Like many rougelites, the earlygame and midgame are the hardest in the majority of runs - getting your combo off the ground is the hard part, once you get to the final combats/bosses, you can mostly play on autopilot.

In Act 1 - buildings with a strong flat Garrison or Adjacency are often better than the "scaling" buildings - this is largely because the Wall makes it hugely difficult to make large connected areas of matching terrain.

Act 2 is the first time Stone becomes available - there are many buildings (esepcially the faction starters of Republic/Order - that DON"T need stone for Lvl2 but do need it for Lvl3) It is also generally the least forgiving of the 3 bosses -

Act 3 introduces wasteland - generally you should have most of your deck powered up and breeze through most of it and beat the boss by several hundred - If you only barely beat ACT 2 and came into Act 3 weak, you can kind of be bailed out by getting cards already at level 2 from its fights - having the extra gold to reroll card choices in ACT 3 can be MUCH more important than in ACT 2 in this case.

Religious buildings need time to scale - you need enough faith to comfortably get 100 strength commandery, you probbably want to reroll for multiples, etc

Neighborhoods -
In Act 1, the Belfry At BEST will provide strength comparable to a strong standalone level 2 building like a Prison/Wooden Fortress... but it will be eating up 3! building slots to do so instead of just one. It does have HUGE economic value (and is the easiest to win with during the Famine Challenge mode)

Lategame I usually pivot AWAY from the Belfry, but a level 7 Belfry with a SOLD OFF downtown can still swing for 40 with some elbow grease. Belfry continues to provide value in collecting food/lumber gold even after leaving the plains/forest, and if the rerolls cooperate, it can power a Barracks win condition.

On Hard/Extreme - I think its a good practice to only visit 1 Peaceful region per ACT
On Nightmare, I really recommend avoiding them PERIOD - even take cards of a different / non terrain military if the only military region has no rivers etc.

Note that the 1st Map of EVERY run is a "no penalty" peaceful region

During Peaceful regions, you always want to try to get maximum value

2 I (4x1) pieces are guranteed to spawn in every round - Normally you want to hold these and play them only to complete tetris (multi line clears).

As the Republic - Neighborhood pieces are spawned after all normal pieces - this can sometimes give you a third I piece

You should still use your faction specific stuff (neighborhoods, plains into farms, etc) beyond this, but for these maps, the multi line bonus should mostly come first.

As the Duchy - if you can make 25 military, you can afford a single reroll - This requires
5 (Fortified Farm) and at least 20 from the watchtower - You want it in Range of 4(6) Field tiles (it covers 10 squares at level 2, but generally 1-2 of these will be the farm itself.

This might save you from being offered only production buildings/technology from your first card reward

As the Republic - I often want to try to convert the full 16 squares with the Downtown, but strictly speaking, population from a multi line clear IS higher than population than an additional tile conversion... just remember to always put the Downtown in hold if you get it earlier than you've laid the first two rows, and if possible(still getting teris), space the belfry/warehouses out to be 3 tiles away from where you want the Downtown to extend. // If you get a full 16 square Downtown, You will finish the peaceful region with 200 gold - enough for 3 rerolls + 1 building slot, or 2 rerolls+2 building slots

As the Order - maximizing military during the Peaceful region helps purchase extra building slots early on.

If you have (3x1) Buildings (such as the warehouses for the Duchy, Military Buildings like Strategic Pavillion, or the Town for the Duchy) you can consider these as almost being "additional" I piecees - DO NOT settle for single line clears in Peaceful regions.

On Peaceful maps beyond the first, you may bench your military buildings and put in excess production buildings - Notably in Act 2, sometimes a SINGLE map where you cleanly use stone cutter / Manor, can more or less cover your stone needs for most of the run.

The Peaceful / Hostile Battles, and their Terrains

- This should have the STRONGEST influence on your pathing - if you have buildings that need lots of Wood to upgrade, go for wood, if your military buildings need Plains to scale, then a battle with 40% plain is much easier than 25%.

easy battles give you oppurtunies to be greedy and upgrade/bring extra production buildings in place of military buildings.

Guild- The Guild does not offer rerolls, but lets you pick from card pools (swords, arrows, axes, production, matching terrain type, etc) - It's usually the ideal choice after the first peaceful region, and whenever you have (or are about to get) more building slots.

Swords have many scaling buildings
Arrows have many high garrision buildings
Axes are kind of 50/50 but notable for having the Lottery Winner building that works with any build (Blacksmith)

Military that scale from the same things military you already have are best
Military that give you a weapon type you don't already have are 2nd best
Military with Garrision has several cards that can HUGELY impact the first two bosses (Stronghold/Prison) OR cards that are only decent BUT easy to upgrade (Siege Camp / Bastion)

University - The University does not offer rerolls - But once you have 8 buildings, (and often while bottlenecked on the cost of the 7/8th building slot) it lets you continue to improve. I would argue that having spare gold for rerolling is more important for the University than it is for the Blacksmith.

Gold/Food/Wood/Stone depot -
It's really important to know if the Trading Outpost is AFTER the depots... You can trade Gold for a higher amount of resources t

150 for free or 300 for 15HP

Taking the damage usually gets you an immediate card upgrade in ACT 1 (very important in Extreme/Nightmare) ... A single stone depot with damage can provide nearly half of the stone you need for the entire run... most of the time.


