Chapter 5: Wagging War
War is something you will have to face one day or the other if you are to build a powerful kingdom. You already learned some about it in the Military section, if you haven’t read that part yet, you should do it before continuing.
The first step before you can attack or in order to make sure you have a good defense is to select an effective strategy. A leader will usually have the choice of five different strategies he can use at any time. Four of which are available to all races and one that is unique to each of them. It is up to you to choose the one you believe to be the most beneficial.
Strategies
Here is the list of the four basic strategies:
| Basic Strategies | ||
|---|---|---|
| Strategy |  Description | Effects |
| Archer Protection | By choosing this strategy, you ask your infantry to stay in the back of the battle field instead of jumping through the heart of the battle. They will be used to protect your archers from enemies that might be able to pierce your defense line and to kill your normally unprotected archers. While doing so, your infantry will do much less damages, but more archers will survive the battle. | Infantry attack divided by 2Archers damages decreased by infantry normal attack |
| Infantry Attack | Sending your infantry first on the battle field can greatly help your offensive strategy. While your infantry kills the most powerful units on the enemy side, your other men remain out of the fight until enough damages have been done to the enemy forces. This strategy works well with a large number of infantry units, but can be very valuable even with few men. | Infantry damages multiplied by 2.5Other units damages reduced depending on the amount of damages dealt to infantry. |
| Quick Retreat | Even if many general consider this strategy as one for cowards, it can be pretty effective if you want to try to capture land or defend your territory with minimal loss. Many famous commanders used this strategy when they believed their chances of winning to be low or if they thought their men lives were more valuable than the victory. Assigning your men this strategy will ensure that your loss are minimal and that many men survive. | All unit (both sides) attack power divided by 2Victory chances reduced by half for you. |
| Anti-Cavalry1 | One of the best and most effective strategy against mounted units. It consists in placing a line of pikemen in front of your other units and wait for enemies to charge in order to easily kill any incoming mounted units. However, using this strategy against a walking force is totally useless since it is much easier for normal soldiers to stop before they run into pikes, so if you know your opponent to be weak in mounted units, do not use it. | Pikemen attack vs mounted units multiplied by 3.5All units attack multiplied by 0.9 |
1Dwarves having no pike-like weapons do not have this strategy.
Here are the strategies unique to each race:
| Race Specific Strategies | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race | Strategy | Description | Effects |
| Dwarf | Shield line | Lining your shieldbearer in the front line of the battlefield has always been a very good strategy if you are to fight an army consisting of many ranged attackers. The shieldbearers very large shields will stop most arrows and make sure most of your units can get to close combat melee. The big disadvantage of this strategy is that your men have to hide between the shieldbearers giving them less time to get ready for close combat and reducing their attack. | All units close combat attack reduced by 10%Enemy long-ranged attack reduced by two times the percentage of shieldbearer in your army.Shieldbearers close-combat damages increased by 100%Other units damages reduced depending on shieldbearer damages. |
| Elf | Energy Gathering | Have you ever thought about using all your wizards magical energy in order for them to cast a powerful spell which can annihilate most enemy units. This strategy allows this to be possible, but not at a low cost: because your mages will use all their energy to fight your enemies, they will not be able to keep their invisibility very efficient sometimes allowing opponent units to see them. | Wizards defense increased by 2 during the melee fighting because of semi-working invisibilityWizard close combat damages doubled.Wizard ranged attack increased by 4. |
| Gnome | Far Fighting | While using this strategy, you will place your whole army a lot farther on the battlefield, when attacking, or, if you are defending, keeping your close combat attackers a lot later in the a castle allowing your, and enemy’s, long-ranged units to attack more often. Even if this strategy is very effective, it is important to consider your opponent long-ranged army strength before using it, many gnomes generals lost easy battles to elves because of this. | Long-range attack doubled for both sides. |
| Human | Charging! | You launch your knights on the battlefield first line. This will allow them to charge enemy soldiers and kill most of them on sight, the knights being your most effective unit, they will easily fend enemy shields and armors allowing you to gain a great tactical advantage before allowing your other units to join the fight. | Knights attack multiplied by 1.5Knight damages multiplied by 1.5 |
| Orc | Surrounding | While using this strategy, you will ask your shadow warriors to surround the battlefield or to infiltrate the enemy castle in order for them to cause maximum damages before your other units attack. One of the most used strategy among the orcs commanders, it provides a great advantage in large battles. | Shadow Warriors defense increased by 2 because of thier hiding skills.All Shadow Warriors damages dealt in the Short-ranged attack phase.Chances of being detected by enemies increased by 25% |
If you do not like these strategies, you obviously have the option not to use any of them. Also, it is important to keep in mind that even if some strategy may seem lousy, they can still have their use. For example, many will think a quick retreat is useless, but it can ensure you that, if you are attacked, you will suffer minimal loss. You will therefore have a lot of units that can attack your opponent while his forces are still on their way back which almost guaranties a successful castle capture and great losses among the enemy ranks.
