Art of Conquest is a relatively new massive multiplayer real-time strategy (MMORTS) game, brought to us by Lilith Games. The goal of this game is for you to expand your mythical empire by battling and laying settlements throughout the divided lands of Nore. Essentially, you will have to choose between 5 different races such as Humans, Rakans, Sylph, Lich, and Dwarves, and wage battle after battle to expand your influence, gather resources and build the largest empire the world has ever seen. However, you don’t have to be versed in the art of war in order to come out on top in this game since it already has mechanics that are easy to grasp, and even simpler to perform.

In this article, you will find everything you need to know in order to start your journey on the right foot, which will also allow you to gain the advantage over those who seek to destroy your legacy.

Choose Your Starting Hero Wisely

In Art of Conquest, there is a question that most of you will likely ask yourselves; Which hero should I choose in the beginning? This will be the first crucial decision that you’ll have to make as soon as you begin in Art of Conquest. Each hero has its own strengths and weaknesses. At the very start, you will only be able to choose between 3 of these: Rufio, Avalon, and Avril.

The first one is the tank of the group; Rufio can absorb massive amounts of damage, while also doling out the hurt on your enemies. At max level, he can dish out around three times the damage that he can take, which makes him into a veritable force to be feared in the battlefield. His first skill, Heroic Leap, allows him to reposition himself with a big jump, stunning and dealing damage to enemies around the area in which he lands. When combined with his second skill, chopping blade, Rufio becomes a killing machine since he can both stun his foes, and then cut them down with a swing of his blade. This combo is best suited against groups of ranged units such as archers, given that they seldom have a good defense against physical attacks. If you choose Rufio as your starter hero, it’s best if you can channel a good amount of resources and equipment to him, so that you can have a strong hero from the very beginning.

In contrast to Rufio, Avalon does not rely on brute strength. Despite not having offensive capabilities as strong as the previous hero, Avalon makes up for this shortcoming with an array of abilities that support and strengthen his comrades in battle. His first ability is called Arrow Volley and allows you to deploy a volley of burning arrows to focus fire on a target of your choosing. Furthermore, those who die from this skill have a chance to explode, causing damage to others nearby. Additionally, Avalon has a skill that allows him to surpass the usual supply limit for each battle, allowing him to deploy an additional squad on the battlefield. In short, Avalon is a strategist, as well as a good choice for those who put more value in cunning than in brute force.

Avril, the last of the three, is the queen of ice. Her first skill, Ice Nova, projects an explosion of ice that deals damage and freezes all the enemies in the area of effect. She is very good at crowd control and for weakening the enemy forces while your army cleans the battlefield. She can also split the opposing forces with her Ice Wall skill, which summons a literal wall of ice in a location of your choosing.

Despite the heroes offering different ways in which you can win battles, don’t worry too much about it if you feel that you chose the wrong one. In the future, you’ll have the opportunity to recruit these three, as well as many others as you progress along the game.

Upgrade Your Hero

Art of Conquest combines elements from many games into a very interesting package. It has RTS elements similar to those of the Heroes of Might & Magic franchise, with combat mechanics akin to those found in the Total War series of games. Furthermore, you can upgrade each hero individually, much like you can do in Warcraft III. Additionally, each hero has a combination of support, crowd control, and damaging abilities, which can also be upgraded. As you progress through the game, you will have to decide on how to upgrade their abilities since you’ll be using some over others. As a general rule of thumb, we suggest to invest points on the skills that you have by default, and then sink some points in support and control skills, leaving damaging abilities for last.

Gather Resources

In stark contrast to the real world, the people of Nore don’t care about oil, nuclear energy, or wind energy. However, they depend on gold, mana, and lumber to eke out a living in their world. Spread throughout the map, you will be able to find deposits of these elements. Additionally, you may also produce them in your castle by constructing appropriate buildings. However, blood diamonds, crystals, and mithril are much harder to come by, and can only be found on the map, inside treasure chests, and pillaging them from other players.

Honor is another type of resource, which is used to change race, recruit new units, and for building certain structures. You may obtain this resource by beating local beasts, or by stealing it from other players.

And speaking of stealing; if you decide to move away from your capital to forge your own empire, a good way to obtain resources will be by raiding the warehouses or traders of other players. However, if you decide to go down this path, you will also expose yourself to these assaults. In this sense, upgrading your warehouses is a good way to safeguard your resources from enemy attacks.

Upgrade Your Units and Buildings

While gathering resources is of the utmost importance throughout the entire game, wisely investing said resources on improving your buildings will also be paramount to ensuring your longevity in the game. As far as units are concerned, we recommend focusing your efforts on one type of technology. For example, investing your resources on improving ranged attacks will increase the lethality of your archers.

Keep in mind that if you decide to pay honor to switch races, your buildings will keep their levels. However, you will lose all your upgrades, which will have to be redeveloped.

Expand Your Territory

There will come a point where, in order to continue expanding your empire, you will have to fight your neighbors in their own territory. These battles tend to be long and torturous for both parties. For this reason, it’s usually a good idea to plan sieges alongside your allies, so that you can coordinate a successful attack and reap the best results.

The PvP battles in Art of Conquest flow just about the same as any other encounter, only at a slower pace so that players have ample time to plan out their strategies and activate their hero skills.

Nevertheless, turf wars are not the only occasions in which you will have to go up against other players in PvP. Every time you find resource deposits such as mines or lumber mills, you will have the option of hauling the resources they contain back to your base. This action is achieved by escorting the slow caravan, which is always open to enemy attacks. If your caravan is attacked by another player, you will have the option of engaging in combat to defend it.

This is all you need to know to get a good start at this game. Make sure to invest points into your heroes, and focus on gathering resources for your city. We plan on creating a lot more guides on Art of Conquest throughout the next few days, so stay tuned!

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