Trading Fair-
ACT 1 Trading Fair ignores Stone

You will be offered

A: Your highest resource for your lowest resource
B: Your highest resource for your 2nd lowest resource
C: Your 2nd highest resource for your lowest resource
D: A level 1 card for a random card

Trades default to 250 > 333(Stone) 400 (Wood/Gold) or 500(Food)

Option C is usually spending gold to buy your lowest resource, but if GOLD is your lowest resource, it will be selling your 2nd lowest resource to gain Gold

Option C can scale to be under the default 250 if necessary (eg 110 food for 170 gold)

Its useful to upgrade cards BEFORE visiting to change your totals - sometimes 400 wood or 400 food can immediately let you upgrade an important card before the ACT 1 Boss (Food > Prison, Wood > Stronghold, etc) // So Upgrade Cards to just barely get Wood lower than food etc before starting the trade fair.

If Depots appear BEFORE the Trading Outpost - Gold Depot(preferably with damage) gets the most favorable offers at the Trading Outpost.

Village
This gives a new card "matching your current faction" - Note that for Republic, it almost entirely offers technology cards.

Port
You need 3 level 1 cards for a free upgrade, or 3 level 2 cards for a 150 gold upgrade

150 Gold is Much lower than every L3 upgrade ( many of which can take 800 total resources)
If you have MORE than 3 level 2 cards, it can be useful to manually upgrade some of them before you get to the port for a higher chance the port upgrades "your best" one

Specifically - the Port is capable of STONE upgrades -

Similarly, You can also sell off extra level 2 cards to get down to 3 for a higher chance (The Order's starting deck doesn't benefit much from level 2 technology / level 2 crusader outpost, but gets a ridiculous boost if the Krak Des Chevaliers is chosen, especially in ACT 1 before stone is available)

Should have taken a screenshot that showed the combat round arrows - but here is a TERRIBLE player army beating an enemy with a 70 Numbers disadvantage


Most enemy groups have all 3 types parts of the weapon triangle - It can be USEFUL for the player to have all 3, but commonly you will have just 2, or "lopsided military" (eg an amazing 60 axes building, and two 15 arrow buildings)

A:Both you and the enemy have equal combat buildings of all 3 types

Start with a type, attack its weakness, merge to your next type, attack its weakness

B: You have only 1 type (or hugely lopsided buildings) but the enemy has equal of all 3

B1:
Start with the enemy type you DON"T want to fight - merge it into the one you DO want to fight (and continue to merge once its the biggest and only group) , make it attack you
B2:
Attack for neutral with your weak building, to LOWER the enemy you DON"T want to fight enough that it can be "merged away" into the weak enemy, then merge enemies 2nd, last move all into your strong building.
B3:
Note about THE WALL - The Wall's 4 military buildings are all about of equal strength - if you merge at least 3 of them (2 on Nightmare) you can get them HIGHER than the Boss itself, and merge him 3rd - This will Turn his "Skull military" type into arrows/etc which can effectively let you kill 20~ extra units for free with type advantage

C: You have all 3 types (lopsided) but the enemy has only 1 - your lopsided type is WEAK to the enemies

This can happen with Krak Des Chevaliers(strong arrow) + Crusader Outpost (weak axe) when fighting an enemy group with all 4 sword buildings

I think the most efficient way to do this is - try to tell when the Krak Des Chevaliers will be weak enough to merge into Crusader Outpost - usually its a matter of starting with Krak Des Chevaliers > taking 1-2 type disadvantage fights, THEN merging into the crusader outpost for the 3/4th fight - Done properly you will get 3 ADVANTAGE fights and ONLY 1 Disadvantage fight, while if you did it "starting from the Crusader Outpost" you would only get 1 ADVANTAGE and 3 Disadvantage (because numerically Cruasader outpost sucks even when it has the type advantage)

On Normal / Hard / Most Challenge Modes - you can put 1 enemy building into "hold jail" permanently and not place it at all - Fighting 3 Enemy Buildings instead of 4 is a huge advantage, although it usually means you get less resources during the fight (because using hold for enemies instead of I pieces makes multi line clears harder)

If you have buildings like the Krak Des Chevaliers / Stronghold - you might not want to do this, because these buildings can be REALLY hard to place on lower rows, and usually get their strongest military numbers when placed at the top when you know there is no terrain pieces left to mess them up.

On Extreme / Nightmare - you CANNOT hold enemy pieces anymore ... BUT if the enemy pieces are shuffled to the bottom, or you have already placed all/most of your important military buildings early in the round- you can overfill the grid on purpose (a bunch of vertical stuff w/e) to end the round early. Normally I would prefer not to do this (for getting food/gold/wood etc) but if you have WEAK buildings, and CANNOT afford the damage (have taken 2 food depots in a row, etc) you can even plan on making a big vertical column right away - You REALLY don't want to use it if you don't have too (or you'll just continue to be desperate in the next fight until the ACT BOSS finally kills you) but if you prep it in advance and fill as many rows as possible before using it you can give yourself a safety net. A 0 player vs 0 enemy military fight IS possible... and also really sad.

The Duchy's starting cards lean it toward Plains, but like ALL the factions, it can pivot as needed - sometimes selling off your starting cards and leaving the plains entirely is a good move.

