per volley, and on average will do 264-348 damage every single turn.

So tell me, what Ruler build do you know that can do 264-348 damage every single turn? This is endgame fully geared Ranger level of damage. Putting out this much damage this early in the game and without any gear is absolutely insane. It's actually more if we include the Ruler's own actions. Ranger Rulers and heroes will outperform this build endgame because focusing all this damage on a single target is better than spreading it around in an AoE but the point of this build is to completely trivialize the game from the start to until you can build your full endgame army, not replace it.

So if you can't fit any +damage Tomes in your build, this Ruler build will solve all of your early game problems. That's its purpose.

This is how everything plays out in actual combat

• You first put down your 2 Bolt Repeaters, cast Arcane Supercharge on both, and start blasting the enemy army from afar.
  
• When your enemies reach the halfway point of the map, they hit a wall called your Ritualists. Your wall of Entwined Protectors, Living Vines, and summoned Storm Spirits will hold the enemy army at bay while Hostile Wildgrowth bleeds them all to death on top of your never ending barrage from your Bolt Repeaters.
  
• What happens after depends on your army.
  
  • If you have a full T1 Shield and Polearm army, then enemy units will break through and your line of T1 units will wrap around those units and murder them.
    
  • If you have a full Shock unit army you can have them circle around to the side of the enemy and with the Ritualists' Swift Leader skill, charge in simultaneously unimpeded by terrain at the best possible moment and kill everyone who should be severely softened up by the unrelenting barrage of Hostile Wildgrowth and Bolt Repeaters

End result is you have a 100% win chance against any and all infestations, Free Cities, and AI all game with absolutely minimal damage on your own troops, letting you go on extended AI wiping campaigns right from the get go.

This build works with all Ruler types but I'd say Eldritch Sovereign is best because

• 1. They start with an extra skill point so all of this comes online at level 5 instead of level 6
  
• 2. Eldritch Phase lets them reposition before casting each Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit on the same turn which is HUGE. And they can then use Elemental Gateway to teleport back behind your front line afterwards.
  
• 3. They have Forgotten Tome skills they can spam on turn 3 alongside your 2nd Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit, and during turns 4, 5, and 6 while you're waiting for Ritual of Elements to cooldown.

If I'm going Tome of the Dragon I'd go Magma Spirits over Storm Spirits because 2 Greater Possession buffed Magma Spirits throwing out 2 AoEs each turn makes them AoE monstrosities in their own right, which pairs well with the 2x Bolt Repeaters' AoE damage. And Fire Bomb will do more damage than a Storm Spirit's single strike if you hit at least 2 enemies in its AoE even if the Storm Spirit has 5 +damage unit enchantments and the Magma Spirit has none. And in my experience, you're always gonna hit 5+ enemies with your first Fire Bomb because the AI loves to group their units together on turn 2.

Here's what happens in combat

• Turn 1: Eldritch Sovereign puts down 1 Bolt Repeater
  2x Chaplains bless it for 4x Strengthen.
  Bolt Repeater hits 4 enemies
  Total Damage: 53-72 damage in a 1 hex AoE
  
• Turn 2: Eldritch Sovereign Eldritch Phases towards enemies
  Eldritch Sovereign casts Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit 6 hexes away from the center of the enemy group.
  Eldritch Sovereign casts Greater Possession on the Magma Spirit
  Eldritch Sovereign Elemental Gateways back behind your front line
  Eldritch Sovereign casts a Arcfire Forgotten Tome skill
  Magma Spirit Fire Bombs the same 5-6 enemies
  Move your Fleshlings/Flesh Abominations in front of your Magma Spirit to act as body blockers so it doesn't get killed this turn.
  Total Damage: 50 damage in a 1 hex AoE + an Arcfire Tome skill
  
• Turn 3: Eldritch Sovereign Eldritch Phases towards enemies
  Eldritch Sovereign casts Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit 6 hexes away from the center of the enemy group.
  Eldritch Sovereign casts Greater Possession on the Magma Spirit
  Eldritch Sovereign Elemental Gateways back behind your front line
  Eldritch Sovereign Summons a 2nd Bolt Repeater.
  You cast Arcane Supercharge on the newly summoned Bolt Repeater.
  2x Chaplains casts Bless on both Repeaters, one Bless on each to prevent Strengthen from expiring and to bestow Fortune.
  Both Bolt Repeater fires on the same group of enemies.
  2nd Magma Spirit Fire Bombs the same group of enemies
  1st Magma Spirit, if it survived which it should because you spawned it 6 Hexes away from the group AND had Fleshlings/Flesh Abominations acting as body blockers, moves in and casts Incinerate on the same group of enemies while body blocking the enemy units from reaching your 2nd Magma Spirit.
  Total Damage: 310-370 damage in a 1 hex AoE

So just in the first 3 turns your Eldritch Sovereign has dealt 310-370 damage in an AoE when the AI groups their units together the most AND before the AI has even made contact with your non-combat-summoned units

Arcfire is used on turn 2 instead of a 2nd Bolt Repeater because Arcfire needs time to work its DoTs so earlier is better, Chaplains' Bless is on cd, and it's better to do burst damage than consistent damage so the AI doesn't have time to heal up. The exception is Arcfire Weapons. If you draw that, cast it on your 3rd turn. I'll let you decide whether to fire the 2nd Bolt Repeater on turn 2 or not.


First and foremost, you don't need both Beacon and Summoning. One is enough. If you have both your Bolt Repeaters are f***ing godlike murder artilleries but having only one is good too.

Due to the immense popularity of Cosmic Overdrive, Tome of Summoning is ubiquitous. Pretty much every single Magic Origin build goes Cosmic Overdrive and because Arcane Restoration is such an amazing anti-attrition spell, pretty much every single Magic Origin build goes Tome of Summoning. So you can fit this Ruler build in pretty much every single Magic Origin build.

Order has only 1 Tome that increases your damage output. Tome of Zeal. And Tome of Sanctuary has the only defensive unit enchantment worth getting. So if you want Tome of Exaltation or Supremacy, you need 1 more Tome. You could grab Tome of Faith for the really, really bad Army Heal spell. Or you could grab Tome of the Beacon to have an absolute power house of a Ruler all game. Because low tier Order Tomes other than Zeal or Sanctuary are so bad, Order really doesn't mind grabbing a +2 Order Tome that buffs only your Ruler.

You can also just shove a Tome of Summoning or Tome of the Beacon into any build you want, delaying everything by 1 Tome. As long as you don't delay your T5 Mythic Unit acquisition Timing I'd say it's worth it because Cosmic Overdrive is honestly just win more rather than a necessity.

The new Empire of the Cosmos Society Trait now lets you fit a Tome of the Beacon and even a Tome of the Dragons in every build now. This is all I do now these days. Always go Empire of the Cosmos and shove Tome of Summoning. Beacon, and Dragons in there to play with Bolt Repeaters and Greater Possessed Fire Bomb Magma Spirits all game long.

The main and only downside of this build is that it takes up your ascension trait. Summoner and Dragonheart really want to be your ascension trait for Magic Origin and Dragon builds.

I don't have a problem ditching Summoner for Artificer because +10hp and +10% damage is negligible. WIth 5x Strengthen + Cosmic Overdrive + For the Monarch, Summoner amounts to only a measly 5.3% damage increase. So trading 5.3% of your endgame strength for insane early game power is a worthwhile trade especially with Chosen Destroyers who can turn that strength into significant research income.

Dragonheart on the other hand, is a much harder choice. The +2 def and +2 res stacked on top of Feudal:Monarchy's +1 def and +1 res REALLY makes a difference. So you are sacrificing quite a bit of endgame strength to go Artificer with Dragon builds. On the other hand, Dragons are so stupidly strong it doesn't matter. So it's up to whether you want the title of most powerful dragon creator or not.

But here's the thing, this Ruler build is not mandatory. A pure Ritualist army is more than capable of handling Brutal Difficulty so an argument can be made that going this Ruler build in non-heavy-Order builds is needless win more and you're trading endgame strength for something you don't need.

As such, this guide will only use this Ruler build for heavy Astral or Order builds and in all other builds it will go without it to teach you how to make builds that don't rely on this strategy. Also to not make this guide a one trick pony guide. But don't forget that modifying any of the builds in this guide to include this Ruler build is always an option.

If a Story Realm is giving you trouble, this Ruler build is the solution. I'd be incredibly amazed if you can't beat a Story Realm while going this build.

I've beaten Arcalot by turn 41 using this Ruler build. Check out the Cult of Personality build located at the end of the game for more details.

Eldritch Sovereigns are so different from all the other Rulers that I figured a dedicated section for them is warranted. Also because Eldritch Sovereigns are my absolute favorite Ruler type to manually control in combat.

NEW PLAYERS SHOULD SKIP THIS SECTION. New players should stick to Champion and read the rest of the guide as they all mainly use Champions. Reading this section now might just fill your head with unnecessary information. So skip this section, master using Champions, then come back if you're interested in Eldritch Sovereigns. I only put this section here to group all the Ruler sections together.

Anyways, so why do I consider Eldritch Sovereigns to be the most powerful combat unit in the game? Everything. Everything about them makes them so powerful from their unique skill tree to their unique Signature Skills that I consider them to be the most powerful combat unit in the game.

So first lets cover their Signature Skills because they're the most important.

Forgotten Tomes are your Eldritch Sovereigns' level 8 and 16 Signature skills and they are ridiculously powerful. They are THE reason why I consider Eldritch Sovereigns to be the most powerful combat units in the game.

Each Tome has 3 spells and you get 1 randomly at the start of the fight and you get a new 1 every 4 turns. This can be reduced to every 3 turns with the Forgotten Tome Mastery skill which you should always get by level 8. The neat thing about this whole 3-4 turn cycle thing is, you can cast the spell on your last turn of the cycle and immediately cast the new one one the first turn of the next cycle even if it's the same spell! So you got a lot of leeway with Forgotten Tome spell's "cooldown".

You can only use the Forgotten Tome spell once. However, if you get the same spell after 3-4 turns, you can use it again.

Forgotten Tome spells are also refreshable so Elementalists can cast an extra one at the start.

Forgotten Tomes do NOT have affinity requirements which is a HUGE advantage over other Rulers and Heroes.

Forgotten Tomes, being Global range, need to make an impact turn 1. Otherwise you need to wait around doing nothing until the fighting actually begins, and when it does your Eldritch Sovereign has better things to do than buff your units. This is why Forgotten Tome spells that buff units are absolute worthless trash and Forgotten Tome spells that nuke enemies even if the majority of the damage is over time are the best Forgotten Tome spells.

• Forgotten Tome of Arcfire
  
  • In my opinion Arcfire is the best Forgotten Tome in the game.
    
  • Most of the damage of Arcfire skills come from the two damage over time effects: burning and electrified. As a result, they don't really benefit from +% damage, and multiple Eldritch Sovereigns casting Arcfire spells on the same group of enemies doesn't really do anything.
    
  • Arcfire Typhoon in my opinion is the best and strongest Forgotten Tome spell in the game. It has massive AoE and sets the ground burning and electrified. At a minimum enemies are gonna take a total of 40 damage from this, and add 24 damage for each additional stack of burning and electrified they get from traversing the burning and electrified terrain. The colossal amount of damage this spell inflicts on an entire enemy stack is army wiping. It is just so good I say it's worth risking drawing Arcfire Weapons for.
    
  • Blazing Chain Lightning in my opinion is the second best and strongest Forgotten Tome spell in the game. It hits 4 units for 84 damage across 3 turns. This spell gives a false impression of weakness because the initial damage is so pathetic you think it's crap. But by the time these 4 units reach you they're gonna be dead or close to it
    
  • Arcfire Weapons is the dud. It's a buff that gives +4 flat damage boost to your units in a 1-hex AoE and only lasts 2 turns. Do the math. Cosmic Barrage hitting 6 units does 24x6 = 144 damage. +4 damage on 5 units = 20 damage per hit. All 5 units need to hit 7.2 times in 2 turns to break even with Cosmic Barrage and Cosmic Barrage is lackluster.
    
    • The only way to get value out of this imo is with a full Shock unit army. As single shot units, they'll be getting +8 damage. With a full charge for +60% damage, it's +12 damage. On 5 Shock units that's 60 damage. Across 2 turns it's 120 damage. 120 is still worse than Cosmic Barrage but instead of being spread out between 6 units, it's focused on 1-2 enemies which is much better.
      
    • Arcfire weapons does come with a 50% chance to inflict both burning and electrified, but it's reduced to like 25% chance each after resistances. Still, it might do more damage than Cosmic Barrage with non-shock units over a prolonged whacking fest, but whacking fests are a terrible strategy.
      
    • Having said that, if you have a lot of ritualists and unfortunately drew Arcfire Weapons, grouping up all the summoned Entwined Protectors near the enemy on their first turn, casting Arcfire Weapons on them on their second turn and having them start whacking enemies might also let you get value out of this worthless skill because the whacking fest between the Entwined Protectors and your enemies will now put a lot of electrified and burning stacks on your enemies. And then your next wave of Entwined Protectors should keep them all at bay while the damage-over-time effects do their thing.
      
    • The Artificer ascension trait can get decent mileage out of Arcfire Weapons. I almost always get 4-5 enemy units in the Bolt Repeater's first volley. Arcfire's +4 damage results in 12 damage for each enemy. Arcfire also has a 50% chance of applying Burning or Electrified but it drops to like 25% each after resistances so on average lets say each hit bestows half a stack of Burning or Electrified for 2 damage for 3 turns for a total of 6 so that's +18 damage for each volley for a total of +30 damage for each enemy hit. 30 x 4 = 120 total damage. Still worse than Cosmic Barrage but you could potentially add in a few shock units in Arcfire's AoE.
      
    • If you go Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon, then Arc Weapon no longer is a dud skill. It becomes Arcfire's BEST skill because you get to put Arc Weapons on TWO Bolt Repeaters for +240 damage. Absolutely amazing. Which is why you should always consider going Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon on 100% of your Eldritch Sovereigns.
  • In my opinion Arcfire is the best Forgotten Tome to get at level 8 even if there's a 33% chance of it being a complete dud because of the sheer army wiping potential of Arcfire Typhoon and Blazing Chain Lightning. And if you go Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon, there is a 100% chance of you getting an army wiping skill and 0% chance of getting a dud.

• Forgotten Tome of Sorcery
  
  • In my opinion Sorcery is the second best Forgotten Tome in the game.
    
  • Astral Rift is in my opinion the strongest lategame Forgotten Tome spell in the game but only if you stack +damage unit enchantments. It's identical to Explosive Manifestation without the 30 damage nuke on spawn and is just as good. It summons a T3 Astral Serpent or Siphoner and is definitely the strongest single target damaging skill in the game especially after you get your Unit Enchantments up, and your enemy's entire army will spend their turn clustering around the summoned unit afterwards to kill it, wasting their turn.
    
  • Cosmic Barrage is the strongest direct damage AoE skill among all the Forgotten Tomes and is affected by Strengthen and other +% damage. Without these +damages though it's lackluster. 24 damage isn't much even if it's a huge AoE and AoE support healers are gonna undo your work immediately. It's great lategame after you have the ability to stack +% damage on your Eldritch Sovereign but it sucks early game because the damage isn't much.
    
  • Astral Storm is the dud. It does NOT benefit from +% damage and takes 3 turns to do its full damage and you can't cast a 2nd Astral Storm while it's ongoing, meaning any additional Eldritch Sovereign who gets Astral Storm is gonna be worthless until the next cycle change.
    
  • Compared to Forgotten Tome of Arcfire, Sorcery has 1 amazing ability, and 2 mediocre abilities. Arcfire on the other hand has 2 amazing abilities and 1 completely worthless dud. So Sorcery is the safe and lategame option and Arcfire is the risky but more rewarding option. So we get Arcfire first and then Sorcery 2nd.
• Forgotten Tome of Curses
  
  • This Tome is bad because the Curses are bad. First their AoE is only 1 hex and not 2 hex like the other Forgotten Tome nukes. Second, they don't do much damage. And third their effects aren't that great.
    
  • Flame Hex does the least amount of damage and hexed units will take 8 more fire damage from every attack 50% of the time. So on average its a +4 flat damage boost that is unaffected by Strengthen and the like. This is worse than Arcfire Weapons.
    
  • Frost Hex is just trash. Chance to proc is just too low to be useful.
    
  • Necro Hex is the best one. It deals the most damage and spawns zombies if the unit hit by this dies which can quickly snowball into an easy win if you kill these units first. But you only have a 33% chance of getting this, it's still only 1-hex AoE so you'll have trouble hitting more than 3 in one cast if even that, and you have to actually kill the units to start benefiting from this. And Griffon Update nerfed Decaying Zombies to ****.
    
  • The main benefit of this Tome is its access to Exhume Undead. Normally a level 12 Signature skill, it summons a T3 Corrupted Soul or Banshee once per battle.
    
    • Exhume Undead is not that good. Corrupted Soul is awesome but Banshees are terrible unless you're specifically stacking morale damage. So this skill has a 50% chance of being subpar.
      
    • With only 1 use per battle, it is not worth getting especially at the expense of Arcfire
      
    • Elementalists can refresh Exhume Undead so they can cast it twice at the start of the battle which is really really good. However, two curses are not that good. Two Arcfire Typhoons on the other hand, is game winning. So even though Exhume Undead can count as one of the 3 summons you need to turn your Elementalist into an unstoppable summoning juggernaut, I'd still say go Arcfire because 2x Arcfire Typhoons or Blazing Chain Lightnings is army wiping.
      
    • Having said that, if you are an Elementalist, you can go Curses instead of Arcfire if you want. Curses is still very viable but only if you're an Elementalist.
  • The other benefit of this Tome is you get access to Unholy Leader which boosts your Undead in your Eldritch Sovereign's stack. Even for Undead builds however, this is not worth skipping Tome of Arcfire over so never get.
    
  • Artificer enhances the efficacy of curses considerably.
    
    • Flame Hex gives +12 damage to each and every unit hit by the Bolt Repeater.
      
    • Every enemy hit by Frost Hex has a 1-0.8^3 = 48.8% chance to freeze on that same turn. 73.8% if you have two Bolt Repeaters. Not sure if it's affected by status resistance.
      
    • I'd still say Arcfire is still better even with Exhume Undead but Curse might be better than Sorcery for Artifcer Elementalists.
• Forgotten Tome of Pestilence
  
  • Rot Away is a great single target nuke. 45 damage immediately, 16 damage a turn for 3 turns for a total of 93. And inflicts diseased (-4 res).
    
  • Mass Plague doesn't do that much damage (18) but it diseases enemies in its massive 2-hex AoE
    
  • Debilitate inflicts 3x Sundered Defense, 3x Sundered Resistance, and diseased in a 1-hex radius.
    
  • Pestilence is a bad Tome because it's pathetic against poison and disease immune enemies such as all Undead and Constructs. Which are super common. And Arcfire deals Rot Away level of damage to 4+ units so it's always better. Always. So never get Pestilence.
• Forgotten Tome of Blessings
  
  • This Forgotten Tome is the worst Forgotten Tome by far because it's nothing but buffs and heals.

So in short, go Arcfire first and then Sorcery 100% of the time.

There are 3 level 4 Signature Skills and they all evolve into one of 2 stronger Signature Skills

• Madcaster
  
  • Cosmic Caster
    
  • Havoc Caster
• Mindbreaker
  
  • Enthraller
    
  • Mind Devourer
• Fleshweaver
  
  • Fleshsculptor
    
  • Puppeteer

Long story short, always grab Fleshweaver and Fleshsculptor and never anything else. Fleshsculptor is better than all the other Signature Skills so just get that. The end.

This guide's goal is teaching you how to beat multiple endgame brutal stacks back to back therefore this guide will never I mean EVER recommend strategies with an Achilles heel that will murder you outright. All T5 units have Control Loss immunity making them immune to Mind Control Effects like Domination, Mind Control, Madness, Insanity, etc.. Furtheremore a TON of Godir go the Angel Major Transformation which also makes every single Racial unit immune to Mind Control Effects. Therefore, any Eldritch Sovereign that specializes in Mind Control Effects are gonna get ****ed. Therefore I will never I mean EVER recommend you specialize your Eldritch Sovereign in Mind Control Effects.

Therefore Mindbreaker and its evolved forms Enthraller and Mind Devourerer are immediately out.

Madcaster imo is bad. First it's too random. Its main attack, Chaos Pulse, has 9 different effects it inflicts on your enemies in a 1 hex AoE, one of which heals them. Madcaster's other benefit is it reduces your damage, debuff, and enemy army spell costs by 30%. Both are really bad. Randomness cannot be planned for so if you rely on Havoc Pulse you're just gambling. And I could not get any kind of non-Explosive-Manifestation caster build to work because spells do so little damage in this game, and by the time you get Explosive Manifestation mana is a non-issue. Tectonic Shatter is not viable with Eldritch Sovereigns because you need to cast two overcharged versions of it on the same turn. Otherwise the AI's support units will heal it all back up in a turn.

Cosmic Caster is better. It now randomly 30 fire, frost, or lightning and inflict 3x burning, frozen, or electrified. BUT it's a 3 action point ability for a measly 30 damage. That's really bad. Cosmic Caster's other benefit is that it increases Forgotten Tome spell damage by 25% but we already covered that. Most of your Forgotten Tome spell damage is not direct damage so it doesn't benefit from +% damage. Therefore, all in all, Cosmic Caster is bad.

Havoc Caster is worse. It makes Chaos Pulse do stronger effects but no. You can't rely on randomness. And a lot of the effects are still absolutely worthless. The other benefit is that damaging spells have 90% chance of inflicing a random status effect. Who cares.

Now lets talk about the good stuff.

Fleshweaver spawns 2 Fleshlings at the start of battle. They're suicide units. For Deathcallers this is a god tier Signature Skill because you can kill your Fleshlings yourself for 2 corpses at the start of the fight. That's 2 Skeletons you get to start with. For all other Eldritch Sovereigns, these 2 Fleshlings make 2 enemy units waste their turns killing them. That's 2 less enemies triple attacking your units. And if you group them together while keeping your units out of range, then the enemy AI loves to waste their long cd AoE on them. These have more impact in the fight than all the other Eldritch Sovereign Signature Skills. Which is why I rarely suicide my Fleshlings and use them mainly as bait. The most common thing I do with them is put both in front of my line of units. The AI will waste all of their shock units' charges and skirmishers' ranged attacks on these two.

Their suicide attack is decepitively strong too. It does 44 damage across 3 turns so with two you can hit 2 enemies on average for 88 damage right from the get go.

Fleshweaver's other benefit is the Possession skill which gives RESURGENCE to a unit. If a unit with Resurgence dies, it's revived with 50% health after battle. So if you have a near dead unit in your stack, put resurgence on it and get it killed. It will be healed to half hp after the fight.

Possession not only gives a unit Resurgence, but it also gives it +40% damage and kills the unit in 2 turns so you don't have to kill it yourself.

The uses for Possession is endless. As mentioned above you can use it to heal near dead units after battle. You can use it to save a near dead unit from dying in battle. You can use it to strengthen your combat summons before they go poof. And you can use it on a Shock Unit and send it right into the middle of the enemy's backline to deal some serious damage before "dying".

And did I mention Posession is a FREE action? Forget the Fleshlings, Possession by itself is superior to all the other Signature Skills by miles and miles. That's how good FREE action Resurgence is. And add in the Fleshlings on top, no contest Fleshweaver is the best level 4 Eldritch Sovereign Signature Skill

Just keep in mind that the corpse has to survive for the Resurgence to take effect. Balors as a result cannot benefit from Resurgence because their corpse explodes upon death every time.

Fleshsculptor is just a straight upgrade to Fleshweaver. Possession now gives +80% damage and instead of 2 Fleshlings you get 1 Flesh Abomination. Flesh Abominations are single model T3 fighter units who are basically the same strength as T3 Elementals and benefits from all of your melee +damage unit enchantments. The Flesh Abomination in my opinion is the strongest combat summon that spawns at the start of combat in the game. Much stronger than Bone Wyverns and all the combat summons from ascension traits.

And the BEST thing about Fleshsculptor is... NONE of these take up your Eldritch Sovereign's action points! This is very important because at level 8 your Eldritch Sovereign has 0 action points to spare. In the 3 turn cycle for Forgotten Tomes, at level 8 one of those turns are gonna be your Eldritch Sovereign casting a Forgotten Tome spell and the rest of the two turns are gonna be your Eldritch Sovereign using their Hero skills. You have 0 turns available for anything else therefore Signature Skills that require action points are terrible, which is every other Signature Skill we've discussed so far. Hence why I keep saying Fleshsculptor is the best Signature Skill by far.

Puppeteer, the other Fleshweaver upgrade, is terrible. Possession now affects 2 units, but you don't get to choose the 2nd target so it will target a full hp unit who would've survived the entire battle and kill it in 2 turns, reviving it at half hp after battle. Also it doesn't upgrade Possession's damage so it's still +40%, and Fleshsculptor's Greater Possession is +80%. Extra unit dies for no extra damage. Puppeteer also upgrades Eldritch Mind Control but as I said before, this guide will not be focusing on abilities that have an achilles heel.

And that's all the Signature Skills.

None of the secondary Signature Skills are really worth taking unless it's some sort of passive skill like Avatar of Nature because again, your Eldritch Sovereign doesn't have any action points to spare for anything other than Forgotten Tome spells and Hero skills.

So as you can see, Fleshsculptor is better than all the other Signature Skills by miles and miles. So only grab Fleshsculptor unless you're intentionally doing something different just for fun.

• 1:Eldritch Rituals - Start with Relic of Flesh
  
• 2:Eldritch Phase I
  
• 3:Hostile Wildgrowth
  
  
• RESET AT LEVEL 4
  
  • 1:Hostile Wildgrowth
    
  • 2:Living Wildgrowth
    
  • 3:Feygrowth
    
  • 4:Fleshweaver
    
  • 4:Awaken Entwined
    
  • 4:Empowered Awakening
  
  
• 5:Eldritch Rituals
  
• 6:Swift Leader
  
• 7:Eldritch Caster I
  
  
• 8:Forgotten Tome of Arcfire
  
• 8:Eldritch Caster II
  
• 8:Forgotten Tome Mastery
  
  
• 9:Eldritch Phase I - so we can reposition and attack or use mind control on the same turn
  
• 10:Rejuvenate
  
• 12:Rituals of Strength
  
  
• 12:Fleshsculptor
  
• 12:Rooted Resistance
  
• 12:Rite of Vigil
  
  
• 13:Eldritch Phase II
  
• 14:Avatar of Nature
  
• 15:Phantasmal Ritual
  
  
• 16:Forgotten Tome of Sorcery
  
• 16:Mass Phantasmal Ritual
  
• 16:Tentacled Escape
  
  
• 17:Natural Vitality

Lets take a brief moment to talk about Thralls. They're just resources like gold or mana. You get 1 Thrall after you kill a certain amount of Tiers of enemies (I think 6?) and then you use them to fuel your spells that use Thralls instead of mana. That's it. Super simple. Thralls can also be used in quests or story events as an additional option unique to Eldritch Sovereigns which usually lets you skip the quest and immediately get the rewards. If you have Souls then you can convert Thralls into Souls or Souls into Thralls so if you want passive Thrall generation, get a Tome that passively generates Souls like Tome of Necromancy.

Eldritch Rituals is reall good. Like WOW it's good.

• For 1 Thrall one of your city gets +50 draft per turn which is INSANE. Early game i'ts basically double draft. Deep mid game when draft matters the most it's like +50% draft. It's so good it even makes gold the bottleneck of unit recruitment for Chosen Destroyers. That's why I start with it and I get it at level 5, to recruit a full T1-T4 army really, really, really quickly.
  
• If you get Tome of Necromancy at the start, you can essentially turn your passive Soul income into a passive Thrall income letting you spam an ungodly amount of Dark Knowledge Rituals, letting you turbo through the early Tomes. Whether this is worth it however is questionable because you won't have the upkeep, Town Hall III, or Mage Tower: Level 2 to make use of your T3 units and unit enchantments.

Eldritch Phase lets you teleport 4 hexes as a free action, letting you reposition and use 3 action point skills like Eldritch Mind Control. Eldritch Mind Control is ridiculously good early game and the only way you're ever gonna actually use it in combat is by approaching the enemy with Eldritch Phase which is why we grab it immediately at level 2

Eldritch Mind Control is a skill all Eldritch Sovereigns start with and only lasts 1 turn but at 90% base chance, it's gonna almost always succeed early game. it is an early game only skill that will never see the light of day once your Eldritch Sovereign gets some levels.

The proper use of Eldritch Mind Control is
1. Eldritch Phase towards the target
2. Eldritch Mind Control the target
3. If successful, send the target towards the enemy backline.
4. The enemy will then waste their turn killing their own unit.
Unit killed + backline wasted their actions = win.
Because of Eldritch Mind Control's 1 turn duration, I don't see any other possible use you can have with this skill.

Outside of Eldritch Mind Control, Eldritch Phase doubles our Eldritch Sovereign's mobility. Eldritch Sovereigns by default only have 3 hex movement in battle. Eldritch Phase has a range of 3 for a total of 6 hex movement. That's double letting you get into the position you need to cast Awaken Entwined.

At level 4 we reset our Eldritch Sovereign to grab Empowered Awakening 1 level earlier than all the other Rulers because Empowered Awakening is a game winning skill.

