How To Play
The Warlords IV Demo

Introduction:

These tips assume you know by now that there are no simultaneous turns in Warlords IV, and that there is going to be "Persistant Warlords" with retinues ala' "Warlords BattleCry".

Here's a quick primer for anyone who wants to get a LOT better very fast and to build the best/strongest persistent warlord. I've played MANY games on emperor level now and have built 1 Warlord to Level 6 and the other to Level 8 (and WAY beyond now) here's what I've learned:

Persistant Warlord:

OK there are essentially 2 ways to go, primary power of magic or primary power of combat. I tried both and I like combat WAY better, at least in the demo (note I am saying demo since not even I have seen the real game) and here's why:

• There is very little mana available for spells. You can add 1 mana regen to your persistant Warlord to get +2 mana per turn at the start of the game and if you are the knights you can get another easy +1 from the city to the north for 3 per turn. You get 1-2 crystals from the main quest (liches always have mana crystals at 2nd part of quest) giving you 4-5 mana income. That to me is a pittance since I need 2-3 always for upkeep of spells giving me a real mana re-gen of 2-3 a turn which isn't much considering spells take 10+ to cast for decent ones and more for summoning meaning you summon 1 measily unit every 3-4 turns which is pathetic. On top of that spells can all be dispelled forcing re-casts which wastes many turns to re-cast since you have to build up mana again and hence you aren't summoning.

Regardless of which path (magic or combat) you choose, you primarily want to put all your points for levelling up into 1 or 2 things that only that affect ALL your empire, not just your capitol city which isn't much.

Spellcasting Path:

With this guy I took production -1 first (the only city thing worth getting for 1 turn knights and 2 turn archons and only spellcasters get this ability) for my capitol city followed by mana regen +1 and then all the rest of my points went into getting faster cheaper mercs (I think it's called Glory, its the power at the bottom of the screen below all the city improvements). The extra mana is an obvious need for spellcasters. But the cheaper mercs is the real key. You get them more often and for less money. This is the big balance issue in the game IMHO. You can get 4-5 level 2 or 3 Unicorns or golems for 300-400 gold which is dirt cheap compared to getting 1 new hero for 800+ gold and the more you up the merc power the faster and cheaper they come. By Level 6 you should have 4 points in cheaper mercs. As for getting faster spells? Well, why bother. As I mentioned, you get mana generation very slowly and you can research spells in 2 or 5 turns anyway which by then you just have the mana to cast them so you don't need to research them any faster.

Combat Path:

With this guy I do only 1 thing. Pump everything into Morale. His glory path is cheaper heroes (not mercs) which already cost too much and you only get 1 hero at a time so they are overpriced compared to getting 4-5 mercs like Golems or Unicorns which are FAR more valuable. Why morale? Well, because higher morale gives extra attacks in combat. So at level 8 I have a base morale of 9 (8 from Warlord and 1 from race). This can go higher with spells, statues and units of same race in a stack so I usually have more like 10 or 11 morale. So when I enter combat my morale is often 10 or 11 compared to 0-2 for the enemy (BTW, spellcaster heros don't get morale, they get Chaos to counter morale but it's less effective per point spent on it so they go the mercs route). So the +9 difference means that A) I get to swing first in the opening of combat which I like. B) Far more important I get extra swings at a rate of 3X the morale difference which if it's 9 means 3X9=27% chance each swing of an extra MORALE swing for more damage on the enemy. Since Morale can go up to 15 (from Steve) you can get this up to 45% chance of an extra swing each time you swing which is going to be HUGE in combat letting you mop up ruins and other enemies. In essence swinging 3 times to every 2 for the enemy making your stacks worth about 12 men to his 8.

Spells:

Only one school of spells exists in the demo and of that I only like 3-4 spells all of which affect all units in your empire (notice the trend in tactics toward spells and powers that affect all units, not just 1 or 2 units or the capitol). The best of the bunch is Warding +1 which reduced hits from archery and city towers. I get this first (2 turns for Spellcasters and 5 turns for Combat Warlords). Then the next best is Endurance for +4 group movement to all units. Then I like Inspiration for the +1 morale (good for everyone and I get it 50% of my games depending on my need). The other spell I like is Negate which can turn the tide in close battles by stopping those silly terror attacks and stuff like that. Summoning spells? Forget em, waste of mana for what you get. Armor is OK and the spell to dispel other Warlord spells is OK if you play long games (mine are over in 25-30 turns or so meaning I don't get time to get them researched as a Combat hero because I get Warding and Endurance which take 15 turns combined.