The basics of the the plain strategy is straightforward

Farm to cover the greatest area > Watchtower next to it for value

To maximize coverage you want to remember
A: Place 2 rows BELOW the buildings first
B: Have 2 rows of terrain(or room to build later) to the sides
C: Avoiding putting extra buildings (your own or enemy) in your farm/watchtower cluster

In Act 1, clearing Lines effectively is important - you want your field lines in particular because you'll need food to get building slots

The Wood Clearer provides more wood per tile than finishing the line (still more than the multi-clear bonus)

It's possible to have both the Farm/Fortified Farm, and Watchtower to level 3 before the WALL

If you collect multiple scaling buildings (Hidden Cave, Fluvial Guard, etc) you can make an informed
decision on which terrain to leave.

The Belfry is usually an economic piece foremost, and a military piece second.

However at level 3 and level 7, you can ONLY choose between adjacency combat bonuses

The Belfry is a 1x2 piece for Level 1-6, a 2x2 for Level 7-9, and a 2x3 fir Level 10. - This can make finding space for it difficult during Act 3 (1x2 pieces are allowed to make otherwise illegal T Spins to fill gaps)

Republic has a relationship with most terrain types

Keeping Plains/Forest around let you always have a large neighborhood because of the Downtown

Keeping Rivers are somewhat more reliable for the first adjacency combat bonus of the Belfry (you cannot accidentally transform them)

Keeping Mountains around let you collect stone, which is needed for Downtown L3 (50), Urban Planning L3(50), and Beflry 7-8-9-10 (250)

In my experience, you can always get full value of Level 2 downtown with just plains (or just forests), it really isn't neccesary to keep both around.

Forests are especially tempting to leave because you collect Wood in every level through the Warehouse.

If you want to Fully upgrade the Belfry - having OTHER stone upgrading buildings can make things difficult for you.

The Republic can make substational amounts of gold in every level and ALWAYS reroll - in ACT1, they often want their first two card drafts to be military --- after all, they basically already have Wood and Gold production buildings.

Taking Damage in Act 1 (non boss) to gather higher amount of resources is fine for any faction, but its practically expected for the republic.

On Higher difficulties I often leave the Belfry at level 6-7 (maximizing its resource value) especially if I take those "other buildings that use stone" as I usually do.

Buildings like Blacksmith / Prison etc are hard to pass up for the first stone you find in ACT 2.

If you recognize that you are leaving Both Plains/Forest, remember to sell off/unequip the Downtown.

Rarely you will also sell off Urban Planning technology card (if mountains/rivers take over the run and you don't want to threaten the card density.

The Population upgrade choices for the Belfry, do two things - "let it upgrade faster" AND once you reach level 10 (and only then) contribute massive military value.

Military Belfries are fun, but economic ones provide more earlygame consistency for higher difficulties in my opinion. Everyone should try out both.

Using the Downtown perfectly in ACT 1 can sometimes really hurt your ability to upgrade cards - unlike the Duchy's Wood Clearer, you do NOT get the original resource of the tiles that you transform.

Republic has natural synergy with the Barracks - the Belfry can make 7 gold per tile at level 6, equal to a Level 3 Bridge, which can

You can squeeze combat value out of a lower level belfry, but recognize that it's military really counts as 2 buildings worth (You almost always need both the Belfry and Downtown to get large amounts of adjancency). Sometimes you want to divide it's output by half if you have multiple military buildings on the bench and have particularly nasty fights (the ACT 2 Boss, ACT 2 4 stronghold fight on Nightmare, etc)

Commentary-

There are about 3 main kinds of belfries that you can mix and match somewhat

A: Population > ACT 3 Solo/Carry
B: Economy
C: Moat > Garrision+Adjancency+1+2

No matter what you take, at level 4 and level 7 you are FORCED to take a "terrain type adjacency combat" choice.

Population

The Population upgrades let you upgrade the belfry faster and have NO immediate benefit in ACT 1 / Most of act 2 - if you take all of them you can get level 10 in ACT 2 in time for the ACT 2 Boss.

The Payoff for the Population upgrades comes only at level 10, when you get permanent scaling (the 3rd upgrade that says "combat = population inventory / 5) , you no longer spend population so it gets stronger every battle .... consider it garrision + 50 in your first level 10 fight, then garrison 100 the next one, and so on (Getting the Hold the Door achievement is easy if you get Belfry 10 for the Act 2 boss and scale it up to solo fight the 2nd/3rd fight in ACT 3 (it can solo the ACT 3 boss as well but achievements don't work during boss fights)

Even though this Belfry is used for combat in the end, it doesn't really need any other combat upgrades...garrision is a drop in the water compared to the 250-300 you get from pure population so feel free to take economy stuff on levels were population isn't a choice (3,6)

There are population upgrades at Level 2, 5, 8, and 9
In my experience, you can skip the level 2 upgrade and still get to level 10 in time for the ACT 2 Boss.

