The battle for Auto Chess supremacy is now firmly underway, and the war has spread to mobile devices quite quickly. You’ll have seen our round-up of Auto Chess-like games available on the various App Stores, which included DOTA Underlords.

At the time of writing it was still in closed beta, but now the game is out in the wild and available to anyone who’s interested in trying the format out, but doesn’t want to deal with potential knock-offs or clones. Now, a point of order: This isn’t DOTA Auto Chess, or the mobile spin off known simply as Auto Chess (Origin), from original creators Drodro Studio.

This is a separate game from Valve, based on the original Dota Auto Chess mod, but built by an entirely separate team inside Valve. It also isn’t part of DOTA 2, like the original mod was, but a standalone free to play game on both PC and mobile. Totally not confusing at all.

When  it comes to Underlords anyone familiar with Auto Chess is going to feel very comfortable, as they share an awful lot of similarities. It’s effectively the same game, just with a ton of UI improvements, systems to make it easier to play and understand, and a few other tweaks here and there. But those tweaks can catch you out, and if this is your first Auto Chess rodeo then you are probably going to be more than a little confused.

Don’t worry, we have the ultimate guide to everything you are going to need to know to master DOTA Underlords:

DOTA Underlords Basics

First and most importantly, don’t feel pressured into trying to learn this on the fly with real players online. Unlike Auto Chess, Underlords not only has a more robust tutorial, but there’s also a Soliatire mode where you can play against AI opponents. You can set the difficulty between Easy, Medium, Challenging and Hardcore, and you can even enable an option to disable the round timers so you can take your time and play at your own pace. Matches can be paused and even left, so you can come back to them later (or switch to PC – see below). Don’t get too used to this though – live multiplayer games are kept to strict timers, so you’ll need to learn how to make decisions quickly.

In DOTA Underlords you face off against seven other players to build a roster of heroes who will battle it out effectively until the death. You buy the heroes you want, position them on the board and then let them fight it out against one of the other players in the game while you sit back and watch the carnage unfold. Lose a fight and you’ll take damage, win and you’ll stay healthy. Once a player has lost all their health they are knocked out of the game, and the last surviving player is the winner.

When building your roster you’re going to have to consider Alliances, buffs to your heroes or debuffs to your opponents, which can be earned by having multiple heroes with same Alliance types on your board. For example, if you have three Mages then your opponent will have reduced magic resistance. So combining Alliances is really the only way to win.

You’ll also get gold that can be used to buy your heroes and upgrade them should you get three of the same hero at the same level, so three level ones become a level two, and three level twos become a level three. And gold is used to level up, allowing you to put more units on the board.

Auto Chess vs. DOTA Underlords

There’s a ton of smaller differences between DOTA Underlords and the mod it was based on, Auto Chess, but there are a few that are very significant. Perhaps the biggest is the new item system. Instead of creep rounds just dropping items you get a choice of three items if you win the creep round, or just one should you lose, although creeps are way easier to beat now. Choose the items that play into your strats, otherwise you’ll be stuck with a buff to Hunters when you have none on the board.

Global items are also a new addition, these items are not equipped by a hero, but instead augment all your heroes of a certain Alliance. Some add new abilities, such as heroes exploding when they die, and others are buffs such as extra magic resistance for your team. Most are very useful if the RNG is kind and you get one that suits your strategy.

Other smaller tweaks such as new hero abilities, or the fact that interest is locked at the start of a round instead of the end of a round are significantly smaller changes that you probably don’t need to worry about until you have the basics mastered.

Underlords Strategies

In what can only be described as the biggest shock the world has seen since High School Musical not being nominated for an Oscar, Valve is listening to the community and shipping near daily patches for Underlords. So if we were to tell you Mages are really strong right now, (which they are), then there’s a good chance they will have been nerfed into the ground within a day or two.

But there are a few things worth keeping in mind. Generally speaking you’re going to want to heavily focus on one Alliance, usually one of the larger ones with many heroes, and then try and finish off a few others when you have spare unit slots on your board. Trying to go all in on Blood-Bound or Shaman units probably isn’t going to work out too well but grab a couple of them alongside another main Alliance, such as Mages, and you have a nice bonus to play with.

Some alliances provide global effects regardless of unit type, like ‘Savage’, which gives a 10% attack damage boost to every piece on your board, or ‘Warlock’ which gives all allies a Lifesteal chance. We’re also a fan of the ‘Elusive’ alliance, because the more of these pieces you have, the higher the evasion boost bonus is. Being able to evade attacks means your pieces have the chance to survive longer, generate more mana, and fire off their abilities more often.

You are also going to have to consider your positioning, a lot. Sticking weaker units in the line of fire is going to see them killed instantly and you probably coming out with a loss. However, put them behind some tanky units who will take the aggro first and you are onto a winner. You’ll also want to use the edges of your board to your advantage in some situations. Assassin units can instantly jump into your backlines at the start of a round, but box in your squishy damage dealers with tanks and the edge of the board and they won’t be able to reach them.

You’ll also want to think about putting units that need mana to hit their abilities somewhere where they can dish out and take some damage so they can get that ability off before they die. There’s no real right or wrong way to position most of the time, so play around with it, but always be thinking about it, and in the later stages position to counter your opponent’s boards (which you can see by tapping on their box on the leaderboard.)

