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MANUAL

by Marauder
   
 

CHAPTER 1 : HOW TO START

A. Creating your Mage

In this window the first thing you will see are the terms and some recommendations/requirements that we ask you to make your game as funny and legal possible.

Then you'll see a little explanation from every magic available for you to choose, obviously each color's guide will be published as soon as possible.

Once you read all this stuff, proceed to write the name of your mage, you secret password, the magic you would like to use, your email for your validation code and finally the country you live and the language you know (Spanish or English).


B. Validating your Mage

When you get registered in the Archmage, by providing us your email we'll send you a validation code, that, once you spent 150 you activate it and become an approved mage, if not your account will be deleted in 3 days.

This validation code is extremely necessary to avoid bots in the game and at the same time track multiplayers that had more than one permitted account. 


C. Navigating through your Window

When we are at the kingdom's screen it's very important to know how to use all the links to switch pages. This window won't refresh until you press the refresh button in your Explorer window. Be very careful with this button when you've already attacked someone or cast a spell because it can be very disastrous for you, likewise keep in mind your Status Report to know if you are prospering or going into bankrupt.

 

D. The First 100 turns

Now the first thing that you should know is that your kingdom is under protection for being a new mage. Through this way we give you an opportunity to strength a bit your kingdom and develop your empire. Of course under this stage your actions will be very limited. Firstly, you won't be able to attack another mage. Second, you won't be able to recruit any type of troop and lastly, you won't be able to buy anything in the Black Market.

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CHAPTER  2 : THE INTERIOR OF YOUR KINGDOM

A. Exploring

The lands are the spaces in your kingdom where you can build your constructions to make your kingdom prosper economically an to maintain a vast army that keep away your enemies..

There are three ways in the Archmage to get lands: Defeating another mage in battle, using an spell or an item to get them from nothing and just exploring (however you can explore indeed until the 3500 hectares, once reached this top you won't get anything wasting your turns exploring)


B. Building

1. Farms and Population
Farms make food for your citizens and this affects the maximum amount of population that can be fed. Generally and in theory a single farm can maintain 500 people. However, as you would see in the game, some troops can reduce you maximum amount of population. check the Units section in your Encyclopedia to know how many population consume some summoned creatures. The growth of you people is a constant 1.5% of your total pop by turn. Check that some other factors may alter the growth and the maximum space available, like some spells, summoned units (like dragoons or vampires) and finally the barrack's units.

2. Towns and Taxes
Towns affect the money you earn every turn. If you had less than 10% expect to gain less than a piece of gold for every habitant. Of course if you had more than 10% you'll earn more than 1 gold per pop, obviously having a relation between farms and towns. You can check the percentages in the Build menu.

3. Workshops
The function of the workshops are really simple but useful: the higher the number of workshops, the faster your buildings are made (the less turns you'll waste building something). In this case it doesn't matter the % of workshops.

4. Barracks
The barracks just speed up the recruitment rate of normal military units (militia, phalanx, etc) and some special units (depending which magic you choose). Obviously the higher the number of barracks the faster and higher the number of normal and special units you'll had (special until certain point, every summoned unit is better than an unit from a barrack)

5. Nodes
Every node generates 10 M.P. points per turn. Now this rule only applies if the number of nodes is equal or lower than the 10% of your total land. If you had more than 10% of nodes, you nodes will still generate M.P. per turn BUT it won't be 10 points. Check out too that if you build too many nodes you'll deplete the amount of M.P. your kingdom internally had. Now every node can maintain 1000 M.P. points, and if you want to know the total amount of M.P. you can had just multiplied per 1000 the total number of nodes you had.

6. Guilds
This structures helps you to decrease the time you spent researching your spells. apart from reducing the research time when you possess at least one guild, you had a little chance to get a free item. The opportunity to generate an artifact gets higher when you had a higher number of guilds. Check that the guilds are expensive, and are hard to maintain.

7. Fortress
The fortress had two basic functions: First, they gives you a bonus when defending your lands against an invader mage. If  the 1.25% of your lands are fortress, you'll had a little bonus while defending. Now if you had the 2.5% you'll had a bigger bonus. The optimum percentage of fortress is 2.5% however they are as expensive as the guilds so maintain a lot will cost you more. the second function of these structures is that they can be compared as your life. When you lose your last fortress your mage will be executed. 

8. Barriers
Barriers are structures that increase your resistance to enemy spells. If you had at least one barrier you'll had a little chance to resist any item, enchantment or instant battle spell. If the 1.25% of your lands are barriers you'll had a significant bonus to block spells and items. Now having 2.5% in barriers gives you the optimum defense yield. Note that the barriers had a higher maintain cost in M.P.