Units to build:

As the Knights you want to build Knights and Archons and little else. Really, just 2 swordsmen to leave in every city except dragon keep (read overall tactics below for why I do this) then start on the higher value combat units. For the Elves it's the same thing, Shadowriders and Harpies. What about siege? Well as you'll learn, if you have the right stacks the city towers matter little anyway in combat so you won't need them.

Heroes and Powers:

The heroes you want (these are the ones you get during the game) are the ones with multiple stack powers or supreme individual powers. This means heroes that come with Bless and Heal as their 2nd powers are the best 2 heros to take because both powers benefit the entire stack. The only individual hero power I really like is Vampirism which gives back hit points every time you do damage. Other powers are all much weaker. You get no real choice in what your hero gets but I spelled out these powers because these are the heros you put in your retinue (see below).

As for unit/hero powers, the best ones in the game are as follows:

• Multi-attack - maximum hose power only available in items in the demo. But lets just say if you get it, you'll understand why becase it can damage every unit in the enemy stack everytime it hits. It's that good that most enemy units are damaged 50% or better by the time they enter combat. Hopefully this is changed in the final release.
• Heal - Very handy power to have, allowing units to survive long after they shouldn't. Once you get a hero or archon or unicorn to +5 heal you want to put your strongest unit (dragon likely) in combat first because they last longer and they 1 shot kill so many enemies that they heal more often so they keep up their hit points better.
• Bless - Gives +3 to combat to the unit for the battle. Do I need to say more?
• Vampirism - Awesome power for a hero to have letting him get back hit points on a 1 for 1 basis for every point he does of damage. Once you get a guy to +5 vamp you pump his combat up high so he does more damage and hence gets back more hp's.
• Crushing Blow - Golems are great, esp when they get to +3 or better. But be sure to send them into combat against units with full health to get the best effect of the blow which drains 50% of remaining health when it hits.

Retinue:

You get to keep 3 units only to take to the next battle. These should ideally be 3 heros since they are the best units. I keep 2 heros with leadership and heal and one with fear and vampirism. Why heros? Well they carry items and they have the best powers for stacks. Leadership gives extra combat strength and extra move so getting that power to +5 to get +3 attack and +3 group move is paramount. I like Heal +5 for 2 heros so I can heal 1-6 points of damage and because Archons come built with bless and take longer to get their heal power so I chose heros with heal over bless. You want 1 fear hero because at +5 that gives -3 to enemy combat and the Vampirism means that hero can enter combat and wreak havoc. My heros are at 14th level all now have 4 items each which are extra strength, bless (yes I have 2 bless items which means 2 heroes actually have 3 stack powers, leadership, bless and heal), leadership (for the fear hero), multi-attack and more mundane stuff like negate, fire etc. Don't keep units that you can make or build in the retinue unless you end a game without 3 heroes on your side to keep. Over 2-3 games you should be able to get 3 heroes similar to mine (took me 3 games to get my 3 heroes) not in level but of the same type of bonus's.

Also, be aware that retinue units enter your capitol city on the turn of the level that they are. So if they are level 5 units/heroes they enter your capitol on turn 5 so you can make plans on knowing when they enter combat. So if you get your units/hereos too high in level they don't appear until very late (my level 14 heros appear on like turn 11 now so apparently this affect decreases after turn 10).

Ruins:

OK for longtime warlord players this is going to be quite a shocking difference. First Ruins now contain many enemies to fight. You actually have to go into combat mode to kill these enemies to search the ruin. You can see how many are in a ruin by left clicking on it and counting the number of units there (there is no fog of war in the demo) tho you won't know what type the are, just how many. Secondly ruins regenerate over time. That is, searched ruins eventually have new monsters with treasures appear in them over time so make sure to use the 'q' key often to see which ones have be inhabited again. Third (and most importantly!) you DON'T NEED A HERO TO SEARCH A RUIN. Yes, thats right, any stack will do. As long as you win the combat you get the reward from the ruin. However if the reward is an item you will need a hero to come by and pick it up. Lastly the rewards are pretty much the same (gold, money, mana, items but NO SAGES) as from previous series. The differences now are that alliies and heros (yes heros are in ruins) can be found as rewards but you have to kill the monsters that imprision them first. There is one new reward of a tome of experience that can be found that gives all units in the stack experience.