This Belfry works very consistently on Normal/Hard, - just try to get close to the full 16 tiles from your level 2 downtown in every fight - you get population both for connecting the Belfry AND a 2nd time for clearing the line (multi line clears get higher population)

I've used it on extreme but NOT on nightmare (mostly because of stone shortages rather than population shortages)

Economy
Economy Belfry lets you quickly get full building slots in ACT 1, and it lets you reroll a LOT -

the best thing you can find is Barracks, which can get to about 100 with the first 2 gold upgrades and a downtown.
Sometimes I'll use 4-5 rerolls to get multiple Barracks, but you can settle for most high garrison buildings (Prison, Raider Colony, etc) or other boss killers (Thieve's Hideout, Supply Lines, Horse Stables)
Food is nice because (without land clearing) you do not get the original resource of the tiles you turn into neighborhoods, and Wood is taken care of by the Warehouses anyway. - Economy Belfry mostly can just finish the game at level 6 @ 7 gold per neighborhood

Economy Belfry works okay on Nightmare - just bench it entirely on the ACT 2 / ACT 3 Boss, and use it to its power in the other 10 levels.

Moat

In nightmare mode, you need an average garrision of 40 on 7 buildings to beat the ACT 2 Boss - This makes spamming production buildings : eg Belfry+Downtown+Warehouses a death sentence during boss fights. You should use them for normal fights, but definitely unequip them in boss fights

L2/L3 Downtown can add 14/20 potential adjacencies, but this is EXTREMELY awkward and you MUST successfully use 8 of them on top of the 7 from surrounding the belfry to reach the 40 strength per building breakpoints.

But you CAN take the Belfry alone as a military building, and just surround it on all 6 sides (level 4-6) or all 8 sides (level 7-9) like you would with a military building like Old Tower / Rally Point



For the wall

By taking Garrision 10>15 > then maxing adjacency - you can get Garrision 25 + 5x6 = 55 at Belfry level 6 - This is equal to a Level 3 Prison, but doesn't steal any resources to upgrade your other buildings

For the Keep

level 7+8 taking Mountains and Mountains + 2 to get Garrision 25 + 6x8 = 73 - this is above the average for a filler military building

For the Dungeon

level 9 taking Garrision +20 to get a final number of 93
(Taking Mountains +2 again is only better with 11 Adjancencies and we're only getting 8)

Summary

I think everyone should try them all.

Population Belfry to get the Hold The Door challenge/ starting unlock. It's very reliable on Normal/Hard. On Extreme, its reliable IF you find a separate stone production building early in ACT 2 (or use both a stone depot and trading fair) /// Upgrade Warehouses to level 3 BEFORE Belfry level 7 to get population even quicker.

Economy Belfry is the first one I beat Extreme with and later, the first one I beat Nightmare.
Sometimes I get Barracks and get to keep the downtown, other times I just get two raider outposts + a thieves camp and just clobber my way through the game with brute force.

Moat Belfry feels silly, but if you play Nightmare multiple times, you start to appreciate going all-in for early game consistency because there are so many different scaling things you can get in ACT 3 anyway - Being better for the HARDEST part of the game is more important than being better for the victory lap.

My favorite preferred Belfry is gold+2 > food+3 > river > food+2 > gold+2 > wasteland > wasteland+2 > garrison 20 > NO Level 10)

Sometimes I will take plain > river, if my ACT 1 is EXTRA weak.
Sometimes I will take mountains > wasteland for the ACT 2 Boss. IT HAS SAVED RUNS, and losing value ACT 3 really doesn't matter THAT much for this building with my play style.

The Order does NOT Get Gold from extra military strength - instead it gets its unique resource - "crusaders"
mainly used to buy building slots in the early/midgame, and buy stone/starting faith in the lategame

This means that the Order, on average - has a hard time rerolling buildings in ACT1 - if its safe to do so, I strongly recomend either taking a gold producing building OR choosing combats in areas with rivers.

Krak Des Chevaliers
The Order has the strongest starting military building of all factions, but it has quirks

In a normal level 40% 40% 20%
I expect 6 plains 6 forest 4 rivers

*Substitute the highest terrain instead of plains on different situation

6 plains makes(4x6) 24 tiles
So the Krak gets 24/48/72 military per level of the building if I connect them all

If I get the Krak early on draw order, I can completely surround or bury it with the plains

If I get the Krak late in draw order, I can put it in the hold box then wait for the end of level, then connect it to the top of my plains - no risk of accidently touching other things that way

Special cases

On the ACT 1 boss, the Krak is almost always going to be weak - I'm happy with just 8 tiles and often don't bring it at all on nightmare difficulty

On the ACT 2 boss - if you connect to the boss itself , he counts as 34 tiles which is better than the 24 you can make from 6 plains - 34/68/102 arrows

The best place to to this is the far left.
Sidepoint that this is why I always prioritize upgrading the Krak in nightmare and speerdruns

On the ACT 3 boss - you get 12/12/6 pieces of plains, forest, wasteland

If you connect them all 12x4= 48 and have a level 3 building 48x3=146

Normally I'll put all plains in one gutter and wasteland + forest + other buildings in the other gutter

As a backup you CAN connect to the act 3 boss, but he is much smaller than ACT 2 21 tiles and worse than you get just from plains

The Church
mainly gives a 10% resource boost.... but its somewhat filler early on until you luck into something that all that extra faith can REALLY scale (Commandery, or Abbey+Barracks) / You can use it every fight on most difficulties, but on Nightmare I often bench it completely for ACT 1 to squeeze out extra garrison buildings.


Crusader Outpost / Graveyard / Military Chaplaincy

These buildings let you max out building slots more quickly than normal, and spam out expeditions - Getting maximum value from them as often as possible in ACT 1, then selling them off in ACT 2 can smooth out the rest of the run. // The Downside is that they have a Low (ZERO in the graveyard's case) value for the actual combat you use them in.

