Learn about Elysium’s Mercenaries — your trusted commanders and allies.

In Eternal Paradox, you need your Mercenary allies by your side. Mercenaries are the ones who execute the will of your castle across Elysium. You’ll use your Mercenaries to explore and gather resources, battle dangerous monsters or other players, and reinforce your allies in epic battles for conquest and glory!

Mercenaries are key to the gameplay of Eternal Paradox in many ways. In the article below, we’ll try to cover the basics of what Mercenaries can do throughout Elysium.

The Elite of Elysium

In Eternal Paradox, the world is entrenched in conflict as the eternal cycle continues, repeating each time the Ring of Ruin stops. You are but one of many challengers seeking to seize fame, fortune and ultimate power from this world. Your Mercenaries are your agents across the land — battling and exploring to expand the reach and glory of your Castle.

Mercenaries perform many actions in Eternal Paradox, and a player can have many Mercenaries they control. Some Mercenary tasks such as adventure mode or arena battles are accessed through the castle, where you can access and manage the buildings within your walls.

Other actions require your Mercenaries to venture out of your castle and into the wild world of Elysium. These field tasks will require your Mercenaries to actually travel to the location you intend to have them explore, defend or conquer.

Players can potentially earn rewards while using eligible Mercenaries in Eternal Paradox. Each Mercenary carries a silver pouch which can be filled with silver points. These points are added to your Mercenary’s pouch based on the resources you collect during any actions you’ve taken throughout a given day using that Mercenary. Every eligible Mercenary’s silver point total is then compared to the total amount of silver points across all eligible Mercenaries that day to determine its portion of the daily rewards distribution.

Each Mercenary carries their own silver pouch in the game, not shared with other Mercenaries that you may control. Pouches only hold so much though! Individual Mercenaries will each have a set maximum amount of silver points that their pouch can store per day.

Adventure Awaits

Your Mercenaries represent you on the field of battle, but not every battlefield is the same. During each cycle of Eternal Paradox, your Mercenaries can fight their way through the campaign in Adventure Mode. These turn-based battles will match your Mercenaries against increasing difficulties of enemies.

Which four Mercenaries you choose for this adventure is an important choice, but clever strategy and planning will always be critical to get the most out of your team. As you advance through each stage of adventure mode, your potential rewards increase. How high will your team advance before the eternal cycle repeats?

Enter the Arena

In the Arena you can also utilize turn-based tactics to push your Mercenaries to victory. This is where you’ll directly square off against other players in Mercenary team battles. Every two weeks brings a new season in the arena, and players will be matched against opponents who have similar scores as they climb the leaderboard.

While Arena battling is turn-based, unlike Adventure Mode, it’s also asynchronous. This means rather than needing to be present when challenged by another team, each player will select a defensive roster of four Mercenaries that will defend them from attackers. When you challenge a team, your four chosen Mercenaries will face their defenders. This makes it important that you choose a Mercenary team whose abilities synergize well with each other and is ready for a wide variety of threats.

With each Arena battle, the winning player receives points that can be saved up and spent on various items. At the end of each season, the highest ranked players can receive larger rewards based on how they performed throughout the two weeks of Arena battling.

Vanquish Your Foes and Secure Resources

While Adventure Mode and the Arena are both ways to play Eternal Paradox that are accessed through your castle, there’s also important business for your Mercenaries beyond the protection of your walls. Outside your gates await dangerous enemies, valuable resources and opposing conquerors.

Each of your Mercenaries can lead soldiers into the field. Choosing an enemy to attack will consume action points for that leader and move your troops towards your target. Once you reach them, the battle begins. Each field battle triggers the auto-battle and the result is determined based on a simulation of combat — meaning the training and growth of your Mercenary and soldiers are essential for victory.

By defeating enemies on the map, you’ll find the resources you need to upgrade your castle buildings. You can also loot materials that you’ll need for equipment as well.

Hunting down foes isn’t the only way to collect the resources you’ll need to become an unstoppable force on Elysium. Your troops can also be sent out to collect resources from various farms, mines or other production landmarks. This doesn’t require action points, but your troops will need to spend some time at the location collecting the resource before returning to the castle.

Watch out though, while you’re collecting a resource you may be vulnerable to attack! Likewise, you can engage troops controlled by other players in the field.

Rally Your Guild

You may find that some threats can’t be handled on your own, and that’s when it helps to have a team you can rely on standing by you. Guilds are communities of many castles and players, all working together towards a common goal. There will be battles that you couldn’t possibly win on your own, and your guild can help you overcome those challenges.

