So, now you’re a Sovereign in charge of a kingdom that is currently being ignored by the Sorcerer King, who is too busy destroying shards so that he can cast the ultimate Doomsday spell and become a God. You have an entire population looking to you for guidance and assurance. You will need to raise an army, expand your kingdom, study magic, and recruit allies to your cause -- all while trying to avoid attracting the attention and wrath of the Sorcerer King. Literally everyone is counting on you to stop the Doomsday spell and prevent the destruction of the entire world of Elemental.
No pressure though, right?
Your head is spinning and you have no idea where to begin. A city just waiting to be built and expanded has been plopped in your lap, your champion is waiting for your orders, and there are monsters looming in every dark corner of the map. The Sorcerer King is out there, somewhere, and all you can do is hope that for now you’ve escaped his notice.
All right, fine. Maybe your head isn’t spinning, but mine sure is. It’s a lot to take in all at once for someone new to the 4X genre, so I sat down with Adam, one of Sorcerer King’s developers, and asked him for some friendly advice on how to play the game so that I could get to that final battle.
To start, we broke down the 4 “X's” in 4X. For now, we’ll focus on the first one:
Explore.
In Sorcerer King, you will want to be aware of your surroundings, keeping an eye out for the following:
In order to accomplish this, Adam suggested to me that I build a Scout unit right off the bat. Scout units can move and explore the map quickly, allowing you to identify and plan ahead for where the best places to send your army and your Pioneers (units that are able to settle new cities) are.
You can cover more of the map by sending your Champion in one direction and the Scout in another. The Scout should be able to avoid most wandering monsters, since they only move one space at at time. Tip: Don’t queue your Scout’s movement too far ahead, move them manually a few spaces at a time. If you don’t, it is likely that he will be killed by bandits or another wandering monster, and that’s a pretty lousy way to go.
You need to find fertile land in order to build new cities. Once a Scout has identified where there is a suitable place to settle, you can send your Pioneers to start building there. By sending the scout ahead to find several options for settlement, you can plan ahead for how you want to build in future turns.
Treasure chests will have lots of random goodies in them that can usually be used for crafting. We will discuss crafting in another post, but it’s worth noting here: do not ignore the importance of crafting! Even the simplest craft (like a leather helmet) can boost your units enough to get through battles that might be on the more difficult side. While it may seem insignificant, a single piece of crafted gear can mean the difference between survival and annihilation for a unit.
Shards are especially important! You want the shards to stay in tact - they give you magic and their existence is the very thing the Sorcerer King doesn’t want. He is out to destroy the shards so that he can cast his Doomsday spell, which is something that we want to prevent. By knowing where the Shards are, we can build Outposts and mount a general defense when we see they are being attacked.
Rivals can be either a great help or a pesky nuisance. It is important to know where they are early on so that you can engage them and take on some of the quests they have to offer. You can gain valuable items, units, and diplomatic sway through completing these quests. We will discuss rivals at more length in another post.
Through exploration, you can also obtain quests from people in need. Abandoned villages and inns are two places you should always explore. You can gain free units (that do not cost any logistics), resources, and information through quest events that you can find in these places. Do not waste any of these opportunities! You will need every possible edge that you can find in order to beat the Sorcerer King later.
Aggressive map exploration is one of the key elements to being able to plan out your strategy for victory against the Sorcerer King. Try to see as much of the map as you can in order to give you the edge in the days to come.
