Pocket Heroes is a turn based strategy (tbs) with RPG elements. There are many similarities with the PC series, so if you need more information just look here

Here is a brief description to get familiar with the game:

• The main purpose is to conquer other players’ castles. Alternative tasks could be: discover the ultimate artifact, conquer a specific castle or other missions, sometimes with time limit. But for now the latter aren’t implemented. You win when you are the only player that remains on the map (the enemy won’t have any heroes and castles).
• For now there are 6 races: Warlock, Wizard, Sorceress, Barbarian, Knight and Necromancer. Each one has his/her own advantages, disadvantages and peculiarities.
• There are 2 main parts of the game that are interdependent:

1. the development part: you build up your castle in order to recruit more creatures. For doing this you need resources and gold that you can pick from the ground or get from mines.
2. the fighting part: in order to advance in the game and reveal your territory, as well as gathering resources needed for the first part, you’ll have to fight monsters. After you gather your forces you can conquer your opponents. You can do this by giving armies to your heroes and going into enemy land. The rest will come naturally.

• Heroes are very important in the game. As they get experience they advance in skills and stats. They can cast spells during battles (that you learn from the mage guild) and wear artifacts. Managing heroes and everything involving them represent the RPG part of the game.

There’s pretty much it. Go and play a map, and enjoy.

• before starting I want to tell that the most important thing in the game is to be flexible and not to stick to one strategy if you see that it’s not so good in your case.
• start a game and save it the first turn. Then go and explore the map a little. After that evaluate the situation and build your strategy and eventually choose a proper race if map permits it.
• on some maps that are hard to play, I have the habit of starting several times, till I get an advantage: resources that I need near my castle (when they are random), starting with a strong army, a good hero at the tavern, a good artifact near me, weak guards at mines, etc.
• then you must choose your goal: for example if you play a small map you probably won’t build the last dwelling so if you are with knights or barbarians, gathering crystals won’t be a concern. Your strategy is definitely different when you want to build your strongest unit.
• buy one more hero the first day (possible in 90% of cases). Here are the reasons:

1. the extra army that goes with him is usually enough to start fighting monsters guarding the ore&wood
2. you’ll gather resources & gold faster and you’ll recuperate the money spent on him very fast
3. you don’t have to return your main hero to the castle to buy the armies.
4. you can exchange armies between heroes and don’t fight with your whole army if you don’t want to. E.g if you fight with archers and you have flying monsters you might not want to take your archers. The same thing if you fight against flying monsters: they will kill all your rangers if you don’t take care.