Swift Army is mandatory because Ritualists' own Flora impedes your own units heavily without it and it's also really good because it lets your units move through water, flora, etc. unimpeded. It's the difference between your Shock Unit army getting bogged down by water on the Bridge map and dying to triple attacking ranged units v.s. them just blitzing directly through it and killing everything.

We then rush Forgotten Tome Mastery to get it by level 8 so we can use a Forgotten Tome spell every 3 turns as soon as we get our first Forgotten Tome.

Forgotten Tome of Arcfire is gotten because Arcfire Typhoon and Blazing Chain Lightining are army wiping.

Eldritch Phase I isn't gotten again until level 9 because the other skills are far, far more important, and we can sort of get by without Eldritch Phase I. Awaken Entwined and Forgotten Tomes lets you do a full move before doing the action giving you 2 turns to reposition yourself while doing something useful. But still, Eldritch Phase is so good that we immediately get it after all the most important skills are gotten.

Rejuvenate is gotten next because an AoE dispel is very useful in case you get mass damage-over-time stacked on you or your army.

Then we beeline to Rite of Vigil to beef up our army.

Then it's whatever. Eldritch Phase II for more teleport range, Avatar of Nature for more overworld healing per turn, the two Phantasm Ritual spells for +20% magic damage. Tentacled Escape for Resurgence, Natural Vitality for HP, etc.

Astral Siphoners are worthless trash. Never ever I mean EVER summon them. Ever. Or even waste a skill point to get the ability to summon them.

Magebanes are also worthless for single player. Never summon. They are mobile spell jammers the enemy cannot ever snipe before the battle so in that sense they are awesome units but they are terrible combat units and in single player, the AI spams worthless spells only. I've never seen them cast Explosive Manifestation let alone spam it so you never need a spell jammer so never summon.

Phantasmal Rituals are good. You precast both and then cast both and 1 more on the same turn to hit a stack 3 times with them. 4 if you are also going Mystic:Attunement culture. Phantasmal Ritual hits ONE stack 20% of max hp and Mass Phantasmal Ritual II hits an entire province for 15% max hp, So you can either take out 55% hp of one stack and 15% hp of a province, or 50% hp of one stack and 30% hp of every enemy army in the province. Needless to say you are gonna win that battle. Personally I don't bother and get these two Rituals as my last two skills solely to beef up my Cosmic Barrage damage.

• 1:Eldritch Rituals - Start with Relic of Flesh
  
• 2:Eldritch Phase I
  
• 3:Discipline of Earth
  
• 4:Focused Evocation - Best Evocation
  
• 4:Withering Magic

• RESET AT LEVEL 5
  
  • 1:Discipline of Storms - Storm Spirits are the best Elemental.
    
  • 2:Chaining Evocation - Chosen over Cloudburst because Wet conflicts with Arcfire's burning
    
  • 3:Sundering Magic
    
  • 4:Fleshweaver
    
  • 4:Elemental Gateway
    
  • 4:Unrelenting Elements
    
  • 5:Ritual of Elements
  
  
• 6:Conjure Lesser Elemental Spirit
  
• 7:Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit
  
  
• 8:Forgotten Tome of Arcfire
  
• 8:Eldritch Caster I
  
• 8:Eldritch Caster II
  
• 9:Forgotten Tome Mastery - If you have a powerful skill like Summon Animated Weapon or Summon Bolt Repeater, then get Eldritch Phase first instead of rushing this because you won't be using Ritual of Elements until Turn 3 so getting a new Forgotten Tome skill at turn 5 doesn't slow you down in the slightest.
  
  
• 10:Eldritch Phase I - so we can reposition and use Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit on the same turn. Gets refreshed by Ritual of Elements letting us use it before each and every Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit
  
• 11:Eldritch Phase II - We can teleport deep towards the enemy, summon an Elemental, and Elemental Gateway back to safety.
  
  
• 12:Fleshsculptor
  
• 12:Tentacled Escape
  
• 12:Withering Magic
  
  
• 13:Avatar of Nature
  
• 14:Phantasmal Ritual
  
• 15:Mass Phantasmal Ritual
  
  
• 16:Forgotten Tome of Sorcery
  
• 16:Amplified Magic
  
• 16:Resistance
  
  
• 17:Defense
  
• 18:Amplifying Elements
  
• 19:Inexorable Cast
  
• 20:Inexorable Prowess

We don't get Lightning Bolt because unlike normal heroes we got plenty of 1 action point skills to spam (Forgotten Tomes).

For Starting Equipment start with either Relic of Flesh or Havoc. Feudal:Monarchy can play with Cosmos if they want.

First and foremost, the starting weapon's stats don't matter. They all pretty much deal the same damage. So what's important is their starting ability.

Relic of Havoc gives you Eldritch Phase for immediate Eldritch Mind Control action right out of the gate.

Relic of Flesh gives you Eldritch Rituals which lets you use your Thralls for more research or draft. Use it for draft. 1 Thrall = 150 draft over 3 turns. That's like 2 free T1 units per Thrall!.

Relic of Cosmos lets you use 1 thrall to get an Astral Wisp. No gold or mana, and they only costs 45 casting points too boot. Astral Wisps are probably the best T1 Battle Mage in the game. They can fly letting themselves get into position past obstacles, slowing terrain, and walls, and they have a 60% chance of inflicting Sundered Resistance per hit. Sundered Resistance against enemies who only have 1-2 resistance is absolutely catastrophic. Combined with the fact that shield units have crap res as well, Astral Wisps absolutely mop the floor with anything and everything at the start of the game, Including T5 Mythic units infestations send your way. 3 of them can completely melt a T5 unit down especially Golden Golems. But they're not viable in actual fights against the AI because there's so much Flora in the game that you're gonna have a maximum of 50% accuracy against the majority of your enemies and lots of Godir have quick reflexes. Also only Feudal:Monarchy can utilize Astral Wisps because they are mana upkeep units and, due to the Eldritch Sovereign's own mana upkeep, you can't afford one at the only phase of the game Astral Wisps are usable: the beginning. But if you got the Artificer Ascension Trait to blow up the Flora your target is standing on, Astral Wisps are absolutely insane. They dish out crazy amounts of damage if accuracy is not an issue. As such I could see Chosen Destroyers Feudal:Monarchy with the Artificer ascension trait utilizing 5 Astral Wisps for their first Free City raze quite well because they're super cheap, doesn't use any mana to summon which is in extremely short supply for Eldritch Sovereigns early game, and Bolt Repeaters blow up flora and walls alike letting wisps attack unobstructed at full accuracy. All other cultures should never use Astral Wisps because of their mana upkeep.

Multiplayer people on the other hand swear that Mystic Summoner spamming Astral Wisps is the meta strategy for multiplayer. They afford the mana upkeep by only going 4 non-hero units.

Relic of Mind is just trash. It has the best damage type which is physical that completely ignores all def but so what? You can always craft a T4 ignore-all-def weapon later in the game. For now ability is most important and Delirium is trash.

My recommendation is always start with Relic of Flesh to turn all your thralls into 150 draft to get your full T1 army up as soon as possible. And grab Eldritch Phase the moment you hit level 2 for some Eldritch Mind Control action. Then at level 4 reset your Eldritch Sovereign to get Empowered Awakening and re-grab Eldritch Rituals at level 5.

For Lategame equipment I recommend... nothing. Not even a T4 ignore-def physical weapon. Your Eldritch Sovereign has absolutely 0 action points to use on anything other than Forgotten Tome spells and Hero skills so there is absolutely 0% chance your Eldritch Sovereign will attack anything. At all. I guarantee you that from level 8 and onward Eldritch Sovereigns will never attack ever again. So no point in crafting anything.

Eldritch Sovereigns also cannot equip most items. They can only equip head, chest, rings, and trinkets. So if you want to get some defensive head and chest then be my guest but in my experience my Eldritch Sovereign never is in any danger of dying lategame so I don't bother.

As mentioned above, Eldritch Sovereigns have a super long range base attack that can ignore 100% of the enemy's defenses. And if you grab literally everything that boosts it, then you can boost it high enough to one shot anything and everything including T5 units.

The reason I don't recommend it is, all this stuff boosts only 1 unit, your Eldritch Sovereign. All this effort for only 1 out of 18 of your units. I'd rather get stuff that boosts my entire army rather than just 1 unit. And summoner/AoE spam Eldritch Sovereigns not only require nothing but also do a much better job at keeping your army alive.

But it's fun to have a long range unit that can one shot everything and maybe you're going Cult of Personality for 5x Eldritch Sovereigns so if you want to try it out, here's the build.

26 base T4 weapon
+4 for single shot from Zeal from Mind Breaker
+6 for single shot from Chaos Empowerment from Forgotten Tome of Arcfire
+4 for single shot from Elemental Mastery from Elementalist
+6 for single shot from Star Blades from Chest Gear
+10 for single shot from Amplifying Elements. One Arcfire skill should hit that cap

+20% crit from morale
+30% crit from 3x Fortune
+30% crit from T4 Weapon
+20% for single shot from Chaos Empowerment
Total: 100% crit chance

+10% from Amplified Magic from Elementalist
+20% from Phantasm Ritual Skill nodes from Eldritch Sovereign
+50% from 5x Strengthen
+50% from 100% crit
+30% from Ancient of Earth from Mind Devourer
+20% from Cosmic Overdrive
+20% from Chest Gear
+20% from from T4 Weapon
+15% from Arcane Focus racial trait
+10% from Ascension:Summoner
+10-50% from Glory Seeker

T4 Weapon - 2 Rainbow Clover, 1 Fireforge Stone
Chest - 1 Tranquility Pool, 2 Astral Dew

56 x 3.55-3.95 = 199-221 damage a shot.

Please note that you go Mind Breaker and Mind Devourer instead of Fleshweaver and Fleshcrafter solely for the hero skills.

The first thing you should decide is how you plan on winning.
Do you plan on winning with Heroes? Army? Both?
Do you plan on winning with Elementals? Undead? Culture Units?
Do you plan on winning with Shock Units? Ranged Units? Battle Mages? Mythic Units?

Then make a huge list of all the Unit Enchantments that buff the units you plan on winning with and which Tomes give those Unit Enchantments.

Mythic Units v.s. Non-Mythic Units
Non-Mythic Units have a SIGNIFICANTLY stronger early game. If every Tome you get is a +damage Tome for melee units and you have a full shock unit army then you will roflstomp the entire early, mid, and late game so hard even without heroes.

Mythic Units have a stronger endgame and because they don't benefit from any +damage unit enchantment, you can grab any Tome you want. However if you do that, your early game is gonna be absolute trash but that's what Ritualists are for. They'll have to carry you until you get your Mythic Units out. But you don't have to go straight to T5 Mythic Units. Getting T4 Mythic Units like Bone Dragons and Ironclads in the interim is not only acceptable but recommended. So if you go Mythic Units, Ritualists carry you through your first 4 Tomes and from Tome #5 and onward you go pure Mythic Units.

My default go to are

• Strong - +2 damage is nothing to scoff at early game. It's a +20% increase in damage
  
• Tenacious - All your T1 units have high model count and the damage penalty from casualties is so catastrophic that I consider T1 units at 2/3 health or lower to be completely worthless. This racial trait HEAVILY mitigates that.
  
• Fast Recuperation - Healing your units in enemy territory is one of the most excruciating experiences in the game especially heroes since nothing increases their healing per turn until the late game. Try it out yourself. Play 1 Chosen Destroyer games using 1 stack of racial T1 units with Fast Recuperation and 1 stack of Copper Golems and see just how incredibly frustrating it is to use Copper Golems without returning to your domain after every fight, and marvel at how your racial T1 units heal up to full while you relentlessly press on in enemy territory without pause.
  
• Careless - I never use defense mode so this flaw translates to a free trait point.

Other great traits are:
Hardy - +8 hp for 1 point is great
Arcane Focus - The damage increase is only 15%, but it is noticeable early game. Probably because the game rounds the damage numbers up. But still it's only 15% so it's not a must have.
Keen-Sighted - Only get if you're going a ranged build, you're using a ranged Hero as your endgame strategy, or you're using Ritualists or Elementalists and you plan on fully ditching your racial units early. If so replace Tenacious with this as you need Strong or Arcane Focus to do any damage.
Flying Mounts - are stupidly good on mounted shock units. It lets them fly over the polearm frontline, ignore all terrain, and butcher the backline, AND it reduces their model count but it only benefits units that actually use a mount so a lot are left out
Athletics - Athletics is really good. The better you get at the game the more you realize just how good more movement is and higher movement on non-cavalry shock units is insanely good. The reason I don't get it though is simply because it's too expensive. Athletics is really good on non-cavalry racial units like Warbreeds but Warbreeds are not my endgame unit. Heroes, summoned units, and T4-T5 Mythic units are. And the hardest part of the game is the early game. Strong + Tenacious + Fast Recuperation helps the early game out a LOT more than Athletics. Like a LOT more because early game 100% of your fights are face tanking man fights and Athletics doesn't help out with that at all. And you can handle 32 movement speed by building lots of roads, making the enemy come to you, getting Cascading Command:Reposition, Cosmic Overdrive, or some kind of haste spell, and giving your Heroes mounts or forged leg gear with very fast movement. Athletics on the other hand, got nothing for the early game. So that's why I don't get Athletics. It's too expensive, winning face tanking man fights are more important, and you can play around low movement speed.

You can go other traits too. If you want to go non-shock cavalry then most of the mount options are really great. I go Arcane Focus with my Eldritch Sovereigns if I don't plan on using any Racial Units after the early game to boost their Forgotten Tome damage.

I don't think Tough and Resistant are worth it after they got nerfed to hell.

Anyways, pick Racial Traits that synergizes with your game winning strategy.

The two biggest factors in choosing your Culture are Unit Enchantment and Culture Gimmick.

Some of the Culture's Unit Enchantments gives a LOT of damage to certain unit types so obviously if you're gonna use one of those unit types to win the game with, going with that Culture is a very good idea.

Some culture gimmicks are amazing and some culture gimmicks are absolutely worthless. If a culture has both a great gimmick and Unit Enchantment then that culture is a top tier culture. Some cultures have a terrible Unit Enchantment but an absolutely amazing culture gimmick and these cultures are also top tier cultures as well. Cultures without either are worthless trash.

• Mystic:Attunement is the 2nd best culture in the game. All non-mythic and non-hero units get +3 flat damage in combat and to get this bonus you just need to cast 3 spells, which is trivially accomplished. This is the best global no strings or conditions attached +damage culture unit enchantment in the game.
  
  This culture's primary gimmick is stockpiling casting points. They get "Mystic Echoes" from the map, from completing research, and they even have a T3 building that just passively generates Mystic Echoes nonstop. And you can use these Mystic Echoes to cast spells, maximum 1 a turn.
  
  This has two uses. First is to have basically infinite casting points in battle. You'll have so many Echoes that in extremely hard battles, you can just keep spamming spells until you run out of mana. Especially if you have Ascension:Archmage.
  
  The second use is to complete spells. Maximum 1 a turn. So lets say you have 60 casting points. You cast Summon Phantasm Warrior and now you have 0 casting points. You then queue up Summon Phantasm Warrior again but this time you can use 60 Mystic Echoes to complete the spell and cast a 2nd Summon Phantasm Warrior spell.
  
  The limit of this use is your imagination. Some examples
  
  • You can use it to quickly summon up a replacement army should your main army suffer heavy losses.
    
  • You can use it to quickly summon your T5 Mythic Units so you don't have to sit on your ass that long.
    
  • If you have a passive soul income you can use Mystic Echoes to spam an ungodly amount of Dark Knowledge Rituals to turbo through your research tree.
    
  • You can precast Phantasm Ritual (20% max hp as damage to 1 stack), precast Mass Phantasm Ritual (15% max hp as damage to every stack in a province), and then all in one turn cast your precasted Phantasm Ritual, your precasted Mass Phantasm Ritual, a new Mass Phantasm Ritual, and then use Mystic Echoes to cast a 3rd Mass Phantasm Ritual to reduce the hp of every enemy army in a province by 45% and one stack by 65% before engaging it
  
  As you can see, as you get better at the game, casting points become the bottleneck of your power and this culture blows that bottleneck wide open and it also possesses one of the best culture unit enchantments in the game.
  
  As such I deem this culture 2nd best, right after Feudal:Monarchy.

• Barbarians increases all non-mythic units' crit damage by 4 and all recruited units' physical damage by 2 INCLUDING Mythic units. Combined together this culture bestows +6 damage to eligible units which is even higher than Oathsworn Righteousness's unit enchantment. And it's doubled for single shot units. Best Culture for just pure damage especially melee units with 100% crit chance because its damage bonuses have no strings attached. I still go Barbarians for non-crit builds solely for the +2 damage, but non-recruited units and units that don't deal physical damage do not benefit from this. So if the units you plan on winning the game qualify for Barbarian's +damage bonuses I highly recommend you go Barbarian.
  
  Barbarians also can make 1 stack travel really quickly with Ritual of Alacrity. Any City or Outpost can perform a Ritual of Alacrity once every 3 turns to make the stack in the center of it regain all of its movement points and heal 50% of their max hp. So if you chain up a lot of outposts, you can get a stack to fly across the map.
  
  I consider Barbarians to be the third strongest culture in the game.
  
  
• Feudal:Monarchy - The best Culture for the early game and Mythic Units, and the best most strongest overall culture in the entire game.
  
  
  • The first thing that makes Feudal:Monarchy ridiculously crazy is its starting spell Call Militia. For 60 GOLD (not mana) you get to summon 2 T1 units at the center of your Throne City. You can have a full 18 unit army before turn 9! At that point in the game unit count is the bottleneck of army strength so at that point in the game you outnumber everything 3:1 and can roflstomp anything and everything. They are also ridiculously dirt cheap to both maintain (1 gold per turn) and replace so if you lose most of your Militias in a fight, no worries! You'll replace them all very shortly. Call Milita makes you absolutely steamroll everything early game. Add in the Chosen Destroyer Society Trait and that's it. GG. Game is too easy.
    
    Having said that, don't use Militias past the early game. Massive amounts of AoE from battlemages and the like will obliterate your entire Militia army so replace them with Aspirant Knights a.s.a.p.
    
    
  • The second thing that makes this culture ridiculously crazy is that all units in your Ruler's stack have 0 upkeep including Imperium and Soul upkeep. Which means you get 5 completely upkeep free units including Mythic Units. At first this doesn't sound amazing but you have to remember, the reason why you can't utilize evolved summoned Elementals early game is because their colossal mana upkeep absolutely murders you. But as Feudal:Monarchy, you can afford 5 super early evolved T3 summoned Elementals complete with Unit Enchantments! Add in the Militias and your early game just got even stupidly stronger.
    
    If you don't have any evolvable Elementals, you can still fill your Monarch's stack up with other mana upkeep units like Phantasm Warriors, Astral Wisps from Eldirtch Sovereigns, etc.. And let me tell you, being able to use 5 Phantasm Warriors/Astral Wisps right from the get go is insanely strong. Necromancers similarly can utilize undead right from the get go instead of waiting until your mana income is maxed out. Feudal:Monarchy is the only Culture capable of using Magic Origin units right from the start of the game.
    
    Lategame, if you go T5 Mythic Units like Reapers, those 5 upkeep free slots in your Ruler's stack translate to 5 more T5 Mythic Units than normal. See, T5 Mythic units require 7 imperium upkeep per turn and you only get 60 imperium per turn. 60 / 7 = 8 T5 Mythic Units max before you get into negative Imperium. You need 15 to have a full army. But add in 5 more T5 Mythic Units and now you have 13 T5 Mythic Units! Almost a full army!
    
    
  • The third thing that makes this culture ridiculously crazy is their primary culture unit, the T2 Aspirant Knight. They are seriously overpowered and is hands down the best culture unit in the entire game bar none by a considerable margin. I'm not exaggerating.
    
    Aspirant Knights are mounted T2 shock units with 48 movespeed, slippery (disengage without provoking attacks of opportunity), and deals more damage than T4 shock units. That's right. T4. It's not a typo. Aspirant Knights deal more damage than T4 Warbreeds.
    
    Because they're T2 units, you can bring them out ridiculously early in the game. Imagine having something as strong as T4 units as early as turn 12. It's crazy.
    
    They do however, have the defenses of a T2 unit so they're glass but that doesn't matter. Shock unit's primary form of defense is an overwhelming alpha strike and these guys not only have T4 unit damage, but they also have literally the best movement in the game. 48 with slippery. 100% of their attacks are flanking attacks because they can disengage at will and move behind their enemy with their colossal movement.
    
    Them being mounted is also incredibly significant because as mounted units, you can give them all flying mounts via racial traits right from the get go. So imagine a full T4 shock unit army with slippery, haste movement, the ability to ignore terrain, zone of control, and fly through units, all obtained at the start of the game. With flying mounts Aspirant Knights will always fly past the enemy polearm frontline and fully surround and butcher the entire backline in their alpha strike with flanking attacks and there is literally nothing your opponent can do to stop this.
    
    I'm being 100% honest when I say that when i reach T4 units, when i reach Ironclads, Bone Dragons, or Warbreeds, I don't switch to them. I keep on using my Aspirant Knights because they are genuinely that much better than T4 units. The ability to ignore everything and wipe out half the enemy army in one turn is just so much better than waiting for enemies to come to you because you either need to triple attack or because you have crap movement.
    
    And on top of all of this, Aspirant Knights evolve into T4 units proper, the T4 Knight. To be frank though, I don't have much experience with them because I mainly play Chosen Destroyers and Aspirant Knights raze so many cities so quickly that I reach T5 Mythic Units before any of them evolve.
    
    Aspirant Knights are so overpowered that it doesn't matter what build you go. As Feudal:Monarchy, 100% of your builds are Aspirant Knight spam from start to all the way until you get your full T5 Mythic unit army. Summoning, Drafting, Undead, it doesn't matter. 100% of Feudal:Monarchy strategies is Aspirant Knight spam because they are that much better than everything in the game.
    
    I will point out that T2 Aspirant Knights have Isolation Slayer, meaning they deal -6 damage to enemy units who have another ally next to them, but once you kill that ally, you get the full damage so this is just a minor inconvenience and nothing else.
    
    
  • The fourth and last thing that makes this culture ridiculously crazy is their complete synergy with the most powerful Ruler build in the game: Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon. Aspirant Knights, being T2 units, benefit immensely from Mighty Meek, the best +damage unit enchantment in the game. Aspirant Knights already do more damage than T4 units and now the gap just got even wider.

• 
  Feudal:Monarchy's Unit Enchantment however is very lackluster. It only gives +10% damage, +1 def, and +1 res which is negligible but on the other hand it is literally the sole culture Unit Enchantment that affects Mythic Units which makes Feudal:Monarchy the sole culture in the game that can buff Mythic Units. It also gives +10 morale which is huge because Feudal:Monarchy has a unique spell called Call to Glory that gives +5 morale for 3 turns. Combine the two and your units are guaranteed to have +20% crit rate every single battle from morale.
  
  Feudal:Monarchy is hands down the best and most powerful Culture in the game especially for any T5 Mythic Unit builds. Playing Brutal Difficulty has never been so easy. There's a reason why this guide uses Feudal:Monarchy for the majority of its builds.
  
  Feudal:Monarchy is also one of the best Cultures for Empire of the Cosmos Society Trait because of its 1 Order and 1 Materium Affinity.
  
  
• Feudal:Aristocracy - I haven't really played around with this but it seems really powerful lategame. +40 hp to all units, +20 morale to all units, -40% unit upkeep but you got to deal with the Liege Lord stuff which requires maxing renown on your Heroes.
  
  +40hp on Militias and Aspirant Knights seriously improves their survivability, significantly improving their performance. But Aristocracy doesn't get 5 upkeep free units like Monarchy so I'd say Monarchy is still better for T5 Mythic Units.
  
  Multiplayer people just produce units from their Throne City and only their Throne City so all of their units have +40hp and +20 morale without dealing with multiple heroes. Multiplayer people view Aristocracy as stronger than Feudal because when they go Mythic Units, they don't mind having a massive negative imperium income because they can end the game before they run out of stockpiled Imperium so they don't put much value in Feudal Monarchy's ability to eliminate 5 T5 Mythic Unit's Imperium upkeep.
  
  
• Industrious This is an ok culture. With Tome of Transmutation you can stack up defense and resistance quickly and with steelfury chant you can get 5x strengthen on every one really quickly but this only works on melee units and I'd rather get damage than defense on them.
  
  There is a neat combo you can do with Steelfury Chant, Cascading Command:Reposition, and Materium Bolstering Matrix. A single cast of Cascading Command:Reposition gets 1x Strengthen and 3x Bolstering Defense on your entire army if they're lined up and Steelfury Chant translates that into an army wide 4x Strengthen. You get this really early. Only works with Racial units though.
  
  
• Oathsworn NOT a fan. Oathsworn:Righteousness gives +5 spirit damage to all your units which is the highest +damage Culture Unit Enchantment in the game but you gotta be maximum good which SEVERELY restricts your gameplay. This culture solely exists to give players a reason to be good because being good is really, really bad in this game.
  
  Oathsworn:Strife's damage bonus is lost if you outnumber your enemy which will ALWAYS happen since when you kill 1 enemy you now outnumber them. And this Culture is mutually exclusive with any and all summoner builds because you summon 1 unit and then that's it, you lose the Unit Enchantment. Oathsworn:Strife might be a contender for worst Culture in the entire game.
  
  Oathsworn:Harmony is essentially +30hp which is meh. It does mitigate casualties though since it heals you back towards full hp.
  
  
• Primal is terrible. You need to attack 5 times to start benefiting from their gimmicks, and 5 more times to actually benefit from them. And battles are won and lost way, way before that.
  
  
• High is terrible. +3 spirit damage to units is good but it mandates the use of supports in your army. I rather go pure damage than add in supports. And Shock Units and Skirmishers are left out.
  
  
• Mystic:Summoner - NOT a fan. Its main gimmick is ranking up summons at the start of the game but you can't use it to evolve summons early game because their stupidly high mana upkeep will murder you. And ranking up units is a non-issue lategame because of how strong your heroes are. Also unlike Mystic:Attunement, you don't get a building that lets you passively amass Mystic Echoes. Lastly they can easily bestow strengthen on your magic origin units while healing them 10hp, but 10hp heal is negligible even if it's global and strengthen is already too easy to stack 5x on all of your units so all in all, I say this is a lackluster culture.
  
  I will say that 10hp heal is really good if and only if Arcane Restoration is your healing solution and you're NOT a Wizard King. 50hp heal across 2 turns is not enough imo but 70hp heal is.
  
  Multiplayer people on the other hand consider this Culture the most overpowered culture in the game. With an Eldritch Sovereign letting you spam a Wisp army at the start, who are magic origin units, they claim Mystic Summoner roflstomps the early game with wisps and then later evolved Elementals roflstomp until you get your T5 Mythic Units. and the mana upkeep issue is resolved by playing at normal world difficulty and having only 6 units at most.
  
  
• Reavers is terrible. Melee units exist to boost ranged damage. And as I said in a previous section, ranged units are complete utter trash. In addition, because ranged and melee units benefit from different Tomes, needing to mix these two is very, very bad. And the Unit Enchantment does not extend to Mythic Units so Ironclads are left out too. Magelocks are good but as high model count unit their damage output will get annihilated from the AI's endless AoE spell spam. And I tried to make a Magelock Cannon build work but in the end it failed miserably because a free city's Ironclad army completely dumpstered them despite how many unit enchantments I stacked on the Magelock Cannons. This is an absolutely terrible culture. The only reason I would ever go Reaver is either because I love the sound of Magelock cannons firing, or because I'm going Watchers since they bestow Marked on everything like it's nothing and the Reaver's unit enchantment turns those stacks of Marked into +damage.
  
  Multiplayer people agree that Reavers are terrible but says Dragoons are incredibly strong units because of their slippery trait and powerful ranged attack. So i guess that's the only reason anyone would go Reavers. For Dragoons only.

Picking a Culture solely for its Affinity to skip a Tome is not unheard of but I wouldn't recommend it. Cultures give way more than a Tome.

• Cult of Personality is the uncontested God Tier Society Trait because Heroes are the strongest units in the game and this Society Trait not only lets you get more, but it lets you get more ASCENDED Godir Heroes with full ascension traits. AND it gives them extra skill points. 5x Elementalist Rulers with ascension:artificer rofltstomp any and everything in the game. See my Cult of Personality build for more details.

• Chosen Destroyers is the uncontested 2nd best Society Trait ever since the Ogre update. For every 3 pops you raze in a city, you get a permanent +40 gold, mana, and research income. You can raze a 6 pop city within your first 20 turns and then just steamroll from there. I have +1000 research by turn 70 and also get my T5 Tome by turn 70. I also have 5k stockpiled gold and mana by then because my gold and mana income are in the +600-1000 per turn.
  
  
• Empire of the Cosmos is the uncontested 3rd best Society Trait. If you have 1 of each affinity, you can ignore T3 Tome's affinity requirements. If you have 2 of each affinity, you can ignore T4 Tome's affinity requirements. And if you have 3 of each affinity, you can ignore T5 Tome's affinity requirements. This is so good because you can grab every +damage unit enchantment for melee units and still grab Cosmic Overdrive, grab Exaltation and Supremacy with every single Mythic Unit build, and Dragon builds can grab Force of Nature without needing to waste 3 Tome slots on absolutely worthless Nature Tomes. It also gives +20 Imperium per turn. It does conflict with some Mythic Unit builds like Reapers who really do need a lot of Shadow Tomes to work because of soul related stuff, but generally this Society Trait is a must have in every build that can accomodate it. The main downside of this Society Trait however is that you can't get high end Signature and Empire Skills without delaying your T5 Tome acquisition considerably.
  
