A wizard requires two resources in order to make a successful conquest: mana and souls. Mana, or magic energy, allows you to cast spells and regenerate your powers in order to cast more spells to support your troops. You can receive mana from your altar, which is your home base--but this is a slow and unwise option, forcing you to cling to your base. With that in mind, the designers created numerous mana fountains across the landscape, from which you can draw more mana. In order to secure this resource, you must build manaliths on top of the fountains, so that other wizards cannot utilize your now-monopolized resource. Still, it is hardly convenient to run back and forth from battle to these fountains, especially since some of your troops, such as those with special abilities, require mana to kill foes. Therefore, as a wizard you must summon into existence creatures called manahoars, which possess psychic powers that allow them to "carry" the power of the mana resource from fountains to you directly, via telepathy. To complicate affairs, you must concurrently gather souls in order to have any chance of defeating enemy wizards. These can be obtained by converting the impure souls of dead enemies, which requires some time as the soul needs to be purified by a Sacrifice-Doctor, who takes the soul back to your altar. You can also collect pure souls, those of your fallen comrades, and immediately convert them into a useful unit. Collecting souls is an essential, decisive aspect of gameplay; since they are limited in number, you must obtain an overwhelming proportion of souls in order to deprive the opposing wizard of any forces.

The final step in defeating your opponent is a bit tricky and proves to be a mild flaw in the game mechanics. In order to defeat an enemy wizard, you must sacrifice one of your own beings at his altar, thus desecrating it, and ending his link to the gods, which keep him alive even if he is "killed" on the battlefield, as a wizard who has been slain can retreat to a facility and regenerate with more mana. Defeating enemy wizards, however, is no easy task. The game designers apparently opted to heavily favor the defenders, which can be both frustrating and despairing. First, to attack an enemy's facilities, you must abandon your own and travel along with only manahoars to regenerate your forces. Moreover, altars and manaliths can be defended by guardianing, or chaining a creature to the structure in order to defend it. Unlike a traditional defense, however, the guardianed creature draws off of the power of his building, and possesses increased powers, absorbing damage that would otherwise be inflicted on the building. Fortunately, this is not a crucial flaw in the game because in single-player mode, the enemy is quite aggressive, thus allowing you to gain an upper hand and maintain it.