Combat

There are 3 battle modes:

* Grid Battle
* Strategic Battle
* Auto-Battle

Even if you do not change anything in the setup and just "skip to end" a strategic battle, the result will be (in most cases) better than auto battle. To see your available mana for battles, go to Factions (Crown icon) > Wizard. Battle mana limit can only be increased via research. Units that cannot be places due to lack of space, will be "on route" and join the battle as soon, as there is space. Retreating units will not take additional casualties and stay on the same hex with the rest of the army, if they are victorious. If not, they all together move to a random adjacent tile and take heavy casualties, even if they are faster than the enemy and flying and retreating in the first turn.

### Unit Mechanics

A Unit is a discrete collection of individuals (usually 1 to 100) that move and fight together during battles. All Units belong to an Army (and must have the same Faction owner as the Army).

Each Unit has a (World) Movement Allowance per Turn, which is reset at the beginning of each Turn. When an Army moves, all Units belonging to this Army will pay the relevant movement cost. If any Unit cannot pay the requisite movement cost, the entire Army is unable to move. Thus is the effective speed of an Army is determined by the slowest Unit in the Army.

All Units are based on a Unit Type, which determines the base stats and attributes for the Unit. It may also provide equipment. When created/recruited, Modifiers may have been applied which change the base stats and/or equipment.

Three other ways exist in which a Unit may be modified:

#### Global Unit Effects

These are faction-wide effects which may affect all faction Units or only those which fulfill some criteria. Some of these can end, at which point the effect ceases to apply. Modifiers are not imprinted permanently on the affected Units.

#### Experience

At each level, a permanent stat modifier or trait is gained. This is handles as permanent enchantment, that is upkeep free and cannot be removed. Map movement gains are the least useful since armies are as fast as the slowest unit in it. Most valuable is probably melee skill, followed by toughness. XP gain depend on the number of casualties suffered by that unit. XP gain ranges from 1 to 17 have been observed. Kills and comparable army strength do not matter. Character attached to the army always get 1-2 XP (without mentor and favored bonus).

##### XP Levels

 2
 3
 4
 5
 6

#### Melee Shock

Ability to damage the Effectiveness and Morale of units when charging.

#### Melee Skill

Ability to hit, dodge and critically hit. It also negatively affects enemy chance to hit and dodge.

#### Ranged Skill

Ability to hit and critically hit with ranged weapons. Some ranged attacks have built-in modifiers to the skill stat and a few other don't use the skill at all. However, for those ranged attacks that don't auto-hit, modifiers to the unit skill (e.g. from an enchantment spell) will still apply on top of built-in modifiers or fixed stat.

#### Armor

Reduces Physical Damage received. Even if damage would be reduces to 0 or less, these units still have a chance to take damage. But as observed, 'undergunned' armies take heavy casualties with single heavily armored units. 1200 light skeletons and zombies lose ~460 against a single 100 army strength armor 6 unit.

#### Toughness

Ability to resist and reduce Physical and Poison Damage. For units susceptible to Incapacitation it affects ability to resist this. (so it is premium Armor?)[1]

#### Courage

Reduced risk of failing Morale checks during battles.

#### Discipline

Increased ability to regain lost Effectiveness. Increased block ability against missile attacks.

#### Block Value

If higher than 0 provides a chance to block melee and ranged attacks.

#### Hit Points

Damage which can be taken by each individual before dying. Members of units susceptible to Incapacitation that suffer large amounts of damage (cumulative and/or single hits) compared to the full hit point amount, may become Incapacitated and unable to continue fighting. If healed they can resume fighting. They may or may not become casualties after the battle - depending on who controls the field after the battle and whether the unit loses all fighting strength. Also all individuals take damage individually. So you can have a strength 100 units, that only has 100 HP total, because everyone is totally wrecked.

#### Scouting

Affects vision of enemy units for some game settings. Also affects patrolling effectiveness.

#### Magical Resistance

Ability to resist and reduce Magical Damage received.

Note: It is unclear how toughness, armor and resistances add up.

### Hit Chance

#### Ranged

20 + 5 \* [Attack Skill] = %

Result multiplied by 0.5 if target has ranged avoidance

#### Melee

66 + ([Attack Skill] - [Defender Melee Skill]) =  %

#### Additional Modifiers for both:

* Monster Slayers: +10% against Monster tags
* Anti-Cavalry: +10% against Cavalry tags
* Monster: -10% against Monster Slayers
* Defender: Hinder Opponent or Hinder Opponent Attack with Reach advantage: [Defender melee skill] - 5

#### Dodge

Dodge is performed after a hit has been rolled. Psychic, Lightning and Cold attacks cannot be dodged.

30 + (Root of [Defender size] - [attacker size]) + ([Defender Melee Skill] \* 2) - [Attack Skill] = % (/2 if not physical damage)

(tiny: 0, small: 1, medium: 3, large: 5, huge: 7, gargantuan: 9)

Example: "So a tiny unit will have +49% chance to dodge a huge attacker. A gargantuan unit will have -36% chance to dodge a medium attacker."

Block chance is subtracted from the dodge chance result, but cannot drop by more than 50% of the result. Dodge chance is always between 0 - 80%.

Note: Units replenish if on or adjacent to a settlement, outpost, fortress or wizard tower of the same owner. The rate almost always lies between 10-18. Rarely it falls into the single digit range. Movement points an number of lost individuals do not matter.

//That is all the information that is out there.

### Army

Unpaid Upkeep

If you cannot pay upkeep you are going to lose some random units and some others lose individual units every turn. Also your units with that lacking resource as upkeep get Out of Supply (no replenishment) and Unpaid Upkeep:

* -6 World movement
* -2 Battle Movement
* -6 Melee Skill
* -1 Toughness
* -5 Courage
* -4 Discipline

[1]: Clarification needed