Crusader outpost's weak military CAN be situationally useful to change / merge enemy group - If your strongest building is arrows, you can use the Crusader outpost to weaken one of the enemy groups to be lower than the enemy axes, then merge all other enemy groups into the axes

expeditions have the following benefits

+YOU CAN GET STONE IN ACT 1
+You can get resources of terrain that you left behind in ACT 2/3
+Starting faith - I think level 4~ is about optimal, you really don't need to go overkill
+Max HP (I never get this one)

Faith technology cards
By the Sword is notable for having a "chain reaction" with Commandery

(Tithe has a weaker chain reaction with Barracks and a STRONGER chain reaction with Abbey)

Its perfectly normal to finish a lategame level and having a few loops

Commandery makes troops > By Sword makes faith > Commandery makes more troops > By sword makes faith > ....

In my experience you usually get about 3 rounds of this in normal gameplay.
/ 1-2 Commandery + lvl 3 By the Sword + non commandery military buildings

With 4 commandery (Including 2+blacksmith) you can get this to go infinite.... In recent patch it will stop at the new 99 faith cap, giving 495 per building.

Missions can be completed in challenge modes (sometimes easier than normal) Missions can be completed in a suicide run. Mission completion remains if you save and reload checkpoint after a mission.

Duchy
Mostly easy
Deforestation - this usually requires 2 Wood Clearers, a single lvl3 Wood Clearer can do it in the Long Range Trial

Advanced Farming - In normal combats there are are 8 columns in every row (9 in Act 3) - this mostly requires getting a level 3 farm, and 3 plains tiles on each side

Republic
The Republic benefits THE MOST from improving its starting deck - I recommend staying on normal/hard until you have the level 2 Downtown, level 2 urban planning, and level 1 warehouses
The Republic unfortunately also has the hardest of the faction quests

Heart of the City - without the gold upgrade this requires 32 neigbhorhoods (3x32) with the gold upgrade at (belfry level 2 OR belfry level 6) you only need 20 (5x20), with both gold upgrades 15 (7x15) /// DONT try this in the same run as capital city... taking gold upgrades instead of population upgrades usually stalls your final level at 7-8

Hold the Door - To get this, take Population upgrades and try to get the belfry to level 10 at before the ACT 2 boss - take the "strength per inventory" choice - you now have permenant scaling - your belfry will get about +50 strength in every fight from here on - by the time of the 3rd normal fight of ACT 3 or the ACT 3 Boss, you should be ready to unequip your other buildings.

Rapid Expansion - You can easily get this from the boosted resources of the Traitors Trial - in normal gameplay, you can get this by being accurate with your downtown and getting multi-line bonus clears on the rows your city is in for higher population.

Organized Defense - This does NOT count garrison - only the adjacency per terrain at Belfry 4 / 7 - Note that if you do NOT get rid of your original terrain, you can benefit from both (choose Plains at Belfry 4, then Wasteland at Belfry 7). / Getting a level 3 Downtown makes pretty easy (touching 7~ wasteland + 2 Plains in ACT 3 generally does it.

Order

Headquarter - A level 3 Commandery can do this with 8 faith (Commandery + Krak des Chevaliers + Monastery + upgrading starting faith once can do this easily) - you should try for higher since getting 2 commandery is one of the easiest ways to win as the order.

Persuasive Preachers - You need to get the Fanaticism or the Forced Conversion technology card - destroying an enemy group with Isolation / Siege Camp does NOT COUNT.

Common challenges

You only need to complete 81 Common challenges to complete the progress tree

Most Trials are at 150% Enemy strength - equivalent to Hard in classic mode - if you get used to playing on Extreme first, the challenges are really easy.

Sabotage - Putting enemy buildings on top of your own is a useful in normal gameplay because it prevents them from touching terrain , but its not THAT hard to play around. If you want to be careful , Garrision buildings are mostly unaffected, only "scaling/end of round" style buildings really need to avoid the enemies.

Patrols - This challenge is all about surviving the ACT 1 Boss - when he comes down, he counts EVERY space below him as an unfinished hole - I recomend, NOT Trading HP for resources in ANY ACT 1 Depot, and having 40~ HP ready for the wall - its almost impossible to beat him, you just want to survive losing... Its helpful to finish the 9 roles as completely as possible, and use a small horizontal (or I) for when you trigger the wall at the end. The Rest of the challenge is a cakewalk - you want to avoid holes in normal play anyway. Leaving holes "open to the ceiling" is unpunished.

Mini Grids - You get a LOT less tiles than normal - so pieces that rely on "connected terrain" are a lot worse in normal combats . Boss combats are unchanged. Pieces that use Alignment are much stronger than normal (eg Watchtower).

Famine - you have a lot less resources even WITH multi exploration - Production buildings are important... but the enemy at 100% is kind of a pushover.

Drafting - You get 5/4/3 Card picks at the start of each ACT and no card picks at the end of combats (you can still get extra cards from guilds/universities) - Its nice to have gold saved up after doing the bosses so you can use rerolls (Republic can reroll the ACT 1 Draft if you want)

Consolidation - Every enemy has a "strategic pavillion" effect (the actual straegic pavillion will trigger TWICE) .