  Multiplayer people however disagree with me. They think Empire of the Cosmos is one of the worst society traits in the game because it doesn't help with snowballing early game. I think our disagreement here highlights our different styles of play. I focus on endgame combinations where as multiplayer people only focus on snowball.
  
  
• Vision of Ruin is a new society trait from the Archon Prophecy DLC and I gotta say, it might be the uncontested 4th strongest Society Trait in the game. Initial bonuses are +10 mana per turn OR +20 draft in Throne City OR +5 souls per turn which are HUGE at the start. And after you complete a difficult quest you get one of the following:
  
  • Astral:Halved casting point cost + all Godir gets to cast 2 spells per turn
    
  • Chaos:Power of Slaughter on all of your units which permanently increases hp by +1 and their damage by +1% for every kill they make, maxed out at 50.
    
  • Shadow:+20 souls per turn for a total of +25, every enemy of yours that dies becomes a zombie, and all non-undead heal only half as much in combat
  Not a fan of Astral because enemy's AoE spell spammage is usually responsible for most of my hero's attrition damage so doubling that sounds bad.
  
  Chaos is theoretically super powerful but requires you to declare 3 Major Justified Wars (declare war against players that have 51+ more grievances against you than you have against them) so you gotta play the grievance game. And even then, ultimately your opponent is in complete control on whether you complete the quest or not. And when you do finally complete it most of the game is over so you don't get much mileage out of Power of Slaughter because it takes FOREVER to max it out especially on 18 units. When I get my endgame stack, I go for the Throne Cities. 6 AIs, 3 full scale battles each before they die to me, so 18 full scale battles which equals 18 x 18 = 324 units killed and you need 900 units to max out all 18 units' Power from Slaughters. Practically speaking, it's just not gonna happen.
  
  Shadow on the other hand, all of your units spawn walls and walls of meatshields on kills right from the get go so it definitely seems like the best one especially since Shadow's quest is stupidly easy to complete. It's just kill kill kill which you're already doing so it auto-completes itself with absolutely no extra effort from your part. So... how can any society trait beat infinite walls of meatshields after every turn with no extra effort on your part? And the +25 Souls per turn lets any builds spam Feast of Souls without heavy Shadow investment which is hands down the best army healing spell in the game by a considerable margin. You can heal your entire army in one turn with it.
  
  
• Multiplayer people claim they can get a turn 25 Fallen Angel with Visions of Destiny. I haven't tried this out yet so no guarantees from me for now.
  
  
• For general no-gimmick very basic default builds I recommend Prolific Swarmers and Runesmith. Unit upkeep is the bottleneck of your army for most of the game so you can't go wrong with upkeep reducers.
  
  If your gold income is less than 150 gold per turn then you're gonna have to start making your cities take turns doing merchandising because you're gonna run out of gold. So Prolific Swarmers essentially translates to a 20% increase in army size. Even with this trait I struggle to maintain a full sized army of high tier units in the mid game.
  
  A significant chunk of your upkeep is going to be Unit Enchantment upkeep so you can't go wrong with Runesmith, which also accelerates your research by a decent amount since a good chunk of researches are Unit Enchantments.
  
  I do NOT recommend grabbing any Society trait for -upkeep for Magic Origin units. There's a -upkeep cap of 50% and you can reach -40% with Magic Origin units really, really easily with just your Hero + the Shadow Binding Empire Skill. Which is why I'm against Druidic Terraformers.
  
  
• Imperialist with 3 cities this essentially translates to +60 gold per turn right from the start of the game. It sounds unimpressive at first but that +60 gold per turn is capable of letting you build buildings nonstop with Awaken Tools AND produce and maintain a full sized army right from the get go. +60 gold per turn falls off later in the game as you're gonna be swimming in gold but It's so good with Tome of Enchantment early game that I say it's worth spending a Society Trait on because early game advantages like this snowball well into the lategame. If you're not going Tome of Enchantment then you probably don't need the extra +60 gold per turn so only get it if your strategy requires an early game gold boost for some reason.

• Scions of Evil gives +15 Imperium per turn for more T5 Mythic Units and +30 draft while reducing all draft costs by 20% which SIGNIFICANTLY increases your recruitment rate. It's Shadow Affinity to boot so it will get you Knowledge Extraction all by itself. The caveat is you gotta be at max evil but being evil is really easy in this game. Just raze a lot of cities, which is why this Society Trait pairs really well with Chosen Destroyers.
  
  
• Fabled Hunters is the society trait multiplayer people consider the most overpowered Society Trait in the game because of the 75% increase resource gained from clearing nodes and infestations but I couldn't get much value out of that. The AI clears everything near me way too quickly in Brutal. Also I like to play Chosen Destroyers which means most of my time is spent razing Free Cities and not clearing camps. Having said that the +5 hp heal per turn this trait gives to all of your units including Mythic Units makes grabbing this Society Trait worth it all by itself because trying to heal your Mythic Units in enemy domain is one of the most excruciating experiences in this game. The only bad thing about this Society Trait is that it's Nature Affinity and Nature's Empire Skill tree is absolutely worthless.

As for the rest of the Society Traits, pick em up if you're interested in their gimmick. Umbral Disciples for example, I pick it for the starting splitterling I can kill myself for a turn 1 corpse for Deathcaller. And the Gloom Terrain lets me summon T3 Storm Spirits directly with the Tome of Geomancy without needing to evolve Lesser Storm Spirits.

NOT a fan of Mana Channelers since they removed the +1 rank on summon. The halved mana cost has been power crept by Feudal's Call Militia.

NOT a fan of Perfectionist Artisans either. Getting your T3 racial units out as quickly as possible is MANDATORY on Brutal Difficulty and this doubles the time it takes for you to do that so hard pass. It already takes like the entire game to build all your buildings and if you want the extra gold go Imperialists. After the early game gold becomes a non-issue.

Getting a Society Trait solely for its affinity is not unheard of. If you want a specific T3 Tome which only has a 3 Affinity requirement, getting a Society Trait solely for 1 affinity point lets you grab that Tome after grabbing only 1 T1 or T2 Tome. I would not recommend it though Society Traits are really powerful.

Once you selected your culture and Society Traits you should now decide on your starting Tome. It should always have a summon. Preferably with a gold upkeep instead of mana upkeep because mana income is ridiculously hard to increase in the early game and it's completely KO'd just by your Unit Enchantment upkeep so maintaining even a tiny number of mana upkeep units is just not possible until the mid game. Gold upkeep summons on the other hand, you can keep pumping them out nonstop until you have a full army and then still keep pumping them out to replace your losses. That's why I highly recommend you start with a Tome with a gold upkeep summon.

Feudal:Monarchy is the exception to this rule as they start with their own spammable gold upkeep summon spell and can make 5 mana upkeep units completely free. Feudal:Monarchy can go any Tome they want and make it work.

• Tome of Enchantment is the uncontested best staring Tome in the entire game because of Summon Copper Golem (gold upkeep), Sundering Blades (-1 def on hit, up to -10), Awaken Tools (+20 production and draft), and Runecarver's Camp (+15 draft).
  
  Sundering Blades is a contender for the single best Unit Enchantment in the entire game. It is hands down the single best Unit Enchantment in the game to let low tier units take out high tier units, especially in the early game where you can only have 1 Unit Enchantment up due to mana issues. It's the difference between 18 T1 units getting slaughtered by 6 high def high tier free city units v.s. actually winning the battle. Sundering Blades also lets damaged high model count units continue to contribute to the fight despite their damage being capsized due to casualties because inflicting 3x Sundered Defense before your full hp units attacks make a HUGE difference. Sundering Blades does fall off late in the game because Unit Enchantments heavily skews your damage to non-phys but until then this Unit Enchantment is the best Unit Enchantment in the game bar none. It's so good that I grab Tome of Enchantment even as Feudal just to get Sundering Blades on my Militias.
  
  Sundering Blades also lets you destroy walls and other fortified obstacles, letting you spend a turn to destroy most chokepoints especially during siege battles. The reason why siege battles with walls is so tough is because you can't make any progress due to the choke points while their catapults and Bolt Repeaters slowly slaughter your army. With Sundering Blades however you can take out most of the wall in one turn and destroy the Siege weapons next turn. Destroying the walls also lets your ranged units attack unobstructed.
  
  Lastly, Sundered Defense bestows -1 status resistance as well, making enemies freeze/stun much more easily.
  
  Awaken Tools gives +20 production which literally doubles your fledgling cities' production speed. And after that +20 production still provides a +30~50% increase in production speed. Faster buildings mean faster everything because your city structures are responsible for 100% of your high tier unit acquisition and early game income and getting all of these quicker is just too good.
  
  Awaken Tools also gives +20 draft which also literally doubles your fledgling cities' draft. Combined with Runecarver camp's +15 draft, your Aspirant Knight's recruitment time will be literally halved. From 4 turns to 2 turns with only the Royal Smith, and from 2 turns to 1 turn with Armory.
  
  I am not exaggerating when i say Awaken Tools singlehandedly gets your first Aspirant Knight out 10 turns earlier than normal due to both increased Town Hall II + Royal Smith building speed AND +draft.
  
  Copper Golems are a gold upkeep polearm summoned unit that you can spam endlessly but because they're not part of your race they don't get any racial traits which is VERY noticeable because Tenacious and Fast Recuperation are that good. On the plus side you always start with Copper Golems researched right from turn 1 so you don't need to shuffle and research your Tomes' summon spell which could fail, and you have access to Sundering Blades which more than makes up for the lack of racial traits.
  
  All 4 are just so, so good I consider Tome of Enchantment hands down the best starting Tome in the entire game.
  
  
  
• Tome of the Horde can also summon units with a gold upkeep. They also gives you access to Houndmasters. I heard that Houndmasters are the meta unit for multiplayer. I wouldn't know anything about that though, I'm a single player only guy. Tome of the Horde's other main gimmick is it has a racial transformation that gives +20% damage to all of your racial units at the cost of increasing their model count so Tenacious is MANDATORY if going this. Your units will never be at full hp due to the sheer amount of AoE spell spam the AI does. The Virtuous Spirit minor race transformation from the T2 Tome of Virtue stacks multiplicatively with Tenacious so it won't eliminate casualties entirely, but close enough. With both my full hp T1 unit does 45 damage and my 1 hp T1 unit does 42 damage. With both you can treat all of your multi-model units as essentially single model units.
  
  
• Tome of Zeal can summon a racial unit with a gold upkeep and it also has the Legion of Zeal unit enchantment that gives +2 spirit damage to melee AND ranged units. Battle Mages are left out. Legion of Zeal is really good but summon Zealot could be better. They're not game winning units like Phantasm Warriors. The Fanatical Workforce spell however is absolutely FANTASTIC. The -10 food is nothing, and if you really care about that building a food building will solve the issue entirely. The amount of production you get from this spell is so insane that you can build everything significantly faster than Awaken Tools. Starting with this Tome for Fanatical Workforce alone is worth it. Circle of Zealotry also increases Draft by a very nice amount especially at the start of the game.
  
  
• Tome of Warding has the 2nd best T1 summon at the start of the game. Phantasm Warriors have great stats due to being a shield unit and thanks to their pass wall ability they can fly through stone walls and cliffs and are completely unaffected by ground stuff like flora and caltrops. Lesser Storm Spirits don't have pass through and need a LOT of +damage unit enchantments to be good. After you do get those unit enchantments though they are far better than Phantasm warriors but at the very start of the game, Phantasm Warriors are way, way better. But Phantasm Warriors are mana upkeep units so unless you're going Feudal:Monarchy, you're gonna KO your entire mana income after like... 2.

• Tome of Beasts - Notice how I said Phantasm Warriors are the 2nd best T1 Summon in the game? That's because Call Wild Animal is the best T1 summon in the game ever since the devs changed it so that you can choose 1 out of 4 animals each cast instead of getting a random animal per cast. The reason why it's so much better than Phantasm Warriors is because for an extra 40 mana (80 for T2 Spiders) you can recruit T2 animals! Tome of the Beasts gets a full T2 army quicker than any other culture or Tome in the entire game. That's really something. Unfortunately, animals summoned by this spell have the Magic Origin tag so they now have a mana upkeep instead of a gold upkeep like normal animals. On the bright side Mage Tower boosts the rank of your summoned animals.
  
  All animals have Low Maintenance so the summoned T2 Animals only have a mana upkeep of 9, just 1 more than Phantasm Warriors. But because they cost an extra 40 mana to summon, I'd say only Feudal:Monarchy can utilize Call Wild Animal to its fullest potential.
  
  Tome of Beasts also gives access to the T2 unit Wildspeaker, a cavalry support unit with a 1 action point summon. Unfortunately the summoned animal only has 1 action point on spawn but tanks to the Wildspeakers 48 movement they can always summon these animals in melee range of the enemy so your summoned animals will always get 1 attack off on their first turn.
  
  But wait! Why would you ever build Wildspeakers over Aspirant Knights? After all, Wildspeakers fall off after the early game because as support units their damage really doesn't scale and because their animals spawn with only 1 action point, they need to survive a turn before they can do anything and they won't survive a turn later in the game because T1 units are that fragile. Aspirant Knights on the other hand, rival T4 units in damage output letting them very easily and comfortably carry you all the way until you get your T5 Mythic Units. Aspirant Knights are just so overpowered.
  
  And the answer is: you're not getting +damage unit enchantments. Aspirant Knights without +damage unit enchantments are not worth a damn and if your build gets Tomes that buff battle mages or grants you utility stuff for your future T5 Mythic army, then yes you should use WIld Speakers.
  
  The other answer is Racial Traits. If you plan on ditching your Racial Units early then it makes sense to grab only Racial Traits that buff your Ruler and Hero. So if you don't want to get Strong and Tenacious which are mandatory in my opinion for Aspirant Knights, you can go Wildspeaker instead.
  
  But make no mistake. 100% of your WIldspeakers need to be ditched for T3 units as soon as possible because they do not scale.
  
  Here is the full list of animals possible for each terrain. This list has been directly extracted from the game files. Multiples of the same animal in the list just means you have an increased chance of getting that unit.
  
  Terrain Type

  Animal

  Default

  SCRAP_HERMIT
  RAZORBACK
  WARG
  HUNTER_SPIDER
  GORETUSK_PIGLET
  GORETUSK_PIGLET
  GORETUSK_PIGLET
  GORETUSK_PIGLET
  VAMPIRE_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  VAMPIRE_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  DREAD_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  DREAD_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  GRIMBEAK_CROW
  GRIMBEAK_CROW
  GRIMBEAK_CROW
  GRIMBEAK_CROW
  BROWN_BEAR
  ELEPHANT
  CROCODILE
  CROCODILE
  BEETLE_ER
  BEETLE_ER
  DEATH_BEETLE
  APE

  Cold

  ICE_SPIDER
  GORETUSK_PIGLET
  GRIMBEAK_CROW
  POLAR_BEAR
  PENGUIN

  Fire

  CARRION_BIRD
  INFERNO_PUPPIES
  INFERNO_PUPPIES
  INFERNO_PUPPIES
  GRIMBEAK_CROW
  GRIMBEAK_CROW
  GRIMBEAK_CROW
  SCRAP_HERMIT
  ELEPHANT
  PYREMOTH

  Water

  NIMU
  KRAKEN_SPAWN
  PENGUIN
  PENGUIN
  NIMU
  CROCODILE
  CROCODILE

  Underground

  WARG
  HUNTER_SPIDER
  DREAD_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  DREAD_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  DREAD_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  DREAD_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  BROWN_BEAR
  SCRAP_HERMIT
  BEETLE_ER
  BEETLE_ER
  DEATH_BEETLE

  Fire Underground

  WARG
  INFERNO_PUPPIES
  INFERNO_PUPPIES
  INFERNO_PUPPIES
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  SCRAP_HERMIT
  BEETLE_ER
  DEATH_BEETLE
  PYREMOTH

  Ice Underground

  WARG
  ICE_SPIDER
  VAMPIRE_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  VAMPIRE_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  VAMPIRE_SPIDER_HATCHLING
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  YOUNG_CAUSTIC_WORM
  POLAR_BEAR
  SCRAP_HERMIT
  BEETLE_ER
  DEATH_BEETLE
  
  I believe Arctic is best because
  
  • T2 Spiders are the best animals not only because they are the best fighters of the bunch but also because they evolve into T4 spiders
    
  • you have a very good chance of getting a T2 Spider every cast due to the short list of possible animals.
    
  • If you don't get offered a T2 Spider, you're gonna get offered at least a T2 Polar Bear or Dire Penguin. And Dire Penguins have Life Steal.
  
  Fire in my opinion is second best because
  
  • Pyre Moths are T2 Battle Mage Units with a 1-hex AoE and Battle Mages deal insane damage at the start of the game because nothing has high res.
    
  • Elephants are fantastic shock units because
    
    • They are single model units so 0 casualty issues
      
    • They have standard T2 shock unit stats so no downside to being a single model unit
      
    • They have 40 movement.
      
    • They have a 32 damage stomp letting them deal just as much as triple attacking units when they can't charge.
  
  There are two downsides of going Tome of Beasts though. First it doesn't do jack outside of the early game unless evolved Spiders is your endgame. Second, it's a Nature Tome and Nature is the worst affinity in the game by miles and miles.

• Tome of Evocation has Lightning Blades which is always good and is Astral Affinity which is also always good. But the Lesser Storm Spirit is absolute trash at the start of the game. Terrible movement, no racial traits, and only 45 hp. However, its physical damage is KO'd by 2 -phys +damage unit enchantments so if your next 2 Tomes ore -phys +damage unit enchantments like Tome of Cryomancy and Pyromancy, the 3rd -phys +damage unit enchantment is gonna give +8 damage instead of +4. At that point in the game Lesser Storm Spirits are contenders for the strongest T1 unit in the game because on top of being Shock units with colossal damage, they shouldn't be at 45 hp anymore because you should have a few Mage Tower levels completed, each giving the Lesser Storm Spirit +10 hp, and you should also have Shepherd completed. But as mana upkeepn units they are not usable early game without Feudal:Monarchy but because they're so strong if you get those unit enchantments they are totally viable in the mid game so you can and will get a lot of mileage out of them. BUT, there is no reason to start with them so start with a different better Tome than this one unless you can get by the early game with only Lightning Blades because that's all this Tome offers at the start of the game.
  
  
• Tome of Necromancy is for Undead players but like Phantasm Warriors, skeletons are mana upkeep units so you're gonna KO your mana income after you get like... 2. So imo skeletons are not viable early game UNLESS you go Feudal. Then you can get 5. But Skeletons don't have your minmax racial traits so I really don't like using skeletons. Also ever since the Decaying Zombie nerf I don't think the Necrotize spell is worth a damn. In my opinion there are only two reasons you go Tome of Necromancy. Main reason is to stockpile souls so you can get Bone Dragons the moment you research it, and the other reason is to passively generate Thralls as Eldritch Sovereign. In all other cases I'd go Tome of Cryomancy instead if you really need to start with the Shadow Affinity.
  
  
• Tome of Rock has the best starting elemental, Lesser Stone Spirit, because it has a ton of defense where as all the other elementals have absolutely pathetic defense and because at the start of the game we don't have any unit enchantments, trading a LOT of blows is inevitable. But it's a mana upkeep unit with no racial traits so it's inferior to Phantasm Warriors in every way. The only advantage of Lesser Stone Spirits have over Phantasm Warriors is that they benefit from Shepherd which gives them +20hp and -20% upkeep which when combined with the Logistics Training skill for a total of -40% mana upkeep, they might be worth it because you might be able to afford 1 or 2 of them. In other words, you are essentially trading racial traits for +20hp and affordability, but only with Shepherd. Tome of Rock also has the Earthkin minor race transformation for +1 def which is always nice as you can stack it with Steelskin for a total of +3 def which is HUGE, and Obsidian Weapons gives +1 damage to both melee and ranged attacks and 60% chance of bleeding. You can tell this Tome was designed for you to go full tanky shield units and slowly bleed everyone to death. Gargoyles... are mana upkeep despite recruited which completely murders its viability but they are probably the best T2 non-culture shock unit due to their flying movement. I'm gonna say, Tome of Rock is inferior to Tome of Warding at the start, but Tome of Rock has better long term benefits, but unless you're stacking +def minor racial transformations, planning on getting every +damage unit enchantment for melee units, or planning on using Gargoyles as your midgame strategy, there is no reason to choose this Tome over Tome of Enchantment.

All the other T1 Tomes might be great when gotten later but I don't think they're viable as starting Tomes. Other tomes with Elemental Summons can be viable as the first Tome solely for Feudal:Monarchy though.

Knowledge Extraction is the best Empire Skill in the entire game. I've beaten Grexolis on the hardest difficulty with only 1 city for 80 turns by solely relying on Knowledge Extraction for research. It is that good so it is absolutely mandatory you get it. Always. No exceptions. You always need a minimum of 1 Shadow Affinity. No exceptions. If you got a Shadow Affinity from your Society Traits, Culture, or Starting Tome, then great! If not you HAVE to grab a Shadow Tome as your 2nd Tome. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Hero equipment is game changing. With good equipment your heroes' strength skyrockets into the stratosphere. A fight between an army with fully equipped heroes v.s. an army without fully equipped heroes is so one sided that it's not even funny. Certain fully geared heroes can even solo 1v18 unit stacks with sky high defense, life steal, and other gimmicks.

But these Hero equipment require multiple Magic Materials to craft which is why you have to go Tome of Transmutation in every game. Because that Tome grants you access to all the Magical Materials you need.

So unless you're intentionally going no heroes, or using heroes solely as army-wide buff sticks, or you're going pure Ritualists, always grab Tome of Transmutation. Always

The passive effects of Hero Signature Skills are very powerful. You can get army wide +30% crit rate, +3 def, +3 res, etc. and some active Hero Signature Skills are game winning like Awaken Earth.

So naturally you need to select Tomes in a way that meets the affinity requirements of all of the Signature Skills you plan on grabbing.

Naturally these Tomes should also have Unit Enchantments that buff the units you plan on winning the game with.

Organize all the Tomes you've selected in steps 4, 5, 6, and 7 into tiers and line them all up. There might be some blanks. Like you might have two Tier 1 Tomes and two Tier 3 Tomes but only one Tier 2 Tome.

Fill those blanks in with the Tomes you've selected in step 1.

When filling in the blanks, do not put much stake in the Tier of the Tome. As in just because you have access to Tier 2 Tomes does NOT mean you should be grabbing only Tier 2 Tomes. It's perfectly ok to grab 3 or 4 Tier 1 Tomes even as high up as Tier 3, 4, or 5. I'm not joking. Check out the builds I've provided for some examples and the reasons I chose them.

Consider what Empire Skills you absolutely want and see if you have enough affinities for it. For example, lets say you want +20 casting points from the Astral Tree but you don't have an Astral Tome. So add an Astral Tome to your build.

Stuff like this.

Personally, I always grab Dark Vigor for +10hp heal per turn. Always. No matter what build I go even if it means delaying my T5 Tome which is why Tome of Cryomancy is probably my most gotten Tome because it's a Shadow Affinity Tome that gives +damage.

Hero Signature Skill acquisition should be at the forefront of your mind in this step. Lets say you need an Adept Chaos Signature Skill at level 8 but you don't get your 4th Chaos Affinity until Tier 4. That's a problem. So shuffle things around so you get your 4th Chaos Affinity in Tier 2.

And that might cause the summon unit you want or the Unit Enchantment you want to be gotten at Tier 4 instead which is too late. And it might also make you get the Empire Skill you want too late too.

So this is the headache of planning out your Tome Selection. Use your judgement to figure out what's more important.

And that should be it.

• T2 (M) Tome of the Dungeon Depths
  Raiders of the Deep - above ground +10% damage, underground +1 def and res

• T1 (M) Tome of Enchantment
  Spell-Tempered Shields - +1 resistance, +1 AoE resistance on defense mode
  
• T3 (M)(C) Tome of the Dreadnought
  Warding Metals (and Constructs) - +3 resistance
  
• T4 (M)(S) Tome of Severing
  Null Shield - Defense mode gives +5 status resistance AoE

• T2 (M)(O) Tome of the Construct
  Compounding Defense - +1 def and res next to another Compounding Defense unit
  
• T2 (N) Tome of the Glade
  Aspect of the Root - 30hp heal on defense mode

• T1 (M)(O) Tome of Discipline
  Empowered Strikes - +1 phys, 60% stun every 3rd attack

• T3 (O)(C) Tome of the Cleansing Flames
  Flameblessed Champions - 60% burning, cleansing flames against 5+ burning targets
  
• T4 (M)(S) Tome of Severing
  Disrupting Blades - 60% disrupted

• T1 (M) Tome of Enchantment
  Sundering Blades - 90% chance of sundered defense, Demolisher
  
• T1 (A) Tome of Evocation
  Lightning Blades - +4 lightning, -2 phys, +20% against electrified
  
• T1 (N) Tome of Roots
  Blight Blades - +4 blight, -2 phys, +20% against poisoned or decaying
  
• T1 (C) Tome of Pyromancy
  Searing Blades - +4 fire, -2 phys, +20% damage against burning
  
• T1 (S) Tome of Cryomancy
  Frost Blades - +4 frost, -2 phys, +20% against frozen or slowed
  
• T2 (C) Tome of Revelry
  Bloodfury Weapons - +2 phys, +5 morale, +1 strengthen on kill
  
• T2 (M) Tome of Artificing
  Artisan Armaments - +30% Crit Chance
  
• T2 (S) Tome of Souls
  Cruel Weaponry - +30% damage against low morale
  
• T2 (M)(S) Tome of Shades
  Shadow Blades - Ignore 50% of def and res against blind enemies
  
• T3 (M) Tome of Transmutation
  Adaptive Armor - Bolstered Resistance and Status Protection when hit by non-phys attack
  
• T3 (S) Tome of the Great Transformation
  Fetid legion - +10 hp, Weakened
  
• T3 (C) Tome of Devastation
  Flameburst Weapons - +20% crit, 20 fire explosion on kill
  
• T3 (O) Tome of Subjugation
  Intimidation Aura - 90% -5 morale against all adjacent units at end of each turn
  
• T3 (O) Tome of Sanctuary
  Keeper's Mark - Steadfast upon "death"
  
• T3 (M)(A) Tome of Geomancy
  Resonant Blades - Melee attacks inflict negative status effect depending on terrain
  
• T3 O) Tome of Prophecies
  Prescient Circlets - Dodge the first damage in defense mode
  
• T4 (A) Tome of the Astral Mirror
  Mirror Veil - reflect 50% non-phys damage back to attacker
  
• T4 (C)(S) Tome of Calamity
  Accursed Projectiles - +1 fire, +1 frost, 60% ghostfire
  
• T4 (O)(N) Tome of Prosperity
  Accursed Armors - +2 def, 30% Ghostfire and Misfortune against melee attackers
  
• T4 (O) Tome of the Archon
  Holy Aura - +2 status resistance to adjacent allies, 4 spirit damage per turn to adjacent enemies

• T1 (M) Tome of Rock
  Obsidian Weapons - +1 Phys, 60% bleed
  
• T1 (O) Tome of Zeal
  Legion of Zeal - Zeal (+2 spirit damage)

• T1 (M) Tome of Enchantment
  Purging Arrows - +10% damage against magic origin, 60% chance of removing 1 positive effect
  
• T1 (N) Tome of Roots
  Poison Arrows - +2 blight, -1 phys, 60% poisoned
  
• T1 (C) Tome of Pyromancy
  Fiery Arrows - +2 fire, -1 phys, 60% burning
  
• T1 (S) Tome of Cryomancy
  Frost Arrows - +2 frost, -1 phys, 60% slowed
  
• T2 (O) Tome of the Inquisition
  Inquisitor's Mark - 30% Condemned until end of combat, 30% weakened, 30% slowed
  
• T2 (M) Tome of Winds
  Seeker Arrows - +1 range
  
• T3 (A) Tome of Amplification
  Amplified Arrows - +3 lightning, -1 phys, 3 lightning to 2 other targets, 30% sundered resistance

• T2 (A) Tome of Scrying
  Guided Projectiles - Ignores obscured
  
• T2 (C) Tome of Mayhem
  Mark of Misfortune - Misfortune
  
• T3 (N) Tome of Cycles
  Blooming Projectiles - 60% life seed (heals allies in aoe on death), +10% damage against decaying
  
• T4 (M) Tome of the Crucible
  Meteor Arrows - +3 fire damage AoE, Demolisher
  
• T4 (C) Tome of Chaos Channeling
  Infernal Focus - Whenever a unit dies, +1 fire to attack and +5 morale
  
• T4 (C)(S) Tome of Calamity
  Accursed Projectiles - +1 fire, +1 frost, 60% ghostfire

• T1 (M)(O) Tome of Discipline
  Focus Aim - once per battle attacks cannot miss for 1 turn

