Alright, I can officially beat challenging now. I am perhaps no longer a Dumb, although I am definitely still a Bad.
After a number of more matches I can say two things; this game developed a meta awfully quickly, and I want to meet the boy genius who decided 5 gold should purchase 4 EXP, just to gaze upon the face of the world’s biggest troll.
I had to uninstall this. Too addictive.
Last match I won. We had around ~10 rounds after this rearranging our armies. Only won when I could take out their Tide before he ravaged.
Hmm, on PC those buttons just show alliances, not abilities. Have you tried the book button in the upper left?
That’s exactly how autochess worked lategame. Lategame, AOE and CC are king.
This whole “builds” thing is weird, you don’t play builds, you play what the RNG gives you. You don’t sit down at a poker table and say “i’m gonna go for full houses this game.”
Early game any upgraded unit is better than any synergy.
Go to first tab on the right, the one that shows which synergies are on. Then click on the synergy itself.
Not sure how you do it from shop.
Ok so those are synergies.
There’s a lot going on here, probably more than I care to handle. It feels like I need to learn what every unit is and does in order to play. Playing vs the AI I lose like > 50% past round 5 even on the easiest AI settings, and past about round 12 I can’t even beat the creeps. But all I can see are pictures and icons, so I can’t really make informed decisions.
So what’s the game flow?
Am I supposed to keep hitting refresh on the hero selection screen until I get high level heroes? By round 15 I have piles of gold and nothing to spend it on.
How do you level heroes? I’ve never had one level up yet. How can you see XP gained, or XP to next level? Should you level heroes rather than switch them out? Do you get XP if you loses round or if the hero dies? Is XP gained per hero or per team?
I too think there needs to be more accessible information in the buying screen… but then that information is readily available once you’re back on the main screen, so can just learn as you go and try to retain the information. Once you have a piece with specific Alliances/Synergies, it’s easy to look up what that synergy does and how many pieces per tier you need - as people have sad, tab on the right hand side of the screen.
You can also click on the book icon on the left hand side of the buy screen I think that will take you to the information. It’s not ideal, but once you know what you’re looking for it’s not hard to find out what you need.
Nice. I have to say that I never got into that kind of commanding lead with a Demon strategy. Was the 4*Warlock really worth it? I would have been really tempted to drop the Necro and WD in exchange for Medusa and Tide.
So to answer some of your Q’s:
It’s not necessarily about rare heroes, it’s about levelling up heroes. Now, obviously a 2-star Blue or Purple piece is generally going to be stronger than a 2-Star common, but it’s not a hard and fast rule and generally speaking getting a hero up to 3-stars has proven a better strat than going after the higher rarirty heroes. Depends on what synergy you go for, mind.
If you’re sitting on piles of gold though, then yeah, cycle through the line-up until you find more of what you need.
You gain 1 XP per round fought. It’s a flat rate that doesn’t change, win or lose. You can spend five gold to gain 4 XP in the buy pieces screen. If you go back to the screen shot you shared. right hand side, circular symbol with a number in the middle. Shows you how much XP you have, and how much you need till next level. It should really display the +4 XP for the five gold to make it super clear.
In Underlords heroes are levelled up to the next star the moment you buy your third copy of a hero. So three 1 star = 1 two star. You then need to collect three 2-stars to level up to a three star. That typically means using a 2-star out on the field, and then ‘storing’ additional copies of that hero on your bench until you get two more 2-stars on your bench (giving you 3 2 stars overall). The level-up process is automatic, and the buy screen will tell you if you already have copies of a hero, and how many.
Generally you can do some switching out - Unless you level up a common hero fast you want to switch it out for a higher rarity, but only if you can level that as well. A 2-star common can still out-perform a 1-star higher rarity.
It’s not actually as complicated as it seems, but if the information isn’t relayed properly it can be hard to know what the questions are.