C. Recruiting Troops

You're going to need troops to defend yourself from invasions and to make attacks to another mages. There are three kind of troops in the game: basic units (militia, cavalry, phalanx, archers); special units (each magic had their own types, phantasm don't possess special units) and summoned units (each magic had different creatures and you need to know the right spell to summon them).

You can recruit basic and special units from your barracks. Although they are not as powerful as the summoned units, each unit can be very effective if they are placed strategically in your army (you can send 10 groups to a battle) Obviously there are advantages and disadvantages by having more than one group of units. If you don't have any summoned or recruited troop, then you'll be completely DEFENSELESS and any mage within range can attack you, slaughter your citizens and reduce to ash your buildings. Always let at least some type of troop to defend you.

D. Gelding

As it indicates in the name, the turns you spent gelding is for generate money to buy stuff in the Black Market or for a deposit for your units. The geld depends on the residents and the towns. If you want to know how much you will gain by turn gelding check your Status Report and see your Income, to that quantity add the total Income (positive or negative) and the result is the total you'll get.

E. Destroy Buildings

Sometimes it's really necessary to wipe out some of your buildings that already completed their objective (like guilds once you finished the research) or to try to fix your economy if you are near bankrupt. The buildings you destroy become free land so you can build other structures in there. Careful with this option because once you destroy a building you cannot undone this action.

F. Disbanding

The same as destroying buildings, once your army had completed their part in battle (often fodder units) and you must prepare for the defense, you will disband them. Take care a disbanded unit will never return and you cannot undone this. By the way any unit that consumes population CANNOT BE DISBANDED as regular units (like dragons, and many of the nether units). 

G. Maintenance: Why your units and spells may disappear

Buildings, troops, permanent spells, heroes, etc. all of them need maintenance. There are three types of maintenance: gold, M.P. and population. You can see in your Status Report you income in these aspects. Every resource had two aspects: the total you had and the total you win or lose by turn. If you had a bad economic situation you can destroy buildings, disband troops, dismiss heroes or even dispel spells to try to stabilize your situation.
Not all of your units require the three types to subsist, some need one or maybe two. You must check carefully your maintenance expenses to make sure that the expenses are not bigger than the revenues. If your expenses are bigger than the revenues you'll lose gold, M.P. or population until you are left out of resources. If your reserves ever get to 0 your units, buildings and spell will disappear. 

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CHAPTER 3 : MAGIC

A. Summoning Spells

Your mage is specialized in a type of magic, however you can learn and summon spells from other magic. However, you won't get the same easiness with this spells than the same of your magic class. There always are a small percentage of failure summoning medium and complex spells from other magic and you can only research the ultimate spells from you magic specialty. Theoretically, each magic has its opposed one. As we can see:  

Opposite magic to Eradication is Nether magic.
Opposite magic to Ascendant is the Natural magic.
Opposite magic to Nether is the Ascendant magic.
Opposite magic to Natural is the Eradication magic.

Phantasm magic is an apart case because it can have the complex units from every type of magic already mentioned. That's why their armies may be extremely varied.

Now, to summon a spell you should have enough M.P. to summon and keep it. If you summon an offensive spell to an enemy mage (Meteor Storm i.e.) you'll pay an amount of M.P. for every turn the enemy mage spend. And if you cast a spell on you (Concentration i.e.) you also have to pay a quantity of M.P. every turn you spend.
Careful summoning offensive spells. Always check the mage's number and the times you're going to summon that spell because if you make a mistake it will not be undone.

B. Using  Items

There are three types of items in the game, the unique items, that affect your kingdom while they're present (with exception of those that are one-use items), minor items that you can use at any time to help your kingdom or to damage your enemy and finally the battle items that you can only use in battle or in a defense. To know the function of each item check the Encyclopedia. 

C. Researching Spells

As we said, your mage can only specialize in one magic type but can learn some other spells from different magic if you had enough turns to research it. You can only learn simple spells from magic opposite to you and complex spells from magic close to yours and only the ultimate spells belonging to your type. It cost more turns to learn spells from different magic and you had a little failure percentage if you want to summon them.  

D. Charging M.P.

M.P charge is necessary if you have a low amount of M.P. To charge it just write the number of turns you want to use charging and just press the charge button. To know total amount of M.P. you will get just add the Income to the total Income (positive or negative). Keep always in mind that when you reach the maximum M.P. available your nodes will stop producing M.P. until you spend it summoning units or summoning spells.