• T3 (O) Tome of Prophecies
  Fated Projectiles - +20% crit

• T1 (A) Tome of Evocation
  Lightning Focus - +2 Lightning Damage, 30% electrified
  
• T1 (S) Tome of Necromancy
  Necrotic magic - 60% decaying
  
• T1 (A)(S) Tome of the Tentacle
  Constricting Focus - 30% constricted
  
• T2 (M) Tome of Artificing
  Siege Magic - 10% damage, Siege Breaker (+fort damage during a siege), Demolisher
  
• T2 (S) Tome of Souls
  Soulbinders - 90% soulbound, +10% damage against soulbound
  
• T3 (O)(C) Tome of the Cleansing Flames
  Cleansing Flames - 60% condemned, creates cleansing flames
  
• T3 (A) Tome of Teleportation
  Phasing Enchantment - Gives phase
  
• T3 (A) Tome of Amplification
  Frenzying Focus - gives Frenzy
  
• T3 (C) Tome of Pandemonium
  Havoc Magic - 60% random negative status on hit
  
• T3 (C) Tome of Devastation
  Focus of Devastation - Demolisher, 60% cancel defense mode
  
• T4 (O) Tome of Supremacy
  Supreme Magic - Zeal (+2 spirit), 20 spirit explosion on kill
  
• T5 (S) Tome of the Eternal Lord
  True Death Magic - gives Curse of the Reaper, 60% instant kill, 45 frost on fail that ignores resistance

• T3 (N)(C) Tome of Dragons
  Flamer Focus - gives Firebomb

• T1 (A) Tome of warding
  Staves of Warding - +2 Resistance
  
• T1 (O) Tome of Faith
  Staves of Mending - Faithful, Mending Touch (+15hp heal)
  
• T1 (M)(N) Tome of Alchemy
  Mysterious Tonic - Gives Distribute Tonic
  
• T2 (N) Tome of Fey
  Staves of Mist - gives Fey Blessing (+10 heal, 1 clinging mist)
  
• T3 (M)(C) Tome of the Dreadnought
  Tuning Kits - gives Overcharge (+50% damage to construct, 30% chance to be stunned on attack)
  
• T4 (O)(N) Tome of Prosperity
  Staves of Grace - Inner Grace, Support abilitiies give 1 grace, Cleansing Rain (1-hex dispel)

• Wayfinder Enchantment - Very Fast Movement
  
• Enchanted Crow Companion - +2 vision

• T1 (N)(C) Tome of Evolution
  Rapid Evolution Enchantment - +20% exp gain, Slip Away

• T2 (O) Tome of the Beacon
  Might Meek - +1 spirit damage per tier of target, faithful

• T5 (N) Tome of the Goddess of Nature
  Force of Nature - +3 blight, +15% crit

• T5 (M) Tome of the Creator
  Shaper's Touch - +10hp, 10% max hp healing per turn

• T3 (N) Tome of Vigor
  Empowered Beasts - +20% damage, +10hp, Demolisher, less models

• T5 (A) Tome of the Arch Mage
  Cosmic Overdrive - +20% damage, Very Fast Movement

• T4 (O)(S) Tome of the Revenant
  Undead Resentment - +2 spirit and fire resistance, inflict more morale loss on kill

• T1 (A) Tome of Warding
  Magical Wards - +2 fire, lighting, frost resistance
  
• T1 (N)(C) Tome of Evolution
  Draconic Vitality - +3hp per rank
  
• T1 (M) Tome of Rock
  Earthkin - +1 Defense, Mountain Camouflage, Mountain Walk
  
• T1 (C) Tome of the horde
  Spawnkin - +20% damage, increased number of models
  
• T1 (N) Tome of Beasts
  Animal Kinship - When next to an animal +10% damage, +10% crit
  
• T1 (M)(O) Tome of Discipline
  Inner Mastery - +1 status resistance, +20% healing in combat
  
• T2 (C) Tome of Revelry
  Reveler's heart - +50% morale from all sources
  
• T2 (M)(O) Tome of the Construct
  Linked Minds - Hyper Awareness when next to another Linked Mind
  
• T2 (S) Tome of the Doomherald
  Joy Siphoners - steal 4 morale per hit
  
• T2 (N) Tome of the Glade
  Leafskin - +1 resistance, forest walk, forest camouflage
  
• T2 (N) Tome of Fey
  Fey Touched - Fey Guile (Gain 1 random positive effect when obstructed or in mist), ignore mist
  
• T2 (N) Tome of Shades
  Living Shadows - 10% evasion, when attacked within 2 hex 60% blind
  
• T2 (O) Tome of Virtue
  Virtuous Spirit - +2 spirit resistance, When below 60% hp, ignore 50% casualties, +1 def & res
  
• T3 (M) Tome of Transmutation
  Steel Skin - +2 def, +2 blight, -2 lightning resistance
  
• T3 (N) Tome of Vigor
  Supergrowth - +10hp, +1 Retaliation Attack, Decreased number of models
  
• T3 (S) Tome of the Cold Dark
  Frostling Transformation - 3 frost resistance, immunity to frozen, +10 morale, arctic walk
  
• T3 (A) Tome of Amplification
  Astral Blood - Attunement: Fortune
  
• T3 (C) Tome of Pandemonium
  Vessels of Chaos - +10% damage per negative status effect on target
  
• T3 (O) Tome of Sanctuary
  Anointed People - +3 Status resistance, +3 Spirit resistance
  
• T4 (M) Tome of the Golden Realm
  Gold Touched - +2 resistance
  
• T4 (C) Tome of Chaos Channeling
  Scion of Flame - 4 Fire resistance, Vengeful flames (2 fire damage against attacker & 30% burning), Fiery Wake, Immunity to burning
  
• T4 (O) Tome of the Archon
  Pure Soul - Dispel 1 negative status effect every turn. Mutually exclusive with Umbral Flesh and Gloom Strider

The first two builds in the guide go Barbarian so rather than repeat how to play Barbarians in both sections, I'll go over how to play Barbarians first before going into the two buiilds.

Most other cultures play very similarly to Barbarians if you're not interested in Feudal:Monarchy, this is the section you want to pay attention the most.

The Ruler Ambition, Ascension Trait, and Tome Selection Order depends on the build you go but everything else is identical for all my builds which is why I grouped them all here.

• Strong - +2 damage is nothing to scoff at early game. It's a +20% increase in damage
  
• Tenacious - All your T1 units have high model count and the damage penalty from casualties is so catastrophic that I consider T1 units at 2/3 health or lower to be completely worthless. This racial trait HEAVILY mitigates that.
  
• Fast Recuperation - Healing your units in enemy territory is one of the most excruciating experiences in the game especially heroes since nothing increases their healing per turn until the late game.
  
• Careless - I never use defense mode so this flaw translates to a free trait point.

• Workshop
  
• Stonemason
  
• Masonic Hall
  
  
• Battle Ritual Site
  
• Ancestral Seer Hall
  
  
• Town Hall II
  
• Tavern
  
• Town Hall III
  
• Shrine of the Wargod
  
• Bathhouse
  
  
• Blacksmith
  
• Armory
  
  
• Wizard Tower: Foundation
  
• Wizard Tower: Item Forge
  
  
• Shrine
  
• Obelisk
  
  
• Shipyard
  
• Vendors
  
• Markets
  
  
• Wizard Tower: Crypts
  
• Wizard Tower: Prison Cells
  
  
• Research Post Special Province Improvement (If you can)
  
• Academy (if you can)
  
• Monolith
  
• Mint

• Workshop
  
• Stonemason
  
  
• Battle Ritual Site
  
• Ancestral Seer Hall
  
  
• Shrine
  
• Obelisk
  
  
• Shipyard
  
• Vendors
  
• Markets
  
  
• Town Hall II
  
• Tavern
  
• Town Hall III
  
• Shrine of the Wargod
  
• Bathhouse
  
  
• Blacksmith
  
• Armory
  
  
• Research Post Special Province Improvement (If you can)
  
• Academy (if you can)
  
• Monolith
  
• Mint

Everyone grabs production and research first.

Then the Throne City rushes Shrine of the Wargod and draft buildings to produce Berserkers a.s.a.p.and then the Item Forge for Staves of Necromancy and Wands of Spawn Hatchling.

2nd and 3rd cities rush the cheap mana buildings first to quickly pay for unit enchantments and then cheap gold buildings to pay for the increasingly more expensive army.

Then Throne City gets the cheap resource buildings and the 2nd and 3rd cities build Shrines of the Wargod to increase Berserker production speed.

Then everyone gets the expensive buildings.

You get a SIGNIFICANT amount of Research from the Knowledge Extraction Empire Skill so getting Academy up is not a priority.

The above build order is NOT set in stone. Every game is different so if you're short on a particular resource including stability, don't be afraid to switch things up.

Grab Chaos Bolstering Matrix to make your Vision of Victory give 3x Strengthen.

Give your whisper stone to your Throne city for more stability. Or not. If you want to engage in diplomacy and not raze everything then I guess you can use it on free cities but this guide is not going to engage in diplomacy to simplify things so give it to your Throne city and forget about it.

Build 2 outposts as soon as you can and as close to each other and the throne city as possible and turn them into cities as quickly as possible. You want land tiles not water tiles because you can't build special province improvements on water tiles so place them in the direction with more land.

Research Awaken Tools first and cast it on all 3 cities as quickly as you can. Start casting it 1 turn before your Outpost turns into a city so it finishes casting the moment the city finished establishing itself. And then follow my building build order from there.

For combat, have your 3 cities produce Warriors nonstop. You'll be needing them to fend off infestations and other AI. Stop when you reach a total unit count of 18. Use them to clear nearby encampments to get XP for your ruler.

XP is wonky in this game. XP is evenly distributed across all units but according to the Ogre update patch notes, if you have less than 6 units then the total amount of total XP you get is reduced. I guess this was implemented to prevent heroes from leveling too quickly by having them solo clear camps. I believe if you have less than 6 the units then the xp is divided as if you did have 6 units. So in other words, against a stack of 6 units, your Heroes will receive the same xp whether you clear it 4vs6 or 6vs6 so in order to not waste xp always fight with at least 6 units.

IMPORTANT!!! LEVEL YOUR HEROES AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN BY TAKING OUT ALL CAMPS WITH ONLY 6 UNITS MAX. And take out any Free City or Infestation armies with only 6 units if you can even if it means all of your non-heroes in that stack dying in battle. The goal is level 5. Get 3 Ritualists to level 5 and you win so get your Ritualists to level 5 at any cost as quickly as you can.

On Brutal Difficulty, both Free Cities and the AI will probably slaughter you in a straight up even fight on auto-resolve. Spamming Awaken Entwined and Hostile Wildgrowth with 3+ Ritualist Heroes in manual combat is how you counter this. Entwined Protectors + Living Growths creates a very thick wall while Hostile WIldgrowth's AoE and Bleeding stacks + Entwined Protectors' single target damage and poison stacks slowly kill everything. Don't charge your Warriors in. Keep em in a nice straight line Shield Walling each other and only pile on top of enemies that get through or around your wall. This should let you win all battles before you get Berserkers. Chokepoints usually murder mass T1 melee armies even if you outnumber the enemy 3:1 but 3 Ritualists reverses this scenario because 3 Ritualists could probably take out an infinite number of enemies at a chokepoint.

So once again, it is absolutely imperative that you level your Ritualists to 5 as quickly as you can.

Also, DON'T WAIT FOR YOUR 2ND HERO BEFORE CLEARING STACKS. Level your Ruler a.s.a.p. right from the word go. If you wait for a 2nd hero, the AI will clear all the stacks you could've gotten to. Even one high level Ritualist makes a HUGE difference so don't wait until you get your 2nd hero to start leveling your Ruler up.

A nice cheat is to recruit your third hero after turn 25. From turn 26 and onward your heroes are recruited at level 4. They can't summon Entwined Protectors yet but they can summon Entwined Thralls which makes a HUGE difference because being able to summon an infinite number of T1 units in combat is just ridiculously strong early game and Entwined Thralls punch way above their weight thanks to its Poison. So when you unlock your 3rd hero, wait until turn 26 to recruit him so you don't have to level him from level 1.

Consequently if you absolutely failed to level your Ritualists early, suicide those under level 4 into a random stack and recruit new ones AFTER you shuffled and confirmed you can recruit a Ritualist immediately. People who made custom heroes don't have to worry about this.

Heroes recruited at turn 56+ are recrutied at level 6 making them fully operational right from the get go. The next bump is at turn 91+ at level 9.

Against enemies with abilities that cascade to the next unit, your entire shield wall line is gonna die to it so against them create 2 lines of units, all standing 1 hex away from each other. Your Entwined Protectors are gonna have to be summoned a bit further away from the enemy due to the increased distance between your heroes and your foes but there's no other way to not die to the cascading AoE. When units in the front row die, move the units from the backrow and the side to fill their place.

When clearing infestations, NEVER clear Brigand Camps and Pirate Coves unless you are planning on actively waging war with the AI early. Brigand Camps and Pirate Coves will supply you with Hero kills all game which not only give 150 knowledge per kill thanks to the Knowledge Extraction Empire Skill, but it also gives a lot of hero equipment to disenchant for essence to forge your endgame gear with. And you can sell the hero corpses for 100 gold a piece. Brigand Camps and Pirate Coves are gifts that just keep on giving. Exploiting Knowledge Extraction is how you turbo through the tech tree so exploit it as best you can.

And declare war on all Free Cities for the exact same reason: periodic free Hero kills from war parties.

Clear all other types of infestations as soon as you can. They are nothing but a pain in the ass.

If you're ever short of money, sell Hero corpses. If that's not enough, depending on your build, you might want to sell some of your gear to one of the AIs. Rangers probably should not because you have soooooo many things to craft but Ritualists should because they need absolutely nothing. When selling gear, shop around, AI you have better relations with give better prices.

After your Throne City gets Shrine of the Wargod, start producing Berserkers but don't deviate from the stay-back-and-let-your-Ritualists-kill-all-enemies strategy until you have a pure army of Berserkers. And even then I'd still let my Ritualists kill everything and have my Berserkers charge and kill only enemies that get through.

Once your 2nd and 3rd cities get Shrine of the Wargod start producing Berserkers from them too.

IMPORTANT: Barbarian cities have something called RITUAL OF ALACRITY. It heals 50% of every unit in a stack that is standing in the center of a city or outpost AND it completely refreshes their movement points. To activate it, click your city/outpost, click the gear icon located at the middle-right edge of the city UI and click Ritual of Alacrity. Use this to keep all of your Berserkers healthy after every fight. They're gonna need it. Badly.

What you do after this point depends on the build.

Early game I spam Song of the Reckless on my Phantasm Warriors, Zombies, and Copper Golems because their damage capsizes after sustaining damage due to their high model count and Berserk removes the damage penalty from casualties.

Late game I spam Visions of Victory boosted by Chaos Bolstering Matrix to give my units 3x Strengthen and 3x Fortune.

Brutal Mark is not worth casting early game because you have nowhere near 100% crit rate and casting it is gonna end up KOing your entire mana income depending on how many Copper Golems and Elementals you're using. Cast it only late game once you get your +crit rate stuff up.

If you're using only Shock Units and the enemy is stronger than you, remember to move all your units to one side of the battlefield as described in the Shock Units section.

And as mentioned above, let your Ritualists do most of the fighting with their walls and walls of Entwined Protectors and Living Vines and use your other units solely to kill enemies that get through.

As of the Ogre patch, all xp is divided by a minimum of 6 so there is no benefit in clearing camps with less than 6 untis. So there's no real way to level your heroes quickly anymore.

To get the Hero class you want, every 5 turns spend 100 gold to shuffle your hero pool until you get the Hero class you want. Worst case scenario for me was 3 shuffles. Alternatively, you can now create custom heroes during faction creation so make a ton of them so that all of your recruitable heroes in every game will now only be your hand crafted heroes.

You can recruit one of your Ascended Rulers as a Pantheon Hero by paying an obscene amount of Imperium (100 Imperium + 100 Imperium/level). Cheapest is 400 Imperium at turn 11 but you should setup your 3 cities first.

Pantheon Heroes are every bit as strong as your Ruler. They get to keep their Ascension Perk and pick Ruler skills like Command. They are just so much more stronger than regular heroes that you should always recruit one.

By default you can only recruit 1 Pantheon Hero and the only way to recruit more is by going the Cult of Personality Society Trait. Pantheon Heroes are disabled in Story Realms but not challenge realms.

This build is for people who don't have any DLCs. Storm Spirits are the strongest Shock unit in the game, stronger than all of the T4-T5 Shock units, so naturally getting a full triple stack army of them will win you the game.

So what makes Storm Spirits the most powerful Shock unit in the game?

• They have flying movement so they can traverse any terrain with ease.
  
• They are single model units so even at 1 hp they'll deal max damage.
  
• They have a teleport which means they can ignore zone of control, dive deep into the enemy backline. surround enemies, and has the longest engagement distance in the game which means they will always get the first hit off and cripple the entire enemy army before they get to do anything. Always.
  
• Their teleport electrifies adjacent enemies, triggering Lightning Weapons' +20% damage effect
  
• Their teleported distance counts towards the +20% per tile moved damage bonus Shock units enjoy.
  
• The physical damage of their base attack gets KO'd by 3 Unit Enchantments. This has 2 implications, first is that most unit's resistance is lower than their defense so having no physical damage is a damage increase of itself, and second is that since there is no such thing as negative damage in this game, instead of losing 4 damage and gaining 8 damage, Storm Spirits will just gain 8 damage from their 4th -phys +element damage Unit Enchantment and lose nothing.
  
• As Elemental units they benefit from Shaper's Touch and the Shepherd ambition.
  
• As Magic Origin units, they benefit from Ascension:Summoner and Cosmic Overdrive (though we don't go it in this build because we prioritize Tomes that beef up our Ritualists instead of Storm Spirits.).
  
• They have Wind Wall (+60% evasion) which makes them basically impervious to all ranged attacks.
  
• Their teleport triggers Precognition, the new primary counter to single shot units, making it worthless against Storm Spirits.

Once you look at all of this, yeah, there's no question this is the strongest Shock unit in the game.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying Storm Spirits are the strongest non-mythic 1 on 1 unit in the game. i'm pretty sure T4 Racial Units would beat them 1v1 because Storm Spirits have trash defensive stats. I'm saying Storm Spirits are strongest unit as an army because they always get the first strike off due to their astronomical engagement distance and can pile on top and focus pummel to death half your opponent's army with their colossal damage output before your opponents get a chance to do anything. You saw them kill 1/3 of the Reaper army with their alpha strike in the Unit Overview section right? Imagine what they'll do to non-Reapers. And they get to do all of this again every single turn even with their teleport on cooldown due to their incredible mobility. Add to that Wind Wall making them impervious to half the entire unit roster in the game and you get the point why I consider Storm Spirits to be number 1.

If you want to get Cosmic Overdrive instead of Shaper's Touch + Awaken Earth on all of your Ritualists, go check out the Wizard King Ritualist build in the Chosen Destroyers section. If you don't want to go Chosen Destroyers or spam Explosive Manifestation, just take out Tome of Astral Convergence in that build and you should be good to go.

Storm Spirit crit chance

• +30% from Hero (Initiate, Adept, and Master of Chaos)
  
• +30% from Artisan Armaments
  
• +20% from Flameburst Weapons
  
• +20% from Morale
  
• Total: 100%

Visions of Victory can bestow +30% crit chance on Storm Spirits, letting them achieve 100% crit chance without high morale.

I recommend Shepherd.

Its Major Ambition is trivially accomplished by beating a weak encampment with just your Ruler + 1 Lesser Snow Spirit (you can use more if you want) and the +20hp it gives makes your Elite Rank Lesser Storm Spirits stronger than most T3 units in the game which is amazing because of just how cheap and spammable they are. For reference, Elite Rank Lesser Storm Spirits boosted by Shepherd have 95 hp which is 5 more than base rank Berserkers!

Unlike Berserkers you can reinforce your army with Lesser Storm Spirits while it's far away from your Throne City. The -20% upkeep stacked with the Shadow Binding Empire Skill also makes your Lesser Storm Spirits significantly more affordable.

I recommend Ascension:Summoner. The summoned Phantasm Warrior buffed with Song of the Reckless makes for an excellent damage dealer and tank letting you clear camps without sustaining much damage.

Later, the trait provides +10hp and +10% damage to your Elementals which doesn't seem like much but stacked with the Shepherd Major Ambition and Champion Ruler's army boosting skills, it really adds up.

• Barbarians to give all of our Storm Spirits +8 crit damage.

• Prolific Swarmers - Warriors and Berserkers are gonna have to carry our early game and you will struggle to maintain a full army of Berserkers until the late game even with this Society Trait.
  
• Imperialists - To pay for Awaken Tools' increased building costs due to them being build way faster.

You can get other Society Traits if you want but for beginners I highly recommend the above two because they're very simple and completely devoid of any gimmicks, removing a layer of complexity to the game while you learn how to play.

• Strong - +2 damage
  
• Tenacious - halves damage loss from casualties
  
• Fast Recuperation - +10 healing per turn
  
• Careless - -1 def and res from Defense Mode

Storm Spirits are fully indpendent of Racial Traits so we grab the Racial Traits that are great for our Warriors and Berserkers to have an easier early game, and Fast Recuperation to help with healing our Ritualists.

• (M) Tome of Enchantment - Awaken Tools, Sundering Blades
  
• (S) Tome of Cryomancy - Frost Weapons, School of Cryomancy
  
  
• (A) Tome of Evocation - Summon Lesser Storm Spirit, Lightning Weapons
  
• (M) Tome of Artificing - Artisan Armaments
  
  
• (M) Tome of the Dungeon Depths - Raiders of the deep.
  ***People who don't own the Giant Kings DLC should grab any other +2 Materium Affinity Tome like Tome of Transmutation for Steel Skin
  
• (C) Tome of Pyromancy - Searing Weapons
  
  
• (C) Tome of Devastation - Flameburst Weapons
  
• (M) Tome of the Transmutation or any other +2 Materium Affinity Tome.
  
  
• (M) Tome of the Creator - Shaper's Touch
  
  
• (O) Tome of Zeal - Legion of Zeal
  
• (N) Tome of Roots - Poison Weapons

We start with Tome of Enchantment because it's the best starting Tome in the game and it gives +2 Materium Affinity. Then we grab Tome of Cryomancy for Knowledge Extraction because Knowledge Extraction is the best Empire Skill in the game.

We grab Tome of Evocation both for Lightning Weapons and because it gives us access to the unit we intend to win the game with: Storm Spirits.

We grab Tome of Artificing for +2 Materium Affinity and Artisan Weapons which gives +30% crit rate for all of our Storm Spirits.

We grab Tome of the Dungeon Depths for +2 Materium Affinity so our Ritualists can grab Awaken Earth. Tome of the Dungeon Depths is chosen over Tome of Rock because Storm Spirits are gonna have negative phys damage by the time we get all of our +damage Unit Enchantments so Obsidian Weapons isn't gonna do much for them.

We grab Tome of Pyromancy for Searing Weapons and 4 Chaos Affinity to be able to select the Adept of Chaos signature skill and to be able to grab Tome of Devastation for Flameburst Weapons which not only gives us +20% more crit chance on our Storm Spirits, but also lets us grab the Master of Chaos signature skill for +10% more crit chance.

It's important to note that because we don't get 4 Chaos Affinity until the end of Tier 3, your first couple of heroes are going to have to grab Initiate and Adept of Materium instead of Chaos and either reset later or have the later heroes grab Adept of Chaos instead. Only the Army Leader's army wide stuff affects your units so if you want a later hero to be an Army Leader instead of the one you have now, skip all the army stuff on the hero you have now.

Then we grab Tome of Transmutation for the +2 Materium Affinity to be able to grab Tome of the Creator for Shaper's Touch. Transmutation is chosen over Rock and Golden Realm because Storm Spirits' physical damage is in the negatives right now, and Transmutation gives us Steel Skin AND lets us craft higher tier armor for our Ritualists which in the end gives us more than Goldtouched's +2 resistance.

I grab Shaper's Touch solely for the +10hp heal per turn on the World Map. I liked the old version better which granted Undying but oh well. Shaper's Touch is chosen over Cosmic Overdrive because we need to grab 3 more Astral Tomes to get there while Shaper's Touch only requires 1 more Materium Tome. But if you really want to, you can go for Cosmic Overdrive. Just get Tome of Roots and Zeal first.

Then we just grab all the other +damage Unit Enchantments and we're done.

You can also grab Tome of the Demon Gate to give your Ruler, Heroes, and Berserkers flight and Frenzy.

It is important to note that because we don't get our 4th Chaos Affinity until after Tome of Transmutation, you have to grab Initiate, Adept, and Master of Materium at the start on all of your heroes instead of Chaos and once you finally get Tome of Pyromancy:

• reset your Ruler to grab Initiate + Adept of Chaos and Master of Materium
  
• reset your Heroes who still have a free reset to grab Initiate + Adept of Chaos and Master of Materium
  
• if you have less than 3 heroes who have Initiate + Adept of Chaos then have your newly recruited heroes go them instead and have your non-reset-able heroes keep their Materium signature skills. And remember to skip all the army wide skills on your non-reset-able heroes and put them in the same stack as your 1st hero so they're not the Army Leader.

Your finally army is going to be

• Ruler + 5 Storm Spirits
  
• 1 Heroes + 5 Storm Spirits. The Hero has Initiate, Adept, and Master of Chaos + Master of Materium.
  
• 1+ Heroes + Storm Spirits. Army Leader Hero with Initiate, Adept, and Master of Chaos + Master of Materium.

Doing all of this has an added benefit of strengthening your early game because +crit chance is terrible until you start nearing 100% where as +def is good at any value.

If you hit level 8 early, on heroes with free resets you should grab Initiate of Nature at level 8 instead of waiting for Tome of Artificing.

if your scouts get you a free animal or elemental then use that + your Ruler to complete her Major Ambition a.s.a.p.. You generally want to clear your Major Ambition a.s.a.p. not only for the governance bonus but also because it's gonna get much harder to complete it as the game goes on. If your scout did not get you a free animal or elemental then summon a Lesser Snow Spirit to complete your Ruler's Major Ambition instead. In this scenario I don't clear the weakest encampment near my Throne City until I get a Lesser Snow Spirit.

Let's talk about Elite Rank Lesser Storm Spirits. They are almost as strong as base rank Berserkers. They hit just as hard because most enemies have a much higher def than Res and your Unit Enchantments should completely KO your Lesser Storm Spirits' physical portion of their attack. They also have Wind Barrier which makes them impervious to ranged attacks but they are nowhere near as tanky (2 def) as Berserkers against melee enemies as Berserkers can seriously stack defense thanks to racial transformations.

With the Shepherd Major Ambition completed your Elite Rank Lesser Storm Spirits will have more hp than base rank Berserkers, closing the gap significantly. While I still put Berserkers above Shepherd boosted Elite Rank Lesser Storm Spirits, I'd say the Shepherd boosted Elite Rank Lesser Storm Spirits are superior to the vast majority of T3 units in the game and because they only cost 60 mana to summon, you can spam 1-2 of them every turn, letting you go on extended campaigns because if any Berserkers die you can just trivially replace them with a near-equivalent anytime anywhere.

Which is why once you grab the Shadow Binding Empire Skill you should summon 5 Lesser Storm Spirits and stick them into your Ruler's stack at all times not only to get a pure Shock army earlier but also because the Lesser Storm Spirits are significantly cheaper than Berserkers to recruit and maintain. And they evolve into Storm Spirits, the strongest Shock unit in the game. Though at this stage in the game don't expect your Storm Spirits to survive for long especially on auto-resolve. Auto-resolve loves to teleport your Storm Spirits by themselves into the middle of the enemy's army so if you don't have a full stack of them they are gonna kamikaze themselves to death so my recommendation is don't use auto-resolve until 100% of your units are Storm Spirits.

If you have 5 level 12 Ritualists you can also keep all your Storm Spirits alive by killing everything with only your Ritualists' summons and have the Storm Spirits hang back solely as backup. 5 level 12 Ritualists summoning everything they can and sending them all against the enemy will kill most armies by themselves. Only the toughest armies like 4 Golden Golems can survive the onslaught and even then they'll be heavily damaged and have low morale, making them easy pickings for your teleporting Storm Spirits.

And that's it. GG you win.

The theory behind this build is very simple. Rangers can kill anything and everything as long as they have some kind of fodder to take some of the hits. Berserkers are great fodder thanks to their Berserk ability and can be even greater fodder with Steelskin, Goldtouched, and Keeper's Mark.

Artificer - Your Heroes cannot benefit from the Guided Projectiles Unit Enchantment so you need a Bolt Repeater to blow up Flora and Obstacles to get rid of Obscured's -40% accuracy penalty for your Rangers.

And absolutely no Ascension Trait increases your damage outside of Strengthen which you already max out on so...

• Gloryseeker because it increases your Heroes' Magelock damage.

• Barbarians to give all of our Heroes +8 crit damage.

• Prolific Swarmers - Warriors and Berserkers are gonna have to carry our early game and you will struggle to maintain a full army of Berserkers until the late game even with this Society Trait.
  
• Imperialists - To pay for Awaken Tools' increased building costs due to them being build way faster.

You can get other Society Traits if you want but for beginners I highly recommend the above two because they're very simple and completely devoid of any gimmicks, removing a layer of complexity to the game while you learn how to play.