Fearless - You must win EVERY Combat, enemies are scaled to EXTREME mode (but you get to put them in the hold box, unlike regular extreme mode. Also you can NEVER trade for higher resources at Depots, so upgrading early in ACT 1 is a bit harder. // For Republic, I recommend breaking my rule and taking Garrison 10 and Garrison 15 at Belfry 2 and 3

Traitors - The Mercenaries don't really scale - If you are used to Extreme, an extra 30-45 really dosen't matter. Because the enemy can get 7 buildings instead of its regular 4, the grid gets filled up before placing all pieces on most levels. Cards that interact with enemy/military buildings like Watchtower are EXTREMELY strong. The low strength of the Trators makes the Fanaticism technology card almost always work on them even at low faith.

Long Range - This is SUPER Easy for the Duchy - for the other factions you'll want to Draft cards to benefit instead of doing it right away. Watch out for some regular fights - Old Tower and Thieves Hideout can be brutal.

Invasion - Enemies scale to Extreme mode, but you get half price healing and are allowed to use the hold box.... not too bad.

Fairly simple, get multiple fluvial guard / river castles

Rivers can completely take over ANY RUN for ANY FACTION
But they are weak in ACT 1 and the ACT 1 Boss ... In my experience I've had many runs where I just take river related buildings, keep them benched until after the Wall, then sell/refunded my starting stuff + the garrision stuff that got me over the earlygame hump, then played ACT 2 / 3 without needing to complete lines anymore with 0 risks in any battle.

(3/1 basically works)

Fill out the rest of your deck with buildings that can mostly be used alone - Garrision 40+ stuff like Bastion/Prison, or "one off" buildings like Stronghold / old tower that can be thrown at their own area of the grid without interfering with the connected group of rivers.

Rivers are EXTREMELY strong once they reach critical mass - You can sell off / bench your starting buildings (even starting technology in Republic's case)

Rivers have a bit of anti-synergy in that they make building upgrades slightly more difficult - the bigger proportion of military buildings (including the river's own buildings) don't need gold to upgrade - all 3 of the factions are affected (Duchy needs wood/food to upgrade its starting buildings, republic/order need food/stone)

Getting a production building that makes a resource without needing its original terrain (sawmill etc) or routing around trade depots, can be important to surviving the earlygame hump.

Even if you take rivers, they have a nasty habit of not being available during the "minor fights" - you always get 30% in boss fights, but they are somewhatly randomly absent the most often of all terrains - or worse, they force you to go to a peaceful region.

- The Wall especially makes all types of connected terrain weaker.

Barracks is a military building that gainsstrength from gold made in the current round (including end of round bonuses)

One the strongest military buildings, and MORE CONSISTENT than some of the other top buildings (River Castle / Commandery, etc)

Pro
It doesn't care about positioning
Pro
It can get 100-140 strength with help from certain building combos
Pro
It Upgrades with JUST Gold, which you are already making lots of if using it properly
Con
If you don't have the supporting building, its pretty weak

Generally you either want

2 of these (mix and match)
Bridge
Level 6 Belfry (+Gold Upgrades)
Tax Office
Gold Digger

or

1 of these
Burgomaster
Abbey
Level 10 Belfry

Note that some of these buildings have requirements of their own (Abbey wants other religious buildings, Burgomaster wants Farms, etc)

I would say the endgame goal is either -
1000-1200 Gold + 2 Barracks
or
2,500 Gold + 1 Barracks

Long term goals

A: Multiple Barracks (2-3)
B: Mixing Barracks with compatible buildings based on where you are getting the gold from (eg Abbey+Commandery, Gold Digger+Old Tower, Bridge+River Castle)

Either approach can faceroll over ACT 3... the trick is getting all the neccesary buildings upgraded.

The commandery is a Military Building that scales with Faith

In my experience - For the ACT 3 Boss, you want 2 of them, and about 20 faith at the START of the battle (it'll go up 7-9 more from from technology effects)

To reach these faith numbers you will usually have 2~ non combat faith buildings (Church, Hermit etc), As well as technology cards that give more faith on top.


As the ORDER - you can "naturally" have about 13 with very few draft picks:

4 Faith (Starting Church L3) 3 Faith (Chevaliers L3) 1 Faith (1st Commandery) 1 Faith (2nd Commandery) ~3-5 Faith (Starting Faith from expeditions)

To get 7 more Faith, you will want to hunt for a 2nd Church, The Reliquary Technology Card, or The Graveyard (indirect, but basically if you play it in the non-boss combats of ACT2/3 it lets you afford to get Expedetion Faith up to 9-11 instead of the "low economy" 3-5 I mentioned earlier.

Other Factions CAN technically reach 20 faith + 2 Commandery, but it requires a higher amount of card drafting luck (since you don't get 11/20 of your stuff from just starting cards)

Faith Builds should ALWAYS remember that they can take Barracks + Abbey as a 2nd power building
or even (Barracks+Abbey+Commandery+5 non combat faith buildings)

Generally simple

Watchtowers, Farms, and Rally Points.

Rally Point - it's maximum scaling is shockingly high and it doesn't need production buildings in your other building slots. - It's Bonus Value is MUCH easier at level 2/3 / It has 7 total adjacent sides, Level 1-3 allow you to ignore 1/2/3 of them is a huge relief.

The "inside corner" is the easiest side for placement but also THE WEAKEST for adjancency - It only counts once.

