Much of this guide is very technical and gives very detailed game information. Before you begin digging through that… read below to become familiar with a few important aspects of LoT. This will help you to understand the structure of the game before you become overwhelmed with the nitty gritty.

1) You have not only your military and scholars in this game, but you also have characters. Characters are a huge part of this game and to successfully build a kingdom, you need to build not only your military, but your characters need to be built up in order to lead your military units into battle. Your characters also have special spells that they can cast on people, or cast on yourself. Each empire can have 9 characters.

2) Experience is huge in this game. Your characters gain experience when they spell, get spelled, hit, or get hit. You want to gain experience because that makes your characters stronger offensively and defensively.

3) This is a very aggressive game. You WILL be spelled and hit. It’s important for you to understand this because the worse thing for you to do is lose your cool when it happens. Even when you are smacked or spelled, you STILL GAIN EXPERIENCE from it.

4) Monsters! RAWR! There are monsters that visit covens throughout the round. They attack kingdoms just as players would and you can attack them back. The great thing about Monsters is that they may drop magic items when you attack them!! We love monsters… and we LOVE magic items!!! Monsters will also give you experience whether you are hitting them or being hit except for when those pesky dragons burn your buildings down.

5) There are different kinds of characters. You have War Generals or Chieftains. These are the dudes that can’t cast spells, but are better at leading your armies into battle. Then you will also have a rogue class which will be Dark Knights, Princes, or Heros. These guys are known for their thieving/spying abilities. They help your spies out but can also be used to attack. Use these guys when you’re attacking monsters to increase your chances at gaining magic items! Then finally, you have your spell casters. You will have 4-5 spell casters depending on your class. If you choose Demonology, you will have 4 demons. If you are Magi, you will have 5 magi’s, if you are a Shaman, you will have 5 shamans. These are the guys that cast your spells and receive experience FROM spells cast on you.

6) Your population, military and scholars ALL live in your houses. You need to make sure you keep up on your houses otherwise your military will boot all your pop out and they’ll die off. You cannot die from population loss, but you cannot build more military unless you have the houses to hold them. Also watch your food. Your military and population both eat your food as well and your population will starve to death without food supplies. Think of food as your power supply.

7) Your income can come from three separate sources. You gain income from the Mines you build... and also from taxes that your population pays (another reason you want to watch your population) and you can also rob gold and other resources from other players.

8) Spy Towers are important if you want to spy on people or to prevent people from spying on you as easily. You want to keep your spy towers at “Excellent” which is about 15-17%. If you can keep your spy towers in that range… you should be good. =)

9) Your Arkane Tree is your research. Here you will obtain spells, additional characters, and empire bonuses like a +10% defensive bonus. Each item you can gain is called a node. You need to have a specific amount of arkane points to acquire each node. You gain arkane points every hour based on the number of scholars you have and your research bonus. As you gain enough arkane points, you will see an “Acquire” link next to specific node that you can obtain. Click on that link and you will automatically obtain that node. As you acquire nodes, additional nodes will open up for you. You can see a graphic of your entire tree by clicking a link to the top right of your arkane tree page. It pays to develope a research strategy as nodes become more expensive as the game progresses.