⚔️ How Combat Works

Overview

There are two kinds of battle in the game:

• General battle (5 rounds): camps, dragon lairs, Ancient Fortresses and other targets.
• City battle (up to 8 rounds): an attack on a player's city and city rallies. You first fight the army outside the castle, then the walls, and finally the castle garrison. Details below.

In each round both sides strike at the same time; the damage dealt is subtracted from the other side's durability pool, and losses are spread across the units. The side whose army shrinks hits less in the next round. If one side is completely wiped out, the battle ends early.

Durability = (health + defense) × count for each unit. For example, 100 swordsmen have a durability of 100 × (32 + 10) = 4,200.

Battles are resolved on arrival

The battle happens the moment your army reaches its target. Even if you or the other side are not in the game, the result does not wait; the report lands in your mail right away.

In battle, the state at the moment the army arrives counts. Changes the defender makes before the army arrives (placing troops in the garrison, putting archers in towers, training troops) are reflected in the battle. Changes made after the army arrives do not affect that battle.

General battle: rounds

Round	Who strikes?
1	Archers only (a side with no archers skips this round)
2–5	The whole army

The first round gives archers a free shot. An army without archers deals no damage at all in the first round.

In boss battles too (Dragon Lair, Black Titan, Guild Titan, Hades), round 1 belongs to archers only: your army's damage in round 1 equals its archer share. Since the boss is not an archer, it does not strike back in round 1, and your losses are spread over rounds 2–5. An army without archers deals about 12% less damage to a boss.

How is damage calculated?

The damage of a group of units is roughly:

count × attack × counter multiplier × dice × power multipliers

• Counter multiplier: between ×0.5 and ×1.5 depending on the composition of the enemy army. See the Units page for details.
• Dice: each round, each side rolls a die, and all of that round's damage is multiplied by it.
  • Attacker: 0.8 – 1.2
  • Defender: 1.0 – 1.3 (the defender has the advantage)
• Power multipliers: technology, item boosts (+25%), guild temples and the commander effect.

Hero dice bonus

The hero's power × 0.002 is added to the dice, but this bonus can be at most +0.5. A hero with 250 power reaches the cap; stronger heroes do not add more to the dice (their power still pays off through the commander effect and other bonuses). This cap applies in all battles.

In rallies, heroes' power is not added up for the dice bonus. The power used is whichever is higher: the captain's power or the average of the joining heroes.

Example: If the captain has 300 power and the average of the joining heroes is 180, the rally is calculated with 300 power, so +0.5 (the cap) is added to the dice.

Commander effect

The hero leading an army adds power to it directly for every round:

bonus = effective level × 0.4% × role weight

Effective level = level + crowns × 100. The role weight depends on the hero's role: Archer, Cavalry, Swordsman, Siege and Paladin heroes have full weight in attack (1.0); the Defense hero has full weight in defense; economy, architecture and wisdom roles are weak commanders (0.4).

Example: An Archer hero with an effective level of 100 gives +40% in attack but only +8% in defense.

The defense bonuses of heroes on defense duty in the castle are added to your city's defense. Heroes' unit-specific bonuses (for example "Master Archer") apply only to the army they lead themselves.

City battle

When a player's city is attacked, the battle goes through three phases. All phases together last at most 8 rounds.

Phase	Facing the attacker	Who strikes?
⚔️ Outside the castle	The defender's city army (troops not placed in the garrison)	All units; archers only in the first round. Tower archers also fire.
🧱 Walls	Walls and towers	From the attacker only archers, siege and dragons; from the defender, tower archers and the garrison's archers/siege
🏰 Castle assault	Castle garrison + tower archers	All units

• If the defender has no army outside the castle, the battle starts directly at the walls. If there are no walls or they have been destroyed, it goes straight to the castle assault.
• Reinforcement armies sent by your guild mates through the Guild Camp (capital only) also fight alongside your city army in the outside-the-castle phase; their commanders' power is added to the defender's dice. All losses of a reinforcement army are wounded and return to the sender's city. Details on the Guild page.
• When a group's durability drops below 5% of its starting value, the group breaks and the battle moves on to the next phase.
• Victory = the castle falls. Loot is only taken if the castle falls. Defeating the army outside the castle or breaking the walls is not a victory on its own.
• The general-battle adjustment of "the winner loses less, the loser loses more" does not apply in city battles.