• look for creature dwellings near your castle. If there are some, you’re lucky. You’ll need them like air in the beginning
• go for the money very fast. You can leave some resources that will be collected later by another hero. In the beginning you need money, wood and ore for development
• build the constructions that bring money money (town hall, city hall, etc) as fast as you can. But if you found many treasures and you have enough money, you can try to rush and build some powerful creatures that can help you to get a big advantage in the beginning or even win the map (e.g: rocs, trolls, minotaurs, druids, champions, vampires)
• build fortifications only if necessary. Most of the time if you have a very aggressive strategy (like my case here) the opponent will never get to your starting castle. That’s why I don’t keep defending armies in my castle. Use the extra money for other things. If I see that somebody is approaching I usually manage to do something in that time. The offense is the best defense. There were very, very little cases when I failed. If you want to win fast you have to risk a little
• in the beginning (or if you don’t have enough money) buy only the creatures you use. For example: after you’ve build vampires it’s very wise to buy them all very fast and not to invest in zombies & mummies. Usually on a small map with vampires, skeletons, and a good hero that knows animate dead you don’t have problems with winning.
• don’t build more then level 1 mage guild (2 when required for other buildings, e.g. Dragon Cave). I know that this seems strange, but most of the time you won’t return with your main hero to the castle, especially if you want to make a good score. And you’ll learn spells from AI’s castles.
• conquer as many castles as you can in the beginning and develop them only to produce money, because you won’t be able to defend them very well. Concentrate on your main castle to build the last dwellings. Then, if you have the money you can upgrade secondary castles that are the same as your starting race. Otherwise it’s not worth investing gold & resources. You’d better buy creatures from enemy’s conquered castles.
• try to build important creature dwellings (last 2 grades) by day 7, to benefit from the weekly growth. Calculate from the beginning of the week what you can do max (e.g. an important building in day 7) and what resources you need and then do all you can to achieve the goal
• build a marketplace and use it with confidence. It helped me a lot in some situations
• sometimes is better to sacrifice the mage guild for a creature building (especially if you play with Knights or Barbarians)
• try to attack AI in day 1 if you have your move before his, so he can’t buy the extra troops. Otherwise, attack him in day 7. If you play red you’ll always be first and day 1 will always come first for you. This is very important. I have situation when I bought the 1’st day armies and after this attacked the enemy with great advantage
• use heroes to transport armies from one to another and finally to your main hero. Your hero will only fight and gather some resources that you need immediately. The rest is the job of the 2nd hero. Usually on week 2 I have enough money and build some of the important creatures. If I don’t manage to come with the 2nd hero to take the army from the castle, I hire another hero.
• here are my preferences about how many heroes I buy according to the map size (but remember to be flexible): for small maps I have minimum 2, for medium 3 - 4, and for large ones usually 4, but I’ll buy as many as I need. I do that because I like to explore a lot and do it fast. When I played h3 I won most of the maps (against human opponent) because I expanded very fast and in very short time I reached the maximum of 8 heroes (on xl maps). So having many heroes is kind of a habit.
• in some cases (warlocks&wizards) you can buy only 6’th level units. Black Dragons and Titans are very strong and you won’t need other units to win against AI. Your chances to succeed with this strategy increase if you have a good hero. With human opponents strategy is different.
• in Pocket Heroes you can buy heroes only according to the castle type, so if there are more players that have the same beginning race as yours you should buy as fast as you can the heroes or you could end up with nothing to buy
• timing is everything as some times you manage to take with your last step a treasure or mine that you’ll need. And this can cost you building or not a dwelling in the 7’th day of the week.
• If you think that some monster will beat you save the game and give it a try. Some time your prognostic is worst then the real fact.
• try to find as fast as you can the ultimate artifact. Usually is in the middle of the puzzle map and if you have experience you’ll find it very easy. If you play against AI then save before you dig, so in the end you’ll get it from the first time. When against human opponent bring there more heroes: at least 2. This is a great advantage and you must have it very fast. Here is another thing, but I considered a cheat. You play a map and you discover eventually that the artifact is near your castle. Restart the map and go from the beginning and dig the Artifact. Of course you must still have your initial save.

• usually is best if you keep all your army to one main hero, but on some maps (especially large ones) a second best hero might be needed for protecting your old castle or to finish faster the map (for example some maps you can win with 10 dragons... you don’t need 20... so 2 heroes with 10 dragons are better than 1 with 20)...
• try to arrange armies so you can protect your range units. Most of the time the one that can protect best the archers win the battle without many losses.
• try not to buy useless armies that you’ll never use, but you paid for them. For examples: peasants; zombies&mummies if you have vampires; golems if you have rocs&mages, boars are better; dwarfs can be replaced by unicorns or other slow units. Buy especially archers, flyers and few (7-10) slow units that you split in stacks of 1 to protect your archers, if you are in the beginning. It is incredible what you can do with some archers and some slow units split in several stacks (the slow units you’ll get from the starting army of the heroes you recruit)
• if there is a strong monster that guard an entrance, try to attack him in day 7 rather then day 1, the extra growth could be a pain (for example the dragons from “Warlords” map)
• Sometimes if you start with a good army and the computer is near you, just take the army from the second hero and go conquer him. Usually is enough, but you can buy extra troop if you want. The important thing is to get his castle from the first week
• if you have good morale make an army only from final level troops (Dragons, Titans, Pheonix, etc)
• look all the time of the HP left on enemy’s units and your units. If you fight with more identical groups but there are injured different go for the one that has the most life and you’ll kill for sure. It is important to give as little chances of retaliation for enemy’s units as possible. Also if one of your important units (6’th level usually) is badly hurt and you anticipate that it will be killed at next attack better sacrifice other low level units if you can.