The Level 1 Rally Point almost always wants the "floor plains" to be placed ahead of time - Level 2/3 can be placed early with relatively little risk and have the plains placed on top of them.

Avoid Placing Rally Points on the border with the wall or enemy buildings.

BONUS - Duchy/Republic focusing on Plains military usually get building slots much faster than normal.

Both Watchtower and Rally Point, get to Level 3 PURELY on Wood/Food - all gold/stone can be put elsewhere (rerolls,starting faction buildings, etc)

Because your Plains buildings generally take up so much of your positioning effort - extra building slots are usually best used as support that doesn't need positioning Garrision Buildings (especially ones that upgrade for that stone/gold you aren't using) are a prime contender.

The best mountain combat buildings are Old Tower, and Hidden Cave (Stone Fort is just OKAY)

Keeping Mountain into ACT 3 really helps upgrade buildings, especially for Republic/Order who have Stone using starting buildings.

Mountain buildings are good at mixing with other strategies, because you can just throw them down in the middle of their 6 pieces of terraign, while your other 6 pieces work together with your "main terrain" - They do not really need support bonuses other than "keeping mountains terrain available"

Mountain Buildings DO have somewhat nasty upgrade costs - you often want to plan around Depots / Trade outposts (or production buildings) to meet their demands.

While with perfect luck you'd pick a single terrain and get all 8 buildings scaling from it - this requires TOO MUCH RNG to go your way.

I find that consistent runs generally finish with 5~ buildings on a single terrain and the other 3 being a mix of high garrison buildings and "single one offs" that work with your 2nd terrain.

A simple case in point

Playing the Duchy - You naturally go heavy on plains. something like 2 Watchtowers + Farm + Rally Point is viable for about 2/3 of the boss's total HP -

You COULD try to find "even more watchtowers and farms" - but the building pool is quite deep, especially by the time you start playing Extreme/Nightmare, and its harder to spare the gold for rerolls.

Instead - You keep your 5 Field buildings and supplement them - You can find a Old Tower and use it as your ONLY stone building and happily get a +60~ from it. Add in a few strong "Garrison" buildings that don't need scaling at all (Bastion / Castle, etc) and you will have gotten the last 130~ you need to survive the ACT boss.

Final team of
Watchtower+Watchtower+Farm+RallyPoint+OldTower+Bastion+SiegeCamp / Field+Mountain

Some "lottery teams" don't actually work that well

This is because buildings the scale by Range or Adjacency ultimately end up crowding each other out (and of course 8-24 blank spots whenever a building's range is wasted going over the other buildings)

There are exceptions - a "lottery" of buildings that scale through connected terrain (Hidden Cave / Fluvial Guard) WILL just work better and better with the full 8. Commandery/Barracks are similiar (but getting 3 of them already automatically wins so)

General Note - The Bosses count as Military Buildings themselves - Adjacency and Alignment effects apply to them. This can have a huge impact on the scaling of Horse Stables and Krak Des Chevaliers. if you forget.

They've been patched to be immune to conversion
Other effects do work on them (Military Pavilion, Siege Camp*)

Wall / Towers have 30/30/30 terrain chances, and Fortress

The Dungeon has 40/40/20... but you place 12/12/6 Terrain Pieces.. much higher than the normal 15-18 in a normal level (or the other bosses).

The Wall
Terrain Pieces - 5/5/5
The map is 8 Columns (usual 8) by 14 Rows(usual 12)... although the boss's final stop is on Row 11 so you can only have a single piece above.

The Wall ALWAYS brings 2 Strategic Pavilions, 1 Rally Point, and 1 Wooden Fortress

The Wall makes it difficult to make large connected areas - this is often a big deal for The Order, because it is difficult to get a large Krak Des Chevaliers.

I recommend NOT trying to get multi-line clears for the wall, I pieces are extremely Dangerous to hold onto during this boss and hard to get rid of - anytime you can do it safely, you should.

The Strategic Pavilions are difficult because of their large size - if you unlocked many building slots early, you may want to intentionally leave some empty for this fight to avoid feeding him. (since triggering the boss early is a death sentence.

The Keep
Terrain Pieces - 5/6/5
The map is 16 Columns (usual 8 ACT1/2 + 9 ACT3) by 10 rows(usual 12 ACT1 + 13 ACT2/3)

Conversion effects work on the boss's spawns.

The Boss counts as 34 Tiles - Krak Des Chevaliers connected to him can be stronger than a perfect (you'll have 6 pieces of another type (24 tiles) - This will take 5 tiles left empty(if you alert him while doing this) or 11 tiles left empty if you place it on his left/right safe spot. I REALLY Don't recommend this.

L3 Chevalier X 34 = 102 L3 Chevalier X 24 = 72

If you have Horse stable, be careful to attach it to the 4th row or higher, or it will count the boss as the closest building.

The boss's 4 "towers" count as 1x1" pieces - Thieves guild can proc twice in the right spot (once from the main body, once from the tower) - Watchtower can see 3 horizontally without setting off the boss's vision (45 strength at watchtoer lvl 2, 60 at lvl 3)

Don't take too many Military buildings that take 4 tiles (S blocks, L blocks, O blocks like)

There are a total of 40 safe spots - I usually think of this as - 3 spots for 2x2 buildings + 8 spots for Small L pieces + 18 spots for 1x2 buildings

Some of your VERY IMPORTANT military buildings may only be able to be placed in his vision - this is OKAY 1-2 times.

