Battles

The battle itself is divided into three phases which follow after each other in specific order – as first goes the thievish phase, magic phase follows after that and military phase goes as last. That means you can chain actions so that thieves weaken mages and/or armies, mages weaken armies and in the end armies bring home victory points, but are severely influenced by both thieves and mages.

### Matchmaking

In order to take part in the fighting, you have to enter our matchmaking system. This system will pair you up with a most suitable opponent depending on the size of your alliances, number of governorates and rating gained from previous fights. Pairing is initiated every day at 4AM Berlin local time. There will also be automatically declared war between the two alliances, that allows players to send harmful actions. You can’t send harmful actions out of war.

### Course of war

War lasts for five days. Each member of the alliance gains power points after the war – at the war's start both alliances begin with 10 points and gain 3 points for each won battle. The alliance that wins more battles, gains a bonus of 5 points. Power points belong to each individual player and each can do whatever he wants with them. Example: A 4 player group gains 20 glory in their war. Each player from this group gets 20 glory. The first player spends them all on one tile. The second player spends them all on two tiles. The third player had another 10 glory from the past so now he has 30 and spends 25 on two tiles and has 5 left.

Example: Alliance A wins 3 battles while alliance B only 2. Alliance A gains 10 glory points as base + 3\*3 for won battles + 5 for won war. Total 24 glory points. Alliance B gains 10 glory points as base as well + 3\*2 for won battles. Total 16 glory points.

The entire alliance participates in the military phase as a single collective. Governorates cannot send individual attacks, instead, they create banners, position them on the battlefield along with other banners from the same alliance and fight the opposing alliance which deploys in a similar manner.

### Alliance army

First, the emperor or marshal selects a tactic for the entire alliance. Each tactic has its pros and cons and imposes a limit on how much units can you place in each available position. A group of units that start on the same battlefield position is called a banner. There are 4 different positions, left flank, center, right flank and backup. The first three positions are given an order to attack one of enemy positions while the last position, backup, is given an order which friendly banner it should support when it enters combat in 4th round.

#### Tactics

Each tactic has two bonuses and one malus which are active all the time. It also has an objective which, if completed, provides third bonus.

##### Phalanx

Bonus 1: All units +20% defence
Bonus 2: All units -20% charge received / nebo All enemy units -20% charge
Objective: Don't lose any banner -> All units -20% minimal damage received (they receive 0,8 minimal damage instead of 1)
Malus: All units -20% speed
Unit distribution: LF 20, C 30, RF 20, B 10

##### Oblique Order

Bonus 1: LF (original position) units +20% attack, +20% speed
Bonus 2: RF (original position) units evade the entire 1st battle round (they pair with the enemy as normally, but evade both range and melee phase and essentially start the battle in 2nd round)
Objective: Shatter enemy left flank -> -3 enemy morale
Malus: All units start with 80% stamina
Unit distribution: LF 40, C 20, RF 10, B 10

##### Tulughama

Bonus 1: C (original position) units +50% armor, +50% range attack, evade 1st and 2nd melee phase
Bonus 2: if winning on LF and / or RF positions after 3rd round, change all LF and / or RF banners' positions to C (for both players)
Objective: Concentrate the enemy in the center -> All your units in C (current position) +10% range attack per enemy banner on C (current position)
Malus: All units piercing -20%
Unit distribution: LF 30, C 10, RF 30, B 10

##### Charge

Bonus 1: All units +20% speed
Bonus 2: All units -20% range damage
Objective: No idle banner -> +20% charge
Malus: All units -20% defence
Unit distribution: LF 20, C 30, RF 20, B 10

### Battle

Both alliances are controlled by human players and it will be very common for them to pick conflicting orders. At first, the game takes a look at these orders and sorts them out according to several rules.

