This describes the strategy I used to quickly finish Empires of Arkeia, including in legendary mode, which you unlock the same way you unlock such modes in nearly all games I know of, by completing the game in normal mode first. So it certainly works very well. That doesn’t mean that there are no better ones available, perhaps by using units that you unlock later during the normal campaign, but it was the strategy that I settled into and maintained all the way to the end of the normal campaign and then throughout the legendary one, so thought I’d also add it here, since my review of the game, such as it is, refers to it, in case somebody’d be interested, even if it’s just a little Flash game.
Early on, you’ll be tempted to do the “rock, paper, scissors” thing, looking at what the enemy sends against you and recruiting units to defeat theirs. And early on that may be the best strategy, but it’ll soon become a losing one due to the strength of the opposing armies. What you need to do past that point, and all the way while playing in legendary mode, is to destroy the enemy base as quickly as possible, which means taking twelve units across the battlefield, since the enemy doesn’t have units that can repair their base.
The best way to do that is to wait a few seconds to see which lines the enemy sends their first units on and then send a line of cavalry on one that they have no units on. Start with scouts, which will be a staple from start to end and can become quite powerful with the proper upgrades, and once you get border cavalry you can start alternating, two or three scouts with two or three border cavalry. (Ignore lancers; they’re too expensive and upgrading their damage requires the spear skill tree, which you won’t really need otherwise.)
A third unit that you need to have available at all times, as soon as you’ll unlock it, are the engineers. Since you get bonuses according to the state of your base, you should try your best to fully repair it once the enemy base is destroyed, even if that implies taking slightly longer to clear out the remaining enemy units. (Don’t rely on the fact that you can repair it after it’s destroyed, however, as it won’t restart generating gold then, so don’t let it get to zero.) You’ll earn far more experience for repairing your base than you’ll lose for taking a little more time to win the battle, though by using this strategy you should often be able to get the maximum bonus for both, particularly in the latter parts of the game.
Your remaining three slots should be filled with units that have special abilities which will help your cavalry charge. You may have other preferences here, but I used centurions, Sun priests and a ranged infantry unit that changed as better ones became available.
The centurions are also a sword unit, which can be important when it comes to upgrades, give an attack bonus to the melee units in the same line with them, which bonus can be upgraded (third skill on the bottom line), and can also be used against spear infantry, to clear a path for your cavalry if need be, though that should only be as a last resort since it’ll cause your cavalry to need to wait for them all the way afterwards.
I used the Sun priests rather rarely during the normal campaign and hardly ever during the legendary one, but they can be handy at times, particularly if you upgrade their healing ability (fourth skill on the bottom line). Don’t expect them to fully heal units, because they heal few hit points compared to the amount your units will have, but they can make a difference at times. If you want, you may try to replace them with the Moon priestesses, for their ability to reduce the damage taken, and see how that works for you.
As for the ranged infantry unit, I tended to only use them after destroying the enemy base and repairing mine, to speed up clearing the remaining enemy infantry. There’s little use for them otherwise, because they’re slower and generally more expensive than the border cavalry, plus that they may require upgrades that you won’t otherwise need in order to become truly effective.
Speaking of upgrades, since what you need is speed, the skills that increase your income, starting gold and morale generation, which are the last three on that same bottom line, are pure gold. They’re costly, but once you get these sufficiently high, you’ll be able to send a stronger and stronger line of cavalry early on and defend yourself or even repair your base with more free waves of units. Keep in mind that the skill that increases your starting gold also increases the efficiency of your engineers, and getting that all the way up means that a wave of engineers will repair 50 base points in normal mode and 70 in legendary mode!
Also because you need speed, which implies cutting through enemy units as quickly as possible, you should also put as much as you can into the relevant damage skills for your scouts and border cavalry, and don’t forget upgrading the range for your ranged units as well. Hit points help as well, and I tended to focus on them before attack, but in hindsight going the other way around would probably have been the better choice.
There may be a point, for me it was on the second island in both the normal and the legendary campaigns, where it’ll be very difficult if you focus on these units and skills, but once you manage to get past that it should become increasingly easier, and the final couple of islands will be a joke to get through, because by then you’ll be able to destroy the enemy base within seconds with this strategy, so taking over a minute to win a battle will become increasingly uncommon.
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