Fey

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Fey Information pages
Fey Buildings Overview
 * Dreamhold
 * Crystal Tower
 * Walls
 * Ramparts
 * Faerie Ring
 * Orb of Wonder
 * Magic Pool
 * Rainbow
 * Nest
 * Unicorn Grove
 * Tome

Fey Researches Overview
 * Faerie Blade
 * Faerie Sight
 * Panoply
 * Knights of Faerie
 * Zephyr
 * Faerie Fire
 * Lore
 * Eagle Eye
 * Farseeing
 * Income
 * The Alicorn
 * Meditation
 * Summon Mana

Fey Armies Overview
 * Oakman
 * Sylph
 * Faerie Dragon
 * Spriggan
 * Leprechaun
 * Lightning Hawk
 * Pixie
 * Sprite
 * Unicorn
 * Pegasus
 * Banshee
 * Swamp Dragon
 * Celestial Dragon
 * The Forestmaster

Overview
The Fey can provide a challenge to play as, but as their Merchant hero becomes higher level, it will become easier and easier to play them. Once this is possible, they are a very, very powerful and dangerous force, though their early game weakness will make them the target of many enemy rush squads. Given enough time to upgrade, they can become arguably the most powerful race in the game.

Pros

 * Very favorable economic hero classes.
 * Access to a vast array of missile units, many of which are fliers.
 * Free resources via crystalization can make certain researches and units essentially cost nothing.
 * Access to the best Income researches in the game
 * Access to multitudes of extremely powerful researches, most notably Lore which is usually the Fey's win condition. These researches usually affect every single unit available, and can be used as a countdown timer win condition. This means in order to stop the Fey from winning the game, the fight must be brought to them, giving the Fey plenty of ways to crystalize units and the benefit of defense.
 * HQ building upgrades cost far less than normal, until keep level 5.
 * Buildings tend to be small and cost much less than normal.
 * Access to two great dragons.

Cons

 * Units cost a lot of resources compared to their fragile power level before upgrades have been researched.
 * Since most of the Fey units are accessed at the Dreamhold, multiple Dreamholds will need to be upgraded in order to produce multitudes of the higher end units.
 * Buildings tend to be fragile, particularly the Crystal Tower
 * Arguably the worst titan in the game, disappointing general

Units
Upon the start of the game, it is recommended for the Fey to pool resources into a mixture between defending the base and upgrading the army of the Fey. This is the hardest part of the game for the Fey, as their un-upgraded units are absolutely pathetic by comparison to that of all other races. Aggressive tactics at this point in the game are usually useless or costly. The towers of the Fey must be garrisoned - use Leprechauns/Pixies to increase their damage to more respectable levels and use Sylphs if they need to fire faster. Be on the lookout for harmless animals that pass near your towers. Click on your tower and attack the animal for free crystals. These resources are important for your early leprechauns and upgrades.

As soon as the Fey's units are upgraded respectably, a ranged wall of Pixies and Leprechauns is a very difficult line to breach. Upon assaulting arrow towers however, the Oakmen can be abused for their large hits and resistance to piercing damage to soak up shots from enemy arrow towers whilst the Pixies burn them down. Other towers may be more formidable to breach. Faerie Dragons can be used to take fire damage from Dark Elven and Daemon fire towers, whilst also providing extra power against them.

Spriggans, Sylphs and sometimes Sprites are usually underwhelming units. Sylphs should only really be used for fodder or to garrison towers. Spriggans are actually quite powerful melee units when upgraded, easily capable of felling heavier enemies. However, they rarely contribute as much to a Fey win as Leprechauns or Pixies. Sprites are potentially incredibly powerful, but just like the Spriggans, other units tend to function better when assaulting bases. Sprites can fly overhead and fire masses of arrows at any target. They are very good units and are particularly good at controlling the map, but they do not function at all as soon as they charge at a building. Since they take up unit cap, it may not be wise to produce too many Sprites unless they are particularly effective against the enemy.

Other than that, a general swarm-based tactic is easily abusable for the Fey with a large amount of resource income.

Buildings
The Fey have generally small and weak buildings. Their towers are fragile and do little damage, but upon killing an enemy, it converts them into crystal for use by the Fey player. It is essential to upgrade the Fey whenever possible. The towers must be garrisoned at all times. One of the best units for this job is the Leprechaun, as it won't change the magic damage type the tower deals. If there are problematic opponents however, it may be better to use Pixies, which can have Cold or Fire damage depending upon whether Faerie Fire is researched or not. The Fey HQ building should be built multiple times, as the HQ produces many of the Fey's units. Use of walls is recommended to give towers as much longevity as possible when defending.

The objective of the Fey is to last as long as possible until the Orb of Wonders is built and has completed the XP gaining research. Once this has been achieved, the Fey may then go on the offensive, swarming and destroying nearly all things in its path. Also, the Faerie Ring is another essential Fey upgrade building that must be used to buff all of the Fey to surprisingly dangerous levels.

