How to Play Guide for Tyranny

This section intends to help you get through the first hour of *Tyranny* without invoking Kyros' wrath due to delays (you really don't want to risk that, sir).

## Character creation

* *Tyranny* utilizes a classless system, where your character is defined by the skills and talents they possess, rather than an arbitrary class they belong to. Creating a character is a little bit different.
* While the game won't penalize spreading out your skills (beyond reduced effectiveness in combat), it's a good idea to have a general idea of the kind of character you want to be: Whether you want to focus on close quarters combat, ranged support, magic, and of course, whether you'd like to use your charisma and wits to get by.
* Your character is first defined by a combination of background and weapon training they received before the Conquest. Read the descriptions of each choice, as they help realize your character.
* Choosing combat skills is pretty self explanatory, however, for a charismatic type of character, the following skills will be useful: Subterfuge (deception and persuasion), Athletics (intimidation), and Lore (general knowledge and intelligence).
* Once the cosmetic section is done, you progress to the meat of the character generation: Conquest mode!

## Conquest

* This mode plays out over three years of the conquest of the Tiers, as they fall to the might of Kyros and her armies.
* The most important thing to remember is that *there are no bad choices* in this mode. Every choice alters the game world, the quests you will be able to take on, characters you meet, and locations you will travel through.
* As such, treat the Conquest mode as another part of fleshing out your character. Make the choices they would make, given their personality, background, skills, and preferences.
* Conquest will determine your starting standing with the Archons and the two armies that conquered the Tiers: Scarlet Chorus and the Disfavored.

## Controls

These are the default controls for the game Tyranny.

### Party controls

* Select - Left Click
* Move - Left Click
* Interact - Left Click
* Cancel Action - X
* Rotate Formation - Right Click
* Stealth Toggle - L.Alt or R. Alt\
* Stealth On
* Stealth Off
* Select First Party Member - F1
* Select Second Party Member - F2
* Select Third Party Member - F3
* Select Fourth Party Member - F4
* Select All Party members - F5/Backspace

### Game controls

* Camp
* Highlight Hold - TAB
* Highlight Toggle
* Slow Toggle - Num\_-
* Fast Toggle - Num\_+
* Restore Speed
* Pause - Spacebar
* Quicksave - F6
* Quickload - F8
* Pan Camera Left - A
* Pan Camera Right - D
* Pam Camera Up - W
* Pan Camera Down - S
* Pan Camera - Mouse\_2
* Zoom In - Q
* Zoom Out - E
* Reset Zoom

### Interface controls

* Toggle HUD - Ctrl+H
* Next Tab - TAB
* Toggle Console - .
* Select Previous Character
* Select Next Character
* Switch Weapon Set
* Take All - L
* Lock Tooltip - Right Click
* Next Log Tab - .
* Toggle log/minimap visibility - .
* Maximize Log Size - M
* Hotkey1 - 1
* Hotkey2 - 2
* Hotkey3 - 3
* Hotkey4 - 4
* Hotkey5 - 5
* Hotkey6 - 6
* Hotkey7 - 7
* Hotkey8 - 8
* Hotkey9 - 9
* Clear Hotkey - Delete

### Screen controls

* Character Sheet - C
* Formations - F
* Inventory - I
* Save - F6
* Load - F8
* Spire - H
* Area Map
* In-Game Menu - ESC
* Spell Creation - P
* Missives - V
* World Map
* Talents - T

## Basic gameplay

* You begin the game as you are sent to "motivate" the Disfavored and Scarlet Chorus to put down the Oathbreaker uprising - or die trying. You're first approached by Aurora, a soldier of the Disfavored. Talk to her. She is a demonstration of how the game adjusts to your choices and will remark on several of your accomplishments.
* Your character's attributes, skills, history, and gender - as well as decisions you made in the Conquest - may all open up options for you in dialogue. These options are not necessarily superior to the other responses, but give you a wider variety of choices to select from.
* Familiarize yourself with the interface. To move your character, click anywhere on the screen where your cursor is a circle of four wedges. If you see a red circle with a line through it, you cannot walk on that part of the map. As you add companions to your party, all selected party members will move to their corresponding position in the formation.

### Combat

* Tyranny uses a pauseable real-time combat system. Because you will often manage more than one character at a time, it's a good idea to pause the game, issue orders, and resume real-time to see the orders play out. The Options menu also contains many choices for automatic pausing when certain conditions are met (e.g., the start of combat). By default, Spacebar pauses the game.
* Your character can always perform basic attacks using their equipped weapon, or their fists if fighting unarmed. Characters also have special abilities and spells they can use in combat. When a character is selected, their ability bar displays their hotkeyed abilities. As new abilities and spells are gained, they are automatically added to the ability bar. All of your character's abilities and spells can be accessed by selecting the category icon at the bottom of the selected frame.

