The Horde, the Unofficial FAQ (version 0.9)
I have prepared this faq from information gleened from Compuserve
Gamers, and Action forums, and from Newsgroup
comp.sys,ibm.pc.games.strategic.

Summary
The Horde is an action, strategy game based in mid-evil(!) times
published by Crystal Dynamics. (GAMPUBD on Compuserve), designed by
Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III.

Additional comments and strategies are most welcome.  Send info to me
at the addresses described at the end of this "faq."
I'd especially love to hear from Fred or Paul on their thoughts about
this game, especially on the origin of the names used.

Crystal Dynamics
87 Encina Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(attention Game Hints Department for Hints)

Hints pay line: 900-737-4767

Get the update patch - hordeis.exe - from Gampubd on Compuserve for
ProAudio Sprectrum sound and some minor fixes.

Most of these notes are from Yossi Oren(YO)unless otherwise noted and
Willian M Melvin Jr. with some additions from me (AE).  Some hints are
from the hint line listed above.

YO: "G'day, PC gamers.  Seemed strange that nobody was talking about
this cute game from Toys for Bob.  Seems even stranger that Romulus
doesn't have anything about it either.  Well, I've decided I'm going to
say somethin
g about Horde, and if somebody wants to add something - the 'F' is
downthere under your left index finger...First of all, in case you
haven't noticed, The Horde is a bit of Populous, a bit of SimCity, a
bit of Serf City,
and a lot of fun in general.  The soundtrack and sound effects are
hilarious (and my GUS plays them natively speeding the game up 15% so
tbphpht)."
Most of this faq is from YO.

Tips to play the game:

I got pretty far with these toys:
1. Lamb Roast [50/5] - good for stalling the juggernauts while you
thwack them.
2. Walls [20/NA] - for making "cowpens".
(AE - I only used walls, early in the game and then occaisionally)
3. Knights [30/30] - (especially in the swamp area) for extra firepower
when dealing with masses of hordlings.
4. Flamethrower [500/20] - for roasting juggernauts.
(AE - I never had much luck with the flame thrower)
5. **Flute of Schmegu** [NA/30] (follow the arrows in the swamp area
and dig where they cross) - a must from the swamp and up.  Keeps the
teenagers out of trouble and helps you catch the pirahnas.
6. Rosco [750/40] - great in the desert and anywhere you're greatly
overwhelmed. He is useless in the arctic against the Frozen Yetis.
7. Morningstar [2000/100] - Very useful in the arctic region - run to a
clean spot, play the flute and try and kill as many yetis as you can
catch.

Most of the other bonuses aren't worth their while, at least to me.  If
anybody has a second opinion, go ahead.

8. Ring of Teleportation - AE used this to keep track of and save cows
and villagers.
9. Healing Rock - Saved AE's life on more than one occasion.
10. Wimbli's Trident - AE. Costs 4000 unless you get it for free. It
was useful in the Arctic if you were careful not to destroy your
villiage.
11. Dig up the red Kudzu Fungus. It destroys the villiage.
12. You can even dig up a gofer hole.

Fast Boots (Boots of Boogy) were a help and were used almost always
when luring hordlings away from the villiage by playing the flute and
dropping haunches of meat.
The Trident of Wimbly cost 4000 and destroyed too much of the Arctic
villiage to be much use.

General Hints:

0. Never forget - your goal is not to hunt down hordlings and kill them
- it's to make sure nobody gets killed and no crop gets eaten.

1. Try working in the birds-eye view (for the setup/strategy time).
Maybe the graphics aren't as neat but you get 4 minutes instead of 2
and you save having to move around the map.
The strange desert fruit can't be found that way, though, and tunnels
are also hard to see.  In Kar Nyar dig with the map in Not-Birds-Eye
View to find the odd fruits and meat.

2. A cow will only make money if it's wagging its tail.  If it's
standing still move it somewhere else or try digging to remove the
rock.  Note that digging under rocks works only part of the time, you
can end up spending
 far too much money on it if you don't watch out!
Cows can keep grazing if you do not place them too close together.  At
first I lined them up head to tail, and had to move them all one row
down each season - what a time waster.

3. The spring invasion is only teenagers, no matter where you are.
Take advantage of that and build cowpens.  If you're in a hard-hitting
level, sell the lot when autumn arrives.
AE - I never made cowpens but found out where most of the adolescent
hordlings came in from and set up maximum cows in the opposite corner.
At the start of the Spring I would pick up the flute, and fast boots
and high ta
il it to a neutral corner and start swinging.  When possible I would
set traps there so as the hordlings came to the flute (and haunches of
meat) they would get killed in the traps (they only cost 10).

4. When winter comes, sell all cows, dismantle all walls and chop all
trees.  It will get you through taxes and allow you to buy more
bonuses. Remember to clean the whole thing out when winter of year 5
comes - down to th
e saplings.  You're not staying there, why bother with decorations?
AE - If I was particularly confident I'd keep cows through the winter.
not often though.

5. It's best to start a year with tons of money, even if it means
postponing that bonus to another year.  Set up a cowpen and you'll end
up twice as rich - if you take 4K to the field and set up a cowpen with
35 cows (the maximum, I think) you'll make 875 coins every season.

6. After you kill a hordling, run over the corpse if you see gold coins
or a blue ball.  I don't know HOW much it gives you (people?) but it
gets you somewhere.

7. Always think in terms of profit and loss - if you blow up 10 bombs
(-200) to set up a pen for 10 cows (+250) it makes sense, but it
doesn't if you set up a knight (-30) to guard a cow (+25).

