SpellForce: Conquest of Eo Basic Battle Guide for Conquest of Eo

Introduction

I'm writing this guide cause atm there isnt much deeper information about the battle game mechanics. All i could find were very general tips or some that fit only into one situation.

Otherwise i'm really into that game but spending most of my time finding the best result for nearly every battle and therefore do a lot of testing.

So if you wanna know the details about the story, i could barely tell you something about the first 3 weeks. But if you ask which parameters are stated in the battles (just a few) and which are fluid (nearly everything) youre at the right place!

I played as necromancer beginning at goldenfield so far.

Units And Damage Types

Lets handle the most basic things quick. A good troop consists of melee and missile/spellcaster units and got at least one healer. If you dont follow some special tactics the HEALER is a MUST HAVE cause battles are pretend to be a slugfest and your troops getting to be hurt.

A special tactic can be running around with a plaguebearer, fighting small stacks, turning enemies into walking corpses and sending the "injured" corpses on its own adventures.

Please dont use only one melee unit and tryhard to prevent every incoming damage while hiding behind this spare shield. Just take two or more melee units per army and heal them. Melees are also a good source of damage and can be healed within your turn directly after taking damage from counterattacks. You can even begin a battle with injured melees cause your first round is pretend to be perfect for healing. We talk more about that later.

Every unit starts with at least one attack ability and got weaknesses and/or strength against certain types of damage.

There are 4 types of damage: physical, elemental, white, death.

The more damage types an army can cause the better it fights against various enemies. But its only necessery to do more than damage type.

A necromancer apprentice whose army can only deal death damage (e.g. 2x Ghouls, 1x Undead Mage, 1x Necromancer Minions) can be doomed to lose against neutral army consisting of 1x Skeleton Archers and 2x Skeleton Warriors, cause they are strong against death damage (- 50% damage taken). If one of the Ghouls is a Skeleton Warrior dealing physical damage instead, the battle wouldnt be easy either but can be won without unit losses. Otherwise it would be interesting to see the autoresolve option, it maybe gots the best result.

Before The Battle - Calculate Or DIY?

You attack some grim looking people? First you see is the overview screen. If you saved right before (you should!) i advise you to let the game calculate the result automatically.

You are fine with the result? Perfect, go ahead! There are plenty battles awaiting your full attention.

You are not fine with it? Take a seat and navigate your troops yourself.

But before let us take a look at the calculation:

If the game predicts a clear victory the calculated result can be better than everything you could do yourself. Maybe only one unit is damaged for merely 20% of its hp while you wouldve the hardest time keeping it alive on the battlefield.

But if the value numbers of both armies are nearly equal the game tends to predict a disastrous result (youre troops are eradicated and unable to kill at least one enemy unit). Needless to say that i twisted this result into a clear victory. Maybe the game doesnt calculate the special actions either or ignore different damage types.

Sometimes the game is right with the disastrous result. Especially when the value numbers are clearly on the enemy side and you cant utilize weaknesses with special damage types.

Beginning

Every battle is going round after round, while every round consists of the defenders turn and the aggressors turn. Within your turn, YOU are the one who decides the order of every action of your troops.

Action points (aps) are used for every action and are refreshed at the beginning of the next ROUND. This is very fundamental, so keep it in mind.

It means, if you are the aggressor the aps are refreshed directly AFTER your turn. Its possible that your troops got no action points to spend cause of provoked opportunity attacks.

This sounds bad, but in fact you can use this mechanic for your advantage. Because if enemy melee units attacked spending all of their aps, they cannot react if you got another melee unit attacking them. This means in most battles: one has to take the damage.

Imo the first CLASH of the melee troops decides most of the result.

But before looking at the clash we need to know how movement and positioning works.

Both armies starts with a frontline (melee units only) an a backline (missile and spellcaster units). They are positioned towards the enemy and have to cross a distance to reach each other. The vast majority of units have to use more than a far movement to overcome the distance, thus unable to attack in the first turn.