• you can combine very powerful slow creatures (hydras, ogre) with spells (haste, prayer). They will become deadly
• then is the experience that you have in battles. It is very important to loose as little troops as you can. I manage to build strategies that allow me not to lose a single unit or loose only stacks of 1.
• hit& run strategy: for when you have one strong ranger’s group that move a lot and fighting with very slow troops - I use this strategy especially when I have Titans but works ok for Mages, Elves and Druids. The thing is to move away from the creatures so you can cast wait. Then shoot, cast wait and move if they get close or shoot again. This take long but in some cases you can win incredible battles
• split your archers in half. Then when a group would be blocked the other one would still shoot
• the Armageddon+ only black dragons strategy: very simple, efficient, but you’ll get bored easily: you have a strong group of Dragons and cast Armageddon or other destructive spells
• hard core strategy: I used it only in multiplayer but very rare as it was considered a cheat. With my best hero I would go with only 1 stack of 1 dragon or phoenix. The idea was that the unit is immune to fire and that I move first in the battle. Then I cast Armageddon and retreat with money. Buy again the hero with 1 unit can do the same thing again. It is very frustrating for enemy. In Pocket Heroes only Dragons are immune to all spells.
• if you have only one flyer stack some times it’s better to split it in 2 or more. I use this especially when I have only Black Dragons in my army. If f.e. you have 2 dragons and split them in 2 stacks of 1 then you’ll have 600 life for the enemy to retaliate instead of just 300. You’ll also have more time to cast attack spells and other things
• if you have one group of archers and 1 group of melee fighters split the melee group in 1 strong one and 5 groups of 1. Make sure to arrange them to protect the archers (usually put in the middle or the 1 or 7’th position) and to attack with the one of the 1 stack armies before the stronger group. This way the enemy will retaliate to the 1 unit stack and the loses will be minim
• if you have only one strong group of archers (usually Halflings, Archers, Orcs, Centaurs, Elves) split the archers in 7 groups: 6 of 1 and the reaming strong one. This strategy is very effective in the beginning if you fight with a group of archers or even against some slow units. When fighting against Archers be careful to put your strong group at the 7’th position. The AI rangers will shoot units from the 1’st to the 7’th position so they’ll lose 6 turns till they’ll start killing your strong group. When fighting against melee units you can use the 1 archer groups to protect your strong group. Also in some cases the ranged units can be used like melee units so the enemy will retaliate to them and you won’t lose other more important melee units.
• using Blind spell: blind all the units and fight with them one at a time. Require: high Knowledge and Spell Power
• attack flyers with only 1 strong group of slow units that has much life (f.e. Ogres, Hydras, Golem, etc). when you turn comes put them on the battle field so there a minimum of flyers that can attack them. Additionally you can take with you 6 groups of 1 rangers. Flyers will attack them first.
• every unit counts. If you can save 1 peasant do it. you never know when it will come in handy

• I’ll consider the case of a full build castle (moat, turrets, etc).
• There will be hints to exploit the AI. In some cases the human opponent won’t make the same moves.
• Also many hints from the previous rubric can be used here.

• first is very important to arrange your army according to your purpose and the enemy army. Try to see in advance how will evolve the battle:
  • You can choose to put your archer in the middle or in the 1 or 7’th position.
  • if you have this possibility arrange the flyers so they will hit&block the defenders archers form the first turn.
  • if you have only archers put them according to the 9’th hint I gave you at the Advance tactics section.
• Don’t ever try to cross the moat with a foot unit, only if you don’t find another way to enter the castle or if the unit has a lot of life (Cyclops, Paladins, Hydra) or you have Animate Dead spell and a lot of skeletons. Here are some strategies:
  • Go from the first turn with a unit and stay just in front of the castle’s gate. Most of the time the AI will come with a walking unit through the gate and attack you. After you kill the unit on the bridge then the gate won’t close anymore. This is a great advantage as cancels the effect of the moat.
  • if the first strategy doesn’t work try to kill all the enemy ranged units with spells and other methods and you’ll force the AI to get out from his fortress.
• of course Ballista skill is good to have, but I usually don’t take it, cause I have other preferences (you’ll see a little down from here).
• use stone skin on the units that you observe are preferred by towers: usually 1’st level and ranged units
• also cast blind on the enemy archers. If he doesn’t have cure or dispel magic, then you’ll be able to approach them easily.
• Cast precision&bless on your archers. Another good assault spell is haste, especially if you have it at max.
• for units that have much life use cure fore restoring it, if the tower shoot at them, but didn’t kill the unit. Next turn it will do the same thing and if you have enough mana you can win the battle without any loss. For example at one time I had a very strong hero that was left only with a pack of Hydras and I won a battle with this strategy
• the same thing if you have Trolls. If the enemy can’t do 40 damage per turn to kill at least 1 of them, then it’s no necessary to do anything and just stay and clean the enemy units form distance. Trolls can be helped with protective spells.
• use ‘wait’ command for very fast flyers and use the hit& run strategy, presented previously. This is very effective with Vampires because of the no retaliation skill.
• in some situations use ‘defend’ command on the units that are preferred by the tower. For example if you have 10 archers you’ll surely won’t do a lot of damage but with defend they might resist the towers one extra turn.