Quests:

There is really only 1 quest in the demo. But it's a 4 part quest which is really cool and really nice. You only get a quest in 2 cities, each of which has a shrine attached (later you can have a shrine in your capitol if you wish when you upgrade your persistant warlord). I explain where they are in the early expansion section. YOU NEED NOT HAVE A HERO IN THE CITY TO GET THE QUEST! Any unit that enters the city gets the quest for you. Just capture the city, press the 'q' button and you have the quest. Essentially it involves searching 4 ruins, (all hidden revealed one at a time). The first contains a weak dragon (you need 3-4 units to take him down) and gives 2500 gold or so. The second part is taking out 8 liches (you need a full 8 stack for this) which gives a reward of 1-2 mana crystals (nice and useful). The third part is taking out 1 weak monster (2-3 units does this) which gives a tome of 16 xp. I prefer for the 3rd part to use a powerful stack so that all units benefit from the valuable experience to level them up. The last part is taking out a super dragon called Aurovorax. This baddie is a level 25 guy and you need a VERY strong stack or multiple stacks to take him out. But it's worth 30,000, yes 30,000 gold to do it.

Early Game Expansion:

(This is all based on playing the knights but it's the same principal for the Elves)... Take the 1st hero and all your men and head toward the nearest ruin to the north. Start the capitol making Knights (ShadowRiders). If the ruin has 3-4 men it in, attack. Otherwise leave it alone and head directly to the East (knights) or South (Elves) and take your quest city and start on the quest because those 4 ruins are your personal ones the AI can't see and the rewards of mana, gold and XP (tome) are very very beneficial. Once you have the quest, check the location and if it's close head right there for the 2500 gold from ruin #1. Otherwise as the knights head up the road to the right and open the 2 ruins and take the 3 cities there moving toward Dragonkeep in the middle of the map. Make swordsmen (or spiders) in those early cities and keep your stack at 8 as much as possible. You should be able to open 2 ruins and get 3 cities assuming none of the ruins are hidden (part of the quest). When your capitol makes Knight #1 (Riders) on turn 3 head them up to the city above the capitol and take it as it's weakly defended. Make swordsmen there too and then head west with the knight and 2 swordsmen on the next turn (across the bridge to the cities there) going south first once you cross the bridge because that city has a +2 hits site and is weakly defended. At Knight #3 (on turn 5) or when your retinue arrives switch to Archons (Harpies) in the capitol and head toward the mana city to the north of your capitol (Dark Elves don't get mana city so they have to go elsewhere for expansion). Then head toward dragonkeep in the middle of the map after that and open ruins, ruins, ruins. Everytime you see less than 6 guys take a shot on a ruin because the rewards of allies, gold and mana make it worthwhile. Esp around Dragonkeep where 1/2 the ruins in the game are. If the AI gets those first you can be in for a tough struggle. Now that you have DragonKeep, here's what to do in:

Mid-to-late game tactics:

Don't try to defend your cities and attack the enemy at the same time. It's a waste of time because defence is worthless in this game and here's why. The AI plays more like a human player than anything previously seen. By that I mean all he does in create super stacks to send at the enemy. Both non-hero stacks and hero led stacks. Very similar to what you and I do. As for defence, the AI knows as well and you and I do that there's no point in it. The AI LEAVES ITS CITIES EMPTY other than it's capitol and the city building the latest super stack. See, there's no point in trying to put 8 defenders (by that I mean 1 turn swordsmen/archers) in a city because any decent stack is going to mow them down with a loss of 1-2 units tops. So the AI leaves his empty or with 1 man. Personally I leave 2 swordsmen in all mine. When the AI attacks I just spacebar for quick combat cause I know I am going to lose anyway so why bother wasting time on the inevitable. In fact I spacebar 90% of all combat since I can guess the outcome and unless I specifically need to protect a hero or super unit I rarely bother because I only attack where I am going to win. So this is similar in DLR to leaving 2-3 peasants or gnomes or whatever in your cities while you vector or march all the strong production (Archons, knights) to one central city (in my case it's always Dragonkeep the only city I leave men in to defend because of the free dragons you get for having this city, its central location for attacking and tons of ruins (Note: the AI is broken in the demo and won't attack your capitol so don't bother defending it). So what I do when I take a city midgame to is make 1 turn of swordsmen then start making knights or archons and send them to dragonkeep to make super stacks. The AI is essentially doing the same thing. Just fly a few archons/dragons deep into his back lines (over water/mountains cause he can't/won't attack those) and check out all the empty cities or cities with at most 1 defender and you can wreak havoc on his production. Then I use one or 2 of my super stacks to do what I call "just in time defence" by having them chase and harass the enemy stacks that are sent my way. The best thing to do to keep them in one area until your stacks arrive is to open up a city for them by taking out the defenders, let them have it for free cause they leave anyway and then take it back the next turn and leave it empty and they'll happily trade it back and forth over and over again unless you leave the units too close to their stack in which case they wipe you out!