E. Assigning Spells and Items

When somebody attacks you, your units will engage the enemy automatically. You can't control this action but you can help your units by assigning an offensive or defensive spell and an offensive item to harm your enemy or to improve your army.

Obviously the spells used in defense consume M.P. for every attack you receive. If you ever get 0 M.P. or items they won't appear in the battle. Now, choosing the correct item and spell for a successful defense is up to you, if you lose land, don't worry about that you can always get more exploring or attacking another mage.

F. Dispelling

This option helps you to release your kingdom from spells that are not useful anymore or to dispel enemy spells. Spells summoned by you can be dispelled without using M.P. however to dispel enemy spells you will require a random amount of M.P. Always check if you had the Ascendant spell Dispel because it gives you a bonus every time you dispel an spell. 

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CHAPTER 4: WAR

A. Limitations in the Attack; Protection

Usually you can attack mages between twice your power and those who had at least 80% of your power. This rule is omitted when you make a counter attack (counter). You get a counter attack only when you had lost in a battle defending your kingdom. You can return the attack with this bonus within 24 hours if not this bonus will be lost.
Sometimes you won't be able to attack another mage because he's in Protection. There are three types of protection: New Mage, 12 hours and 24 hours.

The New Mage protection last the first 100 turns where you can't attack or be attacked. You can also be put under protection for 12 hours if you lost more than your 25% of your total power in less than 24 hours. When this happens you won't be attacked until the 12 hours are gone unless you make a counter attack or receive an enemy counter attack. This kind of protection is only available in the Super and Mega Servers.
The 24 hours Protection is available only when you lost the 20% of your total power in battle and this only is enabled in the other servers. 

B. Attack Types

1. Pillage
When you choose this option, you'll send one of your armies to infiltrate the enemy's land to steal gold, population and items burning some of their buildings and slaughtering some population in the attack. If your attack is a complete failure your army will be detected and attacked by the entire enemy army without a chance of defense themselves.

2. Regular
Regular is the most basic attack form. You send your troops to fight in the plains against your enemy. If you win, you'll gain a little amount of land but destroying a vast amount of enemy buildings in the process. This attack is used to weak enemy armies than to gain land.

3. Siege
In this attack type you face your enemy in their fortresses giving them a small defense percentage. If your attack is successful you'll win and destroy 10% of the enemy's land, but winning an attack of this type is a bit more difficult.

C. How to win and lose battles

To win a battle you must complete two requirements: first, you must inflict more damage to your opponent than he to you, and second, your enemy must lose more power than you.

With this information you now know that, for a successful defense you must receive a small quantity of damage.

D. Some attack concepts

1. Gaining land
The total amount of stolen land you get in a successful attack depends a lot in the quantity of troops you carry to the battle and those who survive it. If you send few troops you'll win few land, however if you send a vast amount of troops you may win more lands.

2. Losing a battle without losing troops 
It is possible to lose a siege without losing any troops. If you attacked someone and kill a small quantity of enemy units, even losing none it is very possible to lose because you don't make enough damage to your enemy

3. Your enemy has disappeared
Although it is strange, it can sometimes happen that the mage you want to attack doesn't exist. There are several possibilities here, the mage can already have died in battle, chose to eliminate their bill or (like it generally happens) you have made a mistake in writing the ID. 

4. Initiative
The initiative of each unit is compared to its attack speed. Some units have two attack types. In these cases, each attack has an initiative. The units with high initiative attacked first in the battle and this way consecutively with those that have a smaller quantity. If two units have the same quantity of initiative, it will be chosen randomly which attacks first. Also check that there are spells and items that modify the quantity of initiative of the units, as much yours as those of the enemy. An unit that has an initiative of 1 and it is affected by a spell or an item that makes that the initiative decreases to zero (0) won't be able to attack neither to defend in the battle. To be able to revise the quantity of initiative for unit you can revise the encyclopedia.

5. Why some units do not attack
In some cases you'll see that some of your armies don't attack in battle. this happens for many factors. They can be paralyzed, their initiative can have been reduced to zero, the stack was totally destroyed before attacking, or the type of attack of the unit doesn't affect him in anything to the enemy unit (for example if you have troops of attack type it fights against units of flying type they won't be able to attack unless you have a spell or item that makes them fly or go down the flyers to earth)

6. Extra attack types
The units that have several attack types, used first the one that has bigger initiative, and later they will attack again with their second attack type.

