Wait? Did Demigod receive some new maps? No, sadly not. This is The Brothers. The only asymmetrical map in the game. This map is more interesting than most people give it credit for. In a game dominated by Cataract and Zikurat The Brothers does not get the attention it deserves. As of now, this map has not been played 500 times since the stats reset. Having played Zikurat over 100 times personally, The Brothers is an interesting alternative that simply plays differently. Exclusive GameReplays content here. Presenting tips for the ever popular map- The Brothers.

1) Looks Can Be Deceiving


The Brothers being an asymmetrical map the map must be lopsided, right? Wrong. The map only has two neutral flags. There are only two flags on this map:

The top flag:


And the bottom flag:


The Brothers is a darkly lit map, so it can be difficult to see in this shot. However, the Artifact and Portal flag is on the top next to the portal and the Celerity Flag at the bottom center.

A person just looking at this map for the first time will mostly likely come to the conclusion the Celerity Flag side is the only worthwhile endeavor. Not so much. The issue with this map is War Score. Assuming this map is being played in a 5v5 format, it is not worth your time to "rush" the Celerity Flag side. It is too well defended. This map is all about the total war attrition on the enemy defenses. There are too many towers to expect to be able to really take all the them down quickly. I recommend starting off by sending one Demigod, preferably with high movement speed to keep watch on the Artifact and Gold flag. If you put all your efforts into the Celerity Side, then you will never have this flag. You cannot expect to hold the Celerity Flag 100% of the game. Thus, you will begin to lose in War Score. If your opponents have more than one Demigod on the Artifact and Portal side, and begin to make advancements, send preferably another assassin Demigod to back up your preexisting Demigod on that side.

2) Which Path To Choose?


You will notice this path to the Citadel is rather bare. While it looks appetizing for General Demigods. I do not recommend it. Rushing this side against a good team will only probably put you back minutes of time. It looks like a minion Erebus and/or Oak could rush the Citadel but good teams can handle it. The way the health crystal is positioned is too close and the path is just too accessible to the other team. You are likely to be flanked from any other direction.



Demigod is not an all or nothing game. Its about calculated timed attacks and retreats. Trying to make a game end shorter than it should be will only cause more deaths on your team. Because The Brothers is asymmetrical, I recommend your Celerity Flag side squad to act as a clock. Psychologically make the other team aware that the end game is coming depending on your advancements. Take out all the towers on this side. Including the four in the center forming a "rectangle" as seen above. This is because the other team will use these towers as a retreat point over and over and over. Deny them that. You force them back to the crystal for a truely safe spot without that tower rectangle. Slowly but surely make your way to their portal and then to their trebuchet. The trebuchet will then swiftly take down the archer towers below it. That is right. Trebuchet. The Brothers is the only map with stand alone trebuchets.



3) Citadel Upgrades


This may sound obvious, but it really is not on The Brothers. Especially in pick up groups (PUGs) you need to make sure you are actually upgrading the citadel. This is because The Brothers is the only map where the respawn point, health crystal and item shop are not next to the citadel. People can get lazy and forgo the upgrades because it takes time away from getting back into the fight. So try to not to forget simple upgrades like this:



On large maps like these. You really need every small advantage you can afford.

Using Your Demigod

If you've ever played an RTS game before then the controls in Demigod will be very familiar to you. Use the right-mouse-button to tell your demigod to move somewhere, or if you click on an enemy unit, demigod, or structure then he'll engage and attack them. To use abilities, you have two choices. Either click the skill's icon in the left side of the UI (slow) or simply press the hot-key associated with that skill (fast). The respective hot-keys of each skill are shown at the bottom of their icon. For example, Structural Transfer as shown below has a hot-key of W. You'll find that all skills in the game are mapped to Q, W, E, and R for easy access.



You can use items in a similar way. Either click their icon on the right side of the UI (again, slow) or press their hot-key. The hot-keys for your three items are F1, F2 and F3.

Capturing the Center Flag

The first thing you should do once you've got all your equipment and items is go to capture the middle flag.



To capture the flag, simply stand next to it. A small bar will appear that shows how captured the flag is. Once the capture indicator moves into the small white area, you've captured it, and you'll gain 50 experience points, which is enough to level you up at the start of the game.

While the AI may let you capture the flag uncontested, human players will not be so generous. It would be a good idea to ask you team mates to come with you to make sure that you get the flag and no one else. Of course, once you get it, you'll need to keep your eye on it to make sure they don't take it back.

