A Town Guide

Rampart

Overview: The rampart is what remains of the old sorceress' town. However, it is one of the strongest town types in the game, and its ancestry should not fool you into underestimating this town. The troops of this town type are powerful but slow. Even the faster troops of this town type often lose initiative to the faster troops of other towns. You need to climb up the tech tree quickly to get faster troops. Unfortunately, this town only has one ranged unit (albeit a good one), but every unit except for the centaur has a special ability. The magic of this town is strong, and the special buildings are very helpful. However, the buildings are expensive to build. This town needs to find a crystal mine quickly.

Pros: Best first-level troop; dwarves and dendroids are very durable for their level; good mix of fast attackers and slow but strong support troops; below average resource cost for units and structures; nearly all creatures have useful special abilities.
Cons: Only one ranged unit; seventh-level unit is very expensive to obtain; vulnerable to ranged units in early game; most units are slow.

Creatures
The rampart town type has a surprisingly good mix of creatures, but most are pretty slow, which puts emphasis on the fast pegasi and dragons. At least the centaur and the upgraded centaur captains are the best and fastest first-level troops in the game. The second-level dwarf is too slow but it can soak up damage, allowing your centaurs to move in for the kill. The third-level troops, the wood elves, are good ranged units and their upgrade, the grand elf, gets two attacks. The grand elf's good combination of speed and attack, coupled with the fourth-level pegasi's speed, make up for the rampart town's vulnerability to ranged units in the early game. The dendroids are like more powerful versions of dwarves, but are less useful because they are even slower. However, if you have the teleport spell, the dendroid can run very effective interference for the other rampart creatures. The dendroid's special ability binds enemy creatures in place, allowing your elves or your spellcasting hero to finish them off. The war unicorn is a powerful sixth-level creature, especially with its magic resistance aura. Lastly, the green dragon and the gold dragon are powerful seventh-level creatures that are immune to all but the highest level spells.

It is important to upgrade your troops, because they are otherwise too weak or slow to stand against the ranged fire of towns (like the dungeon) or the quick-striking might of a town (like the castle). The wood elves should be a priority upgrade because of this town's shortage of ranged attackers. The dwarves and dendroids should also be upgraded as soon as possible because they are too slow to be really useful otherwise. You should rely on magic to bolster your troops' effectiveness. Silver pegasi are not only necessary for the much needed speed they give you, but are also excellent for hampering enemy magic users, especially in the early game when heroes only have 20-30 magic points.

Buildings
The first three levels of creature dwellings are quick to come by, but you need both the second-level dwarf cottage and third-level homestead to build the next two levels of creature dwellings. The unicorn glade requires all the previous creature dwellings, and the dragon cliffs are very expensive and require a second-level mage guild. Thus, the early build up for the rampart player is easy, but the mid to late level buildup requires a lot of resources and more time than usual. The later buildings, with the exception of the dendroid arches, require a lot of crystal or gems, and the enchanted spring's need for crystal can really hurt the rampart player's ability to climb up the building tree. The upgrades are likewise expensive. Take advantage of the buildings that boost your dwarf and dendroid production.

The special buildings of this town type are very useful economically. The mystic pool, which has no building prerequisites, gives you random bonus resources each week, but don't count on it always giving you the exact resource you need. The treasury is also good for adding extra gold at the beginning of each week, provided you leave enough in the "bank," so to speak, so you can gain interest. The fountain of fortune boosts your luck during town defense. The resource silo produces +1 crystal, while the blacksmith builds first aid tents.

The rampart grail building is the Spring Guardian, which gives you +5000 gold each day, augments creature growth by another +50 percent, and gives all your heroes a +2 luck bonus.

Magic
The magic of the rampart town is quite strong. You aren't as likely to gain the ultra-powerful destructive spells of the inferno and dungeon towns, but you will gain very useful adventure spells and beneficial spells, like dimension door, prayer, and resurrection.