Before You Get Started ...
Gameplay:
You build a magic school and try to teach as many students as possible before the Army of the Evil Overlord arrives to burn it down. Rebuild the school in the next level and repeat until the last level is reached.
You draw cards from different card pools and play the cards on your hand to build and equip the school building or to cause special effects.
As long as the students study they generate Mana. Mana is used to buy more cards.
For every student who graduates, a bonus is unlocked, this can be Mana, Money or permanent cumulative Buffs for the entire campaign.
Each level map also comes with different factions, the school can have diplomatic ties to.
The win condition is, to defeat the Evil Army by using the school facilities and diplomatic ties in the last level. (There is also an alternate ending where you only have to gather 5 special cards, one from each mana pool to win the game).
Getting started:
- You can chose whether you want to start in Campaign or in Normal mode. While the game is still in EA the Campaign mode is recommended.
a) Campaign mode will let you build a series of 7 schools in 7 different level settings. The challenge is, to defeat the Evil army in the 7th and last level.
It is also possible to activate a special challenge mode when playing the campaign. Each of the modes will - after winning the campaign with them once - unlock two new cards to enter your games. However, the challenge can make winning very difficult.
b) In normal mode you can either play in one school until the army of darkness arrives or play endlessly in one location. Optionally you may also chose 6 spellbooks = 6 buffs for your school in Normal mode.
- Next you will have to set the difficulty and the game length.
Difficulty:
a) In Novice difficulty, the students and teachers rarely sleep or need food, but you have still to watch for low sanity or high boredom in your students and teachers.
b) In Archimage difficulty, the students and teachers will be constantly hungry, bored and tired, to the point that the teachers get not much teaching done at all. Instead of classrooms with teachers, it can be more efficient to make use of the different recreation rooms, the portal room, the library and various magical furniture/creatures to teach the students while they rest, eat or lower their boredom.
c) All other difficulty levels are between these two extremes.
Game length:
You can set the minimum time you have in each level, until the armies of darkness arrive at your school forcing you to evacuate into the next level. 'Marathon' is recommended for beginners.
Endless game can be selected in Normal mode, to keep playing in the same level area without having to abandon the school.
Of the Spellbook buffs which can be selected in Normal mode, you can chose 6 of 18 (random) buffs, of those 6 books 2 are tier #1, 2 of tier #2 and 2 of tier #3 buffs respectively.
(In Campaign mode you can win a buff after each completed level if you manage to complete 1 to 3 missions but you also have to chose a Curse = debuff each time you relocate your school.)
Pick a spellbook.
Pick a curse.
The Construction Site - Where To Start?
The starting area for your school should be selected with care, especially, if you play in a challenge mode.
In Campaign/Challenge mode you get to chose between three relatively easy starting areas for your first map.
a) The Forest (Area quest: None)
Area Specials:
- Your students will not have much money.
If you charge them for using the dormitories or with paid meals etc., they will rather wander off to town and waste precious time there instead of studying, until they are recovered.
- Don't wake the sleeping Troll.
b) The Castletown (Area quest: None)
Area Special: The Menestrel will distract your students from learning, until diplomatic conditions are met. You can also sell alchemic mana for gold to the Menestrel or receive bonus Advertisement (Fame) for your school from him.
c) The Lake (Area quest: None)
Area specials:
- Your students have a looong way to the next town. Make sure they don't waste study time commuting.
- Also you will meet the 'Lake Monster'.
To successfully complete the Lake Monster quest, you can buy 2 additional refectory rooms (student version), negotiate with the villagers to built them for you or set up an aquarium. You also need 4 dragons of different color as magical pets in your school.
Each Area also comes with an individual set of options for a starting bonus. Pick one you like though extra classrooms, mana or money are always a good idea.
After chosing the Area, the first thing you should do is 'pause the game' either by hitting the 'Space bar' once or by hitting the small pause button in the lower right.
In this game 'time' is your most valuable resource.
Currency:
In the game you buy cards for either mana or gold. The cards can be played to build new rooms in the schoolbuilding, to add furniture to the rooms or to use a potion for an instant effect.
- Each class of magic has its own color of mana.