• protect your ranged units. They are one of the most useful units when defending a castle.
• block the way to the interior of the castle. If a wall was broken by enemy ballista then you should put one stack to guard that ‘passage’ created. You can do this with 1 unit stack that is replace every turn (usually very weak creature that die from the first hit) or you can use a stack with units that have much life. The important thing here is to keep the enemy’s units in the moat as much as you can. Also the ranged units will do full damage then.
• cast slow on enemy units.
• cast blind at units that are in the moat.
• if you are taken by surprise with an attack, buy a hero that has some army and the potential to use spells. Some times is better to by a hero with 2500 gold, some times is good to buy units. If the hero is a caster, and I have magi guild built, I usually take the hero; if not I prefer to take the army instead.
• defending a castle with 1 group of flyers: well I discovered this strategy in Heroes 1 (where enemy couldn’t destroy the defending towers) and I was usually with Warlocks and was attacked by Knights troops that have 0 or very little archers. It works in PH also best against Necromancers with only skeletons, zombies, Mummies and against Knights without many archers. It’s best if the enemy hero doesn’t have too much mana. The strategy is very simple: first wait. Let the enemy move. Then you move in a tile where you can’t be hit when the AI will do his next turn. Then, if you can, wait or move directly. And pray that he won’t get good morale and your towers will resist as long as necessary to kill all the enemy’s units.
• use ‘wait’ command. Maybe at the end of the enemy movements you have a better chance to make a good move. Use wait on ranged units only if you see that they could get a clean shot later, otherwise shoot when you have the opportunity cause usually if you wait when you have the chance to attack again you’ll have less archers. Use wait for flyers and the same strategy like in the Attack strategy case.
• calculate the enemy moves so you know where he could be after he moves. Position your units so that he can’t hit you from the first time, but you hit him immediately when your turn comes.
• there are some situations when the enemy is too strong and you have to leave your castle, because you’ll lose a great amount of units without causing him significant damage. Try to fight only when you know that you have a chance to win otherwise buy a hero recruit the army that you can and leave in the castle a small army (usually stack of 1), so that the towers have the opportunity to shoot and do some damage to the enemy hero. Then you come back with your best hero, give him the army that you have left and elaborate a strategy. If the castle is to strong to take, go and take another castle. In Pocket Heroes you don’t die after 7 days if you don’t have a castle so you have all the time in the world for you.

• there are many ways you can do that and it would be probably according to the map. The hero is very important and some times it counts more then the army.
• if you have enough money you can start to take experience from the chest. Also visit all the constructions that raise attributes. Save before taking a skill from the Witch Hut so you don’t spoil your hero
• it’s better to take all the hard battles with the same main hero
• in P.H. you are limited to chose a hero the same race as your starting castle, but if you have the opportunity to buy other hero for small maps the warriors tends to have an advantage, while on the very big maps the spell casters are quite a threat
• Logistics is crucial as well as artifact that contribute to this (on rough terrains consider Pathfinder too). A hero that can move a lot will have many advantages on all the maps.
• if you had the luck to take logistics, don’t take other skill will you max this one. If you’ll take others skill the probability to increase Logistics will decrease
• there are some things that you can do, little tricks that take time. Like change artifacts according to the situation:

1. if you have many artifact maybe you won’t have slots to wear the ones that give you resource. No problem, just equip them at the end of the turn and then take them off at the beginning of the other.
2. if you need spell power or knowledge for a battle just take the defense/attack artifact off.
3. when you visit a well equip all the +knowledge artifacts and then unequip them. The extra mana will remain.
4. when will be more boots artifacts like ones that modifies other things than movement (f.e. attributes) you could switch them before some important battle to take of the +attributes