Always always ALWAYS (NON-PERMANENTLY!) RAZE the city when it's making enemy units (making Elves if you are the Knights and vice versa). You can tell if a city makes enemy units when you first capture it and it asks if you want to fortify it (means it makes your units) or pillage it (means it makes enemy units) as your left most menu option. This is very important for 2 reasons. One, making enemy units takes a lot longer than making your own and so if the AI takes the city back you hurt his ability to make his units while enhancing your own ability to make your units there. Two, having units from an opposite race in your stack reduces your morale in that stack by 1 (and morale is important as I've noted again and again and will revist in the combat section). Plus you usually get 300-400 gold for razing and the cost of rebuilding is as cheap as 400 gold tho I go for the 500 gold level 2 city so I can make my knights after the requisite 2 swordsmen. This means you hamper the enemy production for as little as 100 gold cost to yourself.

Obviously complete the main quest ASAP. Try to have your best heroes/units when completing the 3rd part in 1 stack because they all get +16 xp which is enuff for them all to get 1 or 2 levels which is very very nice. The final dragon is tough so you really need a very strong stack/hero combo to take him down. I prefer to spend my early/mid game cash on merc's over heroes. Why? Because you get more of them and the price is much cheaper. One 2nd level hero with Leadership +1 or Fear +1 for 800 isn't that great compared to 5 Level 2 Unicorns for 400.

Combat:

Now you are actually going to go through the combat exercise to see how it works or to try and win a combat. Here's what you need to know. Heroes with Leadership and Fear are the key. I keep one of each with +5 in my stacks. The reason is that gives me +3 (from the leadership) to my combat and -3 (from the fear to his) which is a +6 swing. So those archers and other one turn units have strength of 1 while my knights and archons are 9-11 before bless. Because of this difference (and the warding spell which you got earlier right) archery rarely if ever hits me making it useless. Towers are a little better but certainly not enuff for me to make siege units. Assuming you don't have heroes, then Archons with bless and Unicorns with Heal are the next 2 key units to have in a stack because they give stack bonus's of heal and bless (+3 to combat). Once you enter the screen look at the morale difference. The bigger it is for you, the better since you attack first and you get chances for extra attacks. This is why you took that combat Supreme Warlord and are pumping Morale to the sky. I personally (though I am still working on this) try to send in a Knight first to feel out the AI's strategy for his stack. Or send a swordsman if you have one. Obviously match knights up as often as possible against evil units for smite power and swordsmen againt dragons. Pretty simple concept really. Beyond that I haven't too many good ideas for matching but I do have some tips.

1. The last unit standing in combat on your side gets the majority of XP so when the enemy is down to his last man or 2, send in your best unit (hero, archon etc) so they get the XP and hopefully level. All other units far less xp.
2. NEVER EVER send in your heros unless they are very expendable (ie you have more than 1 of the same type in the stack) or it's at the end when they are going to be sure and win the combat. Here's why. If you lose your leadership hero in combat then immediately mid combat you lose your attack bonus from his leadership (you can see the numbers change on the the stacked units) which is different than DLR where the combat numbers never changed. The same with the loss of a fear hero and his minus to the enemy stack. This is VERY important to realize and note. The AI is careless with this in combat...
3. Save Archons and Unicorns for the same reason that once they are all gone, so is their bless/heal power. Remember than multiple Archons get multiple chances for bless (3 archons at bless +1 get you 3 chances to give a bless to a unit when it enters combat) so don't just think I'll send in 2 archons and keep 1 in reserve for the bless and not be any worse off.
4. Units that are terrorized by Harpies (annoying beeotches) immediately drop to 1 hp and 1 combat strength for the rest of this combat. Afterwards if you live you go back to full combat strength but remain at 1 hp until next turn so be careful of engaging in more combats unless you cast the heal spell (something I never bother with). Even worse, diseased/cursed units remain that way for several turns. Since there is no healing that, they become my cannon fodder since they are less useful to me at that point.

Conclusion:

Following these tips should reduce your winning time over the AI to the 25-30 turn mark making you feel like a stud with your wife/girlfriend, depending on whether you want to take out all the enemy cities and search all the ruins before killing off the capitols.