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Apocalypse Reborn: Guide: Wardens of the Caverns

Added 2023-03-29 16:43:18 +0000 UTC

Apocalypse Reborn: Guide

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Wardens of the Caverns

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An obscure race many have forgotten have risen to the surface once again. With their religion worshipping a god of life at their back, the Wardens have seized the Citadel after centuries of isolationism and are ready to bring all into paradise. Their time away from the world has greatly affected their understanding of warfare, but their culture and diplomacy is unmatched across the world, and in time they will rise to the challenge of foes that cannot be swayed with words with not only their armies but those of their allies as well.

Dogmatic to their religion that espouses the glorification of all those who live as fragments of the Ancients simply waiting to ascend, the Wardens enjoy good relations with all races, and they are firm allies in times of crisis. However, the time will come when they must make a choice unlike any other for the good of all peoples, which will break their links with all their fellows and friends if they truly wish the reach paradise.

Racial Traits:

The Wardens of the Caverns are a beautiful and loving people that accept other cultures and spread their own with ease. Their diplomats are the finest in the continent and their merchants are shrewd and easily make deals other would consider impossible. They are also blessed with great endurance and strong morale, which allows them to move farther across the map and break less often on the battlefield. Their health and armor is poor at the start, but as time passes they will employ faster and more deadly troops, and with proper planning the weakness of their units can be overcome.

+Relentless: If a unit has a Wardens trait, then they will have increased movement range every turn and their morale will be slower to deplete in combat. Additionally, Warden units suffer less penalties when charging or sprinting across the battlefield, and they are far less likely to be suppressed by the enemy.

+Beguiling: Cities with most of their population made of Wardens will have increased Happiness and Culture spread. If a city’s population is 80% or greater Wardens, then Culture and Happiness will receive a flat +10 and a bonus modifier of fifty percent.

+Fast Growth: The Wardens are quick to grow in population due to their culture and beliefs. High happiness accelerates this, therefore they will grow quickly and require more food. Any city that has Wardens will quickly replace the existing population as the majority.

Cultural Traits:

The Wardens have long aspired to bring all into their paradise. Though they work hard and long, they espouse lives filled with love and pleasure in equal measure. The happiness of their people lends itself to great bonuses when it comes to production and rates of cultural spread. They are a people eager to spread across the continent. To make firm friends and allies is their grand goal, but in truth they seek for others to join their Church of Light and ensure that they will enter paradise. To this end, they consider nothing beyond reproach.

+Devout: The Wardens are adherents of a religion of peace and pleasure, which slows their rate of building military units and researching military technologies. In exchange, they begin the game with a positive boost to their reputation with all factions and their relationship deteriorates at half the normal speed. Reputation penalties are reduced by 25% with all other factions who are culturally influenced by the Wardens.

+Open Relations: The Wardens do not suffer from diplomacy penalties with other factions, if they are allies with a faction at war with them. They can act as mediators of conflict, and if they are friendly with both nations can officiate peace talks with lower penalties and costs for both factions.

+Wealth And Splendor: The Wardens have long mastered the art of mining and extracting resources from the land. They gain twice the resources from any luxury tile and 1.5 times the amount from any strategic tile. Gold income from any gold-producing building is also increased by fifty percent. However, all resource-extracting improvements and gold-producing buildings have increased population costs and gold upkeep costs.

Military Overview:

The Wardens are the premier blitz faction with armies that can reach their destinations more quickly thanks to increased movement range every turn, and lack of penalties for using the Charge and Sprint skill in combat. Not only that, but their units have very high damage to make up for their high cost and the length of time it takes to research any new units or upgrades. With the right strategy on the overworld, and the right tactics on the battlefield, the Wardens can punch above their weight class and hold their territory while raiding enemy territory with ease. However, if they are cornered and forced to fight, it is highly likely that they will lose the battle. Acquiring key technologies in their tech trees for resurrection is essential for any player using this faction, especially in the mid-game, as losses will be guaranteed by their low armor and health pools.

If you’re playing the Wardens:

Securing your borders is essential in the early game. Do not overstretch the few units that you have. Focus on searching for artifacts and triggering good events. The midgame is your time to shine and seize the opportunity to disrupt the enemy at your borders and raid the enemy boundaries until they sue for a ceasefire. Thereafter, you need to open dialogue with your neighbors and begin bringing them to your side. Trade for artifacts with your excess of gold and glut of luxury resources, however make sure to keep your strategic stores high. The early game is for holding ground and seizing the opportunity in the mid game, which is when the blitz can begin.

The Warden midgame is about leveraging your new allies and build up and high-damage units, along with any Champions you can purchase to rapidly destabilize your enemies and perhaps seize a Citadel. Seizing a Citadel is highly dependent on if your allies can provide an army to siege the enemy, but with the right Champion you can do it with your own forces. Focus on getting an Administrative Champion that can speed up research time for your military, or decrease the time it takes to build units, and pump out both and fight against the enemy until they have full armies of T2. After this phase, retain only the best of your veteran units and prepare to dig in and hold fast. It is essential that you unlock your Resurrection Wonder’s second stage, otherwise you’ll lose too many units to keep up with the coming crises.

Your late game is heavily dependent on the allies you’ve gained and the Citadels you’ve acquired, as well as how far your culture has spread. With your towns developed into cities, focus on exploiting as many resources as possible, getting gold, and spending that gold buying friends. Your T2 and T3 units are exceptional, but it’ll take a long time to build them and research them, while your endgame units might only arrive when the game is almost set. Focus on aerial units and armored units, since they can survive more easily and their revivals will benefit more. Keep an eye on your upkeep costs. It is essential that you seize another Citadel and unlock firearms, so that your units can be upgraded and reach their full potential.