• Keen-Sighted - +20% accuracy. You need it for quick reflexes, obscured, and Wind Barrier
  
• Overwhelm Tactics - +20% crit chance when next to another unit with this trait. Mandatory for 100% crit chance.
  
• Strong - +2 Phys damage. +4 for Magelocks. Chosen over Pack Tactics because flat damage is better than % damage.
  
• Careless - Flaw. -1 def and res during Defense mode. A negligible flaw because we don't use defense mode, at all, with Rangers or their spawned zombies.

• (M) Tome of Enchantment - Awakened Tools, Sundering Blades, Spell-Tempered Shields
  
• (S) Tome of Cryomancy - Frost Weapons, School of Cryomancy
  
  
• (C) Tome of Revelry - Bloodfury Weapons, Revels of Carnage
  
• (M) Tome of Artificing - Artisan Armaments
  
  
• (M) Tome of Transmutation - Transmutation Circle
  
• (C) Tome of Devastation - Flameburst Weapons
  
  
• (C) Tome of the Demon Gate - Demonkin
  
• (M) Tome of the Golden Realm - Goldtouched
  
  
• (C) Tome of the Chaos Lord - Demonic Onslaught
  
  
• (O) Tome of Zeal - Legion of Zeal
  
• (O) Tome of Sanctuary - Keeper's Mark
  
• (M) Tome of Rock - Earthkin, Obsidian Weapons
  
• (A) Tome of Evocation - Lightning Weapons, Mana Conduit
  
• (C) Tome of Pyromancy - Searing Weapons
  
• (N) Tome of Roots - Poison Weapons

The number 1 Priority is Tome of Transmutation to get your Magelocks.

We start with Tome of Enchantment because it's the best starting Tome in the game and then we grab Tome of Cryomancy for Knowledge Extraction because Knowledge Extraction is the best Empire Skill in the game.

We then grab Tome of Artificing for Artisan Armaments and Materium Affinity. Tome of Transmutation's requirements are now met and as an added bonus Adept of Materium's requirements are met too.

Next our Ranger needs 4 Chaos Affinity to grab Adept of Chaos so we grab Tome of Revelry for Bloodfury Weapons and Revels of Carnage to level our heroes quicker. Thanks to Barbarians and Prolific Swarmers we now have 4 Chaos Affinity.

Next our Ranger needs 8 Materium Affinity to grab Paragon of Materium so we grab Tome of the Golden Realms because out of all the remaining Materium Tomes, the Goldtouched Minor Transformation does the most.

To grab Tome of the Chaos Lord we need 8 Chaos Affinity so we need to grab 2 more Chaos Tomes. Our choices are Tome of Devastation to increase Berserker's crit chance and Tome of the Demon Gate for the Demonkin transformation which does a LOT for both your Heroes and your Berserkers. And since level 16 is still a while away we grab it before Tome of the Golden Realm.

We then grab Tome of the Chaos Lord to get Killing Momentum on all of our units especially our Rangers. Rangers with Killing Momentum makes them almost as strong as they were pre-rework. The only thing they're missing compared to before is +30% accuracy from Hero Skills.

After that, the only thing left is grabbing the rest of the +elemental damage unit enchantments for our Berserkers. But wait! Thanks to our Imperialists Society Trait we can grab Tome of Sanctuary for Keeper's Mark with only 1 Order Tome in order to make our Berserkers disgustingly hard to kill! So we grab Tome of Zeal first and then Tome of Sanctuary and then the rest of the +elemental damage Unit Enchantments.

And that's our build.

Follow the Barbarian Early Game section and once you get Tome of Transmutation build your Magelocks and Crowns of Accuracy. Once you get 6 sets go for the win with 6 Heroes and 12 Berserkers with several stacks of Berserkers staying at home to defend your 3 cities.

With the new Custom Hero mechanic you should make 15 custom Ranger heroes all with Gloryseeker. And make sure they start with a mount + bow. If you don't, you're gonna get melee Rangers and they are 100% absolute worthless crap that will die to anything and everything and accomplish nothing with their pathetic damage and worthless net.

SPAM Revels of Carnage after grouping your heroes up first to level them SIGNIFICANTLY faster.

Since we do have Tome of Devastation and Demon Gate, if you don't mind the Imperium hit you could grab 8+ Balors. 8 Balors stacking their AoE attacks on the same group is gonna wipe it out. So Balors kill 6+ units with their alpha strike and Rangers kills 12 units for a complete 1 turn army wipe.

The next two builds in the guide go Feudal:Monarchy so rather than repeat how to play Feudal:Monarchy in both sections, I'll go over how to play Barbarians first before going into the two buiilds.

Feudal:Monarchy's early game is really unique because of just how powerful Call of Militia and Aspirant Knights are. So most of the content here cannot be adapted to other cultures.

The Ruler Ambition, Ascension Trait, and Tome Selection Order depends on the build you go but everything else is identical for all my builds which is why I grouped them all here.

• Flying Mount - Flying Mounts turn your already overpowered Aspirant Knights into gods by letting them fly over enemy units and butcher them all from behind. Well worth the 3 racial trait point cost.
  
• Adaptable - Evolves your Aspirant Knights faster. I think this is more impactful than +8 hp.
  
• Fast Recuperation - Healing your units in enemy territory is one of the most excruciating experiences in the game especially heroes since nothing increases their healing per turn until the late game.
  
• Careless - I never use defense mode so this flaw translates to a free trait point.

Since we're turtling as in we don't leave our domain for very long, you can swap out Fast Recuperation with Strong if you want. If you're not turtling however, if you like going on extended campaigns far way from your domain, never ditch Fast Recuperation for any reason. Ever.

• Militia Barracks
  
• Stonemason
  
• Masonic Hall
  
  
• Library
  
• Arcane Institute
  
  
• Town Hall II
  
• Royal Smith
  
• Armory
  
  
• Shrine
  
• Obelisk
  
  
• Tavern
  
• Bathhouse
  
  
• Shipyard
  
• Vendors
  
• Markets
  
  
• Wizard Tower: Foundation
  
• Wizard Tower: Item Forge
  
• Wizard Tower: Crypts
  
• Wizard Tower: Prison Cells
  
  
• Research Post Special Province Improvement (If you can)
  
• Academy (if you can)
  
• Monolith
  
• Mint
  
  
• Town Hall IV

• Workshop
  
• Stonemason
  
• Masonic Hall (only if you boost it)
  
  
• Library
  
• Arcane Institute
  
  
• Shrine
  
• Obelisk
  
  
• Shipyard
  
• Vendors
  
• Markets
  
  
• Town Hall II
  
• Blacksmith
  
• Armory
  
  
• Tavern
  
• Bathhouse
  
  
• Research Post Special Province Improvement (If you can)
  
• Academy (if you can)
  
• Monolith
  
• Mint
  
  
• Town Hall III
  
• Town Hall IV

Everyone grabs production and research first.

Then the Throne City rushes Town Hall II and + draft buildings to start producing Aspirant Knights.

2nd and 3rd cities rush the cheap mana buildings first to quickly pay for unit enchantments and then cheap gold buildings to pay for the increasingly more expensive army.

Then Throne City gets the cheap resource buildings and the 2nd and 3rd cities build Town Hall II + draft buildings to recruit Aspirant Knights

Then everyone gets the expensive buildings.

You get a SIGNIFICANT amount of Research from the Knowledge Extraction Empire Skill so getting Academy up is not a priority.

The above build order is NOT set in stone. Every game is different so if you're short on a particular resource including stability, don't be afraid to switch things up.

The above build order gets Town Hall III and IV by default but obviously if you're going a summon build then don't get Town Hall III or IV. Build up your Mage Tower a.s.a.p. instead.

You might be tempted to build Town Hall II early with your 2nd and 3rd cities because of just how much gold you've stockpiled but if you do, your gold stockpile is gonna get KO'd really quickly so increase your Aspirant Knight production speed carefully.

Give your whisper stone to your Throne city for more stability. Or not. If you want to engage in diplomacy and not raze everything then I guess you can use it on free cities but this guide is not going to engage in diplomacy to simplify things so give it to your Throne city and forget about it.

Build 2 outposts as soon as you can and as close to each other and the throne city as possible and turn them into cities as quickly as possible. You want land tiles not water tiles because you can't build special province improvements on water tiles so place them in the direction with more land.

For combat, forget Defenders and just spam Call Militia. This isn't Chosen Destroyers. You can take it slow, be nice to everyone, delay wars and use only 1 gold upkeep militia units until you have a full Aspirant Knight army.

In fact you can use Militias to scout instead of actual scouts. Sure they're much worse, but they're 1/6th of the upkeep cost. You can get 6 Militias for the price of 1 Scout. But don't actually scout with 6 Militias because unit enchantment upkeep will murder you. I like to put my starting scout and 2 Militias on scout duty.

If your build gets a ton of +damage unit enchantments especially Mighty Meek like in my Shrine of Smiting build, then you actually don't need any ritualists. Ruler only, no heroes, with 17 Aspriant Knights can just roflstomp everything all the way to your T5 Mythic Unit. You don't even need an interim T4 army.

If your build gets basically no +damage unit enchantment like in my Reaper build on the other hand, then just like every other Culture you need as many Ritualists as you can get your hands on and level them to 5 as quickly as possible so they can start carrying your ass until you get your endgame units out.

And that's pretty much it. Militia->Aspirant Knights->Endgame Units.

As mentioned in the General Build Designing Strategy section, Aspirant Knights are better than most T4 units because they deal more damage than them, have 48 movement, slippery, and you can give them Flying mounts via racial traits. The only thing they lack is decent defense but Shock Unit's main defense is an overwhelming alpha strike and Aspirant Knights hit harder than T4 shock untis. In my opinion Aspirant Knights are single handedly the best culture unit in the game.

Regarding Sundering Blades, compared to -phys +damage unit enchantments, you come out ahead from the 3rd strike onward. So if it takes 3 Aspirant Knights to kill something, Sundering Blades is better even with like 3 -phys unit enchantments and in my experience, it always takes at least 3 Aspirant Knights to kill most things and Tome of Enchantment comes with TONS of other amazing benefits.

Longbows on the other hand are terrible units. First they're ranged units and we covered why ranged units are terrible. And they're also inferior to other T3 ranged units. Take the Watcher unit from Tome of Scrying for example, a Tome that 100% of Longbow builds have to get no matter what to overcome obscured's -40% accuracy penalty. Both of their base attacks do equal damage but Watcher's 3 action attack does 40 damage, inflicts marked, and can be used every other turn where as the Longbow's 3 action attack does 30 damage, does nothing special, and can only be used once every 3 turns. What exactly is the advantage here? Well, usually it's that Longbows have a gold upkeep while Watchers have a mana upkeep but you should always have enough mana from your 3 cities to pay for a full T3 magic origin army.

***Multiplayer people love Longbows. They get Protective Wildgrowth on their Ritualists and give True Strike once very 3 turns on their Longbows to skip Tome of Scrying. Personally I'd rather have my Ritualists summoning an endless wall of Entwined Protectors and Living Vines while also bleeding everyone to death.

Just be sure to charge in with 100% of your Aspirant Knights on the same turn and kill/maim as many units as you can, and keep Isolation Slayer in mind. If 2 units are together, kill one first then attack the 2nd one.

Don't Auto-resolve. Auto-resolve loves to not send everyone in at the same time and get everyone killed.

The bottleneck of your T5 Unit count is Imperium. You only get 60 per turn and it's a ***** to try and increase this. T5 Mythic Units cost 7 imperium per turn and no upkeep reduction skill affects Imperium so T5 Mythic Units are always gonna cost 7 Imperium no matter what build you go.

60/7 = 8.57. You can only get 8 T5 Mythic Units before you go in the negative.

But all that changed with the Feudal Rework. Feudal:Monarchy makes all units in your Ruler's stack have 0 upkeep, including imperium. It's literally the only thing in the game that can reduce a T5 Mythic Unit's Imperium upkeep and with this you can add 5 more T5 Mythic Units to your army for a grand total of 8+5 = 13 T5 Mythic Units. Add in 3 heroes for Army Leader stuff and that's 16, almost a full army. And with +15 Imperium from the 3 plant Magic Materials that's 18!

This is so fascinating and never been done before that I had to make a build around it. And the T5 Mythic Unit I choose is Reapers because Reapers are contenders for strongest unit in the game, have a Soul upkeep making their mana upkeep affordable without Chosen Destroyers, and Feast of Souls makes your life just so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easier that of course I'm gonna pick the Mythic Unit that grabs Tome of Souls as its prerequisite.

Reaper's game winning strategy is simple. Move in and instant kill the entire enemy army with Finger of Death. 60% chance to kill is not impressive especially with the high status resistance of lategame enemies but add in an army leader Hero with 3 Astral Signature skills that give a total of -6 Status Resistance and your chance to kill is gonna always be 60%. With 15 Reapers that's 9 kills on average which is half your enemy's army so right from the start the battle is gonna be 18 v.s. 9.

All Reapers on the map gain a stack of strengthen from every death in combat so those 9 deaths from your opening Fingers of Death are gonna bestow 5x Strengthen to all your Reapers.

Their regular attack damage is nothing to write home about but they do ignore 50% def and res so it's above average I guess. And combined with the 5x strengthen from the Fingers of Death and +20% damage from Cosmic Overdrive, I'd say they can hit hard enough to win the game.

Please note that you need 10 x 5 = 50 souis per turn to maintain your 15 Reapers.

This is the most hero independent build in the guide. Your heroes' sole purpose in life is to give army wide ignore 6 status resistance on your Reapers. Everything else be it class, equipment, or build doesn't matter in the slightest. But still, Ritualists are probably the best because they don't need Tome of Transmutation, Entwined Protectors are that good early game, and 3x Ritualists can bestow 3x Strengthen, 3x Bolstered Defense, and 3x Bolstered Resistance to all of your Reapers.

This build is probably the most powerful build in this guide for Story Realms especially if you grab Chosen Destroyers. Except for Arcalot. That Story Realm has a time limit and Reapers take a while to bring out. For Arcalot go my Cult of Personality 5x Artificer Elementalist build.

This build is designed to auto-resolve all fights. I beat Brutal Difficulty and all the non-time limit Story Realms on the hardest difficulty by auto-resolve only with this build.

Champion works well as always but I'm partial to Wizard King for this build due to the sheer amount of summon spell spammage the entire game.

Those of you who want to go Dragon Lord, Eldritch Sovereign, or Giant Kings need to adapt this build to go a different T5 Mythic Unit, one that isn't made or broken by Ignore 6 Status Resistance. Like Astras, Balors, or Fallen Angels. But if you want to go Reapers, I suggest you stick with Champion or Wizard King.

Crusader hands down no contest. It's the only ambition capable of increasing the Reaper's damage output. If you failed to find even a single T4-T5 Undead unit to kill even in the Ocean, this build has the flexibility required to go Tome of Corruption, letting you spawn Umbral Nests which will eventually spawn T4 Undead units as long as you keep killing their patrol and invasion stacks. You could alternatively get your Reapers to desert you by killing your Soul Income and staying at negative souls for a short while.

If that's too much of a hassle then go Raider.

I recommend Ascension:Summoner. Lets you clear camps quickly and gives +10% damage and +10hp to all the Reapers, Storm Spirits, Watchers, and Phantasm Warriors in battle. Especially useful at the start of the game. Combined with Shepherd it almost doubles the hp of your base rank Lesser Storm Spirits.

Since we grab Tome of Summoning in this build, you can also go Artificer for the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build. After Cosmic Overdrive and 5x Strengthen, the loss of Ascension:Summoner is only a 5.6% damage drop. In exchange your Ruler becomes a crazy powerful artillery piece. I think you come out ahead in damage with it.

Feudal:Monarch for 5 upkeep free T5 Mythic units and literally nothing else. Unless you're also going Chosen Destroyers. If so then you're also grabbing Feudal:Monarch for Call Militia to roflstomp the early game.

Runesmith - Because we use Magic Origin units from the very start and until the end of the game, and because milita's unit upkeep is a measily 1 gold which means 99% of its unit upkeep is gonna be Unit Enchantment upkeep, Prolific Swarmers isn't gonna do jack for us. So I recommend Runesmith.

Wonder Architects - Gives you 5 Imperium per turn at the start and gives you 1 additional Materium affinity for a total of 3, letting you grab Tome of Transmutation without getting a single Materium Tome.

We don't need Imperialists because Militia are 1 upkeep per turn, 1/3 of our army is completely free, and Aspirant Knights are T2.

You can go Chosen Destroyers and Scions of Evil for +15 more Imperium for turn. These two Society Traits are probably much, much more powerful than Runesmith and Wonder Architects. If you're interested, check out the Chosen Destroyers section of this guide.

Vision of Ruin is also absolutely fantastic. That 5 souls per turn let you spam Feast of Souls without Tome of Necromancy. And once you complete it, the extra +20 souls per turn really helps because of how soul hungry Reapers are. The decaying Zombies spawned on kill is kinda redundant with Reapers but if you decide to go Fallen Angels instead, it's fantastic.

• (S) Tome of Necromancy - Soul Collection, Soul Well, Skeleton Reanimation
  
• (A) Tome of Evocation - Lightning Blades, Summon Lesser Storm Spirit,
  
  
• (A) Tome of Summoning - Arcane Restoration, Summon Astral Serpent
  
• (S) Tome of Souls - Feast of Souls
  
  
• (S) Tome of the Great Transformation - Desecrate Structure, Bone Dragon Reanimation
  
• (A) Tome of Scrying - Mental Mark
  
  
• (C) Tome of the Reaper - Summon Reaper, Harvest Population
  
• (A) Tome of Astral Convergeance - Explosive Manifestation, Astral Shattering
  
  
• (A) Tome of the Archmage - Cosmic Overdrive
  
• (O)(S) Tome of the Revenant - Undead Resentment, Necropolis
  
  
• (M) Tome of Transmutation - Transmutation Circle

Reapers, being Mythic units, literally only have 3 things that boost their damage: strengthen, crits, and Cosmic Overdrive. Unfortunately we can't go crit because our signature skills have to be Astral for the -6 status resistance for Finger of Death, and we can get 5x Strengthen on all of our Reapers if we have enough of them because they get a Strengthen if something dies and with enough Reapers you're gonna kill at least 5x enemies with Finger of Death at the start. So that leaves Cosmic Overdrive.

We start with Tome of Necromancy so we can start stockpiling souls at the start. +25 souls per turn at the beginning of the game will make Casting Points the bottlneck of your Reaper acquisition, not Souls. In fact you'll have so many Souls you can grab a full Bone Dragon Army while you're waiting for your Reapers to finish summoning.

Tome of Evocation is literally our sole +damage Tome because Astral is completely devoid of other +damage unit enchantments, so we get this first a.s.a.p.

Tome of Summoning is gotten for Arcane Restoration and Astral Serpents. In this build, because we only get the one +damage unit enchantment, I think Astral Serpents are better than Aspirant Knights because our Aspirant Knights won't be reaching the level of damage they need to obliterate the enemy with their alpha strike, leaving them seriously vulnerable to counter attacks. Astral Serpents on the other hand has Arcane Restoration spam to keep all of them alive, healthy, and above 50% hp.

Tome of Scrying is gotten for Mental Mark which bestows 3 Sundered Resistance in a 1-hex AoE. 4 with Astral Amplifying Lens. and 6 when overcharged. Sundered Resistance bestows -1 status resistance per stack and negative status resistance actually increases the chances of "debuffs" like Finger of Death of succeeding. So if you use a Wizard King and cast dual overcharged Mental Mark on a group of enemies, the chance of Finger of Death working on that group rises from 60% to 100%.

Tome of Souls is gotten for Shadow Affinity and Feast of Souls which can heal your entire Reaper Army to full hp in a single turn. You don't actually need this because Arcane Restoration spam is enough to deal with attrition damage but it's just a huge quality of life increase. And it's how you deal with cities surrounded by Gloom.

Tome of the Great Transformation is for Desecrate Structure which will provide the majority of our souls. Bone Dragon Reanimation is a nice upgrade to our T3 units because since we only have the one +damage Unit Enchantments in this build (Lightning Blades or Lightning Focus), we have to upgrade our army by going higher tier units. My advice is get a full Bone Dragon Army even while actively summoning Reapers because it takes FOREVER to summon 15 Reapers. So unless you want to sit on your ass and do nothing for a significant amount of time, raise all the Bone Dragons you can even if it means pausing Reaper summoning due to shortage of souls.

Tome of the Reaper is our game winning Tome.

Tome of Astral Convergeance is gotten Astral Shattering which lets us raise 3-4 Bone Dragons per cast. Our Explosive Manifestation on the other hand, is not worth a damn because we only have the 1 +damage unit enchantment.

Then finally Tome of the Archmage for Cosmic Overdrive.

Then Tome of Transmutation to get the 3 plant Magic Materials for +15 Imperium per turn. If you didn't go Runesmith + Wonder Architect then rab any Materium Tome to meet its affinity requirement.

Tome of Revenant because Undead Resentment is one of only 2 Unit Enchantments that affects our Reapers. Vicious Killer routes the enemy army ridiculously quickly and the +2 fire and spirit resistances are nice.

Then I'd dump the rest of my research into either Order Tomes for Ascended Warriors or Chaos Tomes to give our Explosive Manifestation summons some much needed damage and crits.

If you are having trouble completing Crusader's Major Ambition Quest, get Tome of Corruption.

More than the other builds, it is absolutely imperative that you level your Ritualist Heroes to level 5 as quickly as possible. Without any unit enchantments, in a straight fight, your T1-T3 units will always lose. It is your heroes that will have to do the majority of the heavy lifting until you get your Reapers out.

Structure build order is mostly the same as normal except rush Mage Tower:Apex instead of Town Hall III because I find longbows underwhelming and Aspirant Knights are T2 so they don't need Town Hall III. Even with Tome of Scrying I'd refrain from getting Longbows because we have nothing that boosts their damage. So forget about Longbows, they're really not that good.

Get up to 5 skeletons max at the start of the game. They're better than militia and being magic origin units, you need to stick them in your Ruler's stack.

Other than that, follow the Feudal:Monarchy early game until you get Summon Astral Serpent. Once you do spam it. You want a full army of them because since we only get the 1 +damage unit enchantment, your Aspirant Knights' alpha strike is not strong enough to keep them alive so it's better to rely on Astral Serpents with Arcane Restoration spam than Aspirant Knights.

SHUFFLE research as soon as you get Tome of the Great Transformation to get Desecrate Structures and Bone Dragon reanimation a.s.a.p. Reapers cost a lot of Souls to summon and maintain so you better get your soul income up a.s.a.p.

Whether to cast Astral Serpent or Desecrate Structure is a real dilemma. You probably won't have a full Astral Serpent army, not even close, by the time you get Desecrate Structures and a pure Astral Serpent Army is amazingly powerful even with only the 1 +damage unit enchantment because Arcane Restoration and Astral Refuge are that amazing. But if you want enough Souls to get both Bone Dragons and Reapers, you need Desecrate Structures up.

My opinion is, prioritize Astral Serpent until you finish getting a full stack of them. So that's either 5, 10, or 15, less if you got extra heroes or Bone Dragons. And then max out Desecrate Structures before you resume summoing Astral Serpents again. Like Aspirant Knights Astral Serpents do NOT do well when mixed with other units. You want Pure stacks of them exclusively.

Always get a fully army of Bone Dragons afterwards. Emphasis on ALWAYS. You should always try to get a full Bone Dragon army as soon as possible in every single game even if you've researched Reapers and is actively summoning them because it takes FOREVER and I mean FOREVER to summon all 15 Reapers, and because we chose not to get any +damage unit enchantments, we need to scale via tiering up. So unless you want to sit on your ass and do nothing for like 40 turns because your T3 army isn't strong enough to win 2 battles back to back on the same turn against an AI, get a full Bone Dragon army even if it means pausing Reaper summoning due to shortage of souls to keep up the momentum and start dismissing them one by one once your Reaper + Bone Dragon count exceeds 15.

The AI for some reason tends to leave Ocean mobs alone so Ghost Ships and Krakens are usually my main source of Bone Dragons. Ghost Ships also complete your Crusader's Major Ambition Quest.

Fun fact, I beat Brutal Difficulty using only Bone Dragons as my endgame army, no heroes. So Bone Dragons are endgame units if you want them to be so don't be shy about spending tons of souls to fill your army out with them.

Once you get Reapers that's it! Just roflstomp the enemy on auto-resolve.

Your army progression is going to be
T1 Militias. Maybe T1 Defenders too if you want.
->T2 Aspirant Knights + T1 Militias
->T3 Astral Serpents + T2 Aspirant Knights
->T4 Bone Dragons + T3 Astral Serpents
->T5 Reapers + T4 Bone Dragons
->T5 Reapers only

Heroes go 3 Astral Signature skills to give ignore 6 status resistance on your Reapers' Finger of Death and as their fourth and final Signature Skill, go Adept of Shadow and grab Unholy Leader to beef up your Reapers a bit more.

Once you get Exalted by Shadows spam Astral Shattering to level your heroes quickly to 16.

If you're having trouble completing your Crusader Major Ambition Quest, as mentioned before, grab Tome of Corruption and start killing the patrol stacks of Umbral Nests so they spawn Bone Dragons and Revenant Titans.

Adapting this build to use other T5 units is really easy. Just swap out all the Shadow Tomes with whatever Tomes you need to unlock your mythic unit. As of Archon Prophecy there are a LOT of viable Mythic Units. Balors, Astras, Fallen Angels, T5 Dragons, etc.

With normal T5 dragons, get Tome of the Goddess of Nature instead of Archmage for Force of Nature because normal T5 dragons don't benefit from Cosmic Overdrive. And be sure to get Ascension: Dragonheart. +20% damage, +2 def, and +2 res to ALL dragons in combat with your Ruler is huge! Stacked with Feudal:Monarchy and all your Dragons by default get +30% damage, +3 def, and +3 res.

Fallen Angels, Astras, Balors, and Dragons enable you to go a different Ruler type than Champion or Wizard King because Ignore 6 Status resistance or +30% crit chance is not mandatory on them. So if you want to go a non-champion or non-wizard king ruler, adapting this build for the other T5 Mythic Units is how you do it. But again, Champion and Wizard Kings are the best because +30% crit chance makes a HUGE difference because Mythic Unit's AoE attacks can crit

I have a dedicated Shrine of Smiting build in the next section, and both a Balor build and a Frost Dragon build in the Chosen Destroyers section so check them out if you're interested in these T5 Mythic Units.

Just keep Upkeep in mind when choose a T5 Mythic Unit. There's a reason why the Balor and Frost Dragons are in the Chosen Destroyers section.

Ritualists can replace your entire frontline all by themselves which lets you get away with 1 Ritualist 5 ranged unit compositions.

And the ranged unit I choose is Shrine of Smiting because

• They completely ignore Accuracy. Against enemies obscured with 4 stacks of Windwalls and clinging mists (aka those Summer Mistwatchers mobs) Shrines of Smiting will hit 100% of the time.
  
• At Champion rank they have 7-hex range which is MASSIVE.
  
• They do 34 damage a hit. Which seems unimpressive at first but they gain +4 damage for every faithful unit in the battle, with a maximum of 10. So if you build your army right, they will be doing 74 damage a hit at 100% accuracy.
  
• They also ignore 50% of res which is HUGE. 14 res enemies have 77% damage reduction. 7 res enemies on the other hand have 52%.
  
• You're thinking 10 Faithful units leave only 8 Shrines of Smiting right? NOPE. The Crusader Ambition's Major Ambition Quest when completed bestows Zeal and Faithful to every unit in the stack including the Hero itself and T5 Mythic Units. So with 2 Heroes and 16 Shrines of Smiting, all 16 Shrines of Smiting will get the maximum +40 damage from smiting prayer.
  
• If you don't want the 2nd hero and want to go Ruler + 17 Shrines of Smiting with max bonus, you can. Summoned units with faithful count so you just need to summon 4 units with faithful.
  
  • Elementalist Eldritch Sovereigns can achieve this really easily. With Mighty Meek their starting 2 Fleshlings has Faithful. 2x Bolt Repeaters from the Artificer Ascension Trait also get Faithful and that's 4. And every T1 summoned Elemental will also have Faithful. And you also got Summon Spider wands. If you want your T3 Elementals and Flesh Abominations to count too then grab Tome of Sanctuary for Keeper's Mark. It gives Faithful as well on top of ensuring the Elementals will survive 1 turn longer.
    
  • Elementalist Giant Kings can as well as their animated objects are permanent duration T2 units.
    
  • This is actually very significant because it means 1 Ruler + 5 Shrine of Smiting can enter Wonders and the like at full +40 power.
• Shrine of Smiting requires high Order so it can easily grab Tome of Supremacy for Anthem of Victory for an easy 5x Strengthen and +50% crit from 3x Fortune and Morale.
  
• With Warding Metals, Shrines of Smiting have both Reinforced and Warding, making them practically impervious to ranged attacks, and with Shaper's Touch healing them 10% hp every turn they are literally impervious to ranged attacks. So you can just approach just out of range of melee units, shrug off the enemy's ranged alpha strike, take out the melee units and then kill the rest.
  
• With both Shaper's Touch and Resourceful Vigor you can heal whatever miniscule amount of damage you took in battle really quickly. I used to grab Tome of Faith for Army Heal, but Shaper's Touch + Resourceful Vigor does such a good job I ditched it for Tome of Zeal.

