Tactics

Learn essential Captain Blood tactics for mana management, attacking buildings with flying units, and controlling choke points to maximize your advantage and increase your chances of success on any map.

In this section, I will list various tactics that can be put to use on nearly every map in the game. Rather than repeatedly state these tactics in each individual map in the walkthrough, it will pay to use this page to familiarize yourself with them and make them second nature. Employing these in each and every map will generally make your life easier and your chances of success higher.

Mana Generation and Management:

Your Basal Golems automatically generate mana while idle, and store it for release to your own personal stores. However, when they are charged up to their maximum 10 mana, there is a fairly lengthy delay before they automatically release it to you. You will vastly increase your mana generation efficiency if you manually trigger the transfer of mana instead of waiting for them to do so automatically. Check your Basal Golems from time to time, especially in the early game where you are waiting on trickles of mana before you can initiate your next move. You will be able to produce units and put plans into action much earlier than you would otherwise, which is crucial in most maps.

A very quick way to do so is to select each Basal Golem one by one, and press the 'S' key, which is the hotkey for using a unit's spell or ability. This is vastly quicker than selecting a Basal Golem, then moving the mouse to the "Transfer" button and clicking it, and then selecting the next Basal Golem.

There is an even quicker way, but if you make a mistake it can be annoying and disruptive. If you hold CTRL and click on a unit, it will make that unit carry out the exact same order that you gave the previous unit. So, if you select your first Basal Golem, hit the 'S' key to trigger its 'Transfer' ability, and then hold CTRL and click each other Basal Golem you will very quickly get them to all use their 'Transfer' ability. However, this method comes with some risk - if you aren't paying attention and you forgot to tell the first Basal Golem to use its 'Transfer' spell before you start CTRL-clicking, then each Basal Golem you CTRL-click will be given whatever order you last gave to another unit - which could be moving into enemy territory, attacking a unit, or similar.

Use whatever method you can train yourself to be comfortable with.

Flying Attacks on Buildings:

Note: These tactics also work with Gnomes, although I generally do not recommend using them due to their very poor combat statistics.

Mystical Sites: This works best with at least three flying units. When attacking an enemy mystical site, position three of your flyers over squares that the building occupies by manually using the move command on those squares (right-clicking will make it attack, not move). You will need to leave one square of the building exposed for your units to attack it. Normally, when you destroy an enemy mystical site, four basic units produced at that site will appear in each square of the foundation underneath as a response to your attack. However, when you have a flying unit over the squares where they spawn, they will be instantly killed instead! They don't simply fail to spawn, you will hear the announcer tell you that the units were killed. Using this tactic, you will only need to dispatch a single defender after the building goes down, but you will be given the experience points for all four.

Large Buildings: Some large buildings, such as a Keep, are large enough that you can park a single flying unit on the square in the middle of the building (again, by manually using the move command instead of right-clicking). This unit will be free to chip away at the building, completely unchallenged by melee units. Note that ranged units, other flying units, and abilities such as the 'Fear' and 'Lure' spells can still affect it. The enemy is diverting their efforts away from your main movements on the battlefield if they are focusing on your lone flyer, however, which will help you push further in with your main force.

Forcing Single Units to Engage Multiple Units:

Most maps have choke points in some form or another - ranging from bridges, to narrow passages in mountainous terrain or chasms. Keep an eye out for such passages that are only wide enough for single units to pass through, and capitalize on this by positioning your own units at the "opening" to this passage so that they can all attack the same square. Generally you will be able to position your forces so that the enemy must engage three units at once with a single unit, due to the nature of Blood & Magic's engine being based on matrices, or squares / tiles.

For example:

Positioning your units in this way will mean that the enemy units must engage your own one at a time. Note that the enemy unit in the open land square at the back will be unable to get within melee range of your own units until you have dispatched the first or unless it retreats.

Units in Blood & Magic are capable of moving diagonally, so you will need three units in this particular example to completely prevent the enemy units from moving through or around. If you find yourself in a position where you only have one defending unit, you can position your unit on the bridge to block it off. This will open up the possibility of your unit being outnumbered in combat, but it will prevent most incursions to your territory.

This method is, obviously, not a bulletproof defense. Enemy ranged units can and probably will cause some chaos, as well as enemy flying units. They are able to either chip away at your formations from safety or circumvent them entirely. Units such as the Nymph or Wraith are able to use their spells to force your formations to move out of the way. However, the most powerful units in the game tend to be melee units, and this will ensure that you can deal with them in a more manageable way.

I suggest backing up your formations with support units, either in the form of ranged units of you