#### Dealing damage

* All attacks do a minimum of 1 point of damage. If an attack is ineffective, characters will remark on it.
* All characters in the game, friend and foe, have five primary defenses against attacks: Parry, Dodge, Endurance, Will, and Magic. These defenses are based on the character's attributes, equipped items, and other effects. A character's accuracy is based on their skill with the type of weapon they are wielding. Accuracy is compared to the appropriate defenses when an attack is made to determine how likely it is that the attack will hit.
* There are four possible results from any attack: Hit, Critical Hit, Graze, and Miss. A critical hit increases your damage, while a graze reduces it. With each attack, you gain experience in the weapon skill(s) used to make the attack. Even a miss will grant some experience.
* All attacks that do damage have to overcome the target's Armor. An enemy's armor reduces the incoming damage by the listed amount, down to a minimum of 1 point. Some armor is stronger at defending against some types of damage than others. Most enemies are strong against one or two damage types and weak against a similar number.
* The damage types are: Slash, Pierce, Crush, Burn, Frost, Shock, Corrode, and Arcane. The final type is Raw damage, which ignores armor.

#### Engaging foes

* One important wrinkle in *Tyranny* is that characters can be Engaged. When they are, they immediately stop moving. If they move away from the enemy engaging them, they will provoke a powerful Disengagement Attack. Your characters will also automatically Engage enemies when they initiate attacks against them. Engagement is indicated by arrows drawn between the selection circles of enemies. To see who a character is engaging - or is engaged by - mouse over their selection circle to display the engagement arrows.
* All abilities and spells in Tyranny have a cooldown timer that determines how often they can be used in combat. Some abilities have short cooldowns and can be used multiple times per combat. Others recover more slowly. The Quickness attribute reduces the cooldown time of spells and abilities. Ability Cooldowns reduce while the party travels through an area and when resting. Traveling between areas on the World Map does not affect cooldown times.
* All characters - friend and foe - must recover after every action they take in combat. This recovery timer is displayed above each character in combat. The length of recovery time varies based on the character, the weapon they are wielding, the armor they have equipped, and the attack, ability, or spell they just used.

### Exploration

Scouting
* *Tyranny* is as much about overcoming obstacles as it is about exploration. When exploring, it's useful to engage *Scouting* mode. This makes your party move stealthily and examine their surroundings carefully. In this mode, traps and hidden containers will be highlighted. Subterfuge is essential for a good scout.
* While scouting, your characters' selection circles will start to fill with yellow when a hostile character is starting to detect them. Once the circle fills yellow, the character is suspicious and will move to investigate while the circle fills red. If the circle becomes fully red, your characters will be discovered.
* Notably, several talents will grant your character bonuses when attacking from stealth.

Resting
* Resting will fully restore all of your party members' health, abilities, and clear all Wounds. You can use camping supplies to rest anywhere, or find locations that allow you to rest for free.

### Auto AI battle

* In the below panel, you can acquire the company to enable the auto battle feature, which addition to that there are 4~3 of way battle tactics for player.

## Advanced gameplay

Talents
* There are six categories of talents available to your character: Leadership, Defense, Power, Agility, Ranged, and Magic. With each level you gain one point to purchase a talent from any of these categories. Every companion has two or three unique talent trees too.

Reputation
* Each faction views your character in two ways: Favor and Wrath. As you gain reputation along each axis, you will reach reputation thresholds called tiers. Attaining a reputation tier can grant unique abilities to your character.

Quests
* As you receive quests, your Journal will update with relevant information. If you ever get stuck, open it up to review your notes.

Spires of Terratus
* Spires are your home base as you adventure through the lands of Kyros' Tiers. Your Spire gives you a free location to rest and recover from your travels. As you acquire more Spires, you will discover additional functionality.
* All Spires are linked, allowing you to travel instantly between them. This will reduce your travel time through the Tiers.
* Once upgraded, Spires allow workers to be recruited. Each recruit will provide a benefit when they are at your Spire, such as training skills and selling or crafting unique items.
* There are five resources you can find in Kyros' Tiers that can be used to power upgrades to your Spire. They are: Scrolls, Iron Ingots, Bronze Ingots, Alchemy Supplies, and Hide. Each upgrade uses different resources.

## Quick walkthrough

* Once you are done with character creation and the Conquest, you land in the vale. Talk to Aurora. Follow her east. Use the Lore skill check if you have at least 25 points to start building the skill up.
* Engage the first enemy with Aurora. You can attack subsequent enemies, but you will gain Wrath reputation with the Vendrien Guard.
* Follow the way down the slope to meet Verse. Have her join (additional damage dealers are always good to have). Head down to the camp to meet Tarkis Demos. After a brief exchange, you fight him.
* After he drops, head west. A Guard survivor holds a Disfavored officer captive. With 30 Athletics you can take him down while saving the officer.
* After dealing with the situation, return to the camp. You can talk to the Chorus and Disfavored commanders to meet Tarkis. This is the first of many choices that determine your standing with the factions.