How to play Exodus

The community commonly refers to the third scheduled battle as the “finalka.”

Follow this progression to improve your Exodus gameplay:

1. Build an upgraded Tier 1 power stack. The current meta favors collecting basic units from both starting towns and combining them with the free town-portal spell.
2. Prioritize experience over gold until your main hero reaches level 6.
3. Stay close to roads during Week 1. Limit off-road scouting to high-value targets such as easy gold objects, Pandora’s Boxes, and creature dwellings reachable within roughly 50% of a day’s movement.
4. Capture your third town during Week 1. The standard timing is M1W1D3 or M1W1D4.
5. Recruit several Tier 1 trade stacks from the third town and use them to absorb losses in future map fights.
6. Break into the biome during Week 2. Elite-level timing can be as early as M1W1D7.
7. Unlock second-wind and build a Mage Guild in the third town before entering the biome. Both are important for scouting the richer zone efficiently.
8. Prioritize scouting and zone progression over preparation for the first PvP duel.
9. Continue developing your towns and increasing your main army stacks.
10. Find your Desert break and plan the timing in advance.
11. Most factions need only a few main power stacks and one high-initiative stack to clear the map efficiently. The current meta often favors leaving off-stack creatures in town to avoid unnecessary losses before PvP battles.
12. After maxing second-wind, plan around double casting whenever possible. The current meta favors ending turns in towns with Mage Guilds to restore mana before the next day.
13. After entering the Desert, off-road scouting becomes much more valuable. Artifacts and resources should now receive significantly higher priority.
14. Before the third PvP battle, consider building Artifact Merchants to search for missing set pieces.
15. Convert excess resources into gold when you are ready to recruit your full army.
16. Upgrade your key artifacts with Alchemical Dust. Destroy unused artifacts if you need additional dust.

Before every PvP battle, replace utility artifacts with combat-focused equipment.

After the battle begins, return to your normal adventure-map setup.

The most common mistake at lower MMR is overpreparing for the first PvP battle.

Do not sacrifice scouting or delay your next zone break for a small advantage in Fight 1. Avoid converting large amounts of resources into gold, recruiting off-stack creatures only for the opening duel, or spending Alchemical Dust on early artifact upgrades.

Preserve your economy instead. Keep enough gold for a smooth town build order, future creature recruitment, and faster progression into richer zones.

Creature growth begins accumulating as soon as the dwelling is flagged.

Remember to recruit these units before scheduled PvP battles.

A known bug may prevent the recruitment window from appearing immediately after defeating the guard. Interact with the dwelling again to open it manually.

You will rarely have enough movement to return to Arborcopia later.

The teleporter section of the Desert usually contains Legendary artifacts needed to complete sets, while the final turns before the last duel are also required to collect army growth from all faction towns.

Recommended high-level progression:

1. Unlock second-wind.
2. Max out second-wind to gain double casting.
3. Unlock shadowflight. This is one of the most common late-game win conditions, and many matches end before players progress beyond this point.
4. Max out shadowflight.
5. Unlock dimension-door.
6. Max out dimension-door.
7. Unlock town-portal and continue upgrading it. Reaching this stage is rare and usually requires heavy investment into Astrology economy buildings.