You may be more familiar with Webzen as a company that focuses on socially-engaged games, especially in the sports genre — Shotonline Golf and Pooltime are just a few of their titles, and they tend to focus on the casual gaming crowd. But First Hero is a completely different type of game, and it’s one that should appeal to anybody who’s looking for an Android or iOS MMORPG that doesn’t have much of a learning curve. Still, you need not worry if you’re a hardcore MMORPG player, as this game is still loaded with features and modes that give it enough depth to be enjoyable for the serious gamer. You can take on AI opponents in Adventure mode or human opponents in Domain, and either way, you’ll be leading armies with the help of heroes from the history books and classic novels (everyone from Joan of Arc to Lancelot to Abraham Lincoln, just to give you an idea), outwitting your opponents with the best tactical strategies while you expand your capital and take over more territory.
Not too long ago, we shared with you a beginner’s guide for the game that served as a primer for anyone who’s downloaded the game for the first time and needs some assistance learning the ropes. Our new First Hero strategy guide contains nine more tips, and is more geared toward the intermediate player, though we’ve also got a few tips that we might have missed out when we were listing down our beginner’s tips. Read on, and best of luck in the battles ahead!
1. You Need To Login At Least Once Each Day
This appears to be a resurgent trend of sorts in the mobile game space, but game developers are now getting stricter when it comes to the daily login rewards. Time was, a lot of games were coming out where you could go days without playing, but still keep those daily login rewards going from one day to the next. Well, the folks at Webzen seem to be changing with the times, which means you’ll have to log into the game, even for a few seconds, at least once a day. That will allow you to keep your login streak going, until you play for the 30th straight day and get the best possible login reward available in First Hero. You don’t actually need to fight any kind of battle, may it be an Adventure battle or against a human player — just open the app, claim your reward, and you’re free to quit the game to focus on other things.
2. What Are Tactics, And How Can You Use Them?
In the world of First Hero, Tactics are special actions that you can carry out in battle, in hopes of turning the tide in your favor. For example, the Fire Attack launches 360 points of damage against the enemy over a span of five seconds, while Enveloping Attack reduces the enemy’s attack speed by 30 percent, also for a five-second timeframe. You can start developing tactics once you build your Tactics Workshop, and once there, you will start with Basic Offensive Tactics, which include the two aforementioned tactics and a few others — choosing to craft one will develop a randomly selected tactic in a span of a few minutes. Later on, Support Tactics will become available, once the Workshop reaches level 7. We strongly recommend against choosing the tactics yourself in the Random Tactics tab, as that’s going to cost you a few gems — only do this if you’ve got a lot of extra gems to burn!
You can set up your Tactics by going to the Royal Palace and tapping on Attacker or Defender, just as you normally would when setting things up before a battle. Take note that there’s a catch to placing a tactic in your formation — this will replace one of your military units, which means you’ll need to choose wisely and make sure you aren’t subbing a crucial unit for something that may or may not work! We’ll be talking about the best times to use tactics in battle later on in this guide, but for now, we recommend limiting your usage to one or two tactics. (Also bear in mind that these are one-use-only, meaning you cannot reuse them in another battle unless you’ve got multiple tactics of the same type/level!)
3. Pay Special Attention To The Laboratories
At some point while playing First Hero, you might get overwhelmed by all of the buildings at your disposal. Where should you go first, and what should you focus on before the others? We had previously told you that it’s important to keep building new military units, but what good will those units do you if you’re completing Adventure levels with just one or two stars? The solution here is to focus on your laboratories, starting with the Military Laboratory, which is where you need to go in order to upgrade the units you currently have at your disposal. Make sure you’re going back as often as possible to level up your Infantrymen, Longbowmen, Horsemen, and such, and while you’re at it, keep on taking over new areas on the map and completing Adventure levels, in order to increase your player level. (More on that in the next tip!) That will allow you to unlock better units, which could really help you once your opponents (AI or human alike) start getting harder to take out.
In addition, you’ll also need to regularly visit the Technical Laboratory (where you can upgrade your Catapults and other siege weapons) and the Tactics Laboratory (for upgrading tactics) for the very same purpose — you can’t expect to take out the enemy base quickly or expect some potentially game-changing effects if your siege weapons and tactics aren’t leveled up accordingly!
4. Your Royal Palace Level Is Tied To Your Player Level
This is a simple tip that we probably should have included in the first guide, but in this game, you can only upgrade your Royal Palace as far as your player level. For example, if you’re at player level 7, you cannot upgrade your Royal Palace to level 8 and above. As we mentioned earlier, this is probably one of the best incentives you can have to play the game regularly, as you’ll be able to do more in First Hero with each subsequent player level-up! That would mostly include being able to unlock and create new military units and tactics that could really give you the edge on the battlefield. Merely focusing on creating units/buildings and upgrading them simply wouldn’t do.
