Field manual · Strategy

Strategy: counters, gold and timing

Both sides have the same units, the same prices and the same spells. The AI never cheats — on harder difficulties it simply earns more gold and reads you faster — so every battle is decided by what you send, when, and into what.

The counter web

Every unit follows a doctrine: a fighting behaviour with a job and a predator. The Medieval roster teaches all of them, and later ages re-arm the same doctrines.

Unit	Doctrine	Gold	What it is for
Swordsman	Line infantry	30	Pack hunter: swarms in staggered ranks and runs down wounded prey 20% faster to finish the kill.
Baby Troll	Regenerating brawler	55	Regenerating brawler: shrugs off wounds that don't burn.
Archer	Ranged, anti-air	50	Anti-air first: prioritizes dragons overhead.
Pikeman	Anti-cavalry	60	Anti-cavalry: plants his pike when cavalry or a giant closes in — plain infantry never stops his march.
Shieldbearer	Shield wall	75	Line holder: plants the shield and braces when enemies close in (-40% damage).
Heavy Sword	Duelist	120	Duelist: seeks out the most expensive enemy to fight.
Mage	Caster	120	Arcane artillery: bolts that no shield can stop, and he aims them at the shield wall first.
Gryphon Rider	Air interceptor	140	Air interceptor: stoops on enemy fliers at sprint speed and meets them at their own altitude — a held stoop arms a momentum-laden first strike.
Knight	Cavalry	140	Cavalry: builds momentum at full gallop — a charged hit crits and bowls light troops backward — and dives past the frontline to hunt archers, catapults and casters.
Scorpion	Anti-giant artillery	210	Anti-heavy artillery: a crew-served torsion bolt-thrower whose heavy bolts punch through big game — double damage to giant-class prey (knights, heavy swords, gryphons, trolls, dragons) — but only half to anything lighter.
Catapult	Siege	160	Siege: lobs boulders at the densest clump of enemies.
Necromancer	Summoner	180	Attrition caster: his bolt culls the wounded so the bodies fall at his feet, and he turns the battlefield's dead into his army, raising skeletons from nearby corpses.
Troll	Giant	220	Regenerating giant that wades into the thickest fight: club slams crush whole ranks and hurl the survivors back, and only fire keeps the wounds open.
Dragon	Air superiority	360	Air power: flies strafing runs, scorching ground troops on each pass.

The short version: pikes stop cavalry and giants; cavalry dives past the front to kill archers, casters and siege; shields stop arrows but not magic; ranged troops and Lightning are the only answers to fliers; fire stops regeneration.

Three ways to spend gold

Troops hold the lane now. An empty lane costs castle health, and castle health does not come back.
Upgrades make every future spawn of one unit 12% stronger per level, forever. They pay off when you keep sending that unit — pick two or three workhorses and level those.
Advancing (700 gold to Modern, 1500 to Advanced) is the largest single purchase. It buys a whole new roster and stronger spells, and it leaves you thin while you save for it.

The usual rhythm is troops until the lane is stable, upgrades while it stays stable, and an advance when you have just won a fight and the enemy has to rebuild.

Spell discipline

Cast Fireball on clumps and on anything that regenerates. Do not chase a single unit with it.
Keep Lightning's mana in reserve once the enemy can afford a flier.
Frost when the enemy is about to reach your wall, or under your own ranged line.
Heal a giant or a levelled front line, never a lone swordsman.
Never spend mana on the enemy castle. It ignores 90% of it.

Reading the battlefield

The three maps bend the same fight differently. Meadow is flat and honest. Frostpeak has a frozen hill in the middle that swallows low, flat shots, so lobbed weapons and fliers gain value. Dunes drops into a sunken valley where armies meet below both castles. More in battlefields.

Mistakes that lose battles

Sending one of everything. A spread of level-0 units loses to a levelled core with the right support.
Answering a flier with melee. Ground melee cannot touch anything that flies.
Advancing while losing. The saving period hands the lane over.
Feeding a fight you have lost. Units sent one at a time into a formed army are bounty for the enemy. Hold, regroup at your wall, then push together.
Ignoring the back line. Catapults, casters and summoners win long fights. Knights and fliers exist to reach them.

Go deeper

Each age has its own page with every unit's price, stats and counter: Medieval Age, Modern Age, Advanced Age, Hero Era, Frontier Age, Age of Olympus, Radiant Age.

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