- Each of the different mana colors and the money have a unique cardpool to buy from.
- Each time you buy cards either with money or mana, you get a random selection of three cards from the respective card pool.
- Mana will be regularly produced by your students studying in a classroom or using a magic furniture item in any room to study. It can also be won through diplomacy or by using potion cards.
- Money can be earned from:
a) Students signing up, renting dormitory beds, eating in the refectory (change the amounts in the director's office, school settings).
b) Gaining a sponsor (director's office, school settings).
c) Place ingredient creating furniture in the rooms and use the Alchemy kettle to create a philosophers stone card.
d) Have a student graduate with a future that grants an instant 'money' reward (Adventurer, Assassin, Master Assassin, Golem Manufacturer, etc.).
e) Diplomacy - the Adventurer Guild or the King may give you money if you ask nicely.
f) (Buff Spellbooks)
g) Set up one or more aquariums in much frequented rooms.
h) Canopy or medical beds in the dorms.
Overall goals :
- To be able to build a great school you need mana of all colors and as much money as possible.
So the school needs to be set up from the start to create all 5 kinds of mana.
- Also it needs to be set up so, that the students graduate with as beneficial futures as possible for the granted boni.
- The Area goals in each level should be met for making as many allies as possible for the boss battle in the 7th level (Campaign modus).
- Each level will have 3 quests (Area goal may be one of it), fullfilling the quests will grant a spellbook buff for the rest of the game. The level of the received buff is depending on the number of completed quests.
The Basic School starting kit (in any level) consists of:
- A dormitory card (lowers students' tiredness over time)
- A refectory card (lowers students' hunger over time)
- A student room card (lowers students' boredom over time)
- A card to summon 5 random students
- Two cards to create a new 'House' (see more below).
- Some starting money
Before you start building anything, use the money to buy some more cards.
The default starting money will be enough for a total of 3 cards.
Use this start money to prioritize buying the basic classrooms of different schools:
a) Nature
b) Light
c) Darkness
d) Arcane (high priority)
e) Alchemy (high priority)
- For the start you only need one of any color.
It is possible that you have bad luck and don't get to draw any classroom cards.
Construction:
- Play the room cards you have on your hand to begin the construction.
- Each classroom requires you to chose one of two offered teachers. Compare their teaching skills, benefits and flaws carefully. (The traits 'Inspiring' and 'Wisdom of the Elders' are preferable in most cases.)
- Later on be careful with the placement of the 'Greenhouse', the 'Cloister of the rightful' and other cards that have no exit to the upper levels, so you don't block off your own construction progress. Rooms can not be moved or destroyed once placed.
- If you have any magic furniture/animal cards, you can place them now (or keep them for later when you have more options to use them). Some suggestions and examples will be listed in another chapter.)
- Use the two House cards to create two customized 'Groups' for your school to sort students into.
- Rooms of the same kind can be 'stacked', to level up a room's efficiency. if you have a room card to place, a number indicating the level of a previously built similar room will appear. just drop the new card on the number to level the room up.
Houses:
- (Cosmetic: Select a house crest, house name and house robe.)
- You can customize which of the 5 magic schools the students will prioritize/ignore and chose 2 of 6 random beneficial traits to aid.
- You'll also have a default House, but customized Houses are better.
- The starting Houses should be customized to the classrooms you have in your school so far.
- Only the curriculum and robes of a House can be modified once you signed off on it.
(Examples:
a) You drew a light classroom and an alchemy classroom card - have a House that makes the students prioritize learning light magic and alchemy. Select traits as 'Chosen of light' or 'Initiated in Alchemy', if available to give the students in this house an extra boost.
b) You have three or more different color classrooms, you don't chose any priority for learning a certain school. Chose traits like 'Generalist' and 'Hard worker' to let the students in the House learn all starting magic faster. Or 'Applied' to create more mana.
c) Make a graduation House and chose traits like 'Passionate' and 'Ambitious' and sort students in their last school year to it, to give them better chances for a high prestige job future.
d) (Depending on which area the school is in, you might want a House with traits that lower boredom, the need for sleep, the loss of sanity, or one that keeps the students from playing pranks (much).)
