Barbarians, the worshippers of Krolm, are reviled in Ardania. And I don’t just mean in the world of the game. I also mean among the multi-player community. Barbarians are banned from gameplay more often than someone with a 2000 ms ping or a propensity to quit 4 days into a game. The problem is that the merely adequate Barbarian player can roll over even an expert at Dauros/Agrela or Krypta/Fervus in only a few game days, even on a map designed to keep the players apart for a while. If you level the playing field and lower the starting money, the Krolm option seems fruitless. With no Sovereign Spells, especially Healing, beyond those from the Wizards, and no way to resurrect the fallen, no sensible Majesty player wants to enter a long-term game with the Barbarians as his main force. Well, who needs sense when they can have the Rage of Krolm!?!?

Barbarians can be a viable force in long-term games. Before we address how to play Krolm and win when you shouldn’t, let’s examine how you play Krolm and win when you’re supposed to: when your foolish opponent allows 20K Gold or more at start on any Last Palace Standing map. The key to winning with Barbarians when there’s a lot of money at start is that it won’t take you long at all to destroy your opponent, therefore you can ignore economy in favour of Force. This is doubly so when the map seems to preclude rushing. Take Eldritch Circles, for instance, a map whose centre is full of Daemonwoods, who are supposed to prevent the players from meeting. Well, if you have a force of Barbarians who will die if they try and go through the D’woods, what should you do? Well, you shouldn’t go through the D’woods, should you? Go around. In fact, this strategy is optimal for any small map. Assuming you’ve only a Palace and 20K+ Gold, at start, build as follows: Gnome Hovel, Rogues’ Guild, recruit 3 Gnomes, recruit 4 Rogues, upgrade Palace. While recruiting the Rogues, mark the adjacent corners with 200 or 300 Gold Explore Flags. Your Rogues should shoot into the corners. Once one is uncovered, especially if there are no creature lairs between you and the corner, build 2 Temples to Krolm in that corner as soon as your Palace goes to Level 2. Also, wait until the new Krolm Temples’ graphics are on the map, waiting to be built, before recruiting your last 6 gnomes. Although the 3 you’ve already built should help, they may get caught up doing other things. Freshly recruited gnomes will race to build your new Krolm Temples, and they’ll probably run by just about any denizen to do so, so you needn’t fear them Fleeing in Terror. Also, build 2 or 3 Statues at this point. With only Rogues and Barbarians, you’ll need the Statues to prevent your opponent distracting your troops with his own rewards.

Once you’ve raised your Krolms, recruit Barbarians as fast as possible. Having clicked the recruit button for the first time, lay the Barbarians a ‘trail of breadcrumbs,’ a series of 100 Gold explore flags leading from their Temples to the corner your opponent is based in. Spread out about 4-5 of these. Don’t worry if one or two Barbarians are distracted by lairs on the way, as this only clears the path for those who’ll follow. By the time you’ve recruited your 8th Barbarian, you should have sighted the enemy’s town. Pick something to target with 500 to 1000 Gold. Target his best defensive building, which would be, in order: a Krypta Temple, Ranger’s Guild or Dauros Temple. Or, simply target his Palace. Either way, provided you’ve gathered 8 Barbarians (more if you started with over 20K Gold, and built 3 Temples to Krolm) just target a building with a reward and initiate the Rage of Krolm. If you’ve had everything work properly, it’s about day 3, and you’re tearing down your opponent’s Town already.

A word or two on what’s missing. No Rangers, you say? That’s right. And here’s why. The Barbarians signed a treaty with the Rangers in the Back story. As a result, the practical application is that very, very high on the Barbarian behavior list is ‘defend the Rangers Guild’. If some random, wandering monster decides to take a whack at the Rangers’ Guild, your Barbarians may stop what they’re doing and head for the Guild to defend it.

There’s also no need for a Marketplace. A Marketplace will cost about 1500 Gold, plus 2000 Gold for two upgrades and about 1200 Gold for research to get to level 3. That’s 4700 Gold… otherwise known as 3 Rages of Krolm. Additionally, you don’t want your Barbarians dropping by any building for upgrades like Poison, Blacksmithed Clubs or Magical Weaponry. All you should have are gnome hovels, houses, statues, a Rogues’ Guild and Krolm Temples.

