Because the location of artifacts is random, as is the type and location of enemy growths, a strict walkthrough telling you where to go to find what item and which enemies appear where is impossible. However, most games follow a fairly regular pattern.
Starting Out[edit]
When the game begins you start with four workers, a primed tone pool, a few active Tone Nodes, and a Tribal Center holding 50 Structure Tone. Your starting surplus flow should be 16.
50 Structure Tone isn't enough to build very much, so right away you need a source of Structure Tone (your Tribal Center produces Structure Tone, but very slowly). On one of the small Tone Nodes, build a Tone Solidifier for 35 Structure tone.
Your next step should be to build a dojo to start converting workers to soldiers. But since a dojo can't do anything without a stockpile of Crystal Tone, you should build a Tone Crystal Grower first. Once that is built, build your first dojo. While the dojo is being built, set your Tribal Center to stockpile Crystal Tone until your dojo is built. Once the dojo is ready, reset your Tribal Center to ship Crystal Tone, thus allowing your dojo to draw Crystal Tone both from the Tribal Center and from the Grower. This allows the dojo to quickly gather enough crystals to start producing warriors.
Alternatively, prior to building your crystal grower and dojo, you could build a couple of tone spreaders. If you do this quickly enough you can claim a second tone pool early, which will give you more Tone Flow and therefore more workers. Though workers can't fight very well, there is strength in numbers.
During this time you will likely be attacked by some monsters. Don't be afraid to use the panic button to send your workers to defend your home base. Individually the workers are quite weak but they can swarm enemies and overwhelm them. You will lose some workers this way, but as long as your tone flow is good you will slowly get them back. Once you have some warriors available it is best to allow the warriors to engage the monsters first and then activate the panic button. This way the monsters will attack the warriors (which can sustain much more damage) and leave the workers alone.
However, when the workers are in panic mode they drop whatever they are holding and no deliveries of crystals get made to the dojos. That means that when the warriors return to their dojo to resupply and heal, there are less crystals to do it with. Once you have two or three dojos active you should try to avoid using the panic button as keeping up the supply levels of your dojos is more important.
Early Goals[edit]
Once your home base feels reasonably secure it is time to expand.
Clear the Island[edit]
Your first goal will be to clear your starting island. You can reveal more areas on the map by building a Tone Spreader close to the edge of the map. You can also teleport buildings you have built as long as you have Structure Tone and Magic Tone in your stockpile. This allows you to move buildings such as dojos closer to the front so your soldiers do not have to retreat as far to resupply. So building a Magic Tone Creator is very useful for your advance, though it is not absolutely necessary.
Be careful when putting units close to the edge of the visible area. There could be a growth just off-screen that attacks at range, and it will fire on any of your floaters that stray too close to the edge. Since you can't see the growth you can't attack it until you use a Tone Spreader to reveal the area it is in.
You need to destroy the Spawners that create enemy monsters and spores which can create new growths. These Spawners are usually defended by monsters and growths, but once the spawner is destroyed it releases a tone pool, allowing you to claim the pool with your tone spreaders and get more tone flow. Once all the spawners on a given island are destroyed, no new growths or monsters will appear on that island. The Leviathan cannot send forces from one island to another. Thus once all the spawners on an island are gone, you can fall back and regroup for a bit and then finish mopping up any growths or monsters that are still hanging around.
Open Bridges[edit]
Your second goal (which can begin as soon as you find your first key) is to collect bridge keys and open bridges. Opening bridges not only allows access to other islands but it also unlocks upgrades. Your first opened bridge allows you to build a second type of dojo and combat unit. Your second opened bridge allows you to build a dojo for your tribe's wizards, and following bridges allow these buildings to be upgraded and eventually allow a third combat unit to be produced.
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| An unopened bridge | An opened bridge |
Here is a list of upgrades based on number of bridges opened:
- 1 Bridge opened: Second unit type
- 2 Bridges opened: Third unit type (wizards)
- 3 Bridges opened: May upgrade 1st unit type to level 2
- 4 Bridges opened: May upgrade 2nd unit type to level 2
...and so on. (more complete list pending)
Mid-game[edit]
Now it's time to carry the fight to the enemy. You can use opened bridges to access new islands. Usually th most difficult part is storming the area on the far side of the bridge. You may be forced to assault an area with lots of defensive growths that is patrolled by monsters. There really is no easy way to do this; you need to destroy the more dangerous growths quickly to give yourself some breathing room. This is a very good time to use spells like Awaken Spirit and Force of Will to empower the warriors making the assault. As the assault is going you could also use Heal Dojo to heal some of your warriors in the middle of the battle.
An opened bridge also acts like a Tone Spreader, not only revealing the map but also activating some nearby Tone Nodes. It is also possible that the bridge will be close enough to a Tone Pool to prime it. If not, there us usually a tone pool nearby.
Clear Islands[edit]
Most of the mid-game will consist of clearing new islands. You will leapfrog from one island to the next. It is generally a bad idea to carry out campaigns on more than one island at a time, though this might be possible on lower difficulty levels. Generally you want to clear one island before moving on to the next. Each island should have three or four tone pools that you can liberate, thus allowing you to raise more units and workers.
If you can open a bridge to a new island at both ends, this allows you to see all the area on the island between the two bridges. This gives you a big advantage since the Leviathan's units and buildings are no longer hidden. You need to be careful about your placement of units though because you could find that an exhausted warrior that wants to return to its home dojo to resupply and heal may wander across the island to the other bridge, getting attacked by monsters and growths along the way. Such a warrior is unlikely to survive.
To avoid this, make sure you teleport your dojos in to the island you want to attack from. That way your warriors will use the correct bridge to return to base. As soon as you have enough space, teleport your dojos in to the island you are trying to conquer. But it's worth remembering that while the dojo will teleport instantaneously, the warriors don't come with it and have to move there on their own, which could take time.
It's also worth noting that when a unit enters a bridge and begins heading to another island the image of the unit seems to rise up into the bridge and disappear, but as far as the game is concerned that unit is still at the location of the starting bridge until it appears on the other island. This means a monster or growth will be able to attack that unit repeatedly while it is in transit between worlds, meaning that retreating from a battle via bridge is not always a great idea. On the other hand, you may not have any other choice; it could mean sacrificing one warrior from a dojo to save the rest.
Collect Artifacts[edit]
In addition to bridge keys, a variety of artifacts are scattered throughout the islands. On each island is also a mystical location (these locations sparkle when you mouse over them) where the artifacts can be placed. There are two artifacts that correspond to each island. Once you have the artifacts that correspond to the mystical location, you can send a worker to carry that artifact to that spot and connect it to the mystical location. Once both artifacts are in place the mystical location will change in appearance and become active. You will also see a new rune appear on your knowledge screen.
The order you collect artifacts and activate mystical locations doesn't matter; you can do that in any order.
You don't actually need these runes until you are ready to assault the Leviathan's island lair; they don't do anything for you outside of allowing you to attack the Leviathan directly. If you have cleared every island aside from the Leviathan's lair then you should have found all the artifacts. Make sure you activate all the mystic locations before proceeding to the last level. Once you have one or more runes, a glowing blue floater called "The Enlightened One" will appear, generally hanging around your tribal center. This floater doesn't do anything until you begin your final assault.
Endgame[edit]
The Leviathan's lair, the island of Friid, is a tough nut to crack. There is a bridge at each end; at the center are six spawners surrounded by growths.