Other top tips:

• Don’t be afraid to change Alliances on the fly. Sure you may have started out with a good run of Scrappy units, but if you suddenly get the chance to switch into Assassins, and that seems like it will be better at winning the game then go for it. You’re rarely locked into a strategy until the late game starts. And don’t stick with an Alliance just because you got an early global item for it, forcing into Demon Hunters and Demons because you got the Strange Bedfellows item early isn’t always a great move, if the units just aren’t there for you.
• Tapping on the right hand side of an entry in the kill feed at the top of the screen will “YO!” that item and send an audible “Yo” to opponents. It serves basically no point, but it’s fun to try and get into opponent’s heads by yo-ing everything they do.
• You get one gold interest at the end of every round for every 10 gold you have when it starts. So if you start the round with 10 gold you’ll get an extra gold at the end of it. Start with 20 and you’ll get 2 gold, and so on. This is however capped at 5 gold, so holding onto more than 50 gold is rarely worth it. Spend that cash, up your level or try and grab some new heroes and you’ll still be making maximum dollar.
• And finally, you can switch mid game between mobile and PC. So if you decide to kick things off on the PC version and then nature calls, you can simply grab your iOS or Android device and continue playing while on the toilet. Then you can even come back to the PC version when you are done. The future really is great, isn’t it?

Let us know if you have any other questions or need further help getting to grips with DOTA Underlords. The AutoChess genre is a fascinating new archetype and we hope it flourishes on mobile, so expect to see more like this in the weeks and months to come!

During an interview with Twinfinite, Chris Fox of Phoenix Labs – the developer behind the upcoming free-to-play Switch release, Dauntless – revealed Iron Galaxy had helped port the game to Nintendo’s hybrid device.

“We’ve been really fortunate to be working with Iron Galaxy to bring it to the Switch and like, they really know what they’re doing when it comes to that hardware.”

Iron Galaxy previously helped bring The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to the Switch in 2017 and followed this up with the release of Diablo III: Eternal Collection in 2018.

Dauntless has been inspired by the likes of Monster Hunter, Dark Souls and World of Warcraft – and essentially requires you to go around hunting monsters known as ‘Behemoths’. View recent footage of the game shown at E3 2019 below:

Will you be trying out this game when it is released on the Switch? Leave a comment below.

As technology advances, it is important not to leave anyone behind. Fast, reliable internet access is now one of life’s necessities, critical to accessing telehealth solutions, pursuing an online education, using precision agriculture, or operating a small business. And while the FCC’s most recent report found that more than 21 million Americans lack broadband access, Microsoft’s data suggest that more than 162 million are not using the internet at broadband speeds.

Wireless technologies, such as TV white spaces — unused broadcasting frequencies — are critical to closing the digital divide. According to Pew Research, wired technologies such as phone landlines, cable or broadband take longer to adopt. In contrast, wireless technologies, such as radio and color broadcast television, achieved near-universal adoption within 25 years. Waiting on the deployment and adoption of wired technologies, like fiber-optic connections, to close the digital divide is not an option when so many people across the county lack access.

The Microsoft Airband Initiative is forging partnerships focused on closing the connectivity gap. It works towards providing broadband internet coverage to unserved rural Americans through work with our partners and with a mixture of innovative technologies. By July 2022, our goal is to extend broadband access to 3 million Americans across unserved rural parts of the country.

The video tells the story of how the need for reliable internet in Essex County, New York, led to a business that services the local community with help from the Microsoft Airband Initiative and solutions like TV white spaces.

Read more on the Microsoft Airband Initiative. And follow @MSFTIssues on Twitter. 

By AppleInsider Staff
Tuesday, June 25, 2019, 08:51 pm PT (11:51 pm ET)

Apple on Wednesday began rolling out Apple Pay services in Portugal and Slovakia with financial backing from a number of large European banks including Monese and N26.

“Get Started with Apple Pay” App Store section shows up for users in Slovakia. | Source: Jezsó Miklós via Twitter

While Apple has yet to confirm official availability, users in Portugal and Slovakia posted screenshots of the Apple Pay setup process to social media outlets. Others shared news of a special “Get Started with Apple Pay” section that appeared at the top of the Today page in regional App Stores early Wednesday.

The rollout in Slovakia is supported by a mix of local and mobile banks including Boon, Edenred, J&T Banka, Monese, N26, Revolut, Slovenska sporitelna, Tatra banka and mBank. In Portugal, Apple Pay is available only to users of larger banking services Monese, N26 and Revolut.

German online bank N26 was first to announce integration with Apple’s service in March, promising at the time to deliver Apple Pay to Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia. UK-based mobile bank Monese followed suit in May, saying the integration will deliver Apple Pay to 13 new European markets including the Portugal and Slovakia.

Most recently, UK financial technology firm Revolut partnered with Apple at the end of May. Today’s rollout marks the first expansion to Revolut’s Apple Pay integration, which launched in France, Poland and the UK.

Apple is expected to update its regional Portugal and Slovakia websites with a dedicated webpage informing users about the service and where to use it.

Today’s Apple Pay rollout confirms in part reports over the weekend that claimed the payments solution would be made available to users in Greece, Portugal and Slovakia on Wednesday.

Special Reserve Games has finally revealed the physical editions it will soon be selling on its website for the Nintendo Switch version of GRIS. For $249.99, you can pick up the Signature Edition, which includes a copy of the game, iam8bit’s limited Deluxe Edition vinyl soundtrack and an exclusive signed painting by the game’s creative director, Conrad Roset.

If you don’t have that much money to burn, there’s the standalone game for $34.99 or you can go with the slightly pricier bundle which includes the game and art book for $79.99. There’s also the option to pick up the art book for $59.99. Pre-orders for all of these physical editions open on 25th June and end on 17th July.

You can also purchase a standalone copy of the GRIS vinyl soundtrack from the iam8bit website. There’s the Deluxe Edition (housed in a stunning 48-inch quad-fold jacket) for $49.99 and the Open Edition (house in a gatefold jacket) for $34.99.

Will you be adding GRIS to your physical collection? Tell us below.