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A hotkey is a key on your keyboard that issues a command instantly. For example, if your heal spell is bound to the hotkey H, then typing the H key will select the heal spell icon, which lets you simply click on the intended target. Using hotkeys is crucial to excelling at this game. You can assign a hotkey midgame by hovering your mouse over the icon you want to assign to that hotkey and then clicking the desired hotkey while holding down the control and shift buttons. For example, if, in the middle of a game, you would like to assign the F key to your rain of frogs spell, position your mouse pointer over the rain of frogs icon in your spell bar and press control-shift-F. From now on (including when you quit the current game and start another, unless your new wizard does not possess the spell), pressing F will replace your mouse pointer with the rain of frogs target icon.
When an enemy wizard approaches your altar, Zyzyx will warn you audibly. Bear in mind, then, that your opponents will receive the same message if you approach their altars. For this reason, make sure that your attacking troops are gathered beside you before you approach an enemy altar, in case the enemy wizard teleports back to defend. If you are patient, your entire force will be there to greet him. If you have no souls with which to summon creatures but have a big need to cash in some of your existing creatures for other ones, you have several options. The safest way to kill your own creatures is to destroy them with high-level offensive spells. This is apparently cruel - but since their souls pop up blue, you can scoop them up and recycle them into the kinds of creatures you need most. Another option is to send your creatures near the enemy so that they can be knowingly slaughtered. If you keep issuing move orders to your units, they will not attack the enemy, so even a low-level enemy force can kill one of your high-level units. Once your creature is dead, cast a shielding spell upon yourself and zip in to collect the souls. During the single-player missions, special creatures, such as Sirocco the dragon, Faestus the gnome, or Gammel the gargoyle, will often join you. These creatures, while powerful, will not return to your side in later missions if they are killed. Their souls may still be used, but not to re-create them individually. Thus, you may want to reload an earlier game if they perish. Make good use of boulders, trees, huts, and other environmental obstacles as you fight. Often, some object like a boulder will be positioned near an enemy structure, and you can take shelter behind it and cast spells into the battle beyond. Sac-doctors have to wait in line, as red souls may be converted only one at a time. Thus, if an enemy wizard collects quite a few of your souls, you might find some success in circling around to his altar and killing the sac-doctors who are queued and waiting. A killed sac-doctor is replaced by the unit whose soul he was toting, giving you a creature with which you can kill other sac-doctors. Since the game rewards you when you use melee vs. ranged units, ranged vs. air units, and air vs. melee units, you may want to get a look at the makeup of your enemy's army before you deplete your entire soul supply. If you see your opponent coming with air units alone, and you have saved a few souls for this moment, you will know to summon ranged units - and this will give you the advantage. In single-player missions, use the pause command when you need to. With the game paused, you can issue orders to any unit on the field, including yourself. Pause will let you micromanage your troops in much the same way that the quick-thinking computer-controlled wizards do.
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