Here are my 8 preferred skills:

• logistics
• pathfinder
• leadership or necromancy for necromancers
• luck
• wisdom (archery)
• earth magic (offense)
• air magic (defense)
• intelligence (resistance)

Of course there are many combinations, I prefer to do a mixed hero for large maps and pure fighter for small maps where you won’t have the time to learn spells in the parenthesis are possible skills for pure warriors. Anyway is important to be flexible:

• always choose logistics
• if the terrain isn’t rough there’s no need for pathfinder
• if you are with warlock don’t choose Archery, but if you are with Wizards this is a must
• if you get a good spell from the beginning like fire ball, fire blast you can chose to develop fire magic
• if you want a pure mage you can choose all spell types and wisdom, intelligence, sorcery and logistics

• if you have the opportunity start the game a couple of times till you get the hero you like and with some good starting army (I like best Valeska till now)
• usually I buy a 2’d hero from the first day, I take his army, I build Archers’ tower and buy all the archers and you’ll have a good starting army. You’ll need 5500 gold and 5 wood. So if you are playing on impossible difficulty you’ll be able to do this only if you succeed to gather the resources with your starting hero
• here with archers and some peasants split strategically in more groups you’ll be able to do many things. If you want you can buy a few pikemen, but that’s it. No Swordsmen. Your final army will be compose of Archers, Cavalry and Paladin and some remaining army for sacrifice (peasants, pikemen or other creatures taken from external dwellings). Of course, if you have a lot of money you can buy all the armies, but only after you took the ones I mentioned
• if you decide to build Paladins concentrate to gather crystals. Otherwise look only for wood (mostly) and ore. Also for achieving this goal you can trade all the resources you don’t need for crystals.
• you don’t really need the mage guild here. Just conquer fast an enemy castle and you’ll learn spells from there.
• build the lookout tower and the Shooting range when you have the money, but don’t invest too much into fortification

• some hints are the same as for knights:
• buy second hero and make Orc Tower as fast as you can
• don’t build Mage Guild
• same tips as for Paladins if you want to build Cyclops
• but here you’ll need more Ore. So try to get as much of this resource as you can and build as fast as you can Trolls. They are the key unit. With 2 strong groups of rangers (Orcs and Trolls) and some troopers to protect them you can easily resolve the game in you favor
• Ogres are very powerful but I noticed that I don’t buy them a lot. Usually I buy some Goblins and some wolves in the beginning and that’s it. Then I search for a better castle from the AI to buy some flyersЕ
• preferred hero here is Crag Hack (pure fighter). Some times if the terrain is rough I choose Gretchin

• this is my favorite race. You’ll need especially gems and sulfur, but other resources too for the 2’nd level mage guild. This is an expensive but very powerful race, so build as fast as you can the money supporting buildings. You’ll need money like air for this faction.
• usually I’ll try to win the first castle with only first 3 units. You can win many battles against archers and first level slow units with this combination
• you can fight flyers with only 1 strong group of Hydras. Don’t forget to cast cure on Hydras if you have this spell. Also if the flyers are very strong you could bring 6 groups of 1 centaur unit.
• on medium or larger maps I usually don’t buy Minotaurs and Hydras and struggle with only first units to make economy of money for the dragons. After I build Dragons they are the only units that I’ll buy
• usually I don’t build mage guild more then level 2 even if I would need it and I do this only because of the requirements for Dragon Cave. Otherwise I wouldn’t build the 2’nd level I prefer to keep the resources for Dragons.
• the mana boosting constructions are nice, but I build them only after I build dragons or in special situations: I’m attacked at my castle and I have to protect it.
• favorite hero till now: Jeditte because he starts with Magic arrow and Haste and I like his face.

• here you’ll need gems and mercury mostly so keep this in mind
• build Homestead as fast as you can.
• most of the times at the beginning the army taken from 2 heroes, the Elves and some Sprites are enough (usually I don’t buy Dwarves, the one that come with the hero are enough to protect my rangers)
• Druids are also good, but some times if you play on impossible it’s hard to build them, that’s why when I play against human opponents I usually avoid this race.
• don’t build Miners’ Guild (even if it’s cheap) and Treasury you can keep for later when you really have money. Just think that if you have 5000 gold at the end of the week you’ll get only 500 gold in return from this building. It will take 10 week to get your money back. Treasury worth building when you have more then 10.000 gold at the end of the week and usually when you have those money you already resolved the game in you favor, soЕ
• favorite hero: well I don’t really know here. As I said I don’t really like this race. There’s Rissa that has the advantage of beginning with Magic Arrow but I don’t like her because of the mysticism. Then there are the other 2: Aine with Wisdom and Water Magic (for the ones that prefer a pure mage) or Neela that has Luck (a very good skill).