- Play the 'New Students' card to get your first new students into the University. You have to sort them into the available Houses. As soon as the teachers arrive the students will start to learn and produce mana.
- When sorting the students make sure their abilities complement the traits of their house.
Pay special attention to the following character flaws as well:
a) Allergic to pollen - don't put them in a class with 'Nature' magic.
b) Gothic - 'Light' magic is not cool enough for them.
c) Claustrophobic - 'Dark' rituals are not their thing.
d) Prosaic - they just don't believe 'Arcane' magic is real.
e) Allergic to Crustaceans - This flaw hinders students learning 'Alchemy', not sure why though.
Random sized groups with new students will show up every new season.
Time to unpause the game. - See more in the next chapter.
Meeting The Neighbors: Events
Events:
More or less directly after the first rooms are set up and the teachers and students arrive, 5 Events will take place (in any area).
a) The king will welcome you and offer you assistance. You can either ask for money or an 'advanced classroom' card. The classrooms are the better option.
- If available select the 'Chamber of truth' which is a Light-magic interrogation room. It will help you avoid having to pay taxes to the inquisition.
- The 'Janitor' card is no classroom and does not create mana - it should be avoided for now as it can easily be aquired later.
b) The local villagers come by to decide whether they should gather the torches and forks. You get three choices to earn either some green, white or black mana respectively and you may lower your reputation with the Inquisition and the Villagers depending on your answer.
You can use the mana to (with some luck) buy cards for advanced classrooms in colors you may still miss.
My sugggestion is to 'go green' by chosing the 'care for farmanimals' answer. With some luck the green mana you receive for this answer will give you the option to draw the advanced classroom 'stable'. A stable has not only space for three pets, it also gives an additional beneficial option, when dealing with a repeating minor peasant-faction event.
c) The adventurers guild shows up to offer you some assistance.
You may either receive
- Healing rooms/furniture (not very interesting in the beginning).
- Items from the Arcana card pool (very good if you still lack classrooms)
- Accessoirs for your students (also a great option, if you want to increase mana production.)
I suggest you chose the option 'blowing things up' there is a good chance for drawing the treasure item 'Magic hat', which strategically placed in a 'teachers room' has a chance to increase the capability of the teachers while they are on a break. After some time all teachers using that room will become 'Exellent'.
d) Master Skull asks you to decide on a magic type specialisation for your school. If you don't have three level quests at this point yet, producing 6,000 units of mana in the chosen magic specialisation color will become a quest. You should pick a magic for that you already have one or two classrooms for. However you can NOT pick 'Dark' as a specialisation.
e) After several ingame years the Adventurers will show up again and offer you assistance to hold back the Army of Evil. They are extremely expensive (5,000 gold) however you can barter them down (to 2,000) if you built up an alliance with them in the meantime (or you can simply decline).
Other events may occur randomly
1) Quest events
a) 'The Merchants' loan' (very easy) You will be offered a loan of 200 gold. If you accept in return you have to make 5,000 gold until the Evil Army arrives. You don't have to save it up for a repay, just to earn it.
b) 'A School for all' (easy on marathon mode, near impossible during a speedrun) If you turn down 'The Merchants' loan' quest, Master Skull will ask you to teach magic to 110 students at the University before the Evil Overlord Army arrives in this level.
c) 'Warlocks for the Tribe' (medium difficulty) The Orcs ask you to be their friend. If you accept, you will lose some friendship with the King and the Inquisition.
The firendship with the Orcs needs to be at least 90% before the Evil Army comes to burn down the school in this level.
If you want to succeed with this quest your school should have either a waffle iron or a raclette set placed in a refectory (student or staff). It also helps to have some gold or alchemy mana ready in case the Orcs come to demand a tribute. 2 to 3 orcish banners placed in highly frequented rooms may help additionally in case you are playing the rage challenge. Else you can pay them a diplomatic visit via guineapig messenger.
d) 'Look at my beautiful Archimage' (awfully difficult - don't try on first map at least) The director of a rival magic school comes to brag. If you accept the challenge, you have to have at least one student graduate from your school as an 'Archimage' before you go to the next map.
