Win this way first
You can win if you take the opponent's castle, but it's hard so...
- Maps with Even number of strategic points (Hill, Scars, G.Plains, Gorge)
Defend the same number of strategic points as your opponents, and finish the battle with your soldiers outnumbering your opponent's. - Maps with Odd number of strategic points (Plains, Lake, Forest, Ruins)
Finish the battle with your strategic points outnumbering your opponent's.
Maps with Even number of points: Defend to win
Ways to have your soldiers outnumber
- Take the strategic points close to your castle as soon as the battle starts
Each strategic point starts producing soldiers once it stops burning. It's sometimes effective to take a camp first because it produces more soldiers than a fort.
- Do not keep too many soldiers in your castle and camps
The soldier production speeds of a castle and a camp are reduced by half when they have more than 50 and 30 soldiers respectively. Keep sending the soldiers to the battlefront forts to increase the defensive power. The forts have slower soldier production speed than the other points and thus get less affected by having many soldiers.
- Let your heroes defeat more soldiers than their soldier cost
For example, if a swordsman (soldier cost 7) defeats 20 soldiers and falls back, then you end up with 13 more soldiers than your opponent. When you see a bunch of soldiers moving toward your point, deploy a hero and blow them away.
tips
You can select a point as the goal when you deploy a hero. Use this to blow away the crowds of soldiers moving toward your point.
Note that when a melee hero recognizes an opponent's hero on the way to the selected goal, (s)he turns to that hero. Exception is Scout (and Knight); he runs straight to the selected goal so he is suitable for blowing away the soldiers moving toward your points.
How to defend a strategic point
- Keep sending soldiers to the battlefront fort.
- When you see a bunch of soldiers moving toward your point, deploy a hero and blow them away.
- When you see a hero moving toward your point, you should deploy a hero too. Choose the right type of hero according to the following hero triangle:
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Maps with Odd number of points: You have to be offensive to win
Take the point that your opponent decreased 耐久値
(耐久値 (durability) is to be replaced with the official term.)
A fort has 耐久値 and you need to send some soldiers to decrease it to zero to take it. Send your soldiers or hero to a fort so that they reach there right after your opponent decreases the fort's 耐久値. Unless your opponent send enough soldiers, the fort has very small 耐久値 and few soldiers so you can easily take it or keep it burning.
tips
The heroes except for Balcksmith are not suitable for decreasing the 耐久値. Send soldiers for this purpose.
Decrease the soldiers in your opponent’s fort first
When you are going to take one of your opponent's forts, you need to decrease the soldiers in it first. Send a hero or soldiers (sent from a far point) first, then send your soldiers from the closest point to the fort so that they reach there immediately when the fort starts burning (=zero soldiers in it).
tips
(士気 (morale) is to be replaced with the official term)
Soldiers' 士気 (the value that changes 耐久値) decreases as they walk. This is why you should send soldiers to an opponent's fort from the closest point if you want to reduce its 耐久値.
Note that one soldier defeats one soldier regardless their 士気. Thus, if you want your soldiers to decrease the soldiers in your opponent's fort (as opposed to its 耐久値), the soldiers from a far point work the same as those from a close point.
tips
Just like defending your point, keep in mind the hero triangle. When you send your swordsman to your opponent's fort that has many soldiers, send a scout with the swordsman so that he can defeat the (possible) archer.
Hero organization
When you can deploy about 10 heroes, use two slots for archers, two for scouts, and the rest mainly for swordsmen. Try one or two slots for different heroes and see how they fit in your team and strategies.
There is no "the strongest hero" because each hero has a different role. But, Swordsman is the most deployed hero according to the ranking shared by the developper (as of June.2021).
tips
When you hire a new hero with no rooms left, you need to choose a hero to dismiss. The hero you dismiss will leave the gears, no worries. If the dismissed hero's 好感度 is higher than a certain point, (s)he will give you some building materials (lumber, stone, food) according to her/his 好感度.
(好感度 (favorability?) is to be replaced with the official term)
- 好感度
- A value that affects to the number of the gift (building materials) that heroes give you. You can check this by the color of a hero's heart symbol at the hero mode. You can increase a hero's 好感度 by one by favoring her/him after each battle. Heroes with 好感度 higher than light blue (favored 9 to 23 times) leaves some building materials when dismissed.
Do not spend silver at tavern on Rank I and II heroes because you meet them regularly. High rank heroes wouldn't make much difference if you don't have (refined) gears, and Rank III is enough for a long time for non-melee heroes. So, don't get stressed too much even if you fail to recruit a high ranked hero, just keep on playing.
Deviate from this basic guide
Once you get used to these basic techniques, deviate little by little to widen your strategy. For example, you can quickly attack a fort that your opponent is not ready to defend. Move on to 序盤卒業ガイド