If you encounter an enemy in the field that is too threatening for you, you can rally your guild to arms against your opponent. The player who calls for aid becomes the rally leader, and allied guildmates can send troops to assist them in combat. This can be used against opposing players, but can also be used to defeat powerful monsters or fight to occupy powerful locations — such as the Ring of Ruin.

The ultimate battle in Elysium always takes place at the Ring of Ruin, and many Mercenaries will have to fight side by side to control the mysterious power locked within. Guilds compete with each other for glory throughout the cycle of the game, but the greatest honors are bestowed on those who conquer the Ring of Ruin.

Various activities throughout Eternal Paradox will contribute to the prestige of your guild. Players can potentially earn guild rewards each week according to their individual efforts to support the guild.

Knowledge: The First Step to Victory

We’ve only very briefly discussed some of the many actions your Mercenaries perform in the world of Elysium, but hopefully the role they play in your conquests is a little more clear. Eternal Paradox features deep and complex gameplay, and your Mercenaries are an integral part in executing a winning strategy.

Now that you’re familiar with some of what Mercenaries can do, look for another update from us soon that will give you some insight on how you can make them even stronger. Knowing your Mercenaries is the first step towards conquering the Ring of Ruin and seizing power over time itself!

Join the Discussion

Eternal Paradox

Learn all about ships in the upcoming Web3 space 4x game from Ion Games and Gala Games!

The information contained in this document is subject to change with or without notice.

Ships

Ships are the primary tool that players will use to explore the world of EOE. Ships are vital to every activity you complete, from quests and galactic discovery, to PvP combat and mining expeditions. Every player will need to use ships in EOE to move forward and progress through gameplay. There are two primary types of ships that are used at the helm of every Fleet: Flagships and Capital Ships. While these two variations have a great deal of differences and similarities amongst them, their most important shared aspect is destructibility.

This commonality ensures that every commander will think carefully and strategically about which ships they send on a mission. Do I send ships I’m comfortable losing and risk failing the mission? Do I send my star Flagships knowing I may be brigaded by enemy players? These options are at the core of our ship design.

Capital Ships

Capital Ships are your standard fleet-leading ship. They come in all standard rarities (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary), and have a level and tier, which are determined at manufacturing. Capital Ships have less statistical power than Flagships and one less module slot, but they are cheaper to manufacture, and therefore less risky to use.

Flagships

Flagships are the premium ship variation to use in your fleet. Because of their superior nature, their rarities are shifted up. There are no Common Flagships, and Ancient rarity Flagships can be manufactured. Flagships have significant statistical advantage over Capital Ships, can be outfitted with a Flagship-only module, and are tradable assets via the in-game Auction House. Although their power increase is large, it is more difficult and more costly to manufacture higher level Flagships.

Classes

Each ship, regardless of type, can come in one of 12 classes. 4 Classes fall under each Faction:

Garrison

• Commander
• Sniper
• Specialist
• Iron Dreadnought: Ancient Flagship Only

Royals

• Archivist
• Ambassador
• Guardian
• Resplendent Empress: Ancient Flagship Only

Arbeiters

• Geologist
• Surveyor
• Machinist
• Hulking Terraformer: Ancient Flagship Only

Stats

Each ship class has strengths and weaknesses that are reflected in its stat affinities. Many of those stat affinities relate to the Faction it comes from, and because of this, no one ship is strong in every stat category, and no one Faction can come out ahead in every aspect of the game. Players will need to work together with others who prioritize other Factions in order to be able to compete in all facets of gameplay. Stat Affinities are broken down into the following categories:

Discovery

• Movement
• Reconnaissance
• Diplomacy

Combat

• Defense
• Attack Power
• Agility

Collection

• Harvesting
• Storage
• Questing and Commerce

Construct Blueprints (CBs)

Since ships are all destructible, players will need to manufacture new ships each time one is destroyed. In order to manufacture a ship of any kind, you will need a Construct Blueprint (CB). Each CB will have its own parameters that dictate how it can be used, and what it will make. For example, an Epic Commander Flagship can only be manufactured using an Epic Commander Flagship CB.

Every CB can only be used to manufacture a single asset at a time, so having multiple CBs is necessary to optimize your throughput. Some CBs also have a limited number of uses. Once the use limit has been reached, the CB will be destroyed. As a safety measure, all players will have access to tier 1 Common Capital Ship CBs. This way, you can always manufacture a new ship, even if you lose all your ships and all your resources.

Manufacturing Flagships

To manufacture Flagships, players must use Flagship Construct Blueprints (Flagship CBs). Flagship CBs are unique in that they have unlimited Flagship manufacturing capability. Flagship CB owners will always be able to manufacture new Flagships for their personal use, and depending on the model, some owners will also be able to manufacture tradeable Flagships as well.

