Conquest of Elysium 5 – Set-Up Tips for New Players

Here are some advice to new players who are trying to get into the game, based on some common questions.

Beginners Tips

Сrеdit gоеs to kristoffer!

What faction should I start with?

Some beginner friendly factions are the Baron, the Troll King and the Druid.

Baron: You get superior human troops and increased income. You can raise forts in hamlets and raise levies in all settlements. More levies are raised in higher income settlements. The levies help defend your settlements from oppressive wildlife. Use your High lord to roam around with the cavalry (they are fast), take hamlets and build forts. Each summer you gain free knights ans soldiers, dependent on how many smaller settlements you have (farm, hamlet and villages and motte&bailey)

Troll King: You have one big guy, that is almost invincible, but your goblins are very weak (for the most part only the archers are useful). Wolfkin can be quite good in special situations, but since you are new to the game, you’d better not bother with them. Trolls are good, but you will need a lot of iron. Try to get some mines with your king. Avoid attacking mages with your King. Any spell that goes against magic resistance is dangerous for the King, and you will not know what spells a caster knows, before the battle begins. When you get a shaman, or the aid of Mum, you need to send commanders out to grab those woods. Also, ancient forests are very good for you and they counts as citadels (meaning if your home is taken, you still don’t lose the game if you have at least one ancient forest left). Start making troll forests as soon as you can. If your lvl 2 mages don’t have theis ritual, cast ritual of mastery until you get it.

Druid: You have a somewhat lackluster troop roster. Use your initial troops to take a settlement or two, but it is more important to grab all forests you can. Money (to get human troops) is not a priority, although a scout can be very useful. Get the ‘minor summons’ ritual through mastery if you don’t have it. oth with your druid and his apprentice. They should split up since both can replenish their forces individually without having to return to base. If the druid has major summon, use this to get a stronger force. You can probably cast mastery to get a lvl2 summon quite early. Try to get an ancient forest early, but beware, troops are often hiding there, so a scout might be necessary. If you get it you can summon mythical beings if you have that ritual, or you can use major summoning (it has an increased effect in ancient forests). If your druid or the apprentice has charm animal spells you can often fill up your ranks with additional moose and bears (or elephants).

What society should I start with?

If you are playing Baron go for Monarchy. There are lots of small settlemets, some towns and a king’s castle waiting for you.

Troll king can cope with most societies, but if you want to have a bit more of stuff, monarchy works fine.

If you are a druid the dark ages might work out fine. There are lots of forests and ancient forests, but settlements are scarce. The druid doesn’t need money that much anyway. An AI dependent on gold will be weaker. Druid, Witch or Dryad AI will be strong.

• Dark Ages: Lots of forests and wildlife. Bad for gold-dependent factions.
• Agriculture: Lots of farms and villages. Still lots of forests, but a bit less so. Lots of brigand lairs and brigands. Scouts are very important, lest you get ambushed and lose weak commanders.
• Empire: Lots of cities and towns. Few forests. Good for gold, sacrifice and hands of glory collectors. Bad for Druid, Witch and Troll King. There is always a grand capital here.
• Fallen Empire: Ruins, very few cities and towns. Lots of forests and battlefields. Sometimes overrun by barbarians, undead or horrors. Probably the hardest society to play in, unless you are a forest (herbs or fungus) collector. It is a very (possibly frustratingly) poor place, but it is also the society with the most number of special sites, like the academy of higher magic, crystal globes and mystical pillars. There is always a haunted capital here.
• Monarchy: Good amount of most resources. Good for most factions. More guard towers than the other societies. There is always a King’s Castle here.
• Dawn of the new empire: Something between Empire and Monarchy. Good for most factions, perhaps slightly worse for forest collectors. THere is always a one-tile capital here.

Why does the AI die the first year? Is there a way to fix this?

Elysium is a dangerous place, for you and for the AI. You might find yourself killed the first couple of rounds. That applies to the AI as well. However there are some ways to mitigate that if you find it unappealing.

AI level: A common suggestion is to increase the AI cheat level to knight. But the AI can still be killed by an ambush or a horror. The problem with this is that you probably willbe overwhelmed by the AI when you encounter him (since you probably havn’t mastered your faction, or the game, yet).

Several AIs: If you add some additional AIs it doesn’t matter if one or two dies, it’s part of Elysium to die ignobly. But this can lead to one AI gobbling up a neighbor and become a bit stronger.

AI teams: This is probably the best setup (I almost exclusively play vs AI teams myself). Set up a game with the AI’s in teams. You in team 1, and then some AI teams of two. Set clustered start and common cause. Don’t change AI level, or perhaps lower it. Clustered start means that the team have their start locations close to each other. Common Cause means that the AI’s aren’t killed unless both are dead. So if one AI loses all commanders, he can still get a new one as long as his friend is still alive. This can sometimes result in one tema member gobbling up most of the resources, but the team stays in the game. Eventually the weaker one might regain strength. If you have several teams they will also fight each other, possibly giving you some slack if you retreat from an area. More teams means more AI infighting, but ultimtely they will defeat each other and come for you.

Some general tips

Place two ranged units in fortified buildings, including your home base. The walls make them very strong. Bears and deer stand no chance against forts with a couple of archers (ants, serpents and other wall-climbers are another matter).

Use the low level rituals initially. Cast lesser mastery to see what you can use. They will often get you some useful rituals toincrease your initial army or sometimes (a few factions) something that increases your resource production. Lvl 1 rituals are a stepping stone to get an army that can conquer enough resources to cast lvl2 rituals. Don’t aim for higher level rituals until you are comfortably strong. If you sit on your special resources unitl you can cast grand mastery, you have probably missed out on the stuff that would have made you stronger in the meantime. Summon Imps is probably the best spell for a starting demonologist, but it often ignored, since lesser demons sound way cooler. But one lesser demon in the initial army is often likely good then two summonings of imps.

Get the first scout you can find and place him with your main character. Ambushes are deadly.

Look out for bandit camps. They look like forests with a small burning camp fire. It is a ‘monster lair’ that will spawn bandits that will waylay you. If you control it it will stop spawning, until an independent takes it from you.

Beware of bandits.

Ancient forest, graveyards and guard towers are also ‘monster lairs’. They sometimes spawn stealthy units, but the bandits are often more of a problem to new players.

Look at your main characters spells if it’s a caster. Some lvl 2 spells are not useful at the start of the game (fire resistance and other resistances) or outright dangerous to your own troops due to friendly fire (Hailstorm, Blizzard, disease clouds).

Hope this helps!