The Empire
Flamewood’s Empire was built on the back of heavy cavalry, conquering all the continental duchies of Elorna, Eranith and D’olore. Its glory days are far behind it and the compromise of the Cyndorian Rebellion was more independence for the duchies in order for them to rally to Flamewood’s aid. As a result, the duchies will only allow themselves to be recruited in their own territory. The Empire has by far the largest pool of generals and units to recruit from, allowing for enjoyable deck-building as you try and solve this puzzle.
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-Diverse Unit Pool.
-Strong Faction Abilities.
-Start Relatively Developed.
-Start with four armies.
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-Difficult army building constraints.
-Large and split.
-Surrounded on all sides by enemies.
Duchy Mechanic
The Duchy Mechanic is a unique mechanic for the Empire player. When recruiting and building armies, the Empire is held back due the power of their semi-autonomous duchies. The people from each region have too much pride to join forces from another duchy’s brigades and so are only recruitable in their own duchy. This gives the Empire player a massive swath of units and generals to build around, but a logistical nightmare that the player must navigate in order to get the most out of the faction.
Each duchy has its own unique strength that the player can build around and while it may not immediately make sense to mix up the factions due to not being able to recruit in multiple regions, rainbow builds are viable and can be effective. Since generals don’t care about what units they’re commanding, they can have anything in the army.
Another thing of note is Imperial units. Knowing these issues within the Empire, Davigros, the Empire’s Field Marshall, was wise enough to start building up a centralised army. These units can be used to fill up your numbers but are limited and weaker than their duchy counterparts, meaning you’re trading strength for flexibility.
The Empire’s Duchies
Duchy of Flamewood
The Empire’s generals are split into three categories in the same way their units are. Each general can only recruit their own duchy and imperial units, meaning each part of the faction has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Flamewood’s generals give powerful upsides at the consequence of powerful downsides. Espis gives a strong economic boon, but you cannot replace him and he is bad in combat. Relian has a powerful effect but cannot be used while Espis is in command of an army. Davigros eats away at your precious supply due to having four armies, although he does provide good growth and battle prowess.
Duchy of D’olore
D’olore’s generals are more combat oriented as is befitting of their faction. Each has a weakness that means you have to use them in a specific way or give up some flexibility that some other generals might give you. It’s a complex puzzle of deck-building that allows you to build and rebuild in an attempt to find the perfect answer.
D’olore also has a unique pair of generals that are unlocked through playing the game that aren’t found in another faction.
Elornian Generals
Elorna’s generals work in tandem with the Magi Elite unit that Elorna possesses. Parithon offers the Empire’s best Naval option while Elliotti provides a way of circumnavigating the Duchy mechanic by allowing to revive units. Elorna also has two generals that are unlocked through gameplay and achievements during the game.
Imperial Units
One of The Empire’s weaknesses is their Elites are a one-of, meaning most of their army’s strongest powers are unique and cannot be reused throughout all of their armies. A second weakness is only their Imperial Units are a two-of, meaning that deckbuilding is filled with the additional challenge of trying to fit many different pieces together that don’t want to fit.
Imperial units are for filling the cracks. If you need a ship to be recruited for a faction that lacks the capability or cheap infantry somewhere that has only expensive choices, then these units provide an answer.
The Imperial Guard also adds an additional fun option for The Empire player if they want to try and build an Imperial army with a bonus.
Combat Cards
For the constraints that the Empire has with building their armies, they are given flexibility when it comes to their combat deck. They are one of the only factions that can build with mono-tag or duo-tag armies and can Deckthin to be quite efficient for attack types.
While not one of the main naval factions, the Cannon Volley having the naval attack type opens up the possibility to play naval through D’olore or Elorna should they choose to.
Attacking favoured, The Empire may want to look for defensive mercenaries or defensive Augments to offset their lower defence numbers. While powerful on the offence, if they meet someone who can outlast them, they may struggle over longer fights.