1) fastest banner goes first - the game sorts the fighting banners by speed from the fastest to the slowest and orders of the fastest banner are calculated first

2) in case of identical speeds, orders of the banner which is attacking the same position are calculated first (eg. player's left flank which is attacking enemy's left flank)

3) if a banner is attacked before it gets to execute its own order, its action falls through and it's paired with the attacking banner

4) banner which is attacking other than its direct counterposition (left flank attacking left flank, center attacking center, right flank attacking right flank) has to first move in the target position. This takes one battle round for adjacent positions and two battle rounds for non-adjacent positions

5) banner can't be attacked, if it's moving

6) if a banner isn't attacked and it attacks a moving enemy banner, it loses 2 battle rounds and then moves to its original target

7) banner which shatters all enemy banners on its position or banner which attacks empty position execute Support losing order and move to the position where the combat goes the worst for you according to the rules in 4) - one battle round for adjacent positions and two battle rounds for non-adjacent positions

#### Banner leader

Banners are led by general's who provide them with a General’s bonus which is calculated from the two opposing generals in the same position. The general gains 2,5% bonus in attack or defense for his banner per point of advantage over the enemy general. Example: Two banners are fighting on the left wing. One has general Attack: 20 and Defense:10. The other has general Attack: 15 and Defense: 17. The first general boosts his banner’s attack by (20-15)\*2,5 while the second general boosts his banner’s defense by (17-10)\*2,5.

#### Range phase

Each battle round starts with range phase. In the first range phase, banners on respective positions compare their range. Banner with higher range gets 2 ranged attacks, banners with lower range get 1 ranged attack. In case the two banners have identical range, they get 1 ranged attack each. Banners with 0 range have 0 ranged attacks. In all other range phases, everyone gets one ranged attack. Damage of ranged attacks is calculated from banner’s ranged attack compared to enemy banners armor and the number of units with ranged attack. Minimal damage one unit can cause is 1. But this can be further reduced by Shielded trait (-50%) and engaging enemy archers in melee (-50%), resulting in 0 damage if you have the right units at the right place. Each ranged attack that deals damage also lowers morale by 1. Damage is deducted from the banner’s HP, which in turn lowers its stats and if enough damage is suffered, kills units. After all range attacks are calculated, the battle round moves on to the melee phase.

#### Melee phase

Each melee phase banners deal damage to each other. Damage is calculated from Attack and Defense and the number of fighting units. Minimal damage one unit can cause is 1. Damage can also be further reduced by 25% if the banner has higher armor than is the opposing banner’s piercing ability. Dealt damage is deducted from the banner’s HP, which in turn lowers its stats and if enough damage is suffered, kills units.

#### Backup

After the third round, the banners placed in backup can come into play and are ready to enter combat in 4th round. You can give your backup one of three orders. They can support, meaning they take over the orders of the banner they are supporting, your left flank, center or right flank.

#### Morale of banners

Certain events occurring during the battle lower the morale of banners and knowing them is crucial in order to succeed, because lowering the banner's morale to 0 causes it to shatter and flee the field of battle, which is your ultimate goal.

Morale modifiers

-1 for each suffered ranged attack

-3 when flanked

-6 when encircled

-1 per enemy monster

-1 per friendly monster

-exhaustion (low stamina) (-1,-2,-3,-5)

-losses (-1,-3,-5,-7)

If the banner shatters its opposition, they can support their neighbours. Left and right flanks can support the centre with 30% of their remaining stats, while the centre can support both flanks with 30% of their remaining stats.

#### Consequences of battle

After the battle, the losing alliance always gets Revanchism +20 pop growth in each governorate and loses 20% of their siege engines (governorates that will lose them are determined randomly). The winning alliance takes all their siege engines and tries to plunder the enemy governorates one by one. Each siege engine has 2 wall attack, while certain defensive structures or skills provide the opposing wall defence. If the wall attack is higher than wall defence, then the governorate is plundered and receives a significant debuff -20% all production, -2 attack and defence of mage and thief generals and -3 happiness for the next count. If the wall attack is equal to or lower than wall defence, each siege engine deals 20 dmg to one building of Walls type.