Posted October 01, 2014
Character Creation
Until you know how the system works and what you're doing, it is possible to really screw up your hero, and in Spellforce a weak hero is not particularly fun to play.
There are lots and lots of skills, and not many points to buy them with, so your best bet is to focus on a small number of them - say one or two.
Mages can be very fun, but they seem to be harder and more complicated to play in the beginning. I recommend a warrior to start with, sticking with either Heavy Combat or Light Combat, but not both. A combination of Heavy Armor and one of the Heavy Weapon skills is a solid choice, as is Light Blades and Light Armor or Light Blades and Shields.
The Story
Your hero is a "Rune Warrior" but what does that mean? Well, there was this council of 13 wizards called The Circle. They got too powerful for their own good. They discovered instructions for a magical ritual called The Convocation that could turn one of them into a god. Naturally they started fighting each other for the right to godhood. One of the war weapons they created were runes that could be used to create life: for example, completely obedient soldiers used to fight other mages. Your hero was a slave created by this runic magic in order to fight for one or another of the mages of The Circle. A rune warrior will obey the orders of whoever or whatever holds his rune.
Beings created and controlled by runes can be killed over and over again, but the rune can recreate them at any time with some or most of their memories intact, so they're very resilient if not immortal.
The Circle eventually destroyed most of the world in their Convocation War, and rune warriors were used to kill and oppress lots of people, so naturally your hero is viewed with trepidation and fear by some of the people he encounters.
Creatures created by runes are brought into existence by huge statues called Rune Monuments. These were built by The Circle and some of them are left over from the war. You use these monuments to create your units - everything from common workmen to wizards and warriors. As long as you have a rune for something, you can create it at a monument. Each race has it's own kind of monument, and there's another special kind of monument for heroes like your character.
Basic Strategy
On the first couple of maps you shouldn't have too much trouble, but after that you'll quickly discover that things can get much harder.
Your enemies don't build settlements and collect resources that way you do. Instead they have pre-built settlements with spawn points in the middle of them. In general these remain inert until you claim and activate a race monument. At that point they begin creating huge armies of enemies to attack you. Since that's the case, it's often easiest to destroy as many enemy settlements and spawn points as you can before claiming a race monument. You have to do this using only your hero and any other heroes for whom you possess runes. Activating a hero monument doesn't wake up your enemies, so that's okay.
In short, only use the RTS parts of the game when your hero is confronted by a fortress or army he can't beat by himself.
Good luck!
Until you know how the system works and what you're doing, it is possible to really screw up your hero, and in Spellforce a weak hero is not particularly fun to play.
There are lots and lots of skills, and not many points to buy them with, so your best bet is to focus on a small number of them - say one or two.
Mages can be very fun, but they seem to be harder and more complicated to play in the beginning. I recommend a warrior to start with, sticking with either Heavy Combat or Light Combat, but not both. A combination of Heavy Armor and one of the Heavy Weapon skills is a solid choice, as is Light Blades and Light Armor or Light Blades and Shields.
The Story
Your hero is a "Rune Warrior" but what does that mean? Well, there was this council of 13 wizards called The Circle. They got too powerful for their own good. They discovered instructions for a magical ritual called The Convocation that could turn one of them into a god. Naturally they started fighting each other for the right to godhood. One of the war weapons they created were runes that could be used to create life: for example, completely obedient soldiers used to fight other mages. Your hero was a slave created by this runic magic in order to fight for one or another of the mages of The Circle. A rune warrior will obey the orders of whoever or whatever holds his rune.
Beings created and controlled by runes can be killed over and over again, but the rune can recreate them at any time with some or most of their memories intact, so they're very resilient if not immortal.
The Circle eventually destroyed most of the world in their Convocation War, and rune warriors were used to kill and oppress lots of people, so naturally your hero is viewed with trepidation and fear by some of the people he encounters.
Creatures created by runes are brought into existence by huge statues called Rune Monuments. These were built by The Circle and some of them are left over from the war. You use these monuments to create your units - everything from common workmen to wizards and warriors. As long as you have a rune for something, you can create it at a monument. Each race has it's own kind of monument, and there's another special kind of monument for heroes like your character.
Basic Strategy
On the first couple of maps you shouldn't have too much trouble, but after that you'll quickly discover that things can get much harder.
Your enemies don't build settlements and collect resources that way you do. Instead they have pre-built settlements with spawn points in the middle of them. In general these remain inert until you claim and activate a race monument. At that point they begin creating huge armies of enemies to attack you. Since that's the case, it's often easiest to destroy as many enemy settlements and spawn points as you can before claiming a race monument. You have to do this using only your hero and any other heroes for whom you possess runes. Activating a hero monument doesn't wake up your enemies, so that's okay.
In short, only use the RTS parts of the game when your hero is confronted by a fortress or army he can't beat by himself.
Good luck!