Empire

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Empire Information pages
Empire Buildings Overview
 * Palace
 * Tower
 * Walls
 * Ramparts
 * Barracks
 * Blacksmith
 * Granary
 * Quartermaster
 * Eyrie
 * Barn
 * Archway
 * Library

Empire Researches Overview
 * Palace Guard
 * Weaponsmith
 * Armorer
 * Fletcher
 * Bowyer
 * Flaming Arrows
 * Trade
 * Foreign Mercenary
 * Supply
 * Income
 * Royal Guard
 * Morale
 * Fame
 * Mysticism
 * Advanced Mysticism
 * Spell Research
 * Arcane Research
 * Imperial Guard

Empire Armies Overview
 * Peasant
 * Pikeman
 * Archer
 * Mercenary
 * Eagle
 * Halberdier
 * Elephant
 * Catapult
 * Battering Ram
 * White Mage
 * Griffon
 * Red Mage
 * Black Mage
 * Swamp Dragon
 * Frost Dragon
 * The Lion Throne

Overview
The Empire are a well rounded race with plenty of piercing weaponry. They are capable of fielding a reasonably powerful force with elephants and mages, the latter of which is accessed at a high keep level. They may frequently struggle against multiple races, some of which are even capable of ending the Empire's game near the start due to the opponent's piercing resistances. If the Empire can manage to fend off any piercing resistant rushes, they can create an army as powerful as most other races.

Pros

 * Although difficult to achieve, an army of mages are literally unstoppable.
 * Titan possess the best base-range in the entire game at a staggering 16!
 * Common units deal extra damage against cavalry, countering such units (and strategies that revolve around them) with ease.
 * Very flexible late level army, with strong melee units and 3 different spellcasters that ensure a well balanced army.
 * Dependable melee infantry, which despite their commonly counterd damage types, are quite useful and boast decent stats, particularly when fully upgraded.
 * For a Gold-based economy, Gold is not needed for upgrading the Palace, except at max level.

Cons

 * Recruiting units via Foreign Mercenaries isn't very practical due to the randomness of it and the limiting factor of it being a research. As such, it should not be taken in to account when working up strategies.
 * Early game is too easily countered by races with piercing resistant units, as the alternative lone early game slashing type unit is too expensive to mass produce.
 * Poor aerial defense.
 * Race classification and alignment only causes issues with no benefits what so ever.

The Race
Empire are good all round side. They have a selection of good infantry, archers and cavalry all available fairly early in a battle. A peculiarity of the Empire side is that they have three generals - a Red mage, a White mage, and a Black mage. They also have the ability to hire in mercenaries from foreign races to help them out. Empire require lots of gold and metal for unit production, and stone for buildings, but do not have much need for crystal.

When playing as Empire, do NOT train Mercenaries before reducing their cost; you'll need that gold to upgrade your keep, your income and others. This also apply to foreign mercenaries (i.e. hired units from another faction). Once cheap enough to be hired, however, all these units can greatly supplement Empire's standard unit roster (fast produced, balanced cavalry, advanced ranged troops to fill in towers, elemental damage dealers, more generals, ...).

It is worth noting that foreign mercenaries do count toward the army limit but can be still be produced over it. Other said, build all standard units you need (especially elephants, siege weapons, dragons, titan) before producing a lot of mercenaries.

When playing against the Empire, avoid using cavalry. Their two melee infantry units (halberdiers & pikemen) are deadly against them, particularly their halberdiers as they also have excellent armor, high slashing damage and an upgradable combat that spells doom for cavalry; Knights might face problems against them.

Heroes
A clear choice for the Empire is a Merchant. The Merchant's abilities greatly favour many of the Empire's abilities as well as gaining synergy in Wealth. Wealth is a vital ingrediant for the Empire, as Mercenaries cost only gold, allowing the hero to produce them extremely easily.

An alternative option is the Bard. This class has the same Wealth skill as the Merchant, but it starts with more Charisma and Leadership (which increases Morale for all sides), making it a superior choice to spam skill points into Wealth with.

Counters

 * A prevalence of piercing type weaponry early in the game can allow them to be Skeleton or Husk rushed. Anything that can resist piercing can take advantage of this.


 * The Empire has much need of gold in the game, particularly their units (except for the elephants and white mages). Take advantage of that and destroy or capture as many gold mines as possible.
 * Apart from being rushed by pierce-resistant units, the Empire might be also raided by faster races (but only at early to mid game), as it is somewhat unlikely for them to have many Mercenaries, due to their cost.
 * While the Swarm and the Undead spell enough trouble for the Empire, the Dark Dwarves are also quite powerful against it; Golems can absorb the piercing damage while the faster Shadows/Wraiths and Firebombs can flank/avoid the main units to attack Mages and Towers respectively. Thankfully, cavalry and fliers can help keeping away the faster units and protect the vulnerable positions.

Trivia

 * The White, Red, and Black mages are possibly a reference to the classes of the same names from the Final Fantasy series.
 * The White, Red and Black mages could also be a possible reference to the Dragonlance series of novels. In the series, good mages would generally wear white robes, neutral mages would wear red robes and evil mages would wear black robes.