Typically, spending some time in the in-game glossary and just noting what the synergies do is a good shout, because as others have noted it’s about rolling with the RNG, so you should be able to just take what you’re given and make a plan with it.
My personal favourite synergy is ‘Elusive’, with a side-order of ‘Assassins’ if I can. In Auto-Chess it used to be Druids but they changed how it works in Underlords and now it’s well rubs.
Thanks! One quick question:
So this is confusing. I have to buy copies of heroes to level them? But then why is there separate XP?
Or is the XP something like your Team Level not individual heroes?
Yeah, XP is for team level. It determines how many units you can field and also what rarities will show up in the unit purchase screen. Higher levels means higher chance of lower rarities.
Yeah there is no hero XP, it’s… er, ‘You’ XP? Team XP. Whatever you want to call it.
Your level determines two main things:
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Your % chance of rolling Heroes of particularly tiers in the buy screen (Commons more common at level 1, less common at higher levels because % share moves over to the higher tiers).
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How many Pieces you can have on the board at any one time.
You get to level 3/4 really easy so your early gold is probably going on 3-4 different heroes, but beyond that point you’re building towards late game, you HAVE to have 2-star heroes. That means buying additional copies of the heroes you have and/or swapping them out for higher rarity heroes and buying additional copies of those instead.
Your Pawns don’t have their own XP. They only level up buy buying copies.
In AutoChess getting to three star heroes was a lot easier - it’s a lot harder in Underlords. Seems to be a combination of having a smaller bench (7 vs. 9), and probably the RNG. Seems harsher but it’s hard to tell. Don’t be surprised if you don’t get a 3-star, and you can technically win against someone who has 3-stars but it’s hard and all down to circumstance. If they have more than one though you’re probably doomed to 2nd or third place.
tldr
Go for pairs early on.
Go for gold at multiples of 10 (you get 1 interest at 10 gold, 5 at 50 gold. 50 gold is interest cap)
Some decent early-game synergy: 2 mecs (regen means each unit has about 150 more effective HP), 3 warriors. Warriors seem strong in this meta.
If you’re winning consider blowing money on levels to extend winning streak
if losing… ride it out. Losing for 15 rounds is no big deal. At 20 health blow all your gold and pray. I have pulled many wins from being dead last.
Losing streak on PURPOSE lets you accumulate gold to 50 at round 13 or so, while you slowly stem losses and buy the units you’ll need. Then at round 13 you blow your money on a couple levels and maybe rerolls and hope you turn it around.
On the flip side don’t be married to the 50 gold rule… If you’re gonna die what are you gonna do with gold… More gold management, don’t waste too much gold on the bench. if you’re at 6 gold and you have 5 gold worth on the bench sell it… You’re only gonna have room for one more unit when you level up anyway. Just sell it, you’ll get something else later.
Ok so that’s what I was missing, I thought xp leveled your heroes and didn’t know why they weren’t leveling up. Just tried it now and buying heroes to level them worked. Think that info will get me over the hump.
The hero pool is small enough, that it’s entirely possible to play a build. I’ve been playing the same team for quite a few games now. Early game anything is fine, as long as you don’t sink money into upgrading it. Nothing makes me happier than to come up against someone with a bunch of tier one heroes upgraded, and no cash about round 15-20.
The patience to build a team at round 20, vs trying to invest in one early on, is very powerful. There are a couple of early game heroes that are worth investing in for the synergies (which are also very important end game). Druids are a good early bet, because a free star level is very powerful, even late game. Trolls are another good early investment, because 4 troll synergy is insane. Rule of thumb for me is, don’t invest in a unit that isn’t going to be in my late game build.
/shrug. I can honestly say that I have never lost a game against someone that was playing a low tier hero team. Every game for me is the same, at round 20ish I’m at about 46 health, and from that point don’t lose any more.
It’s funny, when I look at a board in early rounds, it’s not the guy with 100 hit points and no gold I’m afraid of, it’s the guy with 60 hit points, and 40 gold.