COMBAT

When your Hero comes into contact with an enemy hero, wandering creature, enemy castle, or creatures guarding a structure on the Adventure Map, the ensuing battle takes place on the Combat Screen, which is simply a detailed map of the battlefield. Combat in PH is turn-based and conducted on a special map consisting of hexagonal spaces.

Combat sequence is broken into rounds during which each troop can perform one action. All combat units take turns completing their actions. The order of play is determined by troop speed and the troop placement (The upper creatures move first). Phoenix are the fastest creature type and always go first. A selected army type can either move (click on the hexagon to which you wish to move), attack (sword or arrow icon), defend (shield icon), or wait (hourglass icon). Movement distance is determined also by speed and a troop’s range is indicated by darker shaded hexagons.

If an army has the ability for a ranged attack, simply click on the enemy army you wish to shoot at and your army will attack.

You can also melee attack with a range unit if you selected the sword icon (first one from left)

If you are close enough to an enemy to engage in hand-to-hand combat (the enemy is within the movement range of your army), then click on the enemy to initiate a sword icon and drag the icon to the adjacent hexagon from which you wish to attack. Though there are no advantages from attacking from behind, you may wish to do so with faster armies to allow shorter paths for your slower armies so that they, too, might engage the enemy.

If you click on an enemy unit you’ll see (in the upper part of the screen) the damage that you can do to it. If you don’t want to attack it anymore just go with the cursor in other place and release. You can then select another unit to attack. The same with moving. If you tap on the battlefield you’ll be moved there automatically, but if you don’t release the stylus you can wander around the battlefield with it and when you’ll release if it’s possible to move there you’ll move at the last tile you held you stylus before releasing.

for units that can attack 2 tile (Dragons, Phoenix, Cyclops, etc) it is important the angle of the sword when attacking. Also the tile you’ll affect with your attack will be darker.

Waiting can be a very valuable combat tactic. There is no sense in running out to the middle of the battlefield only to have the enemy subsequently bombard you with his troops. If a troop pauses, its order of play is reversed, with the fastest troops playing last.

The order of play is shown at the top of the screen; troop icons are shown in the order in which they will move.

Whenever one of your troops is active, in addition to controlling the army, you may retreat from the battlefield (click on your Hero icon) and/or cast a spell (open book icon).

Sometimes you aren’t satisfied with the spell and want to cast another spell instead. Simply drag the stylus to a place where the spell won’t affect anybody. The game will return this line “That spell will affect no one!” and you are free to cast another spell. Combat proceeds until the troops and armies of one combatant are completely destroyed or until one of the combatants retreats from battle.

If all of a Hero’s troops are destroyed, that Hero quits the cause of its Kingdom, forfeits any artifacts it may have accumulated, and returns to a castle of like class for future hiring by another kingdom. Because hiring Heroes can be expensive and losing Artifacts to your enemies can be devastating, retreating is usually preferred to total defeat. But remember to keep you castle unoccupied, otherwise you won’t be able to retreat!

Though retreating is 100% successful (your enemy cannot prevent you from escape), you can only do so on your turn and you do so at the expense of your troops and armies. That is, don’t wait too long to retreat, or you may never get a chance, should your opponent have several fast, powerful armies. Also, when you retreat, you forfeit your entire cache of troops, and return to your castle with a single troop of your Hero class’ lowest troop (e.g., Peasant). If you wish to keep your troops, you may consider surrendering to the enemy. You need to pay a large sum of gold to surrender.

Attacking Castles

When you attack an enemy castle, you will see a wall around the enemy troops. There may also be a moat and up to three turrets. At the beginning of each round, turrets fire, doing 50 points of damage to what the computer deems as the most threatening target. Then the attacking unit fires a catapult shot at the castle wall – the aim and degree of damage done is determined by the Hero’s skills. When all sections of the wall are destroyed, the attacking catapult targets the castle turrets, if any.

Normal troops, such as Cavaliers, cannot penetrate or go over walls and must wait for either the walls to be breeched or an enemy troop to come out through the gate. Other troops may fly or teleport beyond the town walls.

Once a section of wall has been completely destroyed, any units may enter the castle through that section. Moats can be traversed, but force any army to immediately stop at the moat, incur 50 points of damage, and then are free to proceed only on the next round of combat.

Heroes cannot retreat from a town; they must stay and defend the town.

Combat Strategy & Ranged Attacks

Your troops are automatically placed on the combat map in the order in which they appear in your Hero’s inventory of troops: the leftmost troop is placed at the top of the board and the right-most troop is placed at the bottom. You should take care to arrange your troops so that they are placed onto the combat map in the order in which you prefer.

Ranged troops can be extremely valuable in killing off enemy troops before they reach your front lines. However, your enemy knows this and will target them first. In addition to depleting your ranged troops, when an enemy is directly adjacent to a ranged troop, that troop cannot engage in a missile attack. As such, it is often a good idea to surround your ranged troops with your melee troops.

Ranged troops’ damage increases as the enemy nears. For long-range attacks, you will see a broken arrow icon when clicking on the enemy of choice. As the enemy nears and gets within optimal range of your troops, the icon will change to a solid arrow.