(There is no confirmed method to create an Archimage yet. However the Archimage diploma sais, it requires mastery (level 4 or 5) of at least 4 different magics. In any case you can try to add a House to the school with the traits 'Ambitious' or 'Passionate' or build a 'guidance councilllor' room in your school to increase your chances. More 'House' cards can be bought randomly from the Gold-cardpool.)
2) Minor events
In some cases someone wants your money or require a special room/item. The better your reputation with the different factions the bigger the chance that something good may happen. There is also a chance your teachers will go on strike, you lose friendship with one or more factions, your fame decreases or - worst case - your school will be attacked by a hostile faction.
Meeting The Neighbors: Diplomacy
Diplomacy:
Contact your friends an neighbors with a guineapig messenger. A guineapig-tower can speed up the waiting time in between.
You can send a message to the surrounding factions on the map and build up your reputation with them. Depending on faction you can also ask them for mana, money or assistance to delay the arrival of the Evil Army.
Factions in all maps:
You may continuously raise your reputation with all befriendable factions by placing one of their banners in a highly frequented room in your school.
Some teachers may have connections to certain factions (King, Adventurers, Inquisition).
And some rooms may have unlockable options when levelling up that may also increase diplomatic bonds (Peasants, Lord of Evil, Inquisition) passively in the background.
a) Peasants - the easiest way to keep them happy is to build a 'Stable' at your school to assist them with their cows when they ask for your help. (They can give you refectory cards for some friendship points.) Be sure to raise your reputation with the Kingdom as well (to at least 40), if you want to stay both in the Peasant's and the Adventurer guild's good graces.
b) Merchants (not befriendable) - If you have spare money you can buy basic classroom cards or magical furniture from them (~200 Gold each). Either you may earn 25 Gol per visit. They can offer special deals for magical potions, faction banners or rare artefacts.
c) Orcs - Just say 'Hello' once in a while. If you don't mind some friendship loss you can ask them for a bit green mana to get you started. They also can help you delay the evil army at a huge cost of friendship (there can also be special events related to the evil army progress, available options depend on special rooms built in your school - for example an infirmary.)
If you are willing to lose some gold, bet on the orc chief's nephew, when the clans have a fighting event. It will raise your friendship very fast.
The orcs will repeatedly knock on your door while in the same map.
Paying their tributes with Gold or Alchemy mana, bribing them into not attacking you or feeding them when they are low on food (kitchen furniture items waffle iron or raclette grill required to be set up in school) will keep you in their good graces and even advance the friendship.
d) King - Do not befriend him before having at least one of the treasure item Parkovite Mushroom placed in a classroom of your school! To build up friendship just say 'Hello' once in a while. You can ask him for money or assistance against the Evil Army at the price of friendship.
The king faction has a lot of special events that require specific items (weapon rack, crystal orb, door to other worlds) rooms (potion room, elementalist arena) or pets (dragon, pegasus) set up in your school but you may gain a lot of gold and friendship through them.
He will rarely visit your school personally but paying his taxes occasionally and having a pot with a Parkovite Mushroom (treasure item) placed in your school can help staying in his good graces.
e) Inquisition - While you can just show up to talk with them, it is better to bring some dark artefacts (aka Dark Mana) along for them to burn. Once they accept you, they will give you some Light Mana for free. You can also sell Holy Potions to them at up to 550 Gold the bottle. (Having some spare gold to donate, a good relation to the king or a glass window artefact placed in your school can help things along on occasion.
Better expect a counter-visit from the Inquisition:
Build a Chamber of truth or pay the penace they demand once in a while and have some cheap alchemic ingredients on your hand for them to burn, if neccessary. They will also approve, if you keep strict discipline at your school with the furniture item 'Shackles'.
f) The Adventurers - Visit them to say 'Hello' though the Evil Overlord Faction will disapprove (+10% for Adventurers, -5% for evil Overlord). You can also ask for money or magical items at the cost of some friendship. The adventurers are your best bet of the factions to reduce the Evil Overlord's progress. If you want to stay both in their and the Peasant's good graces you need to also befriend the King (at least firendship 40).
g) The Graveyard - This is the faction of the Evil Overlord, you can visit to grovel but there may be consequences. Generally it is easier to just set up a banner at the school. If your friendship is very high however, you can request the Evil Army to delay their attack, it will cost you a lot of said friendship though. Ironically just like the Inquisition, the Evil Overlord approves of schools that have 'Shackles' on the wall.