• the 2’nd ones in my preferences list. You’ll need especially gems here
• skip golem factory in the beginning. Go directly for Cliff Nest and then when you’ll have the resources for Mages you can Build Golem Factory too.
• Rocs are very powerful and you can win a small map only with them and some Boars and many Haflings, but try to do all you can to gather resources for Mages in the 2’nd week. For the first one Cliff Nest is enough
• of course if you have money& resources and it’s not a small map go for Titans. I observed here that even after I build them I tend to keep the Mages, Rocs, and the Haflings in my main army, unlike the case of Warlock where I like to keep only Black Dragons.
• if you have resources build the Wall of Knowledge. The extra +1 Knowledge is always welcomed. Also if you are very rich and decide to go with spells you can build mage guild and Library. Maybe you have luck for Resurrect or other important spells
• if you want to keep only Titans in your army you’d better split them in half. One strong group is useful only when you fight slow units and you apply the strategy I already told you (hit, wait and run)
• the advantage over Black Dragons is that you can cast spells on Titans, like Bless, Precision, Stoneskin, Shield, Fortune. Mirth, Prayer, Resurrect (especially this one). The disadvantage is that enemy can cast destructive spell on them. other advantage is that you can damage units without receiving the retaliation damage.
• preferred hero: Astral (he has Magic Arrow and he’s not spoiled with useless skills like Theodorus with Balistics, for example)

• build as fast as you can Vampires. They are the best unit that this castle has, especially if they are large in number. Usually for a small or medium map they are enough to win.
• raise as fast as you can the necromancy skill. Also build Necromancy Amplifier as fast as you can and search for artifact that boost this skill (Vampire Cowl and the one with 15%)
• try to buy a hero that knows animate dead (Sandro for now) and learn Earth Magic skill. Level 3 magi guild is a little hard to build for this spell
• also consider getting Death Ripple
• for the beginning with Animate dead, a good Necromancy skill, some skeletons and zombies from 2 heroes you’ll do a good job.
• if you want you can build Cover of Darkness but only against human opponents. This has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that if the human opponent didn’t find your castle we can find it easily if he observes that a place that he discovered is dark again. On the other hand if he already know where’s your castle this can be a very useful building as you can surprise him with a fast attack
• the disadvantage for this race is that it’s slow, so always think about learning haste and take the Air Magic skill
• also keep in mind that they are unaffected by moral (positive or negative)

• take a look at the other hints I wrote. Most of them applies in this case or can be adapted
• usually this games could take longer then playing against AI. For example maybe now you’ll want to explore more attentive your territory and not hurry to fight directly as you are more cautious. A human opponent is usually harder to defeat than a computer. So you might consider building your mage guild now (especially if you are a spell oriented class)
• it is very important to loose as little troops as you can. This will bring a great advantage over your enemy. Use the fighting strategies I presented that allow you not to lose a single unit or loose only stack of 1. You’ll make money/ resources economy. Make even movement point economy. Every step it’s important as you must build little by little you advantage. Everything counts.
• keep in mind that here you’ll have to make the good decision form the first time (normally no saves allowed).
• if you are skilled and have confidence in you, you could try some rush strategies:

1. it is very important to surprise your enemy with unexpected attacks: early in the game if you can sense you got a better start then your opponent.
2. or you can attack his castle when his main hero in far enough to come back and defend it.
3. also attack his main hero when he’s not prepared and doesn’t have full army supply.

• most of the time if you manage to win the fight between main heroes, you’ll win the map
• if there are maps that have a key spot with many treasure and advantages (like some times in the middle), be sure to be the first that has control over it. The same with some mines (especially gold) or artifacts.
• try to fin the Ultimate Artifact before your enemy
• if you wait too long usually you’ll lose
• some times a good strategy is to buy all the low level units very fast and rush your opponent.