Endless Legend 2 Guide | Exterminate, Armies, and Heroes Guide

Here’s a guide on how to master Exterminate, Armies, and Heroes in Endless Legend 2.

Game Guide by Jubair Baky on Oct 30, 2026

Exterminate in Endless Legend 2 is about more than defeating an enemy army. You need to deal with Minor Factions, negotiate with rival empires, decide when to declare war, and build armies that can survive the fighting. Heroes bring another layer through equipment, friendships, and skill choices. This guide covers those systems from your first diplomatic contact to developing a stronger military.

Deal With Minor Faction Villages

While exploring Saiadha, you will find Minor Faction villages inside individual territories. Move an army to a village to interact with it. You can bribe the villagers with Dust and receive one of their units, Parlay to begin a Pacification Quest, or attack and destroy the village. Completing a Pacification Quest can pacify the villages in that territory without a fight.

Endless Legend 2 Guide Exterminate, Armies, and Heroes

Attacking has a lasting downside. A destroyed village must be rebuilt before it can contribute to assimilation, and attacking can fail an active Pacification Quest. For long-term benefits, peaceful pacification usually leaves more options open.

Assimilate a Protectorate

Once a Minor Faction is pacified and its village lies within territory belonging to your city, you can assimilate it as a Protectorate. Doing so grants access to its unique recruitable unit, a Notable, and Minor Faction population. It also provides an assimilation bonus that grows with the number of qualifying pacified villages.

Those bonuses can improve Food, Industry, Dust, Science, or Influence, collectively called FIDSI. Choose a Protectorate that suits your empire. You have limited Protectorate slots at the beginning, although Technologies can unlock more. Assimilation therefore works best when you decide what your cities or armies need instead of accepting every village without a plan.

Read the Major Faction Diplomacy Screen

After encountering another Major Faction, open Diplomacy to see how the two empires regard each other. Your Public Opinion of them and their Public Opinion of you are separate values. The screen also shows Attitudes, Traits, Units, and abilities that can reveal whether an agreement will be useful or whether conflict seems likely.

The three main diplomatic categories are Treaties, Declarations, and Propositions. Treaties cover cooperation and non-aggression, while Declarations communicate decisions that can improve or damage relations. Propositions contain current offers between the empires. For refused proposals, negotiate with Dust, Influence, Strategic Resources, or Luxury Resources. The Ask Acceptable Terms option can show what the other empire requires before agreeing.

Decide Between Justified and Unjustified War

If negotiations fail, decide whether war is worth the cost. A Justified War costs no Influence but requires your Public Opinion of the target to be Very Low. An Unjustified War can be declared regardless of that opinion, although it costs more Influence when relations are favorable.

An Unjustified War also immediately breaks agreements and applies War Fatigue to your empire before the target suffers the same pressure. Check your borders, army strength, and resource reserves before choosing it. Winning one battle is less useful if the conflict leaves your cities unhappy or your other territories exposed. In Endless Legend 2, the timing of a declaration can matter as much as the units you bring.

Endless Legend 2 Guide Decide Between Justified and Unjustified War

Manage War Score and War Fatigue

War Score measures your progress through victories in battle and successful sieges. You can check it through the Diplomacy screen while fighting the opposing empire. A strong War Score makes it easier to demand terms, and a long conflict may also push the enemy toward surrender.

War Fatigue is a different problem. It increases as a war drags on and reduces Approval in your cities. Severe Approval problems can lead to rebellion, even when your armies are winning. Keep checking your settlements between engagements. If the war is consuming too many resources or damaging your economy, securing peace may be better than trying to capture one more city.

End the War Through Diplomacy

The Diplomacy screen offers three main ways to end hostilities. Surrender Demand requires the opposing empire to accept defeat and pay Dust as tribute. Surrender Offer does the opposite: you offer Dust to end a war you cannot sustain. White Peace ends the fighting without either side paying tribute.

Choose based on your progress. If the objective was to stop an invasion, White Peace may be enough. If your forces have gained a commanding position, consider a Surrender Demand. Treaties and Declarations become available again afterward, but damaged opinions do not automatically recover when the fighting stops.

Use Army Actions Before Fighting

Select an army to inspect its individual Unit cards, Health, stats, and skills. Army actions also help you decide what it should do between battles. Guard places the army in a defensive stance, improving its readiness at a mobility cost. Recuperate keeps it in place until healing is finished, while Auto-explore sends it into unexplored territory to collect Curiosities. Skip ends its activity for the turn.

Armies are useful outside combat too. Found Camp claims another territory using Influence, and a Hero can eventually Build Haven inside a city. Other actions change the landscape. Remove Forest can produce Industry for a city, Reforest plants trees for future benefits, and Clear Ridge opens blocked terrain. These actions can improve your empire during quiet turns.

Specialize Units Instead of Replacing Them

You produce most units in cities, but bribing Minor Factions can provide additional troops. Each unit has a Specialization path rather than the same skill progression used by Heroes. Your faction's units generally offer two paths, while units from outside your faction use one. Specializations may require Dust and Strategic Resources, and they grant new abilities or stat improvements.

Inspect the choices before investing. A defensive path can help a front-line soldier hold position, whereas an offensive one may suit a unit that needs to finish enemies quickly. Keeping veteran units alive matters because replacing them means losing their accumulated experience. A cheaper Minor Faction unit can sometimes occupy a risky position while the better-developed troops attack from safety.

Recruit and Equip Heroes

You begin with a Hero, and additional recruitment becomes available through the Hero's Circle as your campaign progresses. The Heroes available can be influenced by the composition of your population. Unlike ordinary units, Heroes level up, gain Hero Points, learn skills, and wear equipment. Open a Hero's profile to review their Class, Faction, Traits, and current abilities before assigning them a role.

Equipment comes from Quests, Curiosities, and Battle Spoils. Weapons, Armor, Accessories, and Consumables offer different improvements, but some equipment is restricted by Hero Class. Check that restriction before assuming a valuable item can be worn by your favorite Hero. A carefully equipped Hero can make a small army much more dependable in difficult fights.

Endless Legend 2 Guide Recruit and Equip Heroes

Develop Hero Relationships and Skills

Heroes can designate a Friend, and companions provide another form of connection. Friends can gain combat benefits when serving in the same army. A Companion can provide benefits to the Hero and empire, especially when a Haven has been built. This makes a Hero's role outside the battlefield worth considering alongside immediate damage.

There are four attributes: Might, Resilience, Intuition, and Determination. The skill tree draws from Hero Class, Hero Faction, and their hybrid skills. When you earn Hero Points, you can strengthen attributes that improve existing skills or unlock additional abilities. Choose improvements that fit how the Hero will actually be used instead of spreading points across unrelated options.

The key to mastering Exterminate, Armies, and Heroes is to use diplomacy before a war, manage War Fatigue during it, and develop specialized units and Heroes that can secure lasting victories.