Goal

Gather gold from mines and lumber from forests with workers. Build farms for food, a barracks to train soldiers, and destroy every enemy building and unit.

Controls

• Left click / drag select units · Shift add to selection · Ctrl+click / double-click select all of a type
• Right click context order: move, attack, harvest, repair, follow, return resources, set rally point
• Hotkeys shown on each command button · Esc cancel / menu
• Ctrl+1..9 assign control group · 1..9 select group (press twice to centre)
• Arrow keys or mouse at screen edge to scroll · click the minimap to jump · right-click the minimap to move
• Space jump to last attack alert · ` or . select idle worker · Ctrl+H go to your hall · Alt show all health bars
• Enter chat with everyone, Shift+Enter chat with your team (multiplayer) · Tab switches while typing · /t or /all prefix a message

Races

Humans of Aldmere: Footmen, Archers, Knights, Ballistae and Mages (Fireball, Mend). Stone buildings, guard and cannon towers. From the Eyrie: Roc Riders and bomb-dropping Skyships. From the Shipyard: Cogs, far-seeing Frigates and Bombard Galleons.

Orcs of the Bloodfang Clans: Grunts, Axe Throwers, Wolf Raiders, Catapults and Warlocks (Rot Cloud). Tough grunts. From the Bat Roost: blood-drinking Dire Bat Riders and fire-breathing Drakes. From the War Wharf: War Rafts, ramming Reavers and pitch-hurling Siege Barges.

Aliens, the Xenith Brood: Warriors, Spitters, Stalkers, Ravagers and Matriarchs (Brood Frenzy). Every creature and hive structure slowly regenerates; they are fast but lightly armoured. From the Wing Hatchery: pack-hunting Razorwings and Latcher-laying Spore Mothers. From the Tide Nest: Brine Crawlers, submerging Razorfins and the Leviathan.

The water

On Lakeland and Inner Sea maps every base has a shore. A second-level hall and a lumber building unlock a harbour, which must be built touching open water. Ships sail only on water and the shallow fords that armies wade across; they can be hit by anything that can reach a ground unit, and only the fast warships can shoot upwards. Transports carry six berths of ground units: right-click one with soldiers to board, right-click a shore to unload. Ships moored beside their harbour are slowly repaired.

The sky

Once your hall reaches its third level you can raise an aviary and take to the air. Flyers cross water, forest and walls, never trigger traps, and only ranged units, mages, flyers and arrow-type towers can hit them: swords, cavalry, siege engines and splash towers cannot. A base with nothing but footmen and cannon towers is defenceless against them.

The portal

Every race can raise a Portal once it holds a third-level hall and a temple, and it is ruinously expensive. Build two and they link: any ground unit that walks onto the dais of one steps out of the other, in either direction, and the pathfinder uses the way whenever it is shorter. The gate is open to everyone, friend or foe, so a portal pair is a shortcut for your army and a back door for theirs. Only two may stand at once; if one falls, the other goes dark until it is rebuilt. Flyers and ships never use them.

Tips

• Keep training workers early; 12–16 is a healthy economy.
• Set a barracks rally point; set a hall rally point on a mine to auto-harvest.
• Upgrade your hall to unlock cavalry, then casters and flyers. Research weapons and armour at the smith.
• Keep some archers and an arrow tower at home once the enemy has a third-level hall; melee cannot touch what flies.
• Siege ships outrange towers. Answer a bombardment with your own fleet, flyers, or soldiers landed behind it, not with footmen on the beach.
• Siege units shred buildings but are fragile. Escort them.
• Guard both ends of a Portal. Whatever can walk onto the far dais can walk out beside your hall.
• Traps: Bear Traps (humans), Black Oil (orcs) and Latchers (aliens) are invisible to enemies. A unit caught in a trap must be freed by a friend (right-click it) within a minute or a War Bear is released; a unit soaked in oil or carrying a Latcher must be killed by its own side (attack it) within a minute or it becomes a Colossus or a Behemoth for the trap's owner.