Endless Legend 2 Guide | How to Play the New Sandshaper Faction

The Sandshapers in Endless Legend 2 are difficult to establish because ordinary fertile ground cannot feed them. Their Djinns of the Deserts Affinity allows Food from Sand tiles, but Sand does not occur naturally. You must locate Buried Ruins, raise them, and use Wishes to change the terrain. Once that network develops, the same Ruins provide resources, army movement, and powerful attacks against enemies.

Find a Ruin Before Placing Your Capital

Scout the starting Territory for a Buried Ruin, then settle your Capital about one or two tiles away when possible. Leave enough dry ground for Districts to spread into the tiles you will eventually turn into Sand. Ordinary fertile tiles cannot provide their usual Food yields, and lakes or rivers make nearby positions especially poor.

 

After founding the Capital, examine its Food income rather than trusting the original terrain labels. Check its yields directly, then make sure the city can exploit the new Food-producing tiles. Future Camps should follow the same basic rule: close to a useful Ruin, with water kept away from the main building area.

Raise Ruins for Permanent Resources

Move a military unit to a discovered Ruin, select it, and choose Raise Ruin. The action costs Dust and takes a turn. Once raised, it grants permanent resources that depend on its type and location. One example provides four Dust, two Science, and one Influence. These empire-wide benefits apply even when the Ruin sits outside your controlled Territories, including land held by another faction.

Your Ancient Wisdom progress tracks Raised and Restored Ruins. However, avoid spending your entire treasury on restoration before your cities can make use of it.

Use Wish of Awakening to Produce Food

Use Wish of Awakening on a Raised Ruin to turn the surrounding tiles into Sand. The first use starts at 100 Dust. Repeated uses cost more but expand the converted area, eventually reaching roughly three tiles from the monument. Terrain features remain, while the Sand supplies Food that your faction could not otherwise obtain.

Use the first casts beside your Capital or a Camp that can exploit the transformed ground. Casting on distant Ruins can reshape remote terrain, but does not feed a city without access to those tiles. A productive settlement is more valuable than a huge desert too far away to work.

Restore the Most Useful Ruins

After unlocking Wish of Past Grandeur, you can upgrade a Raised Ruin into a Restored Ruin. This is more expensive than simply raising it. Restoring doubles the Ruin's empire-wide resource bonus, while additional local effects depend on its type. Do not restore every monument immediately; first inspect which city or resource deposits would benefit.

A Ruin of Perception gives Science to adjacent owned tiles and improves Science from Scribes in its city. A Ruin of Eminence adds Influence to adjacent owned tiles and strengthens Extractor production. A Ruin of Abundance gives Dust around it and adds Population job capacity. Eminence is especially useful near several deposits, while Perception fits a city already specializing in research.

Turn Restored Ruins Into Travel and Attack Points

As you raise more monuments, you unlock a Wish that teleports a selected army to any Restored Ruin. This works across long distances and can even use a Ruin in enemy territory. Restore a few strategically placed monuments so scouts can return quickly, threatened cities can receive reinforcements, and attacking armies can appear beyond a rival's front line.

At sixteen Raised or Restored Ruins, Wish of Subterfuge becomes available. It transforms tiles around a Restored Ruin into Glass and damages enemies caught in the affected area. Glass can generate both Science and Food for the Sandshapers, making this useful for developing your own land as well as attacking enemies. The Wish is expensive and can be used only once per turn, so choose the location carefully.

Keep Away From Water and Build Dams

Aquaphobic removes basic yields from tiles next to rivers and lakes, even when those tiles have become Sand. For a normal settlement, keep the main District area at least two tiles from water where possible. A lakeside Ruin may provide fewer usable tiles than an inland one, no matter how much Dust you spend on terraforming.

The faction also cannot build Bridges or cross rivers normally. Research Wind Divination early to unlock Dams and make expansion easier. Order a military unit to construct a Dam on a river. It dries the river downstream from its location, restoring the usefulness of affected terrain and opening a path for your armies. A Dam placed farther upstream usually covers more ground.

Research Discounts and Grow Your Influence

Wind Divination also reduces the Influence cost of founding Camps by 25%, making it valuable before you begin claiming many Territories. Sand Whispering reduces the Dust cost of raising Ruins by 30% and improves the Dust they provide. Prioritize these early, then choose faction technologies that increase Food, Sand yields, and Ruin production as your network grows.

At fifteen Population, another per-Population Influence bonus becomes available; at thirty, cities containing Sandshapers receive an additional percentage bonus. During Monsoon, Storm Cursed makes construction more expensive, so use those turns for exploration or military action when sensible. Lands of the Past helps reveal newly exposed terrain after Tidefall, giving you an early direction for expansion.

Develop Extractors and Assign Councilors

Do not overlook Strategic and Luxury Resource deposits. Operative Extractors produce Food for the Sandshapers in addition to their normal resources. With sufficient Population, a Chapel Improvement increases their value through Industry and Approval. Restored Ruins of Eminence can strengthen the same Extractors, so a Territory packed with deposits may become more useful than one with an attractive-looking shoreline.

Choose Councilors who support wide expansion, especially those reducing City Cap Approval penalties or improving output across several Territories. Reassign them as the empire grows. Watch Approval rather than founding cities recklessly; a large empire still needs its settlements productive enough to support the next stage of conquest.

Fight Defensively With Sandshaper Units

The Blackwind is a flying scout with Stunning Defense, making it useful for locating Ruins and pushing attackers away. Shards and ranged Sandweavers have Sandshift, a short teleport that helps them escape danger or take better positions. Rock Chrysalid gives defensive shielding, with greater benefits on Sand. Fighting through the Pain also helps your infantry and ranged units remain effective when injured.

Later, Vitreous Titans become your toughest frontline troops. Stony Effigy grants them shielding at the start of battle rounds, making them hard to dislodge, particularly on Sand. Most importantly, Stone Stance deals eight Defense-ignoring damage to every adjacent enemy at the end of the round. Place several durable units beside an enemy, defend, and let the repeated damage weaken its forces. This works better than chasing enemies with troops designed to hold ground.

Defend the Ruins and Terraform Later Territories

Raised and Restored Ruins can be destroyed or taken over by hostile Sandshapers. Protect important monuments, especially those outside your borders or supporting your teleport network. When you unlock the Sandstorm landscaping action later in the campaign, you can also convert an entire Territory into Sand over several turns. This provides an alternative when the available Ruin is poorly placed, and your city still needs Food.

The Sandshapers succeed by settling near Ruins, raising monuments for permanent income, creating Food-producing Sand, and using Restored Ruins to support expansion and defensive warfare.

FAQ

Q. Why does my Sandshaper city have almost no Food?

A. Only Sand tiles provide normal tile Food, and Aquaphobic removes yields beside rivers and lakes. Use Wish of Awakening near workable land and develop Resource Extractors.

Q. Can you raise a Ruin outside your territory?

A. Yes. A Raised Ruin grants its empire-wide resource bonuses even on foreign land, although it remains vulnerable to enemy action.

Q. Should every Raised Ruin be restored immediately?

A. No. Restore Ruins whose local bonuses benefit a city, or whose positions make them useful teleport destinations. Raising alone already provides resources.

Q. Can Sandshapers cross rivers without Bridges?

A. They cannot use ordinary Bridges. Construct a Dam to dry the downstream riverbed and open the route.

Q. How do Sandshapers deal damage while defending?

A. Stone Stance damages all adjacent enemies for eight points at the end of a battle round, ignoring Defense. Several units can apply that damage to the same enemy.