How to Play the Battle of Polytopia

The Battle of Polytopia is a game that’s been around on mobile for many years, and has just recently been released on Steam. It’s minimalistic strategy gameplay seems simple on the surface, but in reality there’s a ton of strategy and mechanics involved with it.

This guide is for beginner’s of the game to learn how to play, and I’ll even give some basic tips and tricks to help you win more battles. 

Choosing a tribe

Starting off the game, the first thing you’ll need to do is select a tribe, and not all tribes are created equal. Objectively, the best tribes in the game are the ones known as T0 (or Turn 0 tribes). These are the ones that can level up their capital on the very first turn of the game, which almost immediately doubles their star output.

Stars are the currency of the game, and are used to create troops, purchase skills, and build your economy.  Most tribes starts with 2 stars per turn, and leveling up the capital once will immediately give you 4 stars per turn. 

Examples of T0 tribes are Kickoo, Luxidoor, and Bardur. These 2 are some of the best in the game, and I highly recommend starting as one of those. Every tribe is viable, but some of them lack resources and are slower to build economies.

Also, every tribe has a different starting skill, which you should definitely take advantage of. Some examples of this are that Xin-Xi starts with climbing, which lets you climb mountains and scout faster, and Oumaji starts with riders. You should always take advantage of the starting skill and use it as an advantage over the other tribes. 

Once you have your tribe chosen, the first thing you want to do is assess the resources around you. If you’re able to level up on the first turn, definitely take that opportunity. If you can’t, see what types of resources are around and purchase the skill that’ll let you harvest them. For example, if you see 2 animals on your land, purchase the hunting skill and wait until you have enough stars to hunt the animals. 

The type of game you’re playing also determines your strategy. If you’re playing against bots, they tend to spam units as quickly as possible and overwhelm you. If this is the case then you need to counteract them with your own unit spam. Against human opponents though, you’ll typically have time to further develop your economy. 

Early game

Send your starting unit somewhere close and start scouting the area. If you see any nearby villages, don’t capture them unless you’re severely lacking resources. Every time you capture a city, skills become more expensive, so it’s always best to buy a skill before capturing.

The map you choose heavily influences what skills you get first. In maps with a lot of water, boats should be a huge priority, or on dry maps riders should be a priority. It’s really all about assessing your surroundings and finding the best method of expansion. 

One huge mistake beginners make is they expand too rapidly and don’t develop the cities they already own. Developing cities will lead to more stars and greater unity capacity, which in turn makes you able to expand even faster.

Early game, the number 1 priority should be developing your cities and purchasing skills, all while exploring the map with a small number of units. It’s best to avoid attacking early game, but sometimes that’s unavoidable. Ruins will also give you skills, resources, super units, or battleships, so always go for these as soon as you can.

Midgame

By the time midgame rolls around, you should have a large unit capacity and most of the skills unlocked, and now’s the time to capture more cities.

Each city should have a defensive unit guarding it, and you should focus on harvesting the resources on your land and connecting the cities using roads. You can even connect cities across bodies of water by using docks, and you can put custom houses next to docks for even more stars. 

By the time you start fighting heavily, you need a good economy to support the creation of more troops. Don’t just spam one type of troop either. You should have a well balanced army with a good combination of attackers and defenders. Place your heavier units like Swordsmen in the front, and support them with ranged attackers behind them. 

Different unit types

There’s a ton of different battle strategies to use, but I’m only covering the basics in this guide. Knights are some of the most powerful units in the game since they can keep attacking if they kill an enemy on the first hit.

Basically, a full health Knight can one shot any 10 health unit and keep going until any adjacent 10 health units are dead. This allows them to easily clear catapults or any other low level unit with ease. 

Swordsman are great for their high defense and attack power, but have very short movement range. Shield are good early game, but are outclassed by Swordsman later on in the game. Archers are strong when supported by defensive units in front of them, and Catapults are insanely strong against both units and ships. 

Battleships have a long range and great attack power, and are perfect for scouting out aquatic areas. Mind Benders are good for taking over larger units like super units and Dragons, but they are very weak and can be easily destroyed by Knights.

Overall, every unit has a use and it’s up to you to create and position them in the best locations. Probably the best tip for beginners I have is to never forget to develop any cities you take. The more stars you get per turn, the more units you can send out to fight. Whichever player has the most units and the best strategy is the one who’ll win the game.