Aethoria

HOW TO PLAY

Goal: raise an economy, build an army, and destroy every enemy building. Follow the mission tracker in the top-left for guidance.

Mouse & keyboard

• Select — left click, or left drag a box. Double click picks all of one type on screen.
• Command — right click ground to move, trees / berries / gold / stone to gather, an enemy to attack, your construction site to help build.
• Camera — WASD / arrows / screen edges / middle-button drag. Minimap: left drag to look, double click to zoom in there, right click to send orders.
• Zoom — the mouse wheel zooms on the cursor; Ctrl + wheel zooms in fine steps. + / − zoom, Home resets to 1×, Z toggles the strategic overview.
• Keys — . idle villager · Space Town Center · Esc cancel / menu · P pause (nothing selected) · Ctrl+S quick save · M mute.
• Orders — with units selected: A attack-move, P patrol, G guard, then left click the map (right click or Esc cancels). The command panel has these and Move and Attack too. With units selected, scroll left with the arrow key.

Touch

• Tap a unit, building or resource to select it. With your units selected, tap ground, a resource, an enemy or a building site to give an order. Double tap a unit to pick every unit of its type on screen.
• Drag one finger to draw a selection box (Settings can make it scroll instead). Two fingers scroll the map; pinch to zoom around the spot between your fingers. Tap with three fingers for the strategic overview, and again to zoom back in where you tapped.
• Long-press the map for a command menu with details of whatever is under your finger. Long-press a command button to read its information card without using it. Tap a resource counter to see what it pays for.
• Minimap — tap to look, double tap to zoom in there, long-press to send your selected units. The zoom buttons are in the bottom-right corner; Deselect and Cancel build in the top-right.

Zoom levels

• Close (2×) for detail, Medium (1×) for normal play, Far (0.75×) to manage armies, and Strategic (0.5×), where units become team-coloured icons: ● villager, ■ infantry, ▲ ranged, ◆ cavalry, ▬ siege. The zoom button between − and + steps through them.

Economy & progress

• Build with villagers: houses raise population, farms give steady food, storage pits accept wood / gold / stone, barracks train soldiers. Walls, gates, towers, castles, moats and traps are on the three Defences pages of the build menu (Walls & Gates, Towers & Castles, Moats & Traps).
• Advance at the Town Center to the Tool and Bronze Ages. Research upgrades at the Storage Pit, Town Center, Barracks, Archery Range, Stable and Siege Workshop.
• Repair — villagers right-click (or tap) your damaged building to mend it for part of its cost.

Maps

• New Game lets you pick a seed (any word or number), a map type, a size and how rich the land is, with a preview. The same settings always make the same map. Copy code gives a code such as FOREST-WAR/mountain/large/high: paste it into the seed box to play that map. Star maps to keep them as favourites.
• Terrain — mountains, deep water, lava and ruins can't be crossed. Rivers have shallow fords every few tiles. Hills slow walking, but archers and siege engines on a hill shoot 1 tile further and units there see 1 tile further. Snow, forest floor, shallows and marsh slow units too; nothing can be built on shallows or marsh. Point at the ground (or long-press it on a touch screen) to see what it is.
• Water — build a Dock on deep water beside the shore for fishing boats (right-click a shoal of fish) and transport ships. Send units anywhere, even to another island: they walk to the shore and board a transport by themselves, cross, land and carry on. A transport holds 10 slots (riders 2, a siege engine its population: 3 to 5). Right-click your transport with units selected to board it; right-click land with a loaded transport to put them ashore, or press Unload.
• Warships — the Dock also builds galleys (Tool Age), war galleys, fire ships, ballista ships and cannon ships (Bronze Age; the cannon ship needs Engineering II). Each attacks only what its list names, never land units: galleys and war galleys take on warships, transports, fishing boats and docks; fire ships set the water alight among packed ships; ballista ships hunt war galleys and cannon ships; cannon ships shell docks, castles and towers. Idle warships take on enemies that come into sight. Right-click an enemy ship or Dock to attack, or one of your ships to escort it; attack-move, patrol and guard work at sea as on land. Ships turn at their own pace; your Dock mends ships beside it and researches seven naval upgrades, among them Elite War Galley.
• Hunt deer for quick food. Landmarks (ruins, stone circles, sacred forests, gold valleys, lost castles, mountain fortresses, oases) hold extra resources and are announced when you find them.