Manufacturing Capital Ships

Capital Ships are manufactured using Capital Ship CBs. Capital Ship CBs are in-game items that can be earned via gameplay like quests and daily missions, or purchased from vendors and the Auction House. Most Capital Ship CBs will have limited uses and will be destroyed once all the uses have been depleted. Some Capital Ship CBs can also produce a random result. For example, a rare Garrison Capital Ship CB has a random chance to produce any rare Garrison ship.

Manufacturing Capital Ship Construct Blueprints

Flagship CBs also have the unique ability to manufacture Capital Ship CBs. This means that Flagship CB owners can create and sell both Flagships and Capital Ship CBs to other players via the in-game Auction House. Capital Ship CBs purchased this way will typically be the most efficient for players since Flagship CB owners can manufacture Capital Ship CBs of a specific rarity, tier, and level. Capital Ship CBs earned as rewards for gameplay, or purchased from NPC vendors will typically have lower limits, produce more randomized results, or start at a lower level and tier.

Progression

Progression for ships is attached to the Construct Blueprint that manufactures the ship. Every CB will have a level and tier. Level increases are completed instantly via XP books, and can continue to be completed until the max level within that tier is reached. Once the max level is reached, players can perform a tier upgrade which costs power cores (Flagships only), refined resources, and time to complete. Once the tier upgrade is completed, the CBs stats increase dramatically and the level cap increases.

Keep in mind that Capital Ship CBs have limited uses, so after those uses are depleted, the Capital Ship CB and its progression are destroyed. Because Flagship CBs have unlimited manufacturing capability, Power Cores are required to tier up Flagship CBs. Power Cores are earned via manufacturing and using your ships in the game world.

Because one of our primary design goals is strategic optionality, CBs can also manufacture ships of lower tiers than its current max. For example, if a player has a tier 5, Rare Ambassador Flagship CB they could choose to use their Flagship CB to manufacture a tier 2 Rare Ambassador instead of the max tier they’ve reached. Players may wish to do this because the cost to manufacture lower tier ships will also be lower, reducing the risk and loss if the ship is defeated before completing its task.

Flagship Construct Blueprint Models

Flagship Construct Blueprints will be sold in the Gala Games store (date TBA). There will be 5 model classifications of Flagship CBs: Ancient, Origin, Mk2, Mk3, and Mk4 Flagship CBs. Each Flagship CB model will have slight variations in utility, with Ancient and Origin models having the highest utility and the lowest inventory. Flagship CBs will be released one ship at a time, in order of model classification. Once each model has sold out, we will not sell that model again in the future.

Ancient Flagship CBs

Ancient models are the top tier of all Flagship CBs. Their utility is completely unmatched because these Flagship CBs can not only manufacture Ancient Flagships, but they can also manufacture any Flagship within the same Faction, all while producing ships faster than any other Flagship CB. Ancient Flagships also have the strongest module in the faction, leading to major competitive advantages in combat, discovery, and collection.

Origin Flagship CBs

Origin models are the cream of the crop for all non-Ancient rarity Flagship CBs. These Flagship CBs have uncapped manufacturing capability both for personal and tradeable ships. Origin NFT owners will essentially be able to continually build and trade Flagships and Capital Ship CBs with other players in order to help maintain an economic advantage for as long as they own the NFT Flagship CB. Flagships manufactured via Origin NFTs will also have a unique module designed specifically to suit the strengths of that Flagship.

Mk2 and Mk3 Flagship CBs

Mk2 and Mk3 Flagship CBs still retain unlimited personal manufacturing capability, but they do have an upper limit on their tradeable manufacturing with Mk2s having a higher limit than Mk3s. Mk2 and Mk3 Flagship CBs also produce Flagships with the same unique module associated with the respective class, however with each higher model, the power of the module decreases.

Mk4 Flagship CBs

Mk4 Flagship CBs will not be sold until the game releases, and will not be limited in inventory, however they lose all tradeable manufacturing capability and the unique Flagship module seen on Mk2 and Mk3. Mk4 Flagship CBs also have slower manufacturing speeds than all other models. While their primary utility is worse than the other prior models, Mk4 Flagship CBs still retain the ability to produce an unlimited number of Flagships and Capital Ship CBs for personal use. Mk4s one unique trait is that they can be burned in exchange for Dark Matter Power Cores, which allows players to instantly increase the tier of another Flagship CB while circumventing the level requirement.

Below you can find an infographic of all of the Flagship CB models and their various utility traits:

See you soon with more exciting updates from the Echoes of Empire team!

Roadmap and Development Update

Echoes of Empire Discord Community