8. AE - Once I got the flute from the swamp I stopped using knights and
archers much but rather lured the hordlings to hords of traps in an out
of the way place in the South.

9. AE - The Archers and Knights not only cost a lot to buy but they
cost the same amount in upkeep fees.

10. AE - Cows seem to not use up a grassy spot if they are spaced
apart, not right up against one another.

Area hints:

Shimto:
Don't be ashamed to start over and over again.  Remember your taxes are
due.
Plant trees a lot, for money.
Use fences on the north, but sparingly.  You're not rich.
Get the lamb chop if you can pay.  It's useful for luring hordes away
from business.  Remember - the chop sets you back 5, 1 field is worth
4. So don't go wild on it.
Perfect your battle technique - since a juggernaut doesn't turn and
face you unless you get very close up, try walking behind it and
hacking at it.  If it starts eating someone go wild, though.  Try not
to crash into it s
ince it won't do you any good.  If you're stuck with a juggernaut close
to your village, use chops to slow it down.

Alburga:
The spring of year 1 is the only time you're allowed to chop down
trees, since you haven't been warned yet.  Use that oppurtunity.
Don't allow bandits to lure you into the woods before you're done with
the other hordlings.  While you're chasing that one, the rest are
wrecking your village.

Buuzal:
In Buuzal you have to make distinctions between 2 types of trees - the
mangrove-looking one is holding back the swamp, keep it there;
The normal tree can be chopped.
If you uncover water, dig it into earth.
Plant trees in abundance, as they grow your land.
If they're disturbing your crops chop them down selectively, or move
them around.
Set up a knight in the west and use the flute to set the action around
it.
AE - Or set up traps to surround you while the hordlings come in and
die. This way you won't be overwhelmed by 20+ hordlings.

Lock on the shaman.  Kill it first before you get going.  It can turn
your knight against you and bring back hordlings from the dead.  It
takes 3 hits, not so hard.
(AE - If you hit the errant knight or archer you knock some sense back
into it's head and it stops firing at you!)
Listen for the distinctive sound it makes.

Don't fight in the swamp.  The swamp hordlings can harm you while in
the water, and they swim faster than you can slosh around.

Watch those frogs! When they dive below the surface there is a good
chance they will find money or gems for you. Dig there! Sometimes,
digging twice will yield two caches of money/gems.  I found
frog-chasing a good source
 of income.

Kar-Nyar:
Make sure you start the game with water on your north.  You may need to
start multiple times.
Since tunneling hordlings can't cross water you've got the beginning of
a fence.  Every turn dig a BIT (not over 4 or 5 tiles) and try to
surround your village with water.  Set apart a barren land for melee -
use the flut
e to lure them there and them Rosco and your sword to kill them.  (Or
set lots of traps.) This is crucial because it keeps Rosco from
wrecking your village. Tunnelers' headbutts HURT.  Watch out.  Since
they run in a stra
ight line try being on their sides as they pass.  If they go mad and
start running around the desert, chase them like a good boy.  Ambush
them, use the birds-eye view.
Don't let them ruin a single house. Pay close attention to your crops.
An invasion ending in 10 eaten crops is as bad as losing the game,
IMHO. I found that if you place cows at the very south (and know how to
fight fast
) you can set up a huge "ranch" without a fence.  Make sure you've got
a path set for a river, so that you can expand it as you get richer.

BTW, has anybody found a need for the strange fruits of the desert -
the blue fruit and the purple nuts?  I tried moving them around but
nothing came out of it.
**AE - Did you notice the strange VINE in the desert? Bring water to it
and it will flourish. A really neat effect. The feed Wimbli the Green
Meat, Purple pits(?) and Blue Fruit and he will give you his only
material pose

ssion - the powerful Trident of Wimbly(?).  The food can only be found
in the Not-birds-eye view.

Vesh:
Make sure you have plenty of money already since your bank roll will
not be increasing!
This is the toughest level, and it's best to remove all cows from the
area after the summer since they're in trouble.  Focus again on keeping
your village alive, not on running after the yetis. Every spring I blow
up a ba
rren piece of ice and set up a huge cowpen - it stays for 2 seasons and
makes me money.  Note that the cows can finish up a tile in 1 season in
the arctic, so move them around as much as you can.
A good battle tactic is to go to an empty spot (although a grassland)
in the south, play the flute and activate the morningstar ONLY when the
yetis get close.  Believe it or not, I came out of Autumn 3 with no
damage at a
ll.
Hit those snowball with your sword.
Vesh is six years long.  It does not end until the end of the sixth
year.  You *only* need to hold off the hordlings that long.

YO says: The save file is compressed or encrypted, I can't write an
editor, sorry.   I don't know what the cheat keys are.
The save game names have the amount of money built in the name but
changing it does not chance your cash supply.

Compuserve -
There are some save files in the Shooting Gallery section of ACTION.
HORDSA.zip has most goodies plus lots of money.

Cracks - No cracks are available (to my knowlege). The copy protection
is by location on a map, included with the game, something like
Starcontrol which the delightful and talented Fred Ford and Paul Reiche
III also wrote

  I will by any game by these guys.
After a while I got to know where things were on the map, so I did not
have to keep referring to it.  It is a pain, though.  My eight year old
son liked it.

Did anyone notice the similarity of the Queen of the Forest (Alburga)
resembled the Syrene (can't remember her name, now) in StarControl2?

Arthur Eisenberg

ArthurE@ix.netcom.com
Arthur Eisenberg 71277,145 on Compuserve