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Three years after the Purity Wars, Nortander is on the cusp of a new era.
SpellForce 3 Soul Harvest: Tips and Tricks for Beginners
There are 4 types of tips. These are collected from many players.
Tips #1
Simplest tip, let your heroes sit back at camp and only bring them to take over outposts. Atleast early game. Becuse if you don´t baby sit them and 3 die in rapid succesion you loose. Late game heroes can become gods and RTS becomes a joke.
But on the RTS part, expand FAST and then bunker the closests sectors to the enemy (build 3-4 towers close to the outpost) 3-5 towers & a max lev outpost can deal with pritty mutch any wave from most races. Then its simply build up eco and start spamming out food units. Food is free so spamming out a few to help with defense is not a bad idea.
When you fully upgraded your units and feel ready max out your army and steamroll the enemy. If the enemy is making catapults or similar you gotta make some ranged units to snipe them (melee units will quickly get killed by ther melee/ranged units)
Tips #2
Have two heroes with heal. For this I have my main character have light magic for the heal spell. AND you can get resurrection later. I also have the defence tree so this is perfect for holding the line.
Towers. This is simple. Pick a choke point or hot zone and put FOUR towers at the location. The toughest ones you have if possible. Make sure you have the resources for this before you take over a sector and dig in. Your hero’s can hold one side but they can’t be in two places at once. And for when they’re at the towers that’s extra help with holding the line.
Play hop scotch with the enemy territory. By this I mean keep quickly taking weaker zones and build a scouting post at each one. If you have the resources for it make border forts when you can. It’s more to keep the enemy busy so they’re less likely to attack your main base.
As someone stated earlier, beeline for 9 con. You get potions of fresh starts so you can always get int and wisdom for other armor later. It all depends on how often you cast spells. if you only summon a demon with Raith then having 9 con can be handy because you can focus on defence and the demon makes a good meat shield (plus there’s a nice int based flame sword I give him. Close combat needs con and armor). I’ve held that bridge on the later dwarf RTS map for ages wiping out whole armies on normal with my four heroes in heavy armor.
Cleave. I’ve seen moments where mobs have been on a bridge and just went splat all at once. I’m guessing it’s because I had max cleave. Whatever I did it wiped out entire mobs (rarely). I’m talking every single enemy on that bridge which was swarming. Was on that dwarf map at late game.
Whirlwind. Get this for two heroes and it helps to hold the line.
As for what types of units to focus on, getting 5 soldiers and 3 archers is a good repeat order. Early on just stick with that. Later on have a champion or lava golem (or berserker) lead each group. I like to get three groups early on (after all the first tier buildings are placed) then get five groups later. If I’m feeling rich in iron or something then I might start churning out champions instead of soldiers.
After that it’s a case of knowing what buildings to get and when. Two woodcutters early on for humans. Follow up with a stone cutter then a hunter. Elves can expand their woodcutter. Dwarfs focus on stone instead of wood, so get two stone huts instead. That leaves food. Early on a hunter in each area works. Later on dedicate an area to nothing but farming. Same goes for towers. If you need to hold a line make sure you got enough workers to fill the towers. It’s a good idea to put a woodcutter, stonecutter and hunter/farm in each territory you take over. Unless you’re dedicating an area for something else (such as iron or four towers or only farms).
If all else fails, push up to the enemy front line early on and make the front line at their door step as you take the territory in between. If you’re pushed back to your own doorstep hold out until you get your army and/or titan going. I actually had to dig in until I got a pargon up and running once. The enemy had a border fort on the high ground in the next sector.
Tips #3
So far I’ve found that it is of utmost importance to beeline for 7 or 9 Constitution for characters meant to be your frontline, as it lets them equip armor worth a damn. After that, a healer is of course natural to bring along, and Yria works for that if one raises her Willpower(stronger heals, more Focus capacity) in my experience. Though personally I think I might prefer the Druidism tree for raw healing, as I find their heal spell stronger per target even if it doesn’t heal as many.
Run around with two frontliners, (Con 7+, shields optional), and always one or two characters capable of throwing out heals. Beyond that, I don’t go with anything in particular, but so far I am quite font of a Combat/Evocation character to both frontline and throw out Fireballs to soften crowds with, and a Druid can both heal and cast chain lightning/earthquakes so that is a fun skill set.
So far I’ve found myself able to take my time, turtle up, build an army, then just head out and push fairly deep into enemy territory, claim a region, set up some guard towers, and rebuild my army while fending off small enemy groups in the meantime.
Turn Yria in a pure healer early on, and trying out making Raith into a either a minion master(raising skeletons and improving his Willpower to boost said skeletons) or a ‘Dark Knight'(Potion of Fresh Start, focus Constitution to 7 but preferably 9, raise strength a bit, then rely on Demonology and Necromancy to life leech and debuff enemies).
Chose Druidism for a healer character, as its heal spell is stronger per target but weaker for group healing, as well as getting some AoE damage in chain lightning and later earthquake. Pair Druidism with Elementalism and you can dish out some hefty area damage on demand, for cheap, as Druid and Elementalist skills reduces Focus costs by a lot together! Make it a Dwarf for a special robe that reduces ability costs and cooldowns by a bunch too.
Tips #4
As long as your heroes can clear out neutral camps quickly early on by themselves then it doesn’t really matter how strong they are. Although it’s nice to have an elementalist to snipe high value targets. And of course a beguiler with auras will be useful in RTS mode.
Immediately put down two resource gatherers of your primary resource (as a dwarf that’s stonecutter) and a hunter’s lodge, once they’re built get your third resource (charchoal in my case).
While you’re doing this, send out your heroes to immediately grab adjecent territory.
If possible, choose territory with your primary resource. Immediately build an outpost on it and put down 2 more gatherers of your primary resource and a hunting lodge (if it has wild animals). If you’re dwarf get charcoal and use farms in territory without stone.
At this point you have several options open to you depending on your play style. Personally I like to grab all nearby territory with stone (since I play dwarf) and put down two stonecutters on them, and a hunter’s lodge in every territory with wild animals in it. Resource gathering buildings are relatively cheap and pay themselves back really fast.
If I have unlocked berserkers: I’ll put down two iron miners at any iron resource node I have available to me and a smelter in a territory away from the frontline with free workers (not the capital area if possible). If I have pyromancers I’ll do the same with moonsilver.
Lastly, I just put down 2 barracks (a bit later I’ll go up to 4) and start flooding the enemy with berserkers/pyromancers (or axemen/sentries if those aren’t available). I don’t think I lost a single building in any of the RTS segments. Except for level 3 dwarf towers towers kinda suck, and even level 3 dwarf towers can’t really fend off anything beyond a scouting force (level 2 towers have less damage than an undeployed sentry, lol. I feel like they’d have to quadruple tower damage or something for them to be remotely useful). I just use them to tank damage so my army can relieve the area before the main structure dies. Early on they’re just a waste of resources and should only be built once you’re already exploiting all the resources available to you and you’ve got maxed main buildings everywhere.