Heroes
A good hero class for the Fey to use is one that stays miles away from battles. Fey Merchants are a very deadly combination, as nearly all units don't cost particularly much and produce quite fast. At a higher level, a Fey Merchant is actually able to upgrade the HQ building all the way to level 5 without any break at all. Once they have the level 5 Dreamhold, upgrading the Fey and amassing vast swathes of units is a surprisingly easy task. This doesn't even include the fact that many of the Fey units required to win cost solid Crystal, meaning the Fey Merchant can actually produce many units for free. The Fey's win condition requires a decent amount of Gold and Crystal in order to trigger and there is no better class at augmenting the process than the Merchant. The Merchant never even need leave the base, due to their massively increased resource production, forcing any enemy to go on the offensive against the Fey whilst also stopping any normal Merchant assassination plan. This provides a vast number of benefits, including the fact that any attacking force actually contributes to the Fey economy due to the Crystal Towers' crystalization ability. Because of this, it is widely considered that the Fey Merchant is one of the best and most competitively used hero class combinations in the entire game.

If more complexity is desired than a Merchant, a decent choice could be the Ice Mage. A high Charisma stat would be a wise investment for this character class, in order to attain a larger Command Radius. This would allow the Ice Mage to inflict a couple of status effects and damage spells on enemy units whilst remaining far away from them. Not only that, but the Fey Ice Mage will also have the extremely powerful Gemcutting synergy right from the start, meaning the hero can produce Crystal throughout a game. It must be noted however, that the Fey Ice Mage does not get access to Wealth or the Merchant ability, which the Merchant class does.

If you need Illusion Magic, You may not want to choose a Fey Illusionist as Illusion Magic is unlocked at level 10 (but if you do you can access it at level 1 and gain synergy bonuses) and is usually not a spell sphere the player can rely on. It is very likely that an Archmage is much more capable of buffing Fey forces and getting out of dangerous situations since you can get an Illusion Magic synergy with that class as well. There is a great deal the Fey Archmage can do, ranging from combat tricks and summoning daemonic creatures to exchanging resources and increasing the XP of all units (which stacks nicely with their Lore research from the Orb of Wonders). Any Fey hero can get access to Illusion, and there are a couple of useful spells which are certainly worth the investment, especially if the Fey hero is a spellcaster (such as the Ice Mage).

Illusion is a sphere of magic that can make your troops survive in a deadly situation if used correctly. Scare and Awe can be great weapons against a variety of troops that would normally provide problems. Fey units are poorly armored, but many of the Fey's forces will be missile units so Scare can be unreliable. Much of the real power within the Illusion magic sphere is in the anti-metagame spell Awe. If the Fey is a spellcasting hero, this spell will be the one most will want since it effectively renders enemy missile units obsolete. Since the majority of the game is based on projectile attacks, Awe can be a game changer. However, the hero will have to have a particularly large Command Radius in order to safely use the spell otherwise the hero risks getting shot down by enemy missile units. Spectral Horde can be used against other players to feign an assault. Mutation can save the hero's life in an early rush against the player's base, because most enemy units will be at level 1 or 2 at the start of the game, so the player can go and transform the enemy's units into useless animals.

Alternatively, a Sage can be a good spellcaster for the Fey. This combination works by stacking the Telepathy XP increases with the Orb of Wonder's Lore XP increases to make the Fey a dangerous force right from the very start of the game.

Another intriguing niche hero is an off-race Ssrathi Dragonslayer, with most points invested into Charisma and the Dragonmaster synergy which gives your Faerie Dragons an excellent +3 XP per point. This approach yields very potent Faerie Dragons right at Tier 2, which can greatly improve your ability to stand up against early aggression and can even provide you with a good measure of map control. As compared to a Merchant, this approach gives you a weaker economy (you still get charisma bonuses, but no bonuses from wealth, merchant, or gem-cutting), but much stronger units that continue to get even stronger as you add all the Fey research upgrades on top of the sizable Dragonmaster bonus. It also makes late-game full-sized dragons truly fearsome. Of course, this is putting a lot of eggs in one basket, but as baskets go, fast flying long-ranged fire-breathers with decent HP is as good a basket as the Fey get. It's usually a good idea to build a ton of Leprechauns alongside your dragons, both to provide the gold you'll need for mass dragon production, and to provide a reliable way of killing anything that happens to have good fire resistance. So basically your crystal goes into Leprechauns and buildings, your stone goes into buildings and workers, and your metal and leprechaun-boosted gold go into as many high-powered Faerie Dragons as you can get.

Counters

 * The absolute number one counter to the Fey is simply rushing. At level 1 or 2, the Fey base is highly likely to be very easy to destroy thanks to the lack of hits and damage of the Fey towers. Their units available at these HQ building levels are very weak, so many races can easily defeat them.
 * The Fey MUST NOT be allowed to upgrade their units at the Orb of Wonders. Once they have researched the final XP upgrade for their units, they will all be produced at very high levels and may proceed to steamroll the entire map. Again, sending frequent and strong siege armies can make quick work of the Fey.
 * Once the Fey have fully upgraded their units, the only hope one can have to defeat them would be to use anti-swarm units such as Catapults and Ballistae. The anti-swarm unit must use physical damage types to take advantage of the physical weaknesses held by the Fey.
 * Wraiths and Shadows counter many Fey strategies thanks to their ability to leech XP from units which they kill.
 * Another thing that must be taken into account is their tower: while weak and fragile, it causes magic damage and turns units into crystal, feeding thus the Fey crystal-hungry economy. As mentioned to the comments, sending harassement units or scouts close to Towers should be avoided at all costs.