Tzar: The Burden of the Crown is a Windows real-time strategy game developed by Haemimont Games and published in North America by Talonsoft. This guide covers the original Windows RTS: European, Arabian, and Asian kingdoms, resource gathering, production, hero growth, religion and magic paths, campaign play, skirmish maps, and multiplayer basics.
The important lesson is that Tzar punishes slow economy and careless hero play at the same time. You need wood and food immediately, gold and stone soon after, workers that keep building instead of idling, and an army that respects counters. In campaign missions, objectives and hero survival matter as much as base destruction.
Difficulty note: this is a beginner-friendly route into an intermediate RTS. The controls and economy are readable, but missions can ask you to defend, expand, protect named heroes, capture structures, and fight enemies with better resources or technology.
Essential Tips
1. Open With Wood and Food
Most stable starts come from solving wood and food first. Build a lumber mill where peasants can reach trees efficiently, then place fields near your castle and assign peasants to tend them right away. Wood unlocks more construction, while food keeps unit production moving.
Do not treat fields as set-and-forget buildings. They can keep producing food, but they need regular care. If peasants drift away, the food plan can collapse during the next production push.
2. Scout Resources Before You Need Them
Gold, stone, wood, and food all feed different parts of your kingdom. Gold supports technology, stone supports some buildings and structures, wood supports buildings and fields, and food supports units and some buildings. Use early exploration to find more deposits, fish, trees, chokepoints, and enemy directions.
Explored resources and enemy structures stay visible, but enemy units and siege need current sight. A scouted mine is not automatically safe, so recheck approach routes before sending peasants to expand.
3. Keep Peasants Working Across Jobs
Peasants are more than gatherers. They harvest, build, repair, and capture enemy buildings. In campaign missions, a captured building or emergency repair can change the map.
When you attack, bring peasants only after the area is controlled enough for them to work. Losing workers delays the next field, repair, or captured structure.
4. Choose a Strategic Path With a Purpose
Tzar’s advanced buildings push your kingdom toward different strengths. The Warriors’ Guild supports hero growth and experience sharing. The Merchants’ Guild supports trade, loans, banking, population-limit increases, artifacts, and later weapon technologies. The Mages’ Guild supports mana recovery, spells, and summoned creatures. Priests answer wizards and summoned units.
Do not build a path building just because it is available. Pick the one that answers the map: hero fighting, longer economy, spell pressure, priest support, trade, or population growth.
5. Respect Unit Counters
Basic unit matchups matter. Footmen are good into pikemen but vulnerable to arrows. Pikemen punish mounted units but dislike footmen. Archers kill footmen but are threatened by mounted units and pikemen. Mounted units hit footmen and archers hard but should avoid pikemen.
Magic changes the fight. Wizards can shred many units, but priests are the direct answer to wizards and summoned creatures. Priests should not be left alone against ordinary troops, so keep them behind a real army.
6. Grow Heroes Without Gambling Them
Experienced units can become heroes, and campaign heroes such as Sartor, Woolin, Ghiron, and later Vardal are central to progress. Heroism allows unlimited experience and hero creation, while Leadership shares hero experience with nearby units.
That does not make heroes disposable. Many campaign missions fail if a required hero dies. Let heroes earn experience, but rest wounded heroes in castles or outposts, use support units, and avoid sending them into counters or towers alone.
7. Use Attack-Move and Sneak Orders Deliberately
Control-right-click sends units forward while attacking enemies they meet. That is useful when moving through uncertain ground. Alt-right-click makes units move more cautiously and respond only if attacked, which helps when you do not want a group pulled into a bad fight.
Save control groups for armies, priests, siege, and transports. Selecting everything together can make your army clumsy.
8. Treat Siege and Ships as Tools
Production buildings can make siege weapons and ships when requirements are met. Peasants can repair damaged siege weapons and ships, so keep workers close enough to support expensive equipment after a fight.
Naval maps need special attention. Ships transport units, fishing boats collect food, and cannon upgrades matter when control shifts to water. Do not wait until the enemy owns the shoreline.