The Pyreshrine does NOT give Shrines of Smiting Faithful at this time. Golden Golems, Severing Golems, all get Faithful on recruitment but Shrines seem specifically left out.

There are two downsides to all this however

• Shrines of Smiting require 3 action points to attack. This means they can't move and shoot on the same turn, and Killing Momentum is worthless for them. This means a smart player who has a full Elemental Army can take out the pure Shrine of Smiting army by teleporting on top of them all, preventing them from attacking.
  
• Crusader's Major Ambition quest completion is out of your control. Whether a T4 or T5 Undead or Demon infestation or Wonder spawns near you is out of your control, whether you can get to them before an AI gets to them is also out of your control, and whether an AI decides to go Undead or Demon is also out of your control. So if you put everything together, it's pure luck whether you get to put Faithful on all of your Shrines of Smiting or not.

The first downside is not a thing in Single Player even in Brutal Difficulty so who cares.

The second downside, I figured out two ways to overcome it. I found two ways to artificially guarantee Crusader's Major Ambition quest's completion in 100% of my games. And that's why I made a build for Shrine of Smiting. This downside was 100% of the reason why I never went Shrine of Smiting but now that I've overcame it, this build is one of my all time favorites.

The two ways to guarantee the completion of Crusader's Major Ambition quest in 100% of games are:

• Method One: Go Tome of the Revenant (or Reaper), summon a Fallen Angel (or Reaper), get your Soul Income to literally 0. And then wait a couple turns for that Fallen Angel to desert. Then kill it with your Ruler/Hero. If you don't have enough resources for any one of a unit's upkeep, that unit will have a decent chance of deserting every turn. Unlike most units Fallen Angels and Reapers have a Soul income so by just getting your Soul income into the negatives, only the Fallen Angel and Reaper have a chance to desert while the rest of your units stay loyal. Trying to do this with gold/mana/imperium upkeep units will result in units you don't want to desert deserting. Tome of Revenant is better than Tome of Reaper for this purpose because 6 Order and 0 Shadow Affinity lets us grab it which we will have since we're gunning for the T4 Tome of Exaltation, where as Tome of the Reaper requires 6 Shadow Affinity only.
  
• Method Two: Go Tome of Corruption and cast a LOT of Umbral Incursions, creating a TON of Umbral Infestations. Kill their patrol stacks to turn them hostile and they'll respawn their patrol stack and start sending infestations your way. Both the patrol stack and the attacking stack have a decent chance of including a T4 Undead unit like Bone Dragon or Revenant Titan. And when they finally do, kill it with your Hero/Ruler and voila, quest completed.

***I believe there is a 100% chance you get an affinity quest including in Story Realms and the Order's affinity quest spawns a stack with a T4 Fiend most of the time. Sometimes it only spawns T3 or lower units. So by only having high Order you could maybe guarantee this quest. Not a 100% sure. Out of like 20 play tests with this build, only 1 failed to give me this quest.

Wizard King is the best Ruler for this build due to how good Pinning Barrage and Tectonic Shatter are. The two are basically the same with the only difference being the AoE. Pinning Barrage is 2-hex AoE and Tectonic Shatter is all enemy units. Wizard King is so good with these two spells that they can skip Tome of Supremacy because 100% of their casting points are gonna be spent on Pinning Barrage and Tectonic Shatter.

Elementalist - Shrines of Smiting do not benefit from the Summoner or Dragonheart ascension traits, and this is a heavy Order build that goes Feudal. Which means there is absolutely 0 reason not to go Tome of the Beacon which means there is absolutely 0 reason not to go Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build. Absolutely no reason. So we're gonna go that in this build

I recommend you go Earth and Focused Evocation. We don't get many +damage unit enchantments in this build so no point in going Storm Spirits, and Frost conflicts with Ironclads' AoE attack. And Earth fits thematically with Awaken Earth.

Artificer - There is absolutely 0 reason not to go the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build. Absolutely 0 reason.

Also the Bolt Repeater blows up Flora for our Ironclads.

• Feudal:Monarchy - This is a Mythic Unit build so we go the best culture for Mythic Units. Non-Feudal Cultures will have a severely hard time paying for 13 Ironclad's upkeep and 15 Shrine of Smiting's Imperium upkeep.

• Prolific Swarmers - Shrines of Smiting, being T5 units are stupidly expensive.
  
• Imperialists - To pay for Awaken Tools' increased building costs due to them being build way faster.

You can get other Society Traits if you want but for beginners I highly recommend the above two because they're very simple and completely devoid of any gimmicks, removing a layer of complexity to the game while you learn how to play.

• (M) Tome of Enchantment - Awakened Tools, Sundering Blades, Spell-Tempered Shields
  
• (S) Tome of Cryomancy - Frost Weapons, School of Cryomancy
  
  
• (O) Tome of the Beacon - Mighty Meek
  
• (O) Tome of Zeal - Legion of Zeal
  
  
• (M)(C) Tome of the Dreadnought - Ironclad, Tuning Kits, Warding Armor
  
• (M) Tome of Transmutation OR *****(A)(S) Tome of Corruption - Umbral Incursion
  
  
• *****(O)(S) Tome of the Revenant - Summon Fallen Angel, Necropolis
  
  
• (O) Tome of Exaltation - Shrine of Smiting, Ascended Warriors
  
• (O) Tome of Supremacy - Anthem of Victory
  
  
• (M) Tome of Artificing - Affinity
  
• (M) Tome of the Creator - Shaper's Touch

Tome of Enchanment is gotten because it's the best starting Tome in the game and also for Materium Affinity since we're going for Tome of the Creator.

Tome of Cryomancy is for +damage and Shadow Affinity to get Knowledge Extraction, Death Magic, and Dark Vigor Empire Skills.

Tome of the Beacon is for Mighty Meek and Chaplains which significantly beefs up our 2x summoned Bolt Repeaters, and it also beefs up our Aspirant Knights.

Tome of Zeal is gotten for Legion of Zeal to boost our Aspirant Knight damage further. If you managed to complete Crusader on your Ruler and 2 heroes, get Tome of Faith instead. Zeal from Crusader Ambition and Legion of Zeal do NOT stack.

Tome of the Dreadnought is gotten for Materium Affinity and because it has one of the only 2 Unit Enchantments that affect Shrines of Smiting: Warding Armor. Pinning Barrage is also game winning if you're going Wizard Kings. Normally I'd also sing praises about Ironclads because Ironclads are game winning units in their own right especially with Ritualists providing meat shields. 3 Ritualists + 15 Ironclads can beat Brutal Difficulty all on their own. In fact this build used to be an Ironclad build before the Hero Rework but... Aspirant Knights with Sundering Blades, Zeal, Mighty Meek, and flying mounts are that much better than ironclads so Ironclads have been removed from this build in its entirety.

Tome of Transmutation is gotten to get +15 Imperium from the 3 plant Magic Materials. Also it lets you craft a ton of stuff like Summon T2 Spider, Bless to beef up your Bolt Repeaters without a Chaplain, etc. and you can even give yourself an Astral Dew for +20 casting points when you're spamming Ascended Warriors.

Tome of Exaltation is gotten for our game winning unit: the Shrine of Smiting. Ascended Warriors is awesome too. Get every single one of your Shrines of Smiting to Champion Rank first instead of Legend Rank for +1 range.

Tome of the Revenant OR Tome of Corruption is only gotten if you failed to complete your Ruler's Crusader Major Ambition quest. Skip this if you did, and don't get both, get only one depending on whether you prefer to repeatedly kill Umbral Patrol Stacks or wait around for a Fallen Angel to desert. Forget about your other heroes. 1 Ruler + 2 heroes with only the Ruler's Crusader Major Ambition completed is still 8 Faithful which is good enough and your Ruler can summon 2 Bolt Repeaters with Faithful thanks to Mighty Meek, getting you to max Smiting Prayer. Gotten before Tome of Exaltation because it takes effort and time to either repeatedly kill Umbral Incursion patrol stacks, or gather 150 souls, summon a Fallen Angel, and wait around for it to desert. You can't kill anything while waiting for the Fallen Angel to desert because then you won't be at negative souls.

If you aren't using 3 Heroes, if you're only using your Ruler and you still want all 10x Smiting Prayer, then replace Tome of Zeal with Tome of Sanctuary for Keeper's Mark to get Faithful on your two T3 Elementals. Alternatively, just don't get T3 Elementals because Mighty Meek gives faithful to all T1 and T2 units.

Tome of Artificing is just gotten for Materium Affinity. Chosen over Dungeon Depths for the Bolt Repeater Siege Project but if you want Raiders of the Deep feel free to swap it out for Dungeon Depths.

Tome of Supremacy is gotten for 3x Strengthen and +50% crit chance from 3x Fortune and morale. Wizard Kings should skip this Tome in favor of spamming Tectonic Shatter.

Tome of the Creator is gotten because it has one of the only 2 Unit Enchantments that affect Shrines of Smiting: Shaper's Touch. Wizard Kings also get this because of Tectonic Shatter.

Normal Feudal:Monarchy early game with Militias and then transition to a pure Aspirant Knight army. Your Aspriant Knights are gonna be ridiculously strong because Mighty Meek is that good on them and you also got 2x Mighty Meek boosted Bolt Repeaters wiping the floor with entire enemy army.

With the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon combo on top of our whacked out Aspirant Knights, you don't need any Ritualists. I've beaten Brutal Difficulty many times with this build with only my Ruler and army units, 0 heroes so if you don't want to bother microing and leveling anything other than your Ruler, then don't. Disable the Hero Recruitment Available notification in the settings and play with only your Ruler.

Try your absolute best to complete your Ruler's Crusader Major Ambition Quest without Tome of the Revenant. As an absolute last resort, if I haven't completed by turn 60, I take to the sea. The AI seems to leave most ocean mobs alone and around turn 60-ish there are lots of Ghost Ships here and there and Ghost Ships are T5 Undead units. I know for a fact that at turn 91 all the Kraken mobs evolved into Ghost Ships.

If however you failed to find even 1 T4-T5 Undead, get the Tome of Corruption or Tome of the Revenant to generate a T4 or T5 enemy Undead unit you can kill. Both methods however are a really huge hassle so once again I recommend you do your absolute best to complete your Ruler's Crusader Major Ambition Quest without resorting to this. AI loves to leave Ocean mobs alone and at turn 56 there should be Ghost Ships. I know for a fact that at turn 91 all the surviving Krakens turn into Ghost Ships.

Once you hit Shrines of Smitings get as many as you can and put your Aspirant Knights on base defense duty. Dismiss any T4 Knights you have since they cost Imperium per turn which you cannot afford.

Be sure to get War Foundry up before your first Ironclad. +2 ranks is insanely good.

And spam Ascended Warriors on them to get them to Champion Rank a.s.a.p. for +1 range. Should be easy since they come out at Veteran Rank thanks to War Foundry.

And that's it. 17 Shrines of Smiting + 1 Elementalist Ruler providing the both the frontline and 10x Faithful by herself will annihilate everything. Not to mention your Shrines are tanky as **** because they have both Reinforced and Warding, giving them like 75% damage reduction against all types of ranged attacks.

I like to line up my 17 Shrines of Smiting in a line so all 17 Shrines of Smiting are in the front line for maximum range and kill any enemies that managed to get within melee range of a Srhine of Smiting

Get the 3 plant magic materials with Tome of Transmutation to get +15 imperium per turn. You should also make a Wands of Dispel so you can overcharge your Shrines of Smiting and dispel any stuns and Wands of Bless to bestow 5x Strengthen on your Bolt Repeaters without Chaplains.

For Hero Signature Skills, I like to go Initiate of Chaos for +10% crit, Adept of Order for Keeper's Mark on my hero because in some siege battles the ballistas/catapuls will focus fire your heroes to death before you get a turn. Keeper's Mark gives me a chance to heal them back up. Then Master of Materium for Awaken Earth, and then Paragon of Order for Lead By Example at least as Wizard King so that just doing our regular combo gets all our Shrines of Smiting into +20% crit morale range.

You could get 6 Chaos and reset your Heroes and Rulers for 3x Chaos Signature Skills for 80% crit rate on your Shrines of Smiting. With the Champions of War Hero skill you can get 100% crit rate by moving your heroes next to each and every Shrine of Smiting before they fire, which should be a joke to achieve since Shrines of Smiting have immense range and require 3 action points to fire.

Wizard Kings should get Quickened Ritual so you can get both Bolt Repeaters out by turn 2 AND cast 2 overcharged Tectonic Shatter that same turn. I'd hold off from firing my Bolt Repeater turn 1 because fight is not gonna last past turn 2 and it's better to land hits when enemies have 2 sundered defense on them.

Playing Chosen Destroyers is like either playing pretty much the same as normal as in you turtle for 50-60 turns before going out to raze Throne Cities, OR it's a nonstop raze fest. It all depends on how good you are and the build you use.

3 level 5+ Ritualists with a full army can win any fight including v.s. AI armies and burn their cities down really early. So if you are really good at leveling your Ritualists and your build can fill your units up to 18 really quickly, then you're gonna never stop razing cities all game long. Tons and tons of combat. And the reward is immense. With +40 gold, mana, and research per 3 pops razed, you'll have 9 Tomes by turn 70 and your gold and mana income is gonna be so out of this world you cannot spend it all no matter how much you try. And no, this is not an exaggeration or a hyperbole. You tell me how you can deplete 20k gold with 1k gold per turn income.

If however you're not good at leveling up your heroes yet or your build is complete trash at filling up your unit count then you're razing only one 6 pop city at the start of the game before turtling up like normal until you get your full T3 army and then setting out to raze throne cities.

Which is why all of the previous sections builds work with Chosen Destroyers. The sole difference between the two is instead of establishing 3 cities, you go all in on burning one Free city near you with 6 pops. That's it. Everything else is identical. So pick your favorite and go.

The difference between being good at leveling your heroes and being bad at it is just knowing which fights you can win with only 6 units (including Free City patrol mobs) and fighting as many of those fights as possible. That's it.

The one city limit doesn't really hurt Chosen Destroyers all that much thanks to summons and the new Renown mechanic. Unlike the 3 city builds Chosen Destroyers are swimming in so much mana that they can afford full stacks of mana upkeep units complete with unit enchantments letting them spam summon spells nonstop, which more than makes up for 2 less cities recruiting units. And the new Renown mechanic supersizes your Throne City to a gigantic colossal mega city meaning your Throne City is going to grab all the Conduits and mines that your 2nd and 3rd cities would've grabbed which means the sole thing you're missing out on as Chosen Destroyers is the 2nd and 3rd cities' resource income from buildings. Those buildings make a massive difference in the early game but come lategame they are nothing. And one 6 pop City Raze essentially gives as much resources as both non-throne cities without the massive gold investment those buildings require so I'd say after 1 City Raze you break completely even with normal empires. And you raze your first city around Turn 20

In fact the one city limit helps Chosen Destroyers because you can spend the first 400 Imperium you would've spent on founding cities on a Pantheon Hero instead, significantly strengthening your early game power like crazy.

The only real downside to Chosen Destroyers in my opinion is that they're at the mercy of Free Cities. That first Free City raze is so essential that if you don't have that (like in some of the campaign scenarios), you're gonna have a really, really hard time. Also if you have only weak Free Cities (starting fortification is 20 or lower) near you then you're gonna snowball so hard it's not even funny but if you only have strong Free Cities (starting fortification is 30 or higher) near you then you gotta wait until you have a full T3 army to burn them all down, slowing everything down considerably. So whether you snowball or not is entirely dependent on map generation and completely out of your control.

By default however, you always have 1 weak Free City spawn near you, and by razing it when it hits 6 pop around turn 20 you will very comfortably roflstomp the entire game even on Brutal difficulty.

Having said that, the worst case scenario where you cannot burn even a single city down until you have a full T3 army is still fully winnable. You just gotta really work on leveling your heroes and get as much research as you can from Knowledge Extraction which involves killing as many free city war parties as possible. I beat Grexolis as Chosen Destroyers with 0 city razes for 80 turns. Your one throne city can pay for 3 full stacks of T3 units complete with Unit Enchantment so if the free cities near you managed to recruit a significant number of T3-T4 units or AoE spamming battle mages to the point there's not a chance in hell you can take them with sub level 5 Ritualists and a full T1 army, you can still win. Just turtle up and declare war with every non-vassal Free City and farm their war parties. And keep an eye out for AIs that are getting their ass kicked so you can easily burn their cities down with very little resistance.

And don't forget that from turn 26 onward your heroes are recruited at level 4 so if you completely failed at leveling your Ritualists, get them killed and recruit new ones. Entwined Thralls are nothing compared to Entwined Protectors but being able to summon an infinite number of units in battle early game ridiculously strong, and Entwined Thralls hit way above their weight thanks to their attacks inflicting poison.

Feudal:Monarchy does not share this Free City weakness. They can burn down AI cities right from the start of the game. So if you're really struggling early game you can go Feudal:Monarchy + Tome of Enchantment, and the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build to be able to burn AI cities down to the ground right from the word go. Call Militia lets you get a full 18 unit army before turn 9, Sundering Blades lets your Militias take out Fortified Obstacles like Stone Walls and also lets you kill high def high tier enemies as long as they out number them decently, and the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon combo gives you 2x Bolt Repeaters that can melt armies and with all of these together you can take out any AI at the start of the game.

And you can grab a Pantheon Hero on top of this which means 4x Bolt Repeaters to absolutely annihilate any and all AI cities right from the get go before transitioning to a Mighty Meek boosted Aspirant Knight army to roflstomp the rest of the game.

Even in Story Realms with their random gimmicks, Feudal:Monarchy roflstomps anything and everything even as Chosen Destroyers.

However, Feudal:Monarchy plays very differently than all other Cultures and since this guide's goal is to teach you how to play Chosen Destroyers with all Cultures, we'll cover both Barbarians and Feudal:Monarchy.

Chosen Destroyers - Obviously, since this is a Chosen Destroyer build order.

Mana Channelers - That -50% summon cost is what lets you spam out a Copper Golem every turn from the start. +20% exp gain for Storm Spirits ain't bad either.

• Workshop
  
• Blacksmith
  
  
• Shrine
  
• Mana Obelisk
  
  
• Stonemason
  
• Masonic Hall
  
  
• Town Hall II
  
• Tavern
  
• Town Hall III
  
• Shrine of the Wargod
  
• Bathhouse
  
  
• Armory
  
  
• Battle Ritual Site
  
• Ancestral Seer Hall
  
  
• Wizard Tower: Foundation
  
• Wizard Tower: Level I
  
• Item Forge
  
• Wizard Tower: Level II
  
• Chaos Bolstering Matrix
  
• Wizard Tower: Apex
  
• Wizard Tower: Prison Cells
  
  
• Monolith
  
• Mage's Guild

The above build order is NOT set in stone. Every game is different so don't follow the build order exactly and adapt instead. If you're short on a resource build the cheap buildings for that resource earlier.

Get Blacksmith first to halve your Warrior recruitment time from 4 turns to 2 turns.

Then get the cheap mana buildings to hit 30 mana per turn and spam Copper Golems and later afford Sundering Blades' mana upkeep. This is a quick reminder that without Sundering Blades, your T1 units will lose to high def high tier units and heroes even though you out number them 3:1.

We go Blacksmith first instead of mana because Warriors are significantly better than Copper Golems because they get your racial traits while Copper Golems do not, and the Workshop first lets you get both quicker.

After that you max out production and then rush Town Hall II, Town Hall III, Shrine of the Wargod, and Draft buildings (including research) to spam Berserkers. Be sure to use Imperium to quickly get yourself to 10 population to boost Town Hall III

Then it's whatever. Gold, Wizard Tower for Champion Rank Lesser Storm Spirits, Item Forge for Wands of Spawn Hatchling, etc.

Chosen Destroyers do not need any Research Posts so grab only Conduits. You're gonna need them to pay for your Unit Enchantment and summon upkeep.

Kill your initial mana upkeep unit. You want 30 mana per turn a.s.a.p. to spam out Copper Golems and that starting mana upkeep unit which costs 8 mana a turn will murder that strategy. Whether you delete him outright or get him killed in a nearby camp is up to you.

Find the nearest weak free city near you a.s.a.p. You NEED to start weakening it right NOW otherwise it might get too strong for you to kill. But don't actually kill it. Wait until it reaches 6 pop and then kill it for double research, mana, and gold per turn.

While your scout is circling your Throne City to find this Free City, kill all camps near your Throne City with your Ruler + 5 units. You want your Ruler as close to level 5 as possible before you start fighting the Free City mobs.

Once you found it, take out all the camps near the Free City because they'll join the Free City sooner or later. I cannot stress how import taking out all the camps near the Free Cities early before they join the Free City's patrol mob is. If enough of them join then the Free City becomes impregnable because the only way you're taking out a Free City this early is if you out number them at least 2:1. Most likely more. And if enough stacks join them then it will become impossible to outnumber them, thus making them impregnable without 3 level 5+ Ritualist heroes and a full T3 army.

Start casting Sundering Blades but don't fire it off until you start fighting the Free City's patrol stacks or war parties. Sundering Blades' upkeep is gonna murder your mana income so put off actually casting it until the last moment possible.

Declare war on your neighboring Free City early so you can start taking out their single patrol stacks before they get a 2nd one. I declare war after I run out of camps to kill in my immediate vicinity which is like only 3.

Park one stack at the edge of the Free City to bait the patrol stack so you can engage it away from the Free City itself so the units guarding the Free City don't join the fight.

Take out all War Parties the Free City spawns away from the Free City for the exact same reason.

NEVER park your army next to the Free City while waiting for it to grow to 6 pop. The Free City will spawn a patrol or war party and ram it into your army on the same turn, resulting a 18 vs 12 fight instead of a 18 vs 6 fight, which can get you wiped. So never park your army next to the Free City unless you're killing it right now. It might help to put 1 cheap unit next to the free city so you know when a patrol or war party spawns.

Don't spend your Imperium on anything until turn 11 and recruit a Pantheon Hero if you can. If you're not going to recruit Pantheon Heroes then just spend all that Imperium on getting your first Ritualist hero early so you can get a jump on leveling him. Then spend some Imperium increasing your Throne City's population to quickly boost all of your buildings AND get your territory as close to your Free City's territory as possible so you can heal your units as quickly as possible.

Once the Free City finally hits 6 pop siege and raze it immediately for 80 research, mana, and gold per turn.

Sieging the Free City prematurely prevents it from spawning new units but it also slows its pop growth speed to a crawl so I do NOT recommend it. Just keep whittling away at its forces far away from the city until it hits 6 and then take it out.

If a Free City is a vassal of another AI, don't sweat it. Declare war. In my experience the AI won't be able to help defend the Free City at all this early in the game. In the extremely rare occasion the AI does defend the Free City... well, I'm sorry but your life is gonna suck. But the game is still winnable. You just gotta turtle up until you get a full T3 army, get rid of all of your heroes under level 4 and recruit new ones at level 4 after turn 26, farm war parties and infestations for xp and Knowledge Extraction, pay excessive amounts of gold to the AIs trying to kill you to get them to end the war immediately, and once you finally got 3-4 level 5+ Ritualists with a full T3 army go start razing cities.

Whether you can raze a free city within 6 turns or not depends on a lot.

If there's a mountain between you and the Free City, forget it.

If the Free City takes like 4 turns to get to, forget it.

If the Free City doesn't have walls, if you can take it out immediately because you got society traits that give you more starting units and you got a super powerful ascended Ruler then great. If not, forget it.

If the Free City spawns near you and has walls, then you can siege it to prevent it from spawning any additional mobs until you recruit and summon enough units to take it out.

Now whether you should is a completely different matter. If there is a 2nd Free City nearby, then yeah, take it out and then raze the 2nd Free City once it hits 6 pop. If not, if this is the only Free City you can reach without traveling for like 7 turns, then I suggest you wait until 6 pops to raze it.

Strategy is simple.
1. Use Undermine Walls and Construct Onager siege projects.
2. Summon Entwined Protectors in the middle if you have them and use them to occupy the enemies' attention. You have to use Hostile Wildgrowth first since there are no flora in siege battles. Make sure none of the Hostile Wildgrowth hexes have obstacles in them. With 3x Living Vines, you only get 4 usable Flora and obstacles will reduce that number even further.
3. Send 2-3 units to the outer most Catapults/Ballistas/Bolt Repeaters to take them out. If left alone they will murder your entire army in a prolonged fight which siege battles always are. Undermine Walls guarantee one of the 3 walls in front of every Tower will be destroyed.
4. Use your 2 Catapults to destroy the walls in front of the inner 2 Towers.
5. Have your units flood into the city. Kill the two inner most towers first.
6. Surround, flank, and kill all your enemies.

Ok so you razed your first city. Now what? I'll tell you what, rush Town Hall III and Shrine of the Wargod immediately. Don't build more Warriors if you've got 3 full stacks of units because you can't afford it and once Shrine of the Wargod is up start building Berserkers.

All of your mana is going to be KO'd by unit enchantment upkeep so don't summon anything with a mana upkeep.

While you are waiting for your Berserkers to finish keep spamming Copper Golems in the meantime and start clearing all the infestations near you. 3 stacks of Copper Golems can take out most infestations but they cannot take out a 2nd Free City or AI so clear all infestations near you while you wait for your Berserkers to be produced.

Remember, for the entire game, your Ritualists are the ones that are gonna win all the battles for you with their wall of Entwined Protectors and Living Vines. Never forget that. Even with a full Berserker Army it is your Ritualists that are gonna carry you until you get your endgame army. So don't expect to suddenly kill everything easily on auto-resolve just because you have a full army of Berserkers. That won't happen until you get your endgame army.

If you have the space to raze another city, do it. Even just 1 more city raze will create a massive, massive snowball effect. If successful you should now have enough research, gold, and mana for your full endgame army. But don't stop razing there. Never stop razing.

Once all the Free Cities you can raze are dead, it's time to start killing AI cities. When picking which AI to pick a fight with, pick the one that's getting it's ass kicked. Keep your scouts roaming the map for cities that are getting sieged and destroyed. That AI's cities should be your number 1 target if you have the space to wage war.

One important thing to note is that you cannot win multiple fights back to back because your army is going to be near dead after only 1 fight and it's possible for the AI to outnumber you 2:1 at this stage in the game and engage you twice in the same turn with a 2nd full stack of 18 units so if you want to take on an AI that's NOT getting its ass kicked by another AI you need to lure that AI's entire army to your throne city, wipe out 3 stacks, and then retreat to your Throne City to heal up while the AI is busy sieging your Throne City. You gotta do this until their entire stockpiled army is dead.

Don't forget to use Ritual of Alacrity to quickly heal 6 of your units.

Once their entire stockpiled army is dead you are now free and clear to raze all of its cities. You need to repeat this for every new AI you declare war on which is why I like to wage war with only 1 AI if possible and raze all of his cities, possibly including his Throne city, before moving onto another AI. I usually don't raze the Throne Cities though because it's so far away and it takes forever to get over their fortification and usually another AI declares war on me in that time.

Very Useful Tip: Because you will be swimming in money as Chosen Destroyers, if an AI has an army you can't beat yet, just make peace by paying them off.

And that's the entire early game strategy. After this point follow any of the builds I provided and you should beat the game.

• Workshop
  
• Stonemason
  
  
• Shrine
  
  
• Town Hall II
  
• Royal Smith
  
• Armory
  
  
• Masonic Hall
  
• Mana Obelisk
  
  
• Smith's Guild

The above build order is universal for all Feudal Builds. It doesn't matter whether you go a summoning build or a draft build. Aspirant Knights are 100% of every Feudal strategy until T4 units come out and even then Aspirant Knights outperform the vast majority of T4 units out there and they evolve to T4 Knights themselves. Go Aspirant Knights or go play a different culture.

I get 2 Farms for Workshop + Stonemason, 1 Quarry for Shrine because I don't want to build Town Hall II unboosted. Personally I just spend Imperium to boost Town Hall II and skip the Shrine.

Then 2 Quarry for Royal Smith.

And while Royal Smith is building I swap my farms out for Foresters so I can build Armory.

If Royal Smith is built too quickly because I'm going Tome of Enchantment or Zeal, or a camp I cleared gave a ton of production, then I build Mana Obelisk while I wait for my Foresters to finish.

Then I switch the Foresters back to Farms to boost Masonic Hall.

Then I switch as many provinces I can to Foresters again to build Smith's Guild.

Then I just grab as many Forest Provinces I can, and build Special Province Improvements on every non-forester province.

Spam Call Militia as much as possible until you have a full 18 unit army.

As soon as you have 6 units ram your Ruler into nearby stacks to level him.

Don't recruit defenders. All gold not spent on Militia should be spent on rushing Aspirant Knights. If you have gold left over, save it for Aspirant Knights.

If there is a Free City you can rush down by like turn 6, go ahead. Feudal Monarchy is so strong they can burn down strong Free Cities and AI cities with only 6 Aspirant Knights + Ritualists + Militias.

Once you hit 18 unit count stop summoning Militias and start spamming summon spells from your Tome if you have one to both immediately reinforce your troops while on a campaign to kill a free city or infestation so you don't have to wait for your newly spawned Militias to walk all the way to you, and to make your army stronger because generally the summoned unit like Phantasm Warriors is most likely stronger than both Militias and Defenders. There are exceptions. Copper Golems for example are worse but I still pre-summon them and then cast it when something in my army dies.

