1 ) You can play Desert Smite 2 with any team composition up to 4v4. You can play with unbalanced teams (e.g. 2v3) and the game will take care of the balance for you.
2 ) To start, vote on the game speed:
- Normal: The recommended mode. A Typical game will last about 30 minutes.
- TURBO: Much faster, and more frantic. A Typical game will last about 15 minutes, depending on player skill.
- MARATHON: A slower paced game mode, and requires a lot of future planning. A typical game will take 1 hour.
3 ) Next, you will vote on the number of Mercenaries. Mercenaries are filler creeps that help make the game more dynamic with a lack of players.
It's recommended to add 1 Mercenary by default. Try experimenting with what works best for your play group.
4 ) After that, choose your race:
- Swarm: This race is recommended for beginners. It's a straight forward race, with simple mechanics.
- Undead: A more complex race, recommended for those who've played a few games.
- Epsilon: The most complex race. Recommended only if you're familiar with all the game's basics.
- Elementals: A highly flexible race, with medium complexity.
- Demons: Flexible, but complex race.
Races must be selected uniquely per team! If you want to select a Random Race, simply don't select an option and you'll get a random race after 30 seconds.
5 ) The game will now start. Using your worker, you can build Towers and Spawners.
Spawners will automatically create units that attack your opponent's side of the field down one of the 3 lanes. Units have very specific weaknesses and strengths - so try experimenting and look at the armour and attack types of units.
Spawners do not last forever - so keep an eye on their remaining spawns and mana to see their progress!
6 ) Your units will capture the neutral Control Towers in the lanes. For each Control Tower your Team has, you get extra gold income.
7 ) If your units reach the enemy Origin, they will be killed and deal damage to it. Destroy the enemy Origin to win!
8 ) In the Top Right of your screen, there is a timer called Escalation. When this timer expires, you will get Research Points, and new technologies will unlock. You can buy upgrades for your units, workers and towers by looking at your Portal, Spawners and Towers respectively. The value of Control Towers also increases when the Escalation timer finishes, so keep controlling those lanes!