Attack Concept
Once you have chosen your strategy, you are ready to learn the art of war. First, it is important to know that regular attacks are not made against a kingdom, but against castles. What this means is that if you attack another kingdom, you might not be able to kill him in one attack. It also means that if you succeed in your attack, you will not gain his entire kingdom, but only some land, buildings and population living on it and, in some cases, one or more castles (you can never gain more than 10% of a kingdom’s castle and land).
Also, the fact that you attack a castle and not an entire kingdom gives you an advantage over your opponent, that is, he will not be able to protect himself with all his men, but only those currently close enough to the sieged castle to be able to defend it. This means is that if an opponent has many castles and 200 infantry units under his control, he will not defend with 200 infantry, but more like 150 of them. In fact, at least 70% of one’s army will be available on defense, but sometimes a little more. The more castles one has, the less men he will have to protect his castles.
Once the attack is launched all damages are dealt starting by longer ranges and going to melee fighting, as explained in the Military section. But it is important to keep in mind that there are three other factors affecting damages which are your BAS, a luck factor and the castle bonus given to the defender. Also note that the defender BAS bonuses are doubled.
The attack menu in the game will let you manage your attacks, determine how many men you are planning on sending for the attack as well as who you are planning to destroy. It is obvious that you should try to send as many men as possible on an attack, but that keeping in mind that while your men are gone fighting, they will not be available in defense leaving your castles very vulnerable and since each attack takes 23 game days, the other kingdom might have time to attack back before your men are back.
Generals
In addition, you will need generals to lead your army on the battlefield. Even if they are not required to plan a good defense, they are a must to every attack. You will therefore not be able to attack another kingdom unless you have a general available to lead your troops. Your general will usually leave with the army and come back with it once the attack is over, even if no other troops survived. One cannot buy or train new generals, their number is based on your race, check Chapter 1 for more details on races.
Food supply
Also, it is very important to know that while attacking, your men will require twice as much food, so you might want to make sure you have enough supply before sending them on the field if you want your other soldiers to have enough supply.
Potential Target
Another important factor to think about before attacking is who you will attack. Obviously, bigger kingdoms will be more difficult to kill or damage, but it is often necessary to attack them in order to defend your territory, even if it is not always recommended, unless you can gather enough forces to help you within your province. This leaves you with the option of attacking weaker kingdoms if you want to expand your territory without having to explore and build it yourself. However, it is important to note that if you send too many troops on the battlefield while your opponent does not have as many as you do, they might not be as effective as they should, leaving you with a weaker army than its maximum potential. The smaller kingdom troops might also be more motivated defending against a more powerful province if they see they have a chance to win against a bigger foe… so attacking weaker kingdoms might lead you to losing more forces and do less damages. It is therefore more advantageous for a kingdom to attack one of its size and see what the resulting situation will be.
Two kinds of protection
There are two kinds of protections in the game. The first one was discussed earlier and is given to any new kingdom at the moment of its creation. It lasts for 120 days in which the newly formed kingdom is protected from external attacks. During this protection, you cannot attack, cast spells or be attacked.
The second protection is given to you when you lose land or castles. This protection is much shorter than the first protection given to starting kingdoms, it has no fixed length, but it can range from 4 days to 20 days depending on the number of castles you currently have under your control. This protection only prevents people from attacking you and does not limit you in any way. However, attacking will make you lose this protection.
Keep in mind that you can always know what protection you are under by checking the main menu where your protection status is displayed.
Retaliation right
Now that you know about the protection rules, you must now learn that the protection rules can sometimes be broken. In fact, if your kingdom attacked an enemy in the last 36 days, this enemy will have a retaliation right over your kingdom. This right will allow him to attack you regardless of your protection status at any time during the 36 days following your attacks. This right is lost whenever an attack is made on you by your opponent (even if you were not in protection). One must also keep in mind that retaliation is cumulative, so if you attack a kingdom twice, that kingdom will not have one retaliation right, but two, so he will be able to attack you twice even if you are in protection. Retaliation is a very important concept to understand because it will often make you more vulnerable to attacks than you might seem to be and it can make you lose a lot of strength if you attack too many people.