Environment

Sun Phases

The different sun colors of Ballerium control how fast your units replenish their sunpower (mana) reserves. During a race's good sun, the sunpower replenishes the quickest, a bad sun, no sunpower is replenished.

The sun color changes about every twenty minutes. A good leader will always be aware of the color that is approaching and alter their tactics accordingly. Take into consideration when building an army what effect the sun color will have on your forces.

Below - A table containing favored sun and adverse sun in rotation order as it is in-game.

Cities

As a new player, you start the game in the vicinity of at least one city (you can see it at the topmost zoom level of the mini-map). In order to familiarize yourself with the basic game mechanics, and to improve your chances of meeting potential allies, you should head there first. Ballerian cities provide a wide range of different services for players, with each building being responsible for one such service.

Shops

There are several shops available in Cities. In order to interact with a shop, you need to approach it with a unit, and right-click on it in the main view. The interface for all shops is similar, and is shown below.

To the left is a list of all items available in the shop, with the price in MFU – if you have enough MFU to pay for the item, the price appears in white; otherwise it is in red. Sometimes, the price column will show “N/A”: this means that the city cannot sell you that item right now because it lacks some of the resources required for it – you should either try again later, or bring the needed resources and sell them to the city. When you select an item, its description appears on the right (together with the resources needed for it – consult this list if you wish to make sure the city can sell you a special unit). When you decide you wish to buy something, click on it and then hit the “Buy” button. To exit the shop dialog hit “Close.”

Below is a list of all shops currently available in cities, and the type of items they sell:

Parnasium

This is where players recruit new organic units.

To buy a new unit, the player needs to bring one of his fighting units, or summon a Shadow Servant, to the Parnasium. Units' prices change according to availability in the city and general demand.

The Parnassium is a Ballerian tavern, where you can recruit Followers – these are warriors seeking employment by Avatars such as yourself, and form the backbone of your army: There are 28 different types of followers available for recruitment. Any follower or hero unit can approach a Parnassium and make a purchase there. Note that there is a limit to the number of units you can control, depending on your Avatar's Karma – as a starting player, you will be able to have 33 units, 3 of which can be heroes. If a certain unit is unavailable in the Parnassium, it either means that the city lacks the basic resources required to equip a warrior (usually Metalix), or that there are no more residents of the desired race in the city.

Workshop

Every Avatar will require the uses of specialized units from time to time. The Workshop supplies a variety of these; trader caravans, tower builders, war machines, and the Mine Builder.

In a workshop, just like the Smithium, you'll have to supply the city with the required resources in order for the Workshop to produce these units. Some of these units require more than 1 slot to purchase. Make sure you have the necessary control capacity if the resources are available, but still are unable to purchase the unit.

In the workshop, Ballerian craftsmen and engineers build war and siege engines, and outfit beasts of burden as caravans. Here you can find units such as cannons, catapults, and nubis or dolom caravans. Note that some of these units can be very expensive. Any follower or hero unit can approach and make a purchase in a workshop.

Unite

Smithium

Soldiers need weapons, and at the Smithium, you can equip your followers or Heroes to carry the the most deadly weapons available. Select the unit you wish to upgrade and right-click on the Smithium. Normal units are allowed to upgrade their existing weapons for ones with greater damage potential. Heroes are allowed to carry any weapon available in Ballerium.

Resources are required for the blacksmith to produce these weapons. If the city is lacking the required resources, you should mine, or trade with other cities, and then bring the resources to the Marketplace. Once all resources are in the city, the Smithium will produce the needed weapons.

The Smithium sells weapons for you to equip your Heros and units with. Just like the Workshop, resources are needed to make these weapons. In order to equip a unit, you must select one unit, right click on the building, and then purchase the weapon. If something is available you would like to have your Hero use, now is the time to buy it, money permitting. As for the rest of your forces, I recommend you wait until they reach level three and you have lots of cash from mining. You will be losing many units and once dead, their weapon is gone forever.

Expert Metalix workers create various weapons in these shops. In order to upgrade a unit's weapon, you need to send it to the Smithium, and there make a purchase with it. Note that while regular followers can only upgrade the weapon they are proficient with, heroes can buy any weapon they wish, including powerful specials like the Shockers or Adamantium varieties of ordinary swords and axes.

Marketplace

A city keeps a stock of tradeable resources in the Marketplace. From here, players can trade with the city the resources they've mined or elsewhere found. Only a trader caravan unit (Dolom or Nubis) can trade with the Marketplace. Prices can differ between the cities based on the supply, demand, and city population. To initiate a trade dialog, select your trader caravan and right-click on the Marketplace.