9. Play Campaign Objectives, Not Just Annihilation
Some missions give enemies better technology or more resources, and not every objective asks you to destroy everything. Read the goal, protect required heroes, and build for the task in front of you.
When a mission lets you capture, fortify, or build around key structures, do it. Taking a mine, castle, or forward position can matter more than flattening a base you were never required to erase.
10. Use Multiplayer Setup Options Honestly
Custom and random maps let you choose civilizations, player count, victory condition, difficulty, starting resources, fog, and exploration rules. Multiplayer supports competitive or cooperative games over Internet or local network.
Those settings change the match. High resources and explored maps reward faster production and earlier fighting; low resources and unexplored maps reward scouting, careful expansion, and worker protection.
Economy and Production
Your first loop is simple: gather wood, stabilize food, find gold and stone, then turn resources into units, buildings, technology, and repairs. A full wood stockpile does not help if food is blocked, and early troops cannot scale if gold and stone expansions are ignored.
Build near the work. A lumber mill near trees shortens walking time, fields near the castle are easier to manage, and forward structures should be defended. When you capture an enemy building, decide whether it should become a real base, a repair point, or a temporary foothold.
Population growth deserves planning. Merchants’ Guild technologies can increase the population limit, so trade can become an army-size choice, not just a market option.
Heroes, Paths, and Counters
Heroes work best when the army is still doing its job. Let heroes finish weak enemies, train when the mission gives space, and stand near units that can benefit from Leadership. Pull them back before low health becomes a failed mission.
Your strategic path should answer enemy composition. If wizards and summoned units are the problem, priests matter. If long campaign fights reward veteran units, Warriors’ Guild upgrades matter. If the map is resource-starved or team-oriented, trade and population tools matter. If you need spells or summoned creatures, magic matters, but keep priests away from melee pressure.
Campaign and Multiplayer Habits
Campaign play rewards flexibility. Some missions start with a castle and resources, some push heroes forward, and some ask you to capture or defend specific positions. Build defenses toward likely attack directions, keep producing troops while heroes are away, and secure mines before the enemy economy grows.
In skirmish and multiplayer, pick your civilization and settings before deciding strategy. European, Arabian, and Asian kingdoms differ in architecture, units, and special units, so the right plan is partly faction choice and partly map choice. On water maps, plan transports and ships. On large maps, scout early and claim resources before the opponent controls safe routes.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Do not leave fields unattended - Food production can fail if peasants stop caring for fields.
- Do not explore once and assume a resource is safe forever - Enemy units and siege still need current vision.
- Do not spend all peasants on gathering when buildings need repair or capture work - Worker utility wins missions.
- Do not choose Warriors’ Guild, Merchants’ Guild, Mages’ Guild, or religion without a map reason - Each path solves different problems.
- Do not send archers into mounted units or mounted units into pikemen - Basic counters are still decisive.
- Do not let priests fight regular troops alone - They answer wizards and summoned units, not whole armies.
- Do not gamble required campaign heroes at low health - A dead required hero can fail the mission.
- Do not move a mixed army with one careless order - Use attack-move, sneak movement, and control groups deliberately.
- Do not ignore ship cannon upgrades on naval maps - Water control can decide access to resources and landing zones.
- Do not chase total destruction when the objective asks for something narrower - Objectives can matter more than wiping every enemy.
Summary
| Category | Top Tip |
|---|---|
| Opening | Build wood and food income before chasing every technology |
| Resources | Scout gold, stone, wood, food, fish, and safe expansion routes |
| Peasants | Keep workers gathering, building, repairing, and capturing |
| Paths | Pick war, trade, magic, or religion for the current map problem |
| Counters | Match footmen, pikemen, archers, cavalry, priests, and wizards correctly |
| Heroes | Grow veterans, but rest and protect required campaign heroes |
| Control | Use attack-move, sneak movement, transports, and saved groups |
| Campaign | Play the mission objective and keep producing behind hero actions |
| Multiplayer | Tune strategy around civilization, resources, fog, and victory settings |
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5 checked for this guideEvery factual claim in this guide was checked against at least two independent sources before publication. These are the references used for Tzar: The Burden of the Crown.
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