Find and attack the nearest Free City's patrol stacks a.s.a.p. away from the city center.

Use single Militias to scout out the Free City territory. I like to put 2 single Militias on opposite sides of the Free City for vision. Too many times the Free City spawns a patrol stack or war party and rams it into my army on the same turn with the city's defenders reinforcing it, resulting in me not outnumbering the Free City and therefore getting wiped. But if I only have 2 single Militias next to the Free City while my army stays far away from the free city then only my single Militia dies from such surprise attacks and the newly spawned Patrol/War Party will engage my army far away from the Free City, resulting in my win.

So keep your army back with 2 Militias giving vision while you wait for the Free City to grow to 6 pop.

If you did everything right at turn 20 you should have 3 full stacks of Militias and summoned units and the Free City should be completely devoid of any stacks other than the City Defenders and should be 6 pop by now. So raze it and the entire game should now be yours.

And then it's the usual level 3 Ritualists to level 5 a.s.a.p., start replacing your army with Aspirant Knights, and go raze more cities. Remember, Entwined Protectors in the middle and Aspirant Knights circle around from the side and charge in simultaneously and flank your enemies and kill their squishy backrow. Non-Polearm Heroes are highest priority. they'll murder your Aspirant Knights so kill them first. Polearm Heroes on the other hand, take too much of a beating to kill so I leave them until all the squishy backrow units are dead.

When transitioning to pure Aspirant Knights, try to keep as many Aspirant Knights in the same stack as possible. 5 Aspriant Knights = amazing. 2 Aspriant Knights + 3 Militia = your Aspirant Knights most likely dying first.

Personally, I don't bring Aspirant Knights into battle until I have 5 of them in the same stack and keep using Militias and summons until I do.

Don't use auto-resolve. Auto-resolve AI will get your Aspirant Knights killed every time even in battles where there should be 0 casualties. It's because the AI sends the Aspirant Knights in one by one.

And that should be it. Once you have full T2 Aspirant Knight army, keep razing cities until you unlock the Tome that lets you get something better.

With builds that get Tome of the Beacon and a TON of +damage Unit Enchantments, you actually don't need Ritualists. When I go my Shrine of Smiting build or my Empire of the Cosmos Balor Build, both with the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build, I can roflstomp Brutal Difficulty as Feudal:Monarchy Chosen Destroyers with no heroes. Ruler + 17 army units only. That's how crazy powerful Feudal:Monarchy is.

My general rule of thumb is before turn 20, any city I raze is with a pure Militia army.

After turn 20 I don't go city razing until I have at least 6 Aspirant Knights.

After that City Raze I don't go city razing until I have at least 11-12 Aspirant Knights and preferably 5 Phantasm Warriors instead of Militas.

After that I don't go city razing until I have a pure Aspirant Knight Army.

After that you should have your full T4 army up.

In this build we focus solely on our Wizard King Ruler and nothing else. We only grab Tomes that boost our Wizard King's ability to annihilate the battlefield with combat spells and we also go Storm Spirits because because the Tomes that beef up our Wizard King also beefs up our Storm Spirits. Perfect Synergy.

The Wizard King casting build is very simple. Grab Tome of Astral Convergeance for Explosive Manifestation and every +damage unit enchantment for melee units to beef up the summoned Astral Serpent or Siphoner. Then spam Explosive Manifestation like crazy. The end. Very simple right?

Explosive Manifestation does 30 damage in a 1-hex AoE. With Astral Amplifier Lens it does 40. When overcharged by the Wizard King's Evoker Ritual skill it does 50. With the Wizard King's Amplified Evocation skill it does an additional +20% for a total of 60.

The signature ability of Wizard Kings is being able to cast 2 spells in a single turn. By default you can do this once every 3 turns but you can upgrade it to be able to do it every other turn.

Casting two Explosive Manifestations in a turn does a total of 120 AoE damage and spawns 2 Astral Serpents/Astral Siphoners and with every +damage melee unit enchantment their single target damage is absolutely catastrophic. 2 Explosive Manifestations are guaranteed to snipe any and all Rulers in the game so if you go this build Wizard Kings will kill the enemy ruler on turn 2 100% of the time.

The Death Magic Empire Skill can give you a LOT more casting points throughout the battle letting you cast a truly colossal amount of Explosive Manifestations in a single battle. Wizard Kings going this build will nuke the entire battlefield and flood it with T3 Astral Units and just annihilate everything.

There are three downsides of going this though

• First every battle costs a metric **** ton of mana which you won't have due to unit enchantment upkeep. This is why this build is located in the Chosen Destroyers section. Because with 3 cities I often run out of mana casting only Anthem of Victory in every battle but Chosen Destroyers? I'm regularly at 10k mana with +600 mana per turn even with a full T5 magic origin army. There's not a chance in hell I'll ever run out of mana no matter how many battles I fight back to back.
  
• Second if you don't get all the +damage unit enchantments then Explosive Manifestation's effectiveness takes a massive nosedive. Absolutely massive to the point I might just say save your casting points for buffs and healing spells.
  
• Third as a result you either go this exact specific build or don't go it at all, preventing you from getting the Tomes you need to get T5 Mythic Units or Awaken Earth on your Ritualists. This is why this guide focused on Champions instead of Wizard Kings. But this is not that big of a deal for this build since you can still get Storm Spirits and Storm Spirits are the strongest non-mythic unit in the game.

If you don't want to spam Explosive Manifestation, if you just want to use Cosmic Overdrive with Storm Spirits, then just take out Tome of Astral Convergence in the build. That's it.

I recommend Shepherd because we're going Storm Spirits. However, unlike Champions, Wizard Kings do NOT have Experienced Leader so your other heroes are gonna have to evolve your Storm Spirits and if you want to max out your Shepherd's renown you need to get 6 Lesser Storm Spirits just 1-2 XP away from evolving and then fight a battle and win while keeping all of your Lesser Storm Spirits alive.

I recommend Ascension:Artificer to go the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon combo. We need 2 Order Tomes for Empire of the Cosmos. One is Zeal and since literally no other Order Tome helps our damage output I recommend Tome of the Beacon to significantly strengthen our alpha strike.

If you don't want to get Tome of the Beacon, you can go Ascension:Summoner instead for the +10% damage and +10 hp to both our Storm Spirits and our Astral Serpents and Astral Siphoners. Swap out Tome of the Beacon with Tome of Sanctuary or something.

We don't go Archmage because Wizard Kings already cast 2 spells every other turn, and they overcharge them too. So Archmage only gets us 33% more spells instead of 100%. Not worth it in my opinion. HOWEVER, if you want to go this build with non-Wizard King Rulers then Archmage is MANDATORY.

• Barbarians to give all of our Storm Spirits +8 crit damage.

Mystic:Attunement sounds good at first but it's actually just overkill. I have more than enough casting points to comfortable spam enough Explosive Manifestations to win every battle just from Death Magic so i rather beef up my Storm Spirits to auto-resolve better than grab something I don't need.

• Chosen Destroyers - For the bottomless supply of mana and insane research to get to Explosive Manifestation a.s.a.p.
  
• Empire of the Cosmos - Lets us get Cosmic Overdrive without grabbing 4 Astral Tomes

• Strong - +2 damage
  
• Tenacious - halves damage loss from casualties
  
• Fast Recuperation - +10 healing per turn
  
• Careless - -1 def and res from Defense Mode

Storm Spirits, Astral Serpents, and Astral Siphoners are fully indpendent of Racial Traits so we grab the Racial Traits that are great for our Warriors and Berserkers to have an easier early game, and Fast Recuperation to help with healing our Ritualists.

• (S) Tome of Cryomancy - Frost Weapons, School of Cryomancy
  
• (A) Tome of Evocation - Summon Lesser Storm Spirit, Lightning Blades
  
  
• (O) Tome of the Beacon - Mighty Meek, Chaplain
  
• (N) Tome of Roots - Blight Blades
  
  
• (M) Tome of Artificing - Artisan Armaments
  
• (C) Tome of Devastation - Flameburst Weapons
  
  
• (A) Tome of Astral Convergence - Explosive Manifestation
  
• (O) Tome of Zeal - Legion of Zeal
  
  
• (M)(S) Tome of Severing
  
• (A) Tome of the Archmage - Cosmic Overdrive
  
  
  
• (N) Tome of Pyromancy - Searing Blades

Tome of Cryomancy is gotten first to get Knowledge Extraction and Death Magic Empire skills as soon as possible.

Tome of Evocation is gotten for Storm Spirits and LIghtning Blades

Tome of the Beacon is gotten for our Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon combo

Tome of Roots is gotten for the Nature Affinity for Empire of the Cosmos

Tome of Artificing is gotten for crits for Savage Strike and Materium Affinity to finally get all 6 affinities for Empire of the Cosmos.

Tome of Devastation is gotten for more crits

And finally Tome of Astral Convergence for our game winning spell Explosive Manifestation.

Tome of Zeal is gotten for our 4th Order Affinity

Tome of Severing is gotten solely for its hybrid Affinity to finally finish Empire of the Cosmos.

Tome of the Archmage is gotten for Cosmic Overdrive. By sacrificing some of the +damage Tomes for hybrid affinity Tomes we can get Tome of the Archmage 1 Tome earlier but I think it's better to not have any worthless Tomes in the build rather than get Cosmic Overdrive 1 Tome earlier.

We don't have a gold upkeep summon, we aren't going Feudal to negate the upkeep of mana upkeep summons, and we aren't Eldritch Sovereigns who are really strong, so our early game is crap. Absolute crap.

Don't rush mana buildings. Rush Blacksmith first. Warriors should be recruited in 2 turns with just Blacksmith. Then get the mana buildings to pay for Unit Enchantments.

Try your absolute best to not lose any Warriors because our recruitment speed is in the toilet and we don't have a gold upkeep summon.

Other than that, play as normal. Get a full Storm Spirit and Berserker army a.s.a.p.

Once you raze enough cities to be able to afford a full Lesser Storm Spirit army, do it. With so many +damage unit enchantments along with the Shepherd Ambition our Lesser Storm Spirits should be as strong as T3 units.

And once you get Explosive Manifestation that should be it. Game is over, you win.

Always get Defensive Ritual instead of Quickened Ritual. Double casting overcharged Explosive Manifestations will always do more than anything your Wizard King do even if she has Awaken Earth. So always get Defensive Ritual.

My main grievance with both the Reaper build and the Shrine of SMiting build is that my combat summons are absolutely worthless **** because we get like only 1-2 +damage unit enchantment in them. And utilizing combat summons is where I derive the most of my enjoyment from this game. My Eldritch Sovereign's absolutely worthless Flesh Abomination doing jack **** all game despite me spending all that effort leveling my Eldritch Sovereign to 12 just to obtain him just depresses the hell out of me.

My main grievance with the above Wizard King build is that there are no Mythic units and I like Mythic units because they're colossal and scary looking. Other units like Storm Spirits look so puny by comparison.

So I've come up with a build that gets both. Gets Mythic Units AND +damage Unit Enchantments to make my combat summons powerful.

Chaos has 3 Tomes that increase damage so adding Balors to that is literally just a 1 Tome investment. But the real cost is Culture. If you want 15 Balors you need to go Feudal because of the Imperium Upkeep so you lose out on that sweet sweet +4 damage on crits from Barbarians.

The main thing that stopped me from making this build before was that before the Griffon update, Fight for Power randomly gave you a Calamity Dragon instead of a Balor 50% of the time. And Calamity Dragons are not very good. They're worse than Ironclads in everyway. But now that you can choose whether you get a Balor or a Calamity Dragon, a high powered highly aggressive Balor build is now viable!

This build is the most aggressive build in this guide because you never stop razing cities which is not a problem because you never stop scaling. Ever.

• First you spam Militias like a normal Feudal build to roflstomp the early game and raze a city. And you have Sundering Blades as well.
  
• Then your flying Aspirant Knights boosted by +damage Unit Enchantments roflstomp until you get your Balors. You also have Runecarver's camp for more draft.
  
  • In my opinion flying Aspirant Knights are superior to Warbreeds. Also, every Warbreed death sets you back which is why I don't use Warbreeds in battle. I stick to Aspirant Knights all the way to Balors and use Warbreeds solely as Balor fodder.
• Also, your Ritualists' Entwined Protectors are gonna dish out the damage because they too benefit from every single +damage unit enchantment that boosts our Aspirant Knights especially Sundering Blades.
  
• After that you merge all of your Warbreeds into Balors. The beauty here is that you don't need to ramp down and pause your city razing until you replace your army with your slowly obtained new T5 units. No dismissing and replacing units with their upgrade here. Just merge merge merge until you have 15 Balors. If you made 30 Warbreeds before you research Fight for Power, it's gonna only take like 8 turns to convert your entire Warbreed army into a full Balor army. This is one of the main benefits of going Balors. You start their production in T3 instead of waiting until T4 so while other builds are just starting to build their Mythic unit army, you're already finished. My current record is 17 Balors by turn 72.
  
• Due to the sheer amount of City Razes, you're research is gonna be through the roof. You're gonna have 14 Tomes by turn 120 which lets us get every +damage unit enchantment for melee units in the game, making your combat summons literally the strongest they can possibly be.
  
• Because we can get Awaken Earth with this build, you can open up a 2nd front. On one front we have Ruler + 17 Balors, and on the other we got 6 maximum strength Ritualsits capable of 6v18ing an endless amount of endgame brutal stacks back to back unscathed. And they don't have to 6v18. You can fill their stacks up with Storm Spirits because your Storm Spirits are gonna be at maximum strength too. And we can cast Call Avatar of Chaos to add your Ruler to every battle on the second front.
  
• With the insane amount of gold we'll be generating, we can open up even more fronts. Spam armies and armies of Iron Golems and cast Call Avatar of Chaos in every fight they're in too. You don't have to snipe Throne Cities. You can burn every single city on the map to the ground. And if they ever get wiped, who cares? You're just dumping your insane amount of gold and mana per turn on them. I say Iron Golems because it's the only melee T3 unit directly recruitable for us, and we can't use Aspirant Knights because they evolve, which means Imperium upkeep which we can't afford.

If you're thinking you can do this build without Chosen Destroyers, think again. Like I said in the Affinity Overview section, one of the biggest advantages of Balors is that you start their production in T3. You need 30 Warbreeds by the time you research Fight for Power and there is not a chance in hell you can afford 30 Warbreeds (960 gold per turn) with 3 cities. You can't even afford 15 Ironclads with 3 cities until the endgame.

Any. You can go any Ruler type you want.

This build was made with Eldritch Sovereign in mind. To make the Flesh Abomination not worthless. With so many +damage Unit Enchantments our Flesh Abominations are gonna be really good. Also, Eldritch Sovereigns are the strongest combat units in the entire game so you're gonna get the most mileage out of Call Avatar of Chaos with Eldritch Sovereigns by far.

Champion is probably best because +30% crit on Balors with their innate +15% crit just for being a demon means they crit 45% of the time. With morale this increases to 65% and if you're willing to spend the extra effort, Champions can grab the Champion of War skill and bestow an extra +20% crit chance for 85% crit rate. You just gotta move your Champion next to every Balor before they attack.

Wizard King is amazing, if you grab Tome of the Creator instead of Tome of the Chaos Lord for double Tectonic Shatter. Don't go Wizard King if you want Tome of the Chaos Lord.


Crusader is the best ambition by far as it also boosts the Balor's AoE damage. However you may have to grab Tome of Corruption to complete it if you get unlucky with the mobs/infestations/wonders/AI. Which isn't so bad. Think of it like getting a +2 damage Tome solely for Balors.

Raider - You're gonna have some serious trouble healing your Balors in this build to the point I'd say Raider might be the better option because Balors can army wipe without Crusader, but without some form of passive healing they will die to attrition, especially in Story Realms like Rings of Enmora where it only takes 2 turns for the AI to make 36 high tier units and ram them into your Balors. As a heavy Chaos build you're gonna get Skilled Raiders early letting you pillage provinces in 1 turn.

As mentioned in the Hero Ambitions section, pillage provinces while sieging cities.

Ascension:Summoner - The only ascension trait that boosts all of your Balors. And combat summons. +10hp and +10% damage. Also makes your early game really strong. Lastly, because of the sheer amount of +damage unit enchantments we get, these summoned Phantasm Warriors are absolute murder machines even in the late game. Don't worry about the fact that they only last 3 turns and that you can only use them once per battle. Once your Balors are up battles do not last 3 turns.

Feudal:Monarchy - Insanely strong early game, 5 extra Balors, and the only Culture Unit Enchantment that buffs Mythic units.

Chosen Destroyers - Why this build is in the Chosen Destroyers section. The absolute insane gold cost of Warbreeds (32 x 30 = 960 gold per turn) and the absolute insane mana cost of Balors necessitates insane gold and mana income which only Chosen Destroyers can provide.

Scions of Evil - As Chosen Destroyers, you're gonna be max evil forever. That's +15 Imperium per turn for 2 more Balors,and -20% draft cost to recruit Warbreeds in 1 turn so you can get 30 of them for 15 Balors really quickly.

• Flying Mounts
  
• Adaptable - +20% xp
  
• Fast Recuperation - +10 healing per turn
  
• Careless - -1 def and res from Defense Mode

Aspirant Knights are the entire Feudal strategy and they're racial units so we need to grab Racial Traits that are the best for them. In my opinion the above 4 traits are the best racial traits in the game for Aspirant Knights.

• (M) Tome of Enchantment - Sundering Blades, Awaken Tools, Summon Copper Golem
  
• (S) Tome of Cryomancy - Frost Blades
  
  
• (C) Tome of Revelry - Bloodfury Weapons, Revels of Blood
  
• (M) Tome of Artificing - Artisan Armaments
  
  
• (C) Tome of Devastation - Warbreeds, Flameburst Weapons
  
• (C) Tome of Pyromancy - Searing Weapons
  
  
• (C) Tome of the Demon Gate - Demonkin Transformation, Fight for Power
  
• (M) Tome of the Dungeon Depths - Raiders of the deep
  
  
• (C) Tome of the Chaos Lord
  
  
• (A) Tome of Evocation - Lightning Blades, Summon Lesser Storm Spirit
  
• (O) Tome of Zeal - Legion of Zeal
  
• (N) Tome of Roots - Poison Weapons
  
• (M) Tome of Rock - Obsidian Weapons, Earthkin

Tome of Enchantment is gotten first because it's the best starting Tome in the game. It is especially good for this build because

• Most of our Aspirant Knight and Entwined Protector's damage is physical so they seriously benefit from Sundered Defense
  
• We go Tome of Revelry so more physical damage to benefit from Sundered Defense
  
• Sundering Blades lets us destroy Stone Walls so we can siege AI cities early
  
• Awaken Tools gets us Faster Armory, Smith's Guild, and Town Hall II, III, and IV. When i went the Cosmic Overdrive adaptation, I struggled to have Town Hall IV up by the time I researched Warbreeds.

Copper Golems are inferior to Militias in everyway, but they're not completely useless. When you're low on gold or need to reinforce your troops away from your Throne City, summon Copper Golems.

Tome of Cryomancy is gotten for +damage and Dark Vigor

Tome of Revelry is gotten for +2 damage, Chaos Affinity, and Revels of Carnage to level our Heroes quicker

Tome of Artificing is gotten next to make progress towards Resourceful Vigor and Master of Materium. Also because we are gonna go Tome of Devastation, getting Tome of Artificing is especially good since 20% crit rate is too unreliable. With Artisan Weapons it's 45% crit, 65% with morale thanks to Call to Glory, and 95% with 3x Chaos Signature Skills.

Tome of Devastation is gotten for Warbreeds, +20% crit and Chaos Affinity.

Tome of Pyromancy for +damage and Chaos Affinity

Tome of the Demon Gate is gotten for Balors and Demonkin Transformation

Tome of the Dungeon Depths depths is gotten for +10% damage and Materium Affinity. We can now grab Awaken Earth.

Tome of the Chaos Lord is gotten for Demonic Onslaught. It is inferior to Tome of the Archmage in every way but I want +damage Tomes. Call Avatar of Chaos is really good for opening a 2nd front.

Then we get the remaining +damage Tomes for the absolute maximum possible damage for our combat summons.

I really wanted to fit Tome of Evocation early in the build for +20 casting points but alas I could not. Demonkin Transformation is gonna take a really long while to cast.

• (M) Tome of Enchantment - Sundering Blades, Awaken Tools, Summon Copper Golem
  
• (S) Tome of Cryomancy - Frost Blades
  
  
• (C) Tome of Revelry - Bloodfury Weapons, Revels of Blood
  
• (M) Tome of Artificing - Artisan Armaments
  
  
• (C) Tome of Devastation - Warbreeds, Flameburst Weapons
  
• (C) Tome of Pyromancy - Searing Weapons
  
  
• (C) Tome of the Demon Gate - Demonkin Transformation, Fight for Power
  
• (M) Tome of Transmutation - Magic Materials
  
  
• (M) Tome of the Dungeon Depths - Raiders of the deep
  
• (C) Tome of the Creator

Early game is identical to Feudal:Monarchy early game. Blacksmith first, then Mana Shrine and Obelisk, produce Defenders nonstop, spam Call Militia, and then rush Town Hall II and Armory. Aspirant Knights are just so good we want to start their production as early as possible. And then build Stonemason and Masonic Hall after Armory is complete.

For this build forget Mage Tower. Build Smith's Guild after Masonic Hall as soon as you can and when you can't due to lack of Foresters, build Town Hall III and IV until you do. Get Forester province improvements only. You heard me. Get Quarries and Farms to boost the mana and production buildings and convert them all to Foresters. No conduits, no mines, no research pots, only Foresters. This is because we're building the Smith's Guild this time and you get +5 draft and food for every Forester you have. So get as many Foresters you can to have the maximum possible draft income possible. After that rush Town Hall IV for Warbreeds. Don't be afraid to spend 1k+ gold to accelerate Town Hall IV construction. As Chosen Destroyers you should be swimming in gold and our number one priority is getting as many Warbreeds up as possible before we research Fight for Power.

After that build Mage Tower:Apex for Imperium.

This is very important. Rapid produce your Warbreeds every single turn. Once you are at max evil and finished building the Smith's Guild, Warbreeds will cost about 160 gold to rapid produce so do it every single turn to recruit a Warbreed every single turn so you can not only upgrade your entire army to pure Warbreeds a.s.a.p. but also to get 30 Warbreeds or very close to it by the time you finish researching Fight for Power.

Check the actual draft numbers of your Throne City and Warbreeds. They change all the time. So like if you have only 20 less draft per turn to produce a Warbreed, then don't actually rapid produce because you're actually recruiting a Warbreed every turn so no need to dump all our gold into rapid produce.

This is a reminder that Warbreeds are NOT for use in battle. Your flying Aspirant Knights are superior to Warbreeds in every way so do NOT use Warbreeds in battle. Warbreeds are Balor fodder only.

Combat strategy is normal. Ritualists only, Miltias + Defenders razes first Free City, Aspriant Knights + whatever T1 you have left over razes the next two, then pure Aspirant Knights razes the next one, and then you should be at Balors.

Try hards should regularly group their heroes together and spam Revels of Carnage on them to level them significantly faster.

Game should be an absolute breeze with all the +damage unit enchantments beefing up your units' damage out the wazoo. And the fact that your entire army are racial units should be the cherry on top.

For some truly insane resource generation, open up a 2nd or even a 3rd front with just T3 units like Iron Golems or Clay Chargers and spam Call Avatar of Chaos to burn down cities in 2+ different directions at once because why not? Making most of Tome of the Chaos Lord involves maximizing Call Avatar of Chaos. Otherwise, you're gonna pine for Cosmic Overdrive all game.

And that's it for the build!

NEVER auto-resolve from the world map. The AI is actually pretty good at landing the Balor's mass AoE attacks but they cast the worst spells and sends only a few Balors in first, getting them killed. I have to this day no idea why the AI only sends like 4 Balors out to kill Towers and makes the rest go into defense modes in their starting spots without moving an inch.

To properly use Balors in auto-resolve, in battle, first turn, manually use all of your heroes' skills and manually move all the Balors closer to the enemy but not within striking distance of their shock units. Ranged units are fine since they do so little damage.

Next turn micro your heroes again, cast the spells you want (Call to Glory, Demonic Onslaught) and then turn on auto-resolve to watch the fireworks fly. Your Balors are basically unscathed and everyone is dead.

Cosmic Overdrive is just so much better than Demonic Onslaught especially on the world map that I couldn't stop myself from making a build for it. Especially with Eldritch Sovereigns since they benefit immensely from Cosmic Overdrive as well. They're slow as **** without it.

Now the problem with the Cosmic Overdrive adaptation is you need to get 4 Chaos Tomes and 5 Astral Tomes leaving literally no room for anything else. No shadow Tomes for Dark Vigor. No Tome of Faith or Souls for world map healing. No Tome of the Beacon for Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build.

But with the new Empire of the Cosmos Society Trait, that all changed. We can get all of these and still grab Cosmic Overdrive!

There are three downsides to going this over the above Materium build however.

• First is we're not gonna get anywhere near enough Materium to grab Resourceful Vigor.
  
• Second is we don't get enough Materium Tomes for Awaken Earth on our Ritualists so our heroes are not game winningly strong.

But still, we're talking about Cosmic Overdrive here. Well worth the trade imo.

Each Ruler type has their own healing methods.

Champions with Logistics Training heals 5 Balors 10hp per turn, 20 with Dark Vigor, and 30 with Raider for a total of 50 with pillaging. They also can bestow +10% damage to Balors in your stack and +20% crit chance to any adjacent Balors. A mobile Champion can stand next to all 5 Balors before they attack to give all Balors 85% crit chance. They also have Decisive Command though because Balor's normal attack is only 22 damage, I doubt you'll get much use out of it.

Wizard Kings built for healing is best for 1 Ruler + 17 Balors. 88hp global heal on turn 2 is enough for you to beat an infinite amount of endgame Brutal stacks without pause. Wizard King is probably the best Ruler for this build.

Eldritch Sovereigns stockpile TONS of Thralls which all can be converted into Souls once you get Tome of Souls. 3 Thralls turn into 30 souls for 45 casting points and I usually get 5 Thralls every 18vs18 battle. Combined with the 60-ish souls I get from every 18vs18 battle, you'll be getting 110 souls after every battle so if you want to use Feast of Souls as your healing solution then Eldritch Sovereigns does it best by far. Also Eldritch Sovereigns fly and fully benefit from Cosmic Overdrive letting them traverse the map just as fast as your Balors without needing to find a flying 48 movement point mount. Having said that my Eldritch Sovereign had the most difficult time clearing Rings of Enmora because all the enemies are routed instead of dying thanks to the Immortal Ward Realm Trait therefore I was denied both Thralls and Souls. And eventually I ran out of both and my Balors fell to attrition. I finally found a solution though. It's called "keep your Balors from engaging the enemy until turn 3 which is when you'd have gotten 2 Arcane Restorations off." So it's a poor imitation of Wizard Kings. Not ideal but it got the job done.

• (S) Tome of Cryomancy
  
• (N) Tome of Roots
  
  
• (O) Tome of the Beacon
  
• (A) Tome of Summoning
  
  
• (M) Tome of Transmutation
  
• (C)(N) Tome of Dragons
  
  
• (C) Tome of the Demon Gate
  
• (C)(S) Tome of Calamity
  
  
• (A) Tome of the Archmage

Tome of Cryomancy is gotten for Shadow Affinity.

Tome of Roots is gotten next solely for the Nature affinity.

Tome of the Beacon is gotten for Order Affinity and to go the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build.

Tome of Summoning is gotten because Arcane Restoration spam is the healing solution for our Balors and also for the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build.

Tome of Transmutation is gotten for Transmuters to use as Balor fodder.

Tome of Dragons is gotten solely for the 1 Nature Affinity. Fire Bomb is really nice on our Transmuters and summoned Magma Spirits. In fact I'd say even without any other +damage Tome, summoned Magma Spirits with Greater Possession on it will outperform Storm Spirits even with 5 unit enchantments, and is a better fit for our Balors' AoE spam.

Tome of the Demon Gate gives us Balors.

Tome of Calamity is solely gotten for the Shadow Affinity. It also boosts our Magma Spirit's damage.

And then finally Tome of the Archmage for Cosmic Overdrifve.

Then whatever you want. Literally. You can grab any Tome you want in the game. Exaltation for Ascended Warriors, Supremacy for Anthem of Victory, etc.

Aspirant Knights and Astral Serpents into Balors. Nothing more to it.

Stockpile Transmuters instead of Warbreeds to begin our Balor recruitment at tier 3.

This is a very simple build because Dragons are simple.

You go Tome of Exaltation for Ascended Warriors to forcibly evolve them.

Then Tome of Supremacy for Anthem of Victory for 3x Strengthen, 3x Fortune, and Morale for +20% more crit.

Then Tome of the Goddess of Nature for Force of Nature because Dragons are not Magic Origin units so Cosmic Overdrive does not work on them. Therefore Force of Nature is literally the sole unit enchantment that can buff dragons so we get that.

And we're done! With morale, all dragons will have 65% chance to crit.