In addition to the bonus experience, holding the centre flag gives you an increased war rank by one. Your war rank determines what level of units spawn from your base. Not every level gives you new units, but holding the middle flag can mean the difference between having giants fight for you, or having to fight against them.

Assist Your Creeps

Once the centre flag has been captured, it's time to start assisting your creeps in battle. At the start of the game, most battles will happen in the middle of the outside lanes, between one of your Towers of Light and one of the opponent's Towers of Light. You should head there and start beating up enemy units to gain experience.



As you can see, The Rook -- being so big -- can often block your view of enemy units. Being the sadists we are, we like to see our enemies being crushed into the ground. To rotate the camera, hold down the space-bar and move the mouse.



Much better!

When fighting against enemy units and demigods, it's usually better to kill off the units first, then focus on the demigods on their own. The most important thing to remember is that you should never fight a battle where you are outnumbered. If the opponent has more units or more demigods than you then retreat back to your Tower of Light. Fighting a losing battle is never a good idea.

That being said, it's unavoidable that you will be attacked, and you will often run low on health and will need to return home to regenerate. The best way to do this is to use a Scroll of Teleporting. They only cost $100, and allow you to return back to your healing crystal in a matter of seconds. You should always have one on hand.

To use the scroll, click its icon or press its hot-key then left click on an allied structure (such as your shops at home). A yellow progress bar will appear, and once it fills up you will instantly teleport to the structure you selected. Beware though: stun and freeze spells can interrupt your teleporting; if they hit you before the progress bar fills, you will be stunned and will have to reuse it once you are un-stunned. If you are playing against opponents that have stun abilities then you'll need to be extra cautious when using the Teleporting Scrolls.



One good strategy is to try and stay alive until you have enough money to purchase something from the shops. This way, you can teleport back to heal, and you can buy the equipment while you're there, saving you the extra journey. Being efficient with your time is an incredibly important skill in Demigod.

Another important skill (if you can call it that) is knowing what items are best to buy. One particularly good piece of equipment is the Pantheon's Blessing, which costs $4200 to increase your health by 950 and health regen by 0.9hp/sec. The massive health boost is especially useful for weak characters like The Torch Bearer and Regulus. The Rook on the other hand may want to get armor instead, to improve the quality of his hit points rather than the quantity.

Killing Demigods

Unlike your creeps, when a demigod dies in battle, he isn't gone forever. Depending on what level you are, you will simply be knocked out of the game for a while, and will respawn at your stronghold with full health and energy once your death penalty period is over.



Also, when you kill an enemy demigod, they will drop either an energy scroll or a health potion. Health potions are little green bottles, which -- when used by your demigod -- will restore a small amount of health. The energy scrolls work in the exact same way, except they will restore energy.



One of the fun parts of Demigod is watching players fight to get to those potions first. Be sure to be standing close to an enemy demigod if you're about to kill him!

How to Push Forward

As mentioned earlier, the aim of the game is to destroy your opponents' stronghold. To do so, you'll need to fight your way past all the enemy towers. There's a few ways to do this effectively:

1. Simply push forward and beat them up with brute force - While towers are very strong and deadly, attacking them is fine (and encouraged) as long as you are attacking them with your creeps. Towers target creeps before anything else, so you should use them as cannon fodder while you deal out the damage. If there's no creeps then towers simply do too much damage to make attacking effective.

2. Use abilities that are good against towers - Every character in Demigod that we have so far has a useful way to attack towers. The Rook can use his hammer smash and structural drain to deal heavy damage while staying alive; Regulus can upgrade his range so that he out-ranges towers and can destroy them free from fire; and The Torch Bearer can use his long-range spells, and freeze attacks to pelt and paralyse enemy towers.

3. Wait for the artillery - Later on, catapultasaurii will spawn from your portals. They are long range units that essentially act like artillery. They do very heavy damage to structure and if you protect them well they will rip through enemy defences in no time at all. They key to using your creeps well is to keep them alive and protect them from adversary.



Later on in the game, it is essential that you control the center flag. As I said earlier, that flag increases your war rank, which increases the quality of your army that spawns from your portals. At the highest rank, this difference means that you spawn four giants, and your opponent spawns just 2. Giants are the strongest of all creeps and are incredibly useful at destroying enemy structures and of course, the enemy stronghold.

Conclusion

That's it for now. Hopefully this guide will be enough for you to get started with Demigod. Stay tuned with GameReplays as we will be uploading regular gameplay tips, various articles and of course the famous GR replay system. Remember, if you are looking for people to play against then check our Hamachi networks forum to find other players. If you have your own network then be sure to post it there so others can find you.

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