But be warned that spaces where the vertical and diagnol line of sight overlap will trigger TWO towers at once.

However, you CAN cover spaces multiple in a single line of sight while only triggering 1 boost.

There are two main approaches
A:Do I have buildings that scale with connected areas
B:Do I have a bunch of garrisions and stuff

If I have Connected area pieces, I focus on putting the chosen terrain in the middle, and dumping everything else out of the way. Sometimes I even sandwich a fluvial guard AND 2 small L's all into the center column together.

On the other hand if my pieces aren't picky about terrain, I can much more perfectly make "bridges" to safely use the L spots on the left and right of the map.

This map fills up VERY quickly because of its short ceiling and the space the boss takes up - one of the biggest dangers is having your important military buildings shuffled near the bottom of the draw pile - be very careful to leave as few gaps as possible when fighting this boss, especially if you are using all 8 buildings (the fight can be easier with 6~).

The Dungeon
Terrain Pieces 12/12/6
The map is 13 Columns (usual 9) by 14 rows (usual 13)

The boss counts as 21 Tiles - Krak Des Chevaliers connected to him is MUCH worse (63) than what you can get from 12 Terrain Pieces (48 Tiles) / 144arrows

If you have horse stables be careful to place it on the 8th row or higher, or it will count the boss as the closest building.

Bribery - placing buildings for the boss is a little bad- you'll generally need to explore 3 lines to bribe him - BUT most L3 production buildings will instantly bribe him for 20-30 turns when placed, mostly guaranteeing that you don't have to worry about his mercenaries at all. / However, with 38 Pieces in the pool, a single production building may not come out early. That is, if you are including extra production buildings besides the one that also assist your military scaling. (Farm, Belfry, Gold stuff, etc) You can think of it as a -40 to the bosses military strength if it helps you justify the slot (production buildings that work when placed are strongly preferred to ones that require their row being cleared)

Certain technology cards can pay off the very first enemy building for free (Irrigation) smaller resource technology cards can pay of the bribery for the entire fight after you play your first terraforming card, etc.

It's better to avoid leaving gaps in the first place, and you can play extreme difficulty just fine without using many tricks.

Rotate Left can do T spins that are imposslle for Rotate Right and vice versa

This applies to the other tetris spins ( L,J,Z,S,I) as well

Personally I use rotate left 90% of the time, and ONLY use rotate right when doing a spin, and this works fine

Unlike tetris - I think that L and S spins are the most useful instead of just T spins (this is because of the shape of common military buildings)

Enemy Strength / A Run consists of 1 forced peaceful region, and 12 Combats

If you've beaten Extreme with all factions, and are comfortable with it, Nightmare will seem like it has the same ACT 1 (mostly) but the ACT 2 Boss will seem impossible

For me the biggest change I made to my play style was favoring Garrison buildings and favoring buildings with cheap upgrade costs

The average level 1 military building takes 500 to get to level 2 and 799 to get to level 3

The average level 1 support building take 150 to get to level 2 and 350 to get to level 3

I consider Easiest to Hardest
Order > Duchy > Republic

I usually end Nightmare on only 7 Building Slots instead of the full 8
I Value Gold Production buildings of ALL kinds more highly (rerolls)

The following buildings get my love

Horse Stable
Supply Line
Thieves's Hideout - This is the strongest building for the Act 1 Boss -
Raider Colony
Prison
Blacksmith

Also

Old Tower
Rally Point
- while they have lower ceilings than the "connected terrain" buildings, they are ALMOST always better for ACT 1/2 Fights, and because they can get full value from 3 teraign pieces they are less draw order dependent

Alarm Tower - Always get level 2, never level 3 (too high cost) / Reliable 45 strength on ACT 1 and ACT Boss

You CAN still work on River/Religon/Mountain/Barracks scaling cards, but its VERY RARE to have them ready in time for the ACT 2 Boss // I HEAVILY Favor having IMMEDIATE power in nightmare mode.

In Act 3 you will get 4 "level 2 card drafts" From the end of the ACT 2 Boss + the 3 Normal FIghts
Rerolling for the above buildings + a few more

Heretic Lair/Castle - Comparable strength 40
Bastion - 47

These buildings are expensive to upgrade (or their resource downside doesn't really matter at t this point) But they are pretty comparable to Prison/Raider Colony L2 when you get the upgrade for free


As the Duchy

As the Republic
For Nightmare I upgrade the Belfry
Gold+2 > Garrison 15 > Plains > Food +2 > Gold +2 > STOP

The Belfry(and Downtown) 's job is to unlock your building slots and allow re rolls - Even on Extreme, I can still have runs where I just take Population every time and rush to 10, but on Nightmare this makes ACT 1 and the Keep much more luck dependent

As the Order
You should be familiar with maximizing the Krak Des Cavalier from Hard/Extreme, but on Nightmare you will find it difficult to afford upgrading

Because of this I consider a stone producing building at the ACT 1 Boss Card Pick or Act 2 fight 1 card pick (or stone depot / trade fair)

On The Keep - you can squeeze extra combat out of it by not JUST attaching it to to the boss, but also having 6 Tiles of buildings on the boss's other safe side (it considers the ENTIRE connection 1 region)