The bare bones cost of this strategy is about 7,000 Gold. Any cash left over is for RoK. 15K Gold may just allow you to win, based on being able to call 4 RoK, and using the rest of the Gold to replace lost Barbarians. But it would be very close. If you call that last RoK and your opponent survives the rush, you’ve lost. However, at 20K, you’ve 3-4 more RoKs and plenty of money to replace Barbarians. Certainly, it’s an all or nothing strategy, but 8 Barbarians in a Town on day 3 or 4 are impossible to defend, unless you also have 8 Barbarians…

More difficult, certainly, is the long-term use of Barbarians in a game where the starting money is low. Games with 15K Gold or less, especially on large maps, present the Krolm player with problems. We’ll now address how to use Krolm in this situation.

Essential to this form of play is what’s essential to all others: economy. Be sure to build your economy as well as you would any other. If you’ve played a lot of big-money, small-map Krolm games, you can fall into bad habits and forget to prepare an economic base. So, be sure to generate a quality infrastructure as you would for any Temple combination. Other articles in this series address economy, as well as articles in the series by Kit5150 (Kitastrophe) at MFO. Under this strategy expect your main expenditures to be Hero replacements and RoK. Remember, the inability to cast many Sovereign Spells will mean you save a lot of cash in that regard.

The main elements of Krolm play involve 2 things, which I call ‘The Swarm” and “3 x 2 x 1”. The Swarm is the key factor in long-term Krolm play. It comes from the aforementioned Treaty between Rangers and Barbarians, as well as the similar propensity Wizards have to Follow and Support Barbarians. 3 x 2 x 1 is a mnemonic to remember what Guilds to build. I recommend 3 Guilds be built in duplicate (3 x 2): Barbarians, Rangers and Rogues; and one Guild singly (x 1): Wizards. Two Wizards Guilds would be far too expensive, for one thing, and 4 Wizards should be enough for your strategy. As you’ll have low cash, it’ll take a while. Your Guild building order should be Rogue, Ranger, Krolm, Wizard, Krolm, Rogue, Ranger.

The main force in your army will be the 8 Barbarians from your Guilds. They are supplemented by 8 Rangers and 4 Wizards, who should Follow and Support. The 8 possible Rogues will add to the main tactic you will want to use against enemies. Because of the brittle nature of your force (Barbarians mean no Healing, and they don’t buy Healing potions as often as you’d like) there will be a lot of ebb and flow. You’ll go from having a full force of 24-30 heroes, to only a dozen or so. The strong economy is going to help you rebuild that force. Once built, how do you use it?

When two things have happened, you’ll be ready to attack your foe. The first thing should be a full or near-full force. Barbarians are essential, and provided you have almost all the other Guilds full, you’ll be ready. Next, begin a check of Hero activity. Click on a Rangers’ Guild, then click Heroes. See how many Rangers are currently “Following and Supporting”. Do the same at any other Ranger or Wizard Guild you have. If about half or more of the heroes are Following and Supporting, you’re ready to attack.

Next, be sure to have at least 2000 Gold. 1500 of it will go toward your Rage of Krolm. The rest is to be used targeting the enemy’s base. Normal sense applies: pick something away from a defensive structure like a Dwarven Settlement or a Ballista Tower. For reasons noted below on Barbarian activity, look for something just inside the outer layer of the enemy Town. Slap your reward on the target and wait a bit. Once Rogues and Barbarians begin attacking the target, call Rage of Krolm. Remember, even your Rogues will receive the benefits. In most cases almost all your Rogues will head for the target, as well as 1/3 to 1/2 of your Barbarians. When enemy heroes respond, more Barbarians will join the fray. Topping Barbarian lists of activities are ‘Interest in Reward Flags’ and ‘Battle Enemy Heroes’, so your triggering of a big fight will call more of your troops to the fray.