Exceptions are some "fast" melees like spiders and and missile/spellcaster units. But who is this crazy to send low armored units directly to the front, just to scratch some enemies with at least 1 hit and being slaughtered the next turn by upcoming melees with missile support?!

Ok, ok, sit down againg torchbearing peasants! The burning status effect IS annoying, but most of you are walking corpses on my side now!

Movement

Every unit got 3 action points (ap) and can use it to do several actions. Movement is linited using up to 2 aps (near and far) per turn.

At the beginning of a battle the enemy draws its units on a good position where your units need to spend mostly two aps in movement to attack. If you attack with only one ap without killing the enemy unit, youre unit has to take a lot of damage. Mostly its better to let one tile between your units and the enemies and got the last ap for defending, which reduces every incoming damage in the next enemy turn. By letting one tile between you can also reducing incoming damage, because they have to spend one ap to reach your troops. This needs proper positioning with your backline cause enemies could move elsewhere without fearing any opportunity attacks by your melees. But taking 2 instead of 3 attacks is mostly worth the risk.

If you got more than enough healing options, it can be worth to initiate the clash within the first round.

Special Actions

Besides attacking abilities some of your units got other abilities like healing, buff, debuff or produce barriers.

This costs focus points. The focus pools differs between units, especially spellcaster begin with a bigger pool. Units start every battle with full focus points.

It seems that every special action can be used until not enough focus points are left. But be careful, some special actions end the units turn automatically an some use only the needed aps.

Now, lets talk about a mighty ability: healing. While some healing abilities effecting only one unit, some others (e.g. healing abilities of Goblin shaman) are using aoe healing. Unlike other games where every unit got its own initiative you can freely use every action of your units. This allows very efficient healing.

If your melees starting with 50% hit points, don't worry. Avoid the clash in the first round, bring your melees in a defending position and block the way to your backline. Use first turn of healer/s to

heal.

If one of your melees starting with 50% hit points, dont worry but be careful. You can sent the other melee/s fighting an enemy and healing all of your troops afterwards. But check the enemy troops how much damage they could possibly do, because your attacking unit isnt defending and would maybe die, which you probably dont want to ;-)

If your army is in best shape, you got all possibilies on your side. Do as you want and let none survive.

Fighting

Attacking uses all of the remaining ap's whereas one attack costs one ap. The units turn ends after attacking, no matter how many attacks are used to kill the enemy.

Battles do part in seperate instances/maps. If you need to get the absolute best results (for example no loss in your army) try again sometimes. The instances arent mostly the same, varying between 4-5 different maps afaik. Also the enemy isnt doing exactly the same on the same map.

The AI doesnt tryhard to kill at least one of your units. I'm keeping my plaguebearers "alive" with at least 1 hp for more than ten battles, continously "producing" walking corpses. Its even possible to keep your melee units alive until healed by sending your missile units forward instead when fighting against weak enemies. Its possible to dodge aside or backwards if there is enough space or to hide behind obstacles just as well. If there is a pond on the map and your troops can "swim" (did you notice i really like the undead?) youre in a advantage.

Very important to know: Conquest of Eo let you see area to move, important data and even missile ranges of the OPPOSING troops by klicking on them. Use it to plan your movement!

Now remind your goals for the current fight. As a necromancer i want to catch souls, turn living ones into undead and refresh troops by eating cadavers. Sometimes all of this in the same battle, sometimes none of it but winning the battle in the mist efficient way. When reminding your goals you know best which unit has to take the main damage and which one has to do deal most damage.

One simple thing: plan your last turn accordingly. If you want to heal up or chew some corpses to get back health, do it BEFORE killing the last enemy.

After The Battle

The fight ends when the last enemy is slain, unless some of your units got unspend action points.

If everything was fine, youre the winner, congratulations.

Take your loot, save once more and move on!

Thx for reading.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945057658

Basic Battle Guide for Conquest of Eo