For endgame strategies, refer to the endgame strategies page.

If you’re playing against the Wardens:

The Wardens are glass cannons with high mobility. While it’s difficult, the best solution to countering them is trapping them on the strategic layer or by casting crowd control on their units during battle. The availability of these units at all stages of the game, however, makes them difficult to put down and with the right Champions they fight better and have more health on their home territory. Attacking them at any stage of the game directly is a foolish move which will result in you losing armies. It’s better to see them as a neutral faction that you can force others to fight by ensuring that they have no allies. You can do this by undertaking quests for other factions ,trading with them, and staying opposed to the Wardens at all times. Their high amount of resources and power should be enough to naturally galvanize your allies to destroy them.

As for Champions, focus on getting Administrative Champions with diplomacy bonuses, because they’ll serve as a counter to the spreading influence of the Wardens. They have strong cultural perks, but they can’t get their own Administrative Champions until later in the game, because it will weaken their military or leave them open for espionage attacks. With good management of relationships and the right Champions, you can effectively overcome the cultural advantages of the Wardens and stifle their long-term progress.

In the late game, when their Gate of Light is at play, their endlessly respawning armies are best curtailed by using chokepoints, defensive tile modifications, artillery, and farming their units for XP by rotation. Stepping into their territory will invite invasion, but with predetermined fields of fire and veteran T3 units, you’ll be able to hold on until you can deploy Endgame units. Delay and destroy their allies, assassinate their Champions as much as possible. If you are aiming for their Citadel for the Domination/Military victory, kill them last and only attack them with a four to one advantage and supporting Endgame units up to the 7 Citadel cap.

You won’t be able to win the war without maximizing your army control. It is recommended to pursue other victories instead of fighting them directly, because they will effectively have endless units which are buffed in their territory. If you cannot control them, prepare to contest any regions with Citadels that they hold. The game is over if they gain access to three to four Citadels, depending on your faction.

The Wardens cannot be defeated once they have the industrial potential to spawn three armies per turn and revive all the ones they lose instantly and for free.

Faction-Specific Leaders and Champions

Leaders:

The High Justiciar: the ‘vanilla’ leader of the Wardens, who emphasizes increased happiness and diplomatic gains, which further specializes them as a faction that cultivates alliances. This leader effectively counters any effort to diplomatically outmaneuver the Wardens. However, with the High Justiciar, declaring offensive wars will be turned off, and their military research is slowed by another 10% and their military units are only fully unlocked for training and deployment once their first rank of upgrades are unlocked.

The Ruiner: A leader focused on overcoming the Wardens’ military woes. Increases upkeep costs and unit costs, but units will spawn at normal speeds and the military research penalty is revoked. This leader allows the Wardens to play a normal early game, but in the midgame units will be too expensive without any Citadels added, and their lategame will be more difficult due to their penalty. Taking the Ruiner leader will ensure that the Gate of Light Wonder and all its previous forms are unavailable to the Wardens of the Caverns.

The Logistician: The economic focused leader of the Wardens. The Logistician doubles the resource bonuses that the Wardens have, which makes them capable of being an economic and trading powerhouse even with only one Citadel. The cost for this upgrade is the Wardens’ economy increasing to the point where they cannot ally with other factions due to being so obvious of a threat, which effectively decreases their ability to gain allies and increases the threat they generate to other factions.

Champions:

The Saintess: The main anti-Champion Champion of the Wardens. This Champion is at first a unit-killer but slowly rises to become a general when levelled up. Leading from the front with high HP and armor and AoE attacks, the Saintess ravages enemy armies and destroys everything in her path, even other Champions. However, she does have a weakness in that if she falls in battle, her army will be hit with a strong morale loss that can end the battle instantly. In the end-game, her leadership abilities aren’t good enough to keep her in the HQ, but sending her into battle might cause you to lose it as much as it might win it. With this fact in mind, make sure to find her Artifact set and equip it on her for maximum benefits, and make sure to build the Gate of Light and start sending her out as a solo-army killer.

The Enchanter: A support Champion that beguiles and sways the minds and hearts of opposing armies. Weak on the field, but with powerful abilities that can be cast from the HQ, the Enchanter can temporarily take control of enemy units according to the level of their Enchant skin. At max level, the Enchanter can temporarily take control of endgame units without the Magic Immunity buff for two minutes, which can force the enemy to destroy their own investment. The Enchanter can also lower the cooldown of Unit skills and increase morale via the Ritual Dance skill.

The Purifier: An Administrative Champion focused on spreading culture and reducing enemy cultural spread. A poor Champion that doesn’t provide much production bonuses or gold increases, but exchanges that for a massive boost to any influence gained and any culture generated from happiness. The Purifier can provide happiness bonuses to all cities that have been influenced by your culture and allow the building of lesser Shrines in the Cities that they occupy, which can allow for your armies to respawn closer to the front line. The Purifier must be protected from assassination, until the shrines have been built in the city they’re administrating

Opposing Champions:

The Champions of the Wardens aren’t particularly strong, but they synergize with the Faction’s blitz tactics and usage of resurrection. Their T3 and endgame units are terrifically strong and replace their Champions completely if they have the industry to do it. Therefore, focusing on making Champions that wipe out armies is essential when fighting against them.

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Comments (293):

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Nublet:

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Ex-Nub:

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Nublet:

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