A bonus to Barbarian play is that once you’ve called them to the area, they rarely need more Reward Flags to coerce them to further mayhem. Getting them to a target just inside the enemy Town’s edge surrounds them with buildings and people, otherwise known as Targets of Opportunity. Again, this is due to the fact that their behavior tree has Raid Enemy Building or Battle Enemy Hero right at the top, and at near-certain percentages, like 95%.

Remember, it’s not necessary to call the Rage of Krolm immediately that you place your target reward. Using the speed bonus to get your heroes to the target is a waste. The best use of RoK is in combat. So, test your patience and wait until heroes are enmeshed in melee, or actually battling henchmen-peasants or gnomes for the Health of the structure. In practice what usually happens is this: Barbarians will concentrate on a building, Wizards, Rogues and Rangers will pick off henchmen trying to save it, whilst Barbarians will usually be first to combat enemy heroes who respond to the crisis.

Of course, if you have the money, it’s wise to spend it to entice your force to hit the critical parts of an enemy’s Town. Here are the more important targets, and what makes them such. Temple to Krypta: the Priestesses’ ability to generate distracting Skeletons, as well as access to Wither (the spell that all but negates RoK) make them your primary target. Marketplace: for obvious reasons. Often, an opponent’s only means of outlasting the Krolm player is his access to spells. No money, no spell access. And, nothing pleases a Barbarian more than crushing a 1 HP market built to replace the one he just trashed. Temple to Agrela: as a Barbarian player, you really don’t fear the Monks of Dauros. RoK will take care of them. What you want is to stop Healers from defending the enemy’s troops in his Town. No Healers greatly reduces the free Healing any enemy will receive whilst under your attack.

The successful play of Krolm in long-term games requires a complete paradigm shift from the small-map, large-cash method. In small-map games a Krolm player must forego everything in order to maximize the speed and hitting power he can generate. In long-term games he must be even more patient than the normal Good/Evil player. RoK is wasted unless used on the largest available number of Heroes. And Barbarians, strong individually in one on one fights, are maximized as a destructive force when moving in Swarms, with Ranger and Wizard support. So, as Krolm’s minion, you must coddle your forces until they’ve grown to the size you require. I recommend totaling up the money you’ll require for a maximum force. Let’s say it would cost you 3000 Gold to fill your Temples. I recommend saving the money until it’s all in your cache. Then, spend it as quickly as you can in recruiting. You want the force to be concentrated, and the longer you take to generate it, the more likely Barbarians, for certain, will wander off to do silly things.

Be prepared to see very few heroes over Level 5. The lack of Healing, and the rare purchase of Potions by the Barbarians means that long-lived heroes are rare. But as the Krolm player you’re not interested in elevating heroes to game-winning status. Your plan, backed by as strong an economy as you’d generate for any other temples, is to use the massed, RoK-fuelled strike to overwhelm military resistance and henchmen’s ability to repair.

Don’t be afraid to go for the kill. Whilst Barbarians’ proclivities do make them masters of mayhem in an enemy base, they do like the ‘lure of the lira’. 100 Gold reward flags on powerful enemy heroes defending against you can be great enticements to your army. Don’t despair that a 6th or 7th level hero is too much for your boys. Even a 2nd level Barbarian can reduce a man to ashes with a critical hit and poisoned club. You should pick an offensive type of target and stick with it. Continue targeting enemy Guilds, or concentrate on economy. Remove an enemy’s armed forces, and therefore his ability to resist, or remove his ability to pay for defense. And, don’t forget to target inns if you opt for the economic offensive. They generate a lot of cash, but are low in defense. Two RoK Barbarians can take one down in only a half dozen swings each.

Small map, large cash games are a sure win for the Krolm-using player. Offensive power is generated far too fast for any non-Krolm opponent to counter. Long-term play of Barbarians in Majesty, with a low amount of starting Gold, is a frustrating experience until you realize that the ebb and flow of your power is simply a necessity. But like babysitting powerful heroes, or creating an impregnable base, there is an art to the use of the offensive power of Krolm. It involves patience, money, timing and a lot of yelling… Krolm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!