5. Replay Previously Completed Adventure Levels
Fortunately, First Hero is a game that’s kind to grinders, so if you’re looking for more resources, but more importantly, looking to level up faster, you have the option to replay levels in Adventure mode which you’ve already completed. This works best if you’re trying to three-star a level where you had previously gotten only one or two, but regardless of how many stars you got the last time you played that level, you can replay it as often as you like. And just to set your expectations, you will keep getting the same level rewards for each time you replay the level (provided you get the same number of stars, of course), but you definitely will not be getting the first-time reward while grinding! There’s a clear and obvious reason why they’re first-time rewards, after all.
6. Collect Your Strategic Point Rewards
See the pier toward the end of the city map? You’ll want to go back there from time to time, as the game will give you strategic point rewards every four hours or so. Strategic point rewards usually come in the form of resources, primarily gold and lumber, and while you may think that you wouldn’t need it, given how overloaded with resources you may appear to be at first, those rewards can come in handy, much like the money you save for the proverbial rainy day. The rewards get better as you level up, so that should be another reason for you to keep playing, and keep moving up in terms of your player level.
7. Join Or Form An Alliance
It’s fitting that this is the seventh tip, because joining or forming an alliance is an all-important social feature that unlocks once you reach player level 7. You’re going to have to construct the Alliance Secretariat building in order to take part in all that interaction-driven goodness, but once it’s set up and completed, you can then choose to form an alliance, or better yet, join one. As far as we’ve seen, there aren’t too many alliances to choose from as compared to other games, but even if the pickings may sometimes seem slim (at least while the game is still fairly new), it’s always best to look for an active alliance, so you can reap most, or maybe all of the benefits, which include, but are not limited to, being able to help each other out in your respective battles, and trading resources among alliance members. Another good tip when it comes to joining an alliance is to look for those that are based in your home country — that way, you will all be able to understand each other. Who knows? You might even end up making a new friend or two!
8. Other Ways To Earn More Rewards
This is a quick one, but nonetheless important for anyone who wants to collect more freebies in the game. We didn’t mention it in the first guide, but we’re telling you now that you should regularly check your mailbox for rewards, which may include bonus resources like gold and wood, but also Fast Tracks, which you can use in lieu of gems to expedite construction or upgrades by up to two hours. This is great if you don’t like waiting, and to be honest, who likes waiting in the first place?
You can also win Fast Tracks, among other possible rewards, by collecting stars in Adventure mode. This is why you should always aim for 3 stars in a level — not having enough stars won’t prevent you from moving from one act of Adventure to the next, but it’s certainly going to prevent you from receiving better freebies, which include more substantial Fast Tracks that allow you to skip ahead longer! (That would be the 30-minute and 120-minute Fast Tracks, to be more specific.)
9. Even More Tips For Success On The Battlefield
In our beginner’s guide, we focused on some tips that could help you out in battle, giving you a better chance to defeat human opponents, or defeat the AI with a perfect three stars when playing in Adventure mode. Ready for a few more?
As we mentioned earlier, it’s highly recommended that you limit your usage of tactics to only one or two, with the other six or seven being your standard military units like Infantrymen, Longbowmen, etc. So when can you use these tactics and get the best results? Well, we would recommend using them in the middle of the battle. As usual, it pays to have a balanced lineup of melee units, ranged units, and a few siege units to take out the enemy base, but make some room for those tactics, and don’t use them too soon, or too late.
We also mentioned in another tip that you should make sure to upgrade your units so that you can keep up with whatever the enemy has to throw at you. But you will also have to think quickly when you’re out there — take mental notes of which heroes you’ve assigned to bolster a specific unit, and know when to deploy those units! We also recommend starting with a ranged unit, then following up with a melee unit, ensuring that you line it up with the path the enemy unit is taking. That should allow you to take it out faster, while improving the chances that your base won’t take any damage. Of course, this won’t work as well if your units aren’t properly upgraded, so once again, don’t neglect that aspect of improving what you’ve got.
Once your Weapon Workshop is upgraded to level 4, you can start creating Anti-Siege Weapons, giving you an extra layer of defense against enemy attacks. Walls, while technically not weapons, are the first ones which you can use, and while they’re pretty basic, they can get the job done, as far as protecting your base from damage is concerned. You’ll also be able to create Flame Turrets much later on — you’ll need to have your Weapon Workshop at level 13 by that point, though!