To the left is a list of resources available for trading (that is, either the city has them or you have them). Next are the sell and buy prices – “sell” stands for the price at which you can sell to the city, while “buy” stands for the price at which you can buy from it. In the “Amount” column you see the city's stock, while the number to the right of the “-” and “+” buttons shows you how much of the resource you trader is carrying. By using the “-” and “+” signs you can decide how much you want to buy or sell of a given resource: both the city's and your amount columns will change accordingly, showing the stocks as they will be after the transaction, as will the “MFU” and “City's MFU” fields at the bottom of the screen (note that the price may also change according to the amount you wish to buy/sell, since stocks affect prices according to the laws of supply and demand, and the prices per unit may change according to the volume of the transaction). Once you are satisfied with the trade transaction, you can press “Ok” and the transaction will take place. Of course you can always choose to "Cancel.”

Control Points

Control Points are strategic locales within a city, and are used for taking control over a city, in order to become its patron Avatar.

In order to take over a city, you need to control at least three control points yourself, and have a subtotal of at least five points between you and your allies. In order to capture a control point, you need to bring a follower or hero unit within a short distance of it, and then right-click it.

A counter will then start, letting you know how much time is left before the point becomes yours - if the unit trying to take control strays too far from the point, or is killed before the timer reaches 0, the counter is reset and the take control attempt fails. Make sure you wait long enough before giving the unit involved another command! (a common mistake, for example, is to have the unit trying to take control under the command of another unit, and then give the commander another order while being in group command mode. This will result in the commander's entire group performing whatever it was the commander was ordered to do, and will override the unit's original order of taking control).

When you try to take over a control point you are actually declaring hostilities on: 1. the city; 2. the player who controls the point (if it is not the city); 3. the city's current patron, and all his or her other cities. Now, taking into consideration that cities are usually well-defended, with powerful guard towers and militia, and that players controlling cities are usually strong and experienced players, novice players should be wary of trying to take over cities!

Town Hall

The Town Hall is the center of the city – here you can learn about the city's vital statistics (like its population's makeup or its industrial development levels), about its patron (if there is one), about its resource stocks, and more. You can also try and take control over a city (if you have enough control points, as explained above), and view/withdraw your “Patron Account.”

The point of interaction between the player and the city, forms the city core. A city always has a Town Hall, and a Town Hall cannot be destroyed. The Town Hall is where one can become patron of the city, as long as you have enough points controlled in the city itself. As a patron of a city, a player can receive taxation from the city according to its population, alter its development - defense, economic and population, as well as view the city's statistics like all other players.

Residential

The number of residential buildings in a city is proportional to its population. When a residential building is destroyed, it means that some of the citizens of the city are also killed. The city will try to reconstruct residential buildings if it has enough resources for doing so.

Academium

This is where Heroes can learn new skills, assuming they have any available glory points.

Heroes can learn all kinds of abilities, although naturally Race-oriented skills could preform better based on the units' stats.

In a city's Academium, heroes can learn new skills. The interface is similar to that of other shops, though there is one major difference – in the Academium you pay in “Glory Points,” points which you receive as your hero gains levels, and not in MFU. You can either learn entirely new skills (remember that your hero has a maximum number of skills depending on his or her level), or improve existing skills (you can purchase up to four levels in each skill) by re-buying them.

Monuments

Monuments can be found throughout the world. The people of Ballerium constructed these in honor of Great Avatars of years past. Those that control and defend these places of worship are bestowed with the gift of Karma.

You acquire Monuments in the same way as Control Points. If another Avatar has possession of the Monument you wish to control, and you attempt to capture the Monument, this will make the Avatar, and any cities they patron, hostile to you.

Mines

Mines are the general name given in Ballerium to all resource spots utilized by players to produce goods.

Ballerium's land is rich with resources such as Metallix (used for weapons), Constrix (used for construction), Food (well, you know what that's for) etc. In order to extract those resources, one should build a mine using the Mine Skill, then put in some Doloms to collect the goods. Later those goods can be sold in the cities and used for producing weapons and special units, as well as for strengthening the city itself.

Shard Rifts

Shard rifts are places out of which monsters come into Ballerium.

The first rifts were opened after the failed attempt to build a gate to another world, and ever since they keep being created. The only solution to the rift problem is destroying it completely, a process not easily performed by a single militia, and that which only serves as a temporary solution, until the next one pops out.