If you want to recruit some extra vampire students, you should have the bed artefact 'coffin' in your school.
Map specific Factions:
Most maps have some special inhabitants. Befriending them on their conditions can become the Area quest and will result in a better Spellbook-buff to chose from for the next level - if successful.
They may also offer you special help or unique deals and be available as potential allies in the battle over the last level.
Magical Furniture, Monsters And Equipment
Furniture and magical beasts:
Each room you can build in your school comes with 1 - 7 slots for furniture or magical creatures.
There are 7 different item types:
a) Paintings and Wall-Ornaments
- banners, raise the friendship with the respective faction
- study objects (Magical Hourglass, Demonic tapestry etc.), will raise the magical skills of the students in the same room and produce Mana.
- Mysterious patterns, small chance to increase the intelligence of a student in the same room
- Ivy, will remove maintenance costs of the room.
- Pentacle, may change characters' alignments to 'Evil' and teach the skill 'Shadow disciple'.
- Shackles, will scare the students away from playing pranks for a while.
- other items include defense/attack gain, speed boost, fame boost etc.
Mystical patterns closeup.
b) Wall-Shelves
- various effects (healing, skill aquirement for students and teachers, continuous ingredient production, reducing boredom, etc.)
c) Treasure items
- Ingredient sources, will continuously produce alchemical ingredients, depending on teacher/student presence.
- Coffee machine, will keep your teachers awake longer and from going on strike.
- Magical hat, will slowly improve the teaching skill of any teacher in the room (best to place in the 'teacher room' or in the teacher 'private room' to have a chance to improve the performance of the entire staff.
- etc.
Teacher 'private room' with items 'Magical hat' (table), 'Ivy' (wall) and 'Bed of Repentance' (backroom).
d) Weapons, huge planter pots, etc..
- Ingredient sources, will continuously produce alchemical ingredients, depending on teacher/student presence.
- Study objects (Runic stone, Weapon Rack, Totem, Tentacle) will raise the magical skills of the students in the same room and produce Mana, may have side effects though.
- Pyre, can change the characters' alignments to 'Good' and teach the skill 'Chosen of the Light'.
- Grimoir, may teach characters in the same room the 5 magic school element skills (Chosen of the light, Shadow disciple, Child of nature, Arcane scholar, Initiated to alchemy) randomly.
- Armor, will provide some defense to the students in case the school gets attacked by an angry faction.
- etc.
Classroom with a Pyre (right) and Herbalist board (wall, left).
e) Beds
Each dormitory, janitor or private room comes with plain normal beds. They can however be replaced with specialized beds.
- Canopy and Medical beds, earn some extra money and restore health.
- Beds of repentance, have students or staff lose some of their flaws
- Overgrown beds, help learn green magic.
- Childeater bed, may produce the alchemic item 'Sleeper soul' but also deal health damage
- Coffin, may turn a sleeping student into a vampire
- Orcish field bed, reduces the need for sleep for a good while for either students or staff.
Dormitory with Stained glass window (wall left), Shackles (wall right) and from left to right Canopy bed, 3x Bed of Repentance, Overgrown bed.
f) Cooking items
Can only be set up in a refectory either for staff or for the students.
- Raclette set, will produce the alchemy ingredient 'Cheese'
- Waffle Iron, will make students and staff happy but sure is bad for the 'Health'
- others, fame gain, boredom reducement, speeding up eating time etc.
g) Creature 'beds'.
No magic school without a horde of magical creatures. There are many specific effects.
- Dragons in different colors will inspire your students to learn.
- A Fairy Dragon will lure more non-human students into your school (Deep ones, Orcs, Elves, Vampires and Werewolfs).
- Mana-Snakes will make an entire floor of your school more efficient.