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CHAPTER 5: DIPLOMACY

A. Choosing an ally

You are allowed to have 2 allied mages in the Server. If you have problems looking for a mage that can be useful for you you can post in the forums of the game in the Union of the Honor. Or simply, you can look for mages using the Arena and  send them messages requesting them an alliance among you. 

B. Registering an alliance

Once your you have found a mage with which you would like to ally you can send him a message using the menu Diplomacy, Writes the ID number of the mage and click in executing. The mage that receives your offer can accept it or reject it. 

C. Breaking an alliance

If you got tired of your alliance with a mage, either for boredom or other reasons you can break it using the menu Diplomacy. 

D. Why allies are useful

When you have an alliance with one or two mages  in each attack you make (and vice versa) they sent you reinforcements if  they have 3 or more attack groups. Also that they can make coordinated attacks in cases of war or to punish a tricky mage that walks somewhere around.

E. Joining a guild

In the Server you found that many mages are contained under oneself code. These codes are the names of different existent guilds in all Terra. The guilds are a group of mages that have decided to work together. Their motivations are different, some fight for the power, others for simple friendship and other to coordinate attacks and to slaughter solitary mages or enemy potentials. To be able to see that guilds in Terra click in Guilds in the Diplomacy menu. If you want to be integrated in one you can send a message to their leader and he will decide if it allows you to enter or not.

F. Differences between Allies and Guild members

There are few differences between the allies and the guild members. Obviously the members of your guild won't be able to send you their reinforcements in a battle. Also your you don't need to register your alliance with the members of the guild. 

G. NAP

A NAP is an acronym of Non Aggression Pact. This is a pact between two factions of mages of not being attacked mutually. A NAP is not an alliance, so they cannot exchange information or to coordinate attacks. A NAP is usually used to be able to ascend in the ranking or for not making you many enemies in the battles.

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CHAPTER 6: MISCELLANEOUS

A. Arena 

Here you can see the description and the statistics (total of acres, power, ranking) of a mage simply placing the ID number. When you play in a Server with guilds it is always a good idea to know who will attack, or maybe you can be wrapped in one of the so well-known Guild Wars.

B. Encyclopedia

The encyclopedia keeps basic information (costs, descriptions, etc.) of units, spells, items, heroes and constructions. It is an important resource to be able to use your resources efficiently to form your army.

C. Ranking

This link will take you to a screen where you'll see the top 10 mages in the Server and to those mages near your range of power, showing its totals of lands, magic types and guilds. Using this page can look for your targets to attack or simply to know how are you doing with your Kingdom or also to look for good allies that help you to prosper.

D. Black Market

1. Bidding
When you offer a quantity of money in the Black Market, another mage in the Server has 30 minutes to overcome your offer. If your offer is overcome, you will receive a message warning you that they overcame your offer and that if you want to return to offer again. Also, when your offer is overcome the money that you invested returns immediately to your bill. 
Be careful when you buy, check well as much as these placing for an item or hero because the errors won't be fixed by the staff of the game. Another thing is that you cannot buy anything in the Black Market during your first 120 turns.

2. Antique Store
Here you can buy or sell items. To sell an item click in the inferior part of the page of the Store, then place the price that you want and click in accepting. to buy an item search the one that you want, click in ordering and place the wanted quantity (minimum needs to place 5% of the base price). Some Old Items and Unique Items appear occasionally in the store, but  remembers that they are strange and they don't appear continually. Also check that you have to wait 30 minutes to be able to take the item and in that term your offer can be overcome.

3. Exotic Magic
Here it is where the basic and complex spells of the different available magic appear in the game, all with a base price. If you want to have one just place your offer and wait the 30 minutes. When winning the spell your magic level will be increased in 7 points. The higher punctuation, higher will be the creatures that you summon and also smaller the percentage that you fail a spell.

4. Heroes Tavern
The big heroes of Terra can always be found in this place. If you want to hire one you should put the money that you want to offer and click in "order". Check out that you can only have one hero's type in your Kingdom (easy to say that if you have a veteran , you cannot hire other veteran). Also once hired a hero you can't sell him in the Tavern again - any hero that is respected would never allow him to be bought and sold like livestock -. However, if you want to dismiss anyone you can say goodbye to him in the Hero section. 
Check that all the heroes (battle and no battle) win experience for every turn past and for battle won. 
Certain heroes also have abilities that they learn as their experience increases. 
Finally, all the battle heroes automatically will unite your troops in the moment of the battle. The heroes of more level usually take the control of the more powerful stack and so forth. If the stack that the hero commands is eliminated, your hero will die.

