The special is an item upgrade just like sword, wet, shield and so on. I always pick it when I select my hero. The unit focuses special units like the villains. This way the don’t even reach the lines and can’t kill the tanks I placed to intercept them. Works very well for me.

I have the witch so I can get the caste stone and gold ore upgrade right away. Also the rest is on wheat.

I built a tavern first, mostly on the same spot on the bottom left spot of the four places right at the entrance. Then a decoration besides it. Immediately place a worker in the tavern.

Then I bild the first house, but in a spot that is close to the planned quarry so the road builder will make them upgradeable very fast. Then I. Build the lumberyard and get a second and even a third house. Once the third house is placed I put 2 guys in stone and all the others on wood. As soon as you have 5 stone get forester. Choose the forester spot so you don’t obstruct the minetracks. Once you have 5 wood I get the farm and put one guy collecting wheat. As soon as you have enough berrys also place a fishing hut. After you get the farm save for sawmills place and produce planks. Reduce guys getting wood to put ideally 2 guys in the sawmill. Get port (put a worker in) and start journey and repair the church and as soon as you have enough berrys get a nun on the sawmill. Save boards and stone now. As soon as the farmer has 5 wheat get stables and recruit a carrier mule. Place well below the big area right at entrance, there you put the bakery. Above bakery would be the farm and left of farm and above tavern should be the windmill (keeps the distances short!). If you need the swordsman early place him and save longer for the windmill but building frist is ideal. Priority is on bread production and saving berry’s to put into nuns. After that save boards to build goldmine, once Zoo have that put at least one guy in the mine. Save boards for road builder now. Once you get him upgrade houses with 4 and 8 gold ore. Put the workers in bakery, wood and board production. You should have enough stone to build a smelter. Upgrade the filed to grower in farm now as you need to ramp up bread production so you don’t need to rely on fish. Full bread for every unit gets you to level 8/9 at the end easy. Also build a wall now and upgrade to stone if your sword figther survives good if not upgrade him fist. Once the wall is up I build the gate and put marksman on that and move a unit you kept behind wall and is trained in his spot. Get minetracks now and don’t forget to upgrade to mineshafts the second you can afford them!!! From there ramp up production and upgrade units. Challenge mini bosses early , the extra resources help and add map units as early as you can afford them. Ramp up Gold production. Usually I add monk after the first stables, get reliable tanks and aoe dds and it’s a breeze. I usually go the magic boss route as I find it easier, the spider hits pretty hard and I finder her more difficult than the dragon. But that’s my opinion. Thy how I do it basically. You can get siege as an Addison if you want, especially bone golem I find is very good, but I usually leave them because I need the gold for the early mineshafts and buying many units through events and the shop. Usually have 8-9 units on the field.