Defences

• Walls — drag across the map (or click / tap where a wall starts, then where it ends) to lay a line of segments; they join up by themselves. A Palisade (3 wood, from the start) is the cheapest and weakest; timber walls (Tool Age) are cheap but burn; stone and curtain walls (1400 HP) need the Bronze Age and Masonry. Lay a heavier wall over a lighter one to rebuild it in place. Walls stop every unit but not arrows: your archers shoot over them.
• Gates open for your units and stay shut to the enemy; place one on your own wall to replace that segment. Lock a gate to shut out your own units too. A Gatehouse (Masonry) is a gate between two towers: 2500 HP, arrows 8 tiles, room for 5. Walls and gates can be demolished.
• Boiling Oil (Masonry) goes on a timber, stone or curtain wall segment. When enemies attack within 2 tiles it pours: 30 damage to each, burning ground and half speed for 3 s, then 8 s to heat up again. Destroyed, the wall stays.
• Moats (Bronze Age, 5 stone a segment) — drag a line, drag corner to corner with Moat ring, or select walls and press Moat around. A moat cannot be damaged; foot units wade it at half speed, riders and siege cannot cross. A Drawbridge on your moat lowers for your units and rises for the enemy or when it is hit; lock it to keep it up. A Reinforced Moat (Masonry), dug anywhere or over a moat, is waded at a quarter speed.
• Traps — a Spike Trap (50 damage), a Fire Trap (30 and the ground burns 5 s) and a Pit Trap (20, and the victim is stuck 5 s). The enemy cannot see them; the first enemy to step on one springs it, and it is spent.
• Keeps (Bronze Age and Masonry) — 2×2 strongholds: volleys 12 tiles, room for 10, territory 7 tiles. A Fortified Tower with room round it can grow into a Keep, and a Keep into a Castle or an Imperial Keep (5000 HP, 3-arrow volleys 14 tiles, room for 15), which grows on into a Citadel.
• Bastions (Masonry) — 2×2 platforms your walls join: boulders that splash, 13 tiles, room for 8, 4000 HP, armour 12.
• Guard Towers (Tool Age) shoot 8 tiles and see 10. Select one to upgrade it to a Watch and a Fortified Tower, then either a Ballista Tower, whose bolts wreck siege engines, or a Keep. Right-click a tower with soldiers or villagers to garrison up to 3: each archer inside adds an arrow, and anyone inside makes it hit harder and tougher. Ungarrison brings them out; a falling tower lets them out alive.
• Castle (Bronze Age, Masonry) fires 4-arrow volleys 15 tiles, sees 15, holds 20 units and trains the Royal Guard, Elite Archer and Champion Cavalry. Its territory (dashed border, 11 tiles) heals your units, makes them hit harder and take less damage, and speeds production; where two territories overlap, neither side gains. A Castle grows into a Citadel (or build one once you have a Castle): 4×4, 9000 HP, armour 18, 6-arrow volleys 18 tiles, sees 20, holds 30, territory 15, and siege engines do it only 60% damage.
• A town the enemy cannot walk into (walls and gates all round) takes 10% less damage. Enemy soldiers blocked by walls attack the wall or gate in the way, then carry on. Enemies near your town sound a horn.

Armies

• Archery Range (Tool Age) trains archers, skirmishers and composite archers. They shoot real arrows and javelins: long shots can miss, buildings block a shot, and archers step back from melee attackers while they reload.
• Stable (Bronze Age) trains scout cavalry, horsemen and heavy cavalry. Riders are fast and see far, and an attack begun 3 or more tiles away is a charge that hits 50% harder.
• Siege Workshop (Bronze Age, once you have a Barracks and a Stable) builds battering rams, stone throwers and ballistas, trebuchets once you research Counterweight Systems and cannons after Engineering II, and researches siege upgrades. Engines take 3 to 5 population each. Siege hits gates ×3, walls ×2.5, towers ×2, castles ×1.75, other engines ×1.5 and soldiers only ×0.75.
• Rams batter gates first, then walls, towers and castles, and never attack units. When their target falls they roll on to the next fortification nearby; send them at any other building yourself. Rams battering the same building together hit harder. Fire burns them badly.
• Every other engine must deploy before it fires and pack up before it moves (it does both by itself, or use the command buttons): a stone thrower 3 s / 2 s, a trebuchet 5 s / 4 s, a ballista 2 s / 1 s, a cannon 3 s / 3 s. None can hit anything right next to it.
• Stone throwers lob boulders 12 tiles over buildings at walls, towers and castles, then the most packed group of foot soldiers; they hurt everyone near where they land. Trebuchets hurl bigger boulders 18 tiles, out of reach of every tower, at gates, walls, towers, castles and then any building. A boulder falls where its target stood, so moving targets dodge it.
• Ballistas shoot bolts 13 tiles straight at siege engines, riders, ships and towers, never at foot soldiers. Cannons fire cannonballs 12 tiles at gates, walls, towers, castles and siege engines; both shoot flat, so they need a clear line past buildings.
• Counters — archers beat villagers and infantry · skirmishers beat archers · cavalry run down archers and siege engines · infantry hold off light cavalry and hack rams apart · ballistas pick off engines and riders · heavy cavalry crush infantry · towers punish archers and light cavalry · siege engines wreck walls and buildings and shrug off arrows.
• Attack-Move marches on a point and fights every enemy met on the way (riders first for archers, engines first for foot soldiers, its own list for siege and warships), then carries on — across the water by ship if it must. A plain move walks past them.
• Patrol works for every unit: back and forth for ever. Soldiers, engines and warships take on what comes into sight and return to the round; villagers and unarmed boats turn away from danger. Guard a spot, a building or one of your units (escort): stay by it and fight off whatever comes for it.
• Formations — with soldiers selected, pick Line (archers), Square (infantry) or Wedge (cavalry). Group moves then keep that shape, with ranged units behind the front rank.

Saving

• Saving — five independent save slots. Save Game in the pause menu writes to the slot you choose; Ctrl+S quick-saves to your current slot. Three rotating autosaves (every 30 seconds and at key moments) never touch your slots. Continue on the title screen lets you pick which save to load.