5. Swords for hire
There is always in Terra groups of mercenaries that want to make money using their abilities. In this place you can find units that are generally different of the barrack units of each magic type. If you want to hire them place your offer and click in order.

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CHAPTER 7: THRONE ROOM

A. Messaging

We provide you with a simple messaging system for any contact within your fellow mages. If you wish to send a message to anybody just write the mage's Id and send it. You can also check your incoming messages from other mages, the staff and the Black Market.

B. Options

1. Kill you mage
If you wish you can eliminate your mage, just write your password and make it so. Once eliminated your mage there's no way to undo this action.

2. Your Mage's description
Here you can write anything you want about you, like your guild rules or your own rules. A general message for the other mages and stuff like that.

C. Status Report 

Your Status Report gives you a summary about the most important in your kingdom. Here you can check your income in M.P. gold and population. It is always very important to check it to know if you had an enemy spell in your kingdom or if you're leading your kingdom to a total bankrupt. Here you can check the quantity of army and buildings you can maintain too.

D. Hero

Here you can check your hero's statistics and if you want dismiss him.

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CHAPTER 8: SOCIAL RULES

A. The Rules

Before you can play Archmage, in the moment you're creating your mage you'll see the Server rules. It's ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN to break any of these rules which in case you'll be punished.
The sanctions may vary according the rules you break. The usually is that every mage in the Server attacks you without a chance to defend yourself. Or to find a Devastating Spell summoned and not dispelled by us for several turns. Sometimes we will reduce your turns. And in serious circumstances your IP will be banned and your mage executed. If you believe that any mage is cheating send a message to the council explaining your situation to check it out and make this a clean and funny game for all.

B. Trouble logging in

Sometimes when you want to log in the game you won't be able because maybe the page doesn't load or it gets stuck. This happens because the Server is in maintenance process and for a short time is not available to work. Or maybe because there are a vast amount of mages logged in at the same time and the server doesn't had the power to work with so many operations in a single second. The only thing you had to do is wait for a while meanwhile the server is stabilizing.

C. Your authentication has expired

This will appear when the server doesn't have access to write cookies in your system. Is nothing serious, just go to Internet Options and in the Privacy side change to "accept all cookies". Once you do this the authentication message will never appear again.

D. Fallen Units

To have these special units, you necessarily have to play with a Nether magician. Wait until the spell Corruption appears in the Black Market and buy it. This will give you the opportunity to summon it in battle and to corrupt angel type units (angel, archangel and dominions). In order to have fallen units you must complete this requirements:

1) You are a Nether Mage
2) You had the Corruption spell.
3) You use Corruption as a battle spell
4) You fight against an army of angels. 
5) Corruption don't miss when you cast it.
6) Corruption is able to pass the resistance of the attacked kingdom.
7) You kill angel type units.
8) Dead angels miss their resistance to nether magic.

You can also assign Corruption as a defensive spell if you expect angels. In this case:

1) You are a Nether Mage
2) You had the Corruption spell.
3) You use Corruption as a defense spell.
4) You fight against an army of angels. 
5) You kill angel type units.
6) Dead angels miss their resistance to nether magic.


E. Log out

You just leave the game closing every record and securing your information in the server. 

F. Unique Items 

Unique items are hard to get although they're in implementation process. You can get them in the Black Market, using the Treasure's coffer or stealing from another mage. Each item had powerful effects, some positive and some negative. Soon we're going to make a small guide to explain what's the use of every Unique Item.

G. Social Norms

1. Multi attack
The multi attack concept is very simple, it's the action of attack many times to another other mage in any form (siege, pillage, spells) in 24 hours. This is only tolerated between mages and guilds in war, otherwise the multi attacker will be punished with the execution of his mage and the ban of the account.

2. Attack messages
When you attack a mage you had the chance to send him a message explaining the reason of your attack. there are few terms that you should know: "azar/random" indicates that the action is not a war declaration, it's just an attempt to gain some lands. "Counter" as the name implies the other mage is giving you an attack in exchange for the attack you made in the past 24 hours. now, in the pillages is rarely to see a message. Many of the messages are self explained, but is always wise to make the other mage know your intentions.

3. Checking descriptions 
It is always wise to check a mage's description before you attack him. By doing this you may avoid to get involved in a guild war because the may take you as an enemy and all the guild will attack you until you're dead.

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WARNING: This guide is in improvement process due to Archmage is a Beta Server. Some things may vary. If you see a mistake contact with me for immediately correction