If you get 3x Chaos Signature Skills you can reach 95% crit. However it takes 10 Tomes to get to Goddess of Nature in this build and you need 2 more Chaos Tomes to hit 6 Chaos Affinity so you will have to either reset 3 of your heroes endgame or delay Force of Nature by 2 Tomes. Personally I like to see my dragons on the world map so I go without.

This is a Chosen Destroyer exclusive build because dragons are expensive as ****. Not only are they T5 but they're also high maintenance. Each dragon costs 90 gold per turn so even with feudal making 5 free, 12 x 90 = 1080 gold per turn. Yeah, you can't afford that with 3 cities. So this is a Chosen Destroyer exclusive build.

So first thing we need to do is choose the dragon we are going to win with.

There are 7 dragons

• Calamity Dragon
  
• Prosperity Dragon
  
• Fire Dragon
  
• Frost Dragon
  
• Golden Dragon
  
• Obsidian Dragon
  
• Bone Dragon

First, Calamity and Prosperity Dragon are out because they're trash compared to the other dragons. We're talking Balor-esque units that can wipe out the entire enemy army in 1 turn, and Calamity and Prosperity dragons have no AoE and can't attack and move on the same turn. They're out.

Cone and 3 hex wide line AoEs are best. 1 hex line AoEs are trash. So Obsidian Dragon is out.

Golden Dragon's breath attack sacrifices damage to heal allies. We're going for full enemy wipe out in 1 turn so he's out too.

Bone Dragons, being T4 units, have a significantly weaker AoE attack so he's out too. BTW I beat Brutal very easily with only Bone Dragons by adapting the Reaper build so if you want to win with Bone Dragons, you can. Go over to the Reaper build and use that.

So that leaves two. Frost and Fire Dragon. Since we are gonna be stacking 5-6 AoEs on the same group of enemies, the one with the better AoE wins.

Fire Dragons' breath attack bestows 3x Burning, but it only stacks up to 5 times. A LOT of damage is wasted, and it's only gonna do 12 damage at the end of your opponent's turn.

Frost Dragon's breath attack has a 60% chance of Frozen which sucks because we can't go Astral so no ignore 6 status resistance for them. BUT, on fail, Frost Dragons bestow -2 status resistance, and it stacks upto -10! So with 5-6 Frost Dragons hitting the same units, all enemy units are gonna be frozen by the end even without 3x Astral Signature Skills, netting you a free turn!

So I deem Frost Dragons the best Dragon in the game and we'll be going 17 of them and roflstomp Brutal Difficulty!

Any. You can go any Ruler type you want. But Wizard King is best even though we don't have any good Combat Spellls because we spam so many Ascended Warriors and Army Heals which are really, really expensive spells and the Wizard King's +30 casting points translates to 30% more spells cast.

Also they can cast two overcharged Anthems of Supremacy on the same turn for 5x Strengthen, +30 morale, and +4 res

Champions and normal Heroes have Champion of War which gives +20% crit chance to all adjacent allies' attacks, including your Frost Dragons' breath attack so if you want to put in the extra effort, you can give all your Frost Dragons 85% crit chance by moving your Champion/Heroes next to each and every Frost Dragon before they attack.

Heroes should grab Paragon of Nature for +10hp heal per turn. I like having my units topped off more than Resurgence so I recommend it over Paragon of Order. But you can disagree.

Crusader - gives +2 damage to all of your Dragons including their breath attack. If you fail to complete the Major Ambition Quest you probably have to grab Tome of the Revenant and get Fallen Angels to desert so you can kill them yourself.

Raider - You're gonna have some serious trouble healing your Dragons in this build to the point I'd say go Raider 100% of the time.

Dragonheart - Best ascension trait for dragons. +20% damage, +2 def, and +2 res for all allied dragons in battle, including those in your reinforcements' stacks. Combined with Feudal's base +10% damage, +1 def, and +1 res, your dragons are gonna be really strong.

You could go Artificer and grab Tome of the Beacon instead of Tome of Faith, but you're gonna want that Tome of Faith to heal your Frost Dragons so I don't recommend it.

Feudal:Monarchy - Insanely strong early game, 5 extra Frost Dragons, and the only Culture Unit Enchantment that buffs Mythic units.

Chosen Destroyers - Why this build is in the Chosen Destroyers section. The absolute insane gold cost of Dragons (90 x 12 = 1080 gold per turn) necessitates Chosen Destroyers so you can have that kind of insane gold income when you start getting your Dragons up.

Empire of the Cosmos - This Society Trait not only gives you the most Imperium per turn (+20) for a total of +80 imperium per turn, letting you get 17 Frost Dragons only at a -4 Imperium Deficit. If you're going 3 Heroes then you have all the Imperium you need to have a full army of Frost Dragons with 0 additional wonders.

• Flying Mounts
  
• Adaptable - +20% xp
  
• Fast Recuperation - +10 healing per turn
  
• Careless - -1 def and res from Defense Mode

Aspirant Knights are the entire Feudal strategy and they're racial units so we need to grab Racial Traits that are the best for them. In my opinion the above 4 traits are the best racial traits in the game for Aspirant Knights.

• (S) Tome of Cryomancy
  
• (N) Tome of Roots - Blight Blades
  
  
• (A) Tome of Evocation
  
• (O) Tome of Faith
  
  
• (C)(N) Tome of Dragons - Young Dragon
  
• (M) Tome of Artificing
  
  
• (O) Tome of Exaltation - Ascended Warriors
  
• (O) Tome of Supremacy - Anthem of Victory
  
  
• (C)(S) Tome of Calamity
  
• (N) Tome of the Goddess of Nature - Force of Nature
  
  
• (C) Random Chaos Tome
  
• (C) Random Chaos Tome
  
• (C) Random Chaos Tome

Tome of Cryomancy is gotten first for the Shadow Affinity.

Tome of Roots is otten next to get Empire of the Cosmos's 1 affinity bonuses.

Tome of Evocation is gotten for +damage.

Tome of Faith is gotten for Army Heal to heal our Frost Dragons.

Tome of Dragons is gotten to get us Frost Dragons.

Tome of Artificing is gotten over Dungeon Depths because Shock Units already get +60% damage from their charge, so upping that to +70% damage is not gonna do much. Also, as Feudal:Monarchy, our units are always gonna get +20% crit from morale from a single cast of Call to Glory so might as well up it to 45%.

Tome of Exaltation gets us our T5 Frost Dragons. IMPORTANT!!! If you get your full 17 army right then and there, you'll be bankrupt. Get only 6 T5 Frost Dragons and then start razing cities like your life depends on it before evolving more.

Tome of Supremacy is next for Anthem of Victory for 3x Strengthen and 3x Fortune.

Tome of Calamity is gotten solely for the Affinity to finally have at least 3 of each affinity.

Then we finally get Tome of the Goddess of Nature for Force of Nature and we're done!

Last three Chaos Tomes is if you want heroes leading your Dragons and giving them +30% crit via Chaos Signature Skills. They're gonna have to reset their skills since we get them so late. Force of Nature isn't that amazing so if you want you could grab the Chaos Tomes earlier. After Tome of Exaltation.

You just go normal Feudal and raze cities. Don't even need Town Hall IV for this. Town Hall III and Smith's Guild is all you need.

Build Order Bolstering Matrix so Anthem of Victory gives 3x Fortune on all our Frost Dragons. Cast it twice every battle for guaranteed +20% crit from morale.

As mentioned before. STOP at 6 T5 Frost Dragons and raze cities like crazy. DON'T evolve 6 more Frost Dragons until your gold income can handle their insane upkeep.

Once you razed enough cities and have 17 Frost Dragons, that's it. Win the game. Spam Ascended Warriors to get a full 17 Legend Rank army of Frost Dragons and spam Army Heal nonstop to keep them all healthy.

If you want to go the extra mile get your Ruler the Champions of War skill and a very fast flying mount and have her spend her turn getting next to as many dragons as she can before they attack so they have 85% crit chance on all of their attacks.

Cult of Personality is a Society Trait that increases your Pantheon Hero cap by 3 for a total of 4. Including your Ruler that's 5 heroes with Ascension Perks

That's so insanely powerful that I could not stop myself from making a build around it!

If you spend 100% of your Imperium on recruiting these Heroes and increasing Hero cap, and if you rush the Mage Tower structures then you can get all 5 by turn 52.

Let me just say, this is probably the most powerful build in the guide by a considerable margin. The 5 Rulers are so powerful that they can beat the game all on their own start to finish without an army, turning the game into a procedurally generated RPG. The one and only problem with Cult of Personality is that Story Realms don't allow Pantheon Hero recruitment but because heroes are just so much stronger than regular units, this is still the best build even without Pantheon Heroes. So if you want to minmax, this is the build to go.

The concept of this build is very simple. Use Ritual of Elements to get 10x Bolt Repeaters boosted with Mighty Meek, 3x Fortune, and 5x Strengthen to just completely annihilate the entire battlefield from afar while your summons hold the enemy at bay.

You need to see this in action. The 10x Bolt Repeaters are like some kind of super death ray weapon melting the entire enemy army every other turn. It is so fun and so freaking overpowered it's addicting.

You can go any ruler type you want with this now since Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit now spawns with full action points instead of just 1, no longer making Decisive Command mandatory.

I have beaten Arcalot, the last Eldritch Realm DLC story mission, the one with the 10 turn doom counter, with this build even with only 2 Godirs instead of 5. So if you're having trouble beating Arcalot, go this build.

There are six downsides to Cult of Personality.

• First, each Renown level of your Heroes gives them +1 skill point but it also comes with a +10 gold per turn upkeep. Permanently. So 5 max renown heroes will cost 150 gold upkeep permanently.
  
  
• Second, because we're spending 100% of our Imperium on recruiting Pantheon Heroes, you're gonna have 0 Empire Skills for the majority of the game. So you're gonna really struggle maintaining a full T3 army. Combined with the first downside you won't be able afford a T3 army until lategame. You're gonna have to try to win with only Heroes and T1 units.
  
  
• Third, because we get Logistics Training on our heroes so late (level 11) it's gonna be a real struggle to pay for T3 units' upkeep.
  
  
• Fourth, because we need Imperium so badly we rush Wizard Tower first meaning we can't get a T3 army early even if we could afford it.
  
  
• Fifth, we are SEVERELY mana starved because Wizard Tower costs way too much mana to build and we need them up a.s.a.p. for Imperium so we're gonna have to hold back on unit enchantments and summoned Elementals until you bank all the mana you need to build the Wizard Towers first. And there's no way you're gonna boost Wizard Tower Apex (16 pops) so you're gonna have to build it the hard way.
  
  
• Sixth, any army without a hero in it has -20 Morale which immediately puts them in fumble range. If you ever fought a battle with 0 gold/mana and a negative gold/mana income you'd know that fumble = auto-lose. I've seen full 18 stacks of T3 units that roflstomps armies with no losses get completely wiped because I accidentally hit negative mana income. So if you go Cult of Personality you should pretty much expect to lose 100% of fights where you don't have a hero even if you are completely maxed out on Unit Enchantments.

If you notice, all six downsides are completely negated by having no army until the lategame. So don't get an army until lategame.

• Cult of Personality - For obvious reasons.
  
  
• Chosen Destroyers - I don't want to spend 400 Imperium on founding cities. I want to spend it on Pantheon Heroes so we go the only single city Society Trait in the game: Chosen Destroyers.
  
  Your Rulers are stupidly strong early game powerhouses that they'll be clearing infestations and razing cities way, way earlier than normal, leading to a truly crazy snowball effect that will make you fly through the research tiers and swim in an insane amount of resources to the point you just give up trying to spend it all.
  
  I recommend you never go anything other than Chosen Destroyers when going Cult of Personality because spending 400 Imperium on cities really delays your Pantheon Hero acquisition rate and therefore makes them lower level than they should be.

Any - You can go any Ruler you want.

Eldritch Sovereigns and Giant Kings are probably the best. Eldritch Sovereigns have both Arcfire Weapons and spawn Fleshlings/Flesh Abomination at the start of combat which is 5-10 more meat shields. And 5x Eldritch Sovereigns spamming their Forgotten Tomes is game winning in their own right. Giant Kings on the other hand have a 1 action point summon with infinite duration they can really abuse with Conjure Greater Elemental Spirit and Ritual of Elements

Ascension:Artificer - This strategy is built around this ascension trait.

5x Deathcaller and 5x Dungeon Keeper also works.

• 5x Deathcaller works by going Conquerer and killing your own starting Fleshlings at the start of combat so you can raise them and start with 10 Skeletons instead of Fleshlings, and once you get Fleshsculptor you kill your own Devastator Spheres instead.
  
  • 5x Deathcaller requires you to change out all the Tomes in this build for Tomes that boost melee, ranged, and battle mage simultaneously such as Tome of the Horde and Tome of the Beacon. Tome of Virtue when stacked with Tenacious turns all of your multi-model racial units to essentially single model units.
• 5x Eldritch Sovereign Dungeon Keeper is capable of beating every endgame Brutal Stack via auto-resolve only.

Imperialist - Super easy to max out letting us get our +3 skill points on all of our heroes really early. Makes a HUGE difference.

Elementalist - Our game winning strategy is spamming Ritual of Elements for more Bolt Repeaters.

Barbarian - Vision of Victory is the easiest way to get 5x Strengthen and 3x Fortune on 7 of our Bolt Repeaters without any support units.

As Siege Units none of the Culture Unit enchantments boost our Bolt Repeaters so it was either Barbarian or Mystic:Attunement to boost our summoned Storm Spirits and I choose Barbarian for Vision of Victory and the fact that it takes 3 turns to get the full benefit of Mystic:Attunement.

• Fast Recuperation - +10 healing per turn

Bolt Repeaters benefit from 0 Racial Traits and our other summons are not racial units so go whatever you want. Athletics, Hardy, etc. The only mandatory Racial Trait is Fast Recuperation because as Chosen Destroyers we are gonna be on the offensive the majority of the game so our heroes need a way to heal in enemy domain.

• (A) Tome of Evocation
  
• (A) Tome of Warding
  
  
• (O) Tome of the Beacon - Mighty Meek
  
• (C) Tome of Revelry - Revels of Carnage, Bloodfury Weapons
  
  
• (C) Tome of Devastation
  
• (M) Tome of Artificing
  
  
• (A) Tome of Scrying
  
• (A) Tome of Astral Convergeance - Explosive Manifestation, Astral Attunement
  
  
• (A) Tome of the Archmage - Cosmic Overdrive

Only Mighty Meek and Cosmic Overdrive boosts the damage of our Bolt Repeaters so we have to get both.

We don't get Tome of Summoning because there's no way to cast Arcane Supercharge on all 10 Bolt Repeaters, let alone maintain it on all of them after 3 turns. Vision of Victory is our sole buff spell.

As for the rest of the slots, we get +crit because we are going Barbarians which means if we want our combat summons to get any +damage from going Barbarians we have to go crits.

Tome of Revelry is gotten to level our heroes faster.

Research dump Tomes are just +damage unit enchantments for our melee units.

There's no complicated strategy here.

Get 0 Empire Skills except for Knowledge Extraction. No other Empire Skill is allowed.

Grab a 2nd Pantheon Hero as soon as you can. And get additional Pantheon Heroes a.s.a.p. by increasing your hero cap with Imperium and then recruiting the Pantheon Hero on the same turn.

2x Bolt Repeaters at the start should roflstomp any and all mobs including AI and Free City. With Cult of Personality's +skill points you should get 4x Bolt Repeaters up by like level 4.

Level your heroes efficiently and spam Revels of Carnage, and with your 5-10 Bolt Repeaters game should be a breeze.

4 Pantheon heroes is enough to 4v18 the hard Free Cities.

And then that's it. Game is too easy.

Lower tier Spider Wands are awesome in this build thanks to Mighty Meek and Brutal Strike.

Adapting this build for Arcalot is super easy. Start with Tome of Enchantment and skip Tome of Warding.

That's it.

We're looking at a turn 40 win so no point in going any Astral Tomes for Cosmic Overdrive.

Get a 2nd Godir at the start. You cannot recruit Eldritch Sovereigns so if you want one, start with an Eldritch Sovereign and then recruit a Giant King.

With Cult of Personality you can get an additional Ritualist Hero at the very start. Get Ritualists Heroes and NOT Elementalists Heroes. Your Rulers are Elementalists and your Heroes are Ritualists.

And then once you have enough Imperium, up your Hero cap and recruit a 4th Ritualist Hero.

While doing this recruit some units.

And then that's it! Beeline towards the tree that increases the game over timer while killing everything on your way. Don't enter any Umbral Portals. Just hoof it.

If you don't know what that tree is, use the Barentz cheat and Cruijff cheat and send a unit to that tree so you know what I'm talking about. Then reload or restart because cheats disable everything.

Summon Copper Golems while you're hoofing it for reinforcements.

Once you get near the tree, send a Copper Golem to it so you can interact with it and go for Lithyl's Throne City. Use the Tree to increase the game over Timer.

Once you reach Lithyl, kill her immediately. You can. 2-4 Bolt Repeaters are that strong.

Once Lithyl is dead, go kill Merlin and that's it! You win!

This build is not a build you go because you want to minmax. This build is really suboptimal because it takes forever to obtain 17 Lost Wizard. In real time not in-game. In-game you can get all 17 in like 9 turns but doing the exact same 9 manual combats in a row is just so excruciatingly painful, there are better ways to play. Me speed running the whole capture 2 Lost Wizards in one battle takes 4 minutes. x9 = 36 minutes. Spending 36 minutes of your time capturing 17 Lost Wizards every single game is not worth it.

So why go Lost Wizards?

Well, why do people get jewelry? Why do people wear brand name clothes? Why do people get million dollar cars? Why do people buy mansions? Why do people spend tons of money collecting antiques?

The answer is... Status Symbol. Luxury. And no unit is more luxurious than Lost Wizards. You can't make them. You can't summon them. Only those in the know know how to walk around with an army of these mother fxxxers strutting around beside them which is nobody except you because all the other Rulers in the entire game don't have a clue on how to get a hold of these rare specimens.

So you go Lost Wizards because it makes you feel prestigious and better than everyone else.

So lets talk about Lost Wizards.

• Their base stats are just typical of a T5 Mythic Unit. Nothing special.
  
• Their regular attack is one of the worst in the game for a T5 Mythic Unit. It only does 21 damage per hit and it's affected by obscure penalties, and it does nothing special.
  
• They have a 6 range free action teleport on a 2 turn cd.
  
• Their game winning ability is Forgotten Tome.
  
  • It's a 3 action point ability that leaves you 1 action pointa fter use, and gives you one of the 7 Forgotten Tome skills
    
    • Renew - 25 hp heal in a 1-hex AoE. Absolute crap.
      
    • Astral Storm - 12 damage to 3-4 random enemies for 3 turns. Absolute crap as you can't cast a 2nd one while another is ongoing or boost its damage with Strengthen.
      
    • Lightning Storm - 24 damage to 1 random enemy for 3 turns. Worse than Astral Storm in every way.
      
    • Mass Plague - 20 damage in a 2-hex AoE, 90% chance of diseased. Not amazing but usable.
      
    • Cosmic Barrage - 27 damage in a 2-hex AoE. Not amazing but usable.
      
    • Arcfire Typhoon - 18 damage in a 2-hex AoE, creates burning and electrified terrain. Game winninglly strong.
      
    • Astral Rift - Summons a T3 Astral Serpent or Astral Siphoner. Game winningly strong.
  • As you can see, these Forgotten Tome skills are a little different than Eldritch Sovereigns. They're slightly stronger.
• So on average, every turn
  
  • 3/7 or 43% or 7-8 of your Lost Wizards are gonna be absolutely worthless.
    
  • 4/7 or 57% or 9-10 Lost Wizards are gonna have a global range 2-hex AoE attack or a summon.
• So what happens every fight is
  
  • All 17 Lost Wizards are gonna teleport away from the enemy and spread out like crazy.
    
  • Then 9-10 Lost Wizards are gonna absolutely b***** slap the entire enemy army with stacked AoE or summons. Arcfire Typhoon is gonna turn the map into a burning electrified hellscape that will murder anything and everything that tries to stand still or move, so they're f***ed 100% of the time. And Astral Rift is gonna flood the map with T3 summons that will occupy the entire enemy army's attention.
    
  • Then next turn, repeat repeat repeat.
    
  • And on subsequent turns, repeat repeat repeat.
    
  • The unprecedented level of global range AoE spam is gonna absolutely murder the entire enemy army without a scratch on your Lost Wizards.
    
  • And if the enemy manages to reach your Lost Wizards, not only will they just teleport away but also the enemy's AoE attacks will never hit more than 1 Lost Wizard.
• So let me ask you. How are you supposed to beat this? How are you supposed to survive at least 3 turns of massive AoE barrage from Global Range before you can reach the Lost Wizards and then somehow kill them when they're all spread out and just teleports away forcing you to chase them down even further?
  
• The answer is, you can't. Lost Wizards are in fact the most powerful unit in the game bar none. Stronger than Balors. Stronger than Reapers.
  
• The only reason I never mentioned them in any other part of this guide is because their acquisition method is an absolute pain in the a**.

So how do you get your hands on 17 Lost Wizards? Two methods. First is completing Vision of Destiny and recruiting them via Rally of Lieges. I don't bother with Rally of Lieges stuff so... you're gonna have to consult another guide if you want to go this route.

The second method is by devolving them in combat and then dominating them.

• Devolve has a 28% chance of working on a Lost Wizard
  
• If you want to increase this chance to 100% you need to bestow a total of -12 Status Resistance on Lost Wizards.
  
• Sundered Resistance inflicts -1 Status Resistance per stack. Sundered Defense inflicts -1 Status Resistance per stack. Status Vulnerability inflicts -2 status resistance per stack. The World Map spell Blizzard inflicts -3 status resistance on an entire stack for a turn.
  
• Elementalists can inflict 1 Sundered Resistance, 1 Sundered Defense, and 1 Status Vulnerability with each hit of their base attack with Discipline of Earth, Sundering Magic, and Withering Magic Hero Skills. Single Shot weapons like Eldritch Sovereign's weapons bestow 1 additional Status Vulnerability but not Sundered Defense or Resistance, for a grand total of -6 Status Resistance per shot.
  
• So with two shots from two Elementalists with staves, you can hit a 100% Devolve Success chance. That's really easy to do.

Use this table to help you know how much more status resistance you need to remove from your target Lost Wizard.

BUG WARNING

• Units recruited from Domination do NOT get For the Monarch at this time. This means Lost Wizards in your Ruler's stack do NOT have their upkeep eliminated.
  
• There is a work around. It's called Resurgence. If you cast Possession on the dominated and devolved Lost Wizards and kill them before the battle is over, you get to recruit them for free and they'll have For the Monarch.
  
• This means as long as this bug exists, you need to always go Eldritch Sovereign and NOT kill the last Astral Siphoner alive and let him murder your own troops while you try to devolve, dominate, possess, and kill both Lost Wizards.

This is my strategy for dominating Lost Wizards. In my opinion the bottleneck of this build is how quickly in real time you can get your hands on all 17 Lost Wizards and nothing else so I optimized for that.

• Cast Astral Shattering to summon a stack of Umbral Demons. Guaranteed to have 1 Lost Wizard and pretty much 90% of the time it's gonna have 2 Lost Wizards. So to make this whole capture phase as least painful as possible, we gotta capture both every time.
  
• Engage the Umbral Demons immediately with your Eldritch Sovereign Ruler, 4 Heroes (2 Ritualists with the Dominator ambition, 2 Elementalists) and 13 Aspirant Knights
  
  • The Eldritch Sovereign Ruler is there to work around the current bug with Dominated units. Once the bug is fixed you don't need the Eldritch Sovereign Ruler. Only 4 Heroes
• In battle the 13 Aspirant Knights kills all the non-Lost Wizard mobs.
  
• While they're doing that have your 4 Heroes flank and capture a Lost Wizards.
  
• 2 Elementalist Heroes with single shot weapons and with Discipline of Earth, Sundering Magic, and Withering Magic Hero Skills attack one Lost Wizard.
  
• 1 Ritualist Hero Polymorphs the Lost Wizard at 100% success chance.
  
• 1 Ritualist Hero Dominates the now animal Lost Wizard
  
• ***This is a Bug Workaround step. Have your Eldritch Sovereign use its teleport skills to get within range of the Dominated Lost Wizard and cast Possession on it. Then kill it this turn with an Aspirant Knight.
  
• Repeat next turn for the 2nd Lost Wizard. ***You need to keep a non-Lost Wizard alive until the 2nd Lost Wizard is captured so the battle doesn't end before you kill your 2nd Dominated resurged Lost Wizard
  
• If everything goes right, you'll get 2 Lost Wizards per cast so after doing this 9 times you'll have your 17 Lost Wizards.
  
• If you don't want to use the Dominator Ambition on your RItualists, you can use Arcane Bond from Tome of Summoning or Seduce from Nymphs from Tome of Fertility. I chose Dominator because Mage Banes are mobile Spelljammers so I didn't want to use spells.
  
• If you don't want to use Polymorph then you need to use the Devolve Spell from the T4 Tome of Nature's Wrath and also kill all the Mage Banes before you can start capturing the Lost Wizards. I use Polymorph so I can recruit the Lost Wizards 1 Tome earlier and so I don't have to wait until all the Magebanes are dead.

Eldritch Sovereign - Until the bug is fixed, Resurgence is your only work around for your dominated Lost Wizards not getting For the Monarch

Crusader or Imperialist. Crusader if you want slightly stronger Lost Wizards. Imperialist if you don't want your Siege time to be 5 turns.

Artificer - Empire of the Cosmos lets us skip 2 worthless Nature Tomes to get Tome of Nature's Wrath, and for our Order Tome I choose Tome of the Beacon for the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon Ruler build.

Feudal:Monarchy - T5 Mythic Unit build mandates Feudal:Monarchy to reduce Imperium Upkeep by 35 per turn.

Chosen Destroyers - No particular reason other than I like it. You can go a different Society Trait if you want.

Empire of the Cosmos - Gives us +20 Imperium per turn and lets us skip worthless Nature Tomes.

• Flying Mounts
  
• Adaptable - +20% xp
  
• Fast Recuperation - +10 healing per turn
  
• Careless - -1 def and res from Defense Mode

Aspirant Knights are the entire Feudal strategy and they're racial units so we need to grab Racial Traits that are the best for them. In my opinion the above 4 traits are the best racial traits in the game for Aspirant Knights.

• (S) Tome of Enchantment
  
• (N) Tome of Cryomancy
  
  
• (A) Tome of Beacon
  
• (O) Tome of Revelry
  
  
• (N) Tome of Roots
  
• (A)(S) Tome of Corruption
  
  
• (A) Tome of Astral Convergence
  
• (N) Tome of Nature's Wrath
  
  
• (A) Tome of the Archmage

This Tome build is built for quickest Lost Wizard capture time.

Lost Wizards barely get scratched due to their global range and a lot of them inevitably get Renew so you can heal any damaged Lost Wizards on your first turn. As such we don't need a healing solution with Lost Wizards so Tome of Summoning, Faith, and Souls are not mandatory.

Tome of Enchantment is gotten not only because it's the best starting Tome in the entire game, but also after testing, getting another +damage unit enchantment instead of Sundering Blades requires 6 Full Aspirant Knight Charges to kill a Mage Bane. WIth Sundering Blades however you only need 4 even if the Mage Bane is right next to another unit.

Tome of Cryomancy is gotten for the Shadow Affinity for Knowledge Extraction and Dark Vigor.

Tome of the Beacon is gotten for the Artificer + Elementalist + Tome of Summoning/Beacon combo. Please note that we don't get Tome of Summoning just so we can get Cosmic Overdrive as quickly as possible. Having said that, Lost Wizards benefit minimally from Cosmic Overdrive so if you want to get Tome of Summoning even if it means delay Cosmic Overdrive by 1 Tome, then by all means do so. Alternatively, you can change out Tomes of Corruption, Nature's Wrath, and Enchantment with Shades and Alchemy, letting you grab Tome of Summoning without delaying Cosmic Overdrive.

Tome of Revelry is gotten for the Chaos Affinity. Chosen over Tome of Pyromancy for +phys damage so your Aspirant Knights benefit more from Sundering Blades.

Tome of Roots is gotten for Nature Affinity.

Tome of Corruption is gotten solely for Affinity.

Tome of Astral Convergence is gotten for Astral Shattering to summon hostile Lost Wizards we can dominate.

Tome of Nature's Wrath is gotten for Nature Affintiy. If you don't mind not having Devolve because you want to rely solely on your Ritualists' Polymorph skill, then by all means grab another Nature Tome like Tome of Dragons. Or as mentioned above, you can grab Tomes of Alchemy, Summoning, and Shades instead of Nature's Wrath, Enchantment, and Corruption.

And then we're at Tome of the Archmage for Cosmic Overdrive.

It's just standard Feudal with Militia spam into Aspirant Knights. Then supercharge your Bolt Repeaters with Arcane Supercharge and Mighty Meek and with so many +damage Unit Enchantments beefing up your Aspirant Knights, game is too easy.

It takes me 3 minutes to capture 2 Lost Wizards. Add an extra minute due to miscellaneous stuff like loading screens, turn times, your own clicking speed, etc. 4 x 9 = 36 minutes of capturing Lost Wizards if you go this build.

If you read and followed my guide then you should be good to create your own builds with different Cultures, Units, and Tomes that can beat Brutal Difficulty.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my guide.