- Cleaners will help the janitors to keep everything tidy.
- Cats will lower tiredness, hunger and boredom of anyone in the same room.
- An Aquarium will continuously collect gold coins
- A Pegasus gives a small chance to increase the wealth of a student.
- Manywings will drop alchemy item 'feathers'
- etc.
Student room with Mystical patterns (wall), Weapon Rack (left) and a Cleaner Creature bed (right).
Where to place what?
This depends on the set difficulty level of the game.
- As students rarely eat, sleep or loiter in 'Novice' mode prioritize the classrooms by adding study objects that allow students to learn more than one color of magic. Magical beds should be set up in the 'Private rooms' as students will preferably rest there instead of the normal dorms, to restore their 'Sanity'.
Also the occurring enemies are very weak, so study or self improvement furniture should be prioritized over defense items.
- On 'Archimagus' difficulty level, any classrooms requiring teachers are in use much less. Instead everyone will be constantly tired, hungry, crazy or bored. So study-items should be placed in the dormitories, the refectory the student room or self teaching classreooms like the library and the dimensional room.
- The best place for 'Shackles' would be the entrance room.
- The jail, the observatory and the library should have a study item.
- A library does also well with a mystical pattern and a Cat, Vulture or one of the Dragons as pets.
- Students will barely spend much time in the janitor's room, any of the teachers' rooms, the infirmary, the job consultant or the psychatrist room so these are the best places for placing 'Ivy', Golems or alchemy-ingredient creating items (which only require the presence of a teacher), also Beds of Repentance or Orcish field beds may make your staff members more efficient.
- As of the Magical creatures, the dragons are best placed somewhere near the classrooms of their color, but most of them will move relatively freely through the school anyway.
If you want slots for more creatures, you can simply build another 'Stable', but other rooms like the Guinea Pig messenger tower, a few of the classrooms or the Belvedere come with open slots for creature beds as well.
The Seat Of Your Power
On the lower left of the main screen you will find a stack of books you can access the Options-menu, the Statistics, the Classes-list and the Director's Office with.
The Director's office comes with two book-racks on the left for your accumulated Spellbooks and curses. Level trophies will be displayed on the walls and the shelves to the right. Master Skull is chilling on your desk.
However the two most important features are:
1) The scroll of rules on the desk.
Here you can lay down the basics. How much does signing up as a student cost? How much to pay your teachers? Customize everything to your liking.
2) The list of unlocked futures.
Here you can see how many students have graduated from your school and as what as well as the received bonus. If you click on a profession, it will also tell you, which requirements were neccessary for graduation.
Futures that have not been unlocked yet are only displayed as a question mark however.
To give your students the best chances for a better future (and receiving the better graduation boni), some micro-management is neccessary. You can do all that in the Classes and Students list book. Click on a student to get a view of their full character sheet.
As there are furniture objects that may change alignments, teachers and beds that can remove character flaws, mysterious patterns to make the kids smarter and several items to learn skills and new character traits from, it is a good idea to check the remaining students every year after graduation (or more often) and shuffle them around into another Class.
- The level of magical power for each of the 15 magic schools (3 for each color) can range from zero (0) to a maximum of five (5).
- Class traits and student skills are stackable.
- Watch out for character flaws which will slow learning magic of a certain color when sorting.
- (If the students and the teachers in a classroom are of the same alignment, the students will learn faster. (Example: If you only pick chaotic evil teachers for dark magic, the chaotic evil studenst will learn fastest, the lawful evil students will learn fast, and all others will learn normally in the darkmagic classrooms.)
Since the last update you can change at least a Class's curriculum in this menu as well if neccessary, though not the set traits.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1885131549
More Spellcaster University guilds
- All Guilds
- Bonus Cards - Challenge Rewards
- Samurai Programmer's Guide To Higher Magical Education
- Basic Information and Startup Guide
- Going infinite in Spellcaster University
- Advanced Guide to help make decisions
- Dfis de campagne et rcompenses
- Mcaniques de base du jeu
- Guide approfondi du jeu, ou comment russir la campagne en mage
- Archimage easy and fast
- Spellcaster University : Le Guide Complet