1. Outside the castle

The city army that is not in the garrison fights outside the castle. Tower archers also fire at the attacker during this phase, but towers take no damage in this phase.

A quick outside battle does not count: if the outside battle ends within the first 2 rounds, those rounds are not deducted from the 8-round limit. This way the defender cannot burn the attacker's rounds by leaving a handful of troops outside; the castle attack still gets the full 8 rounds.

2. Walls

While the walls are standing, only ranged units can fight:

Attacking unit	Damage to the wall	Share leaking inside
Siege	×3	10% of its damage
Archer	×0.5	20% of its damage
Dragon	×0.1	5% of its damage

The rest of the damage goes to the wall; the leaking share hits the garrison and tower archers inside. Infantry, spearmen, cavalry and paladins cannot strike during the wall phase, but the defender's arrows target them too.

Wall health grows with wall level:

wall health = 8,000 × level × (1 + level ÷ 20)

Wall level	Health
1	≈ 8,400
10	120,000
20	320,000
30	600,000

If the castle is damaged, wall health also drops (halved at full damage). Wall technologies (Stone Walling, Wall Engineers) increase health, and Moat reduces the damage dealt to walls and towers (see Technology).

Towers

Towers have health too: 1,500 × level × (1 + level ÷ 20) per tower (a Lv10 tower ≈ 22,500 health).

• During the wall phase, damage going to the wall is split between the wall and the towers according to their health.
• When towers are destroyed, the archers inside lose the ×2 tower bonus and fight like ordinary archers.
• In the outside-the-castle phase, towers strike but cannot be hit.

3. Castle assault

Once the wall is destroyed, all of the attacker's units attack the castle garrison and tower archers. If the garrison and tower archers break, the castle falls.

Dragons in city battles

• Dragons only join a city battle from round 3 on. Before that they do not strike, but they can be targeted.
• They also strike during the wall phase, but their effect on the wall is very small (×0.1); 5% of their damage passes inside.
• While the towers stand, tower archers deal ×4 damage to dragons.

Wall and tower damage is lasting

Damage dealt to walls and towers is not reset when the battle ends. The next attack on the same city soon afterwards faces a damaged wall. Walls and towers repair themselves linearly over 24 hours; the Stonemasons technology shortens this to as little as 6 hours. You can see current wall and tower health, together with the repair countdown, on the wall/tower page of the Army screen.

Castle damage

A city battle also deals damage to the castle:

Result	Castle damage
Castle fell	+15%
Walls reached but the castle held	+5%
Battle only took place outside the castle	None

Castle damage weakens your defense, does not go away on its own, and the castle cannot be upgraded until it is repaired. For repairs, see PvP and Spying.

City defense

When your city is attacked, its defense power is increased by:

• Castle: +5% per level (Lv10 castle = +50%)
• Defense technologies, the defense boost (+25%), heroes on defense duty, the Aegis temple

In a city battle, walls do not give a flat defense percentage; instead, they are a physical obstacle with health that must be destroyed. Castle damage lowers defense power (halved at full damage).

Tower archers and the garrison

There is an archer tower at each of the castle's four corners. Each tower holds level × 100 archers (Lv3 tower = 300 archers); the Tower Guards technology increases this. Archers in towers fight with ×2 attack and ×2 defense (until the tower is destroyed).

The castle garrison holds castle level × 500 units (the Castle Garrison technology increases this). Units in the garrison fight inside the castle; the rest fight outside. For the Deploy All button that speeds up placement, see PvP and Spying.

Winner and losses (general battle)

At the end of the battle, the side with the higher remaining durability ratio wins. In a tie, the defender wins.

Losses are adjusted accordingly:

• The winner suffers only 80% of its losses (×0.8).
• The loser suffers 30% heavier losses (×1.3).

Dead or wounded?

Situation	Outcome of losses
Attacking a player's city (PvP, city rally)	10% of losses die, the rest are wounded
Attacks on Ancient Fortresses, Hades and the Hades Vanguard	10% of losses die, the rest are wounded
Defending your city	All wounded
Camp, dragon lair, Titan, Black Titan, Barbarian invasion	No dead, all wounded

Even when there are no deaths, wounded troops who do not fit in the hospital die (see below).

Death reduction

The following sources reduce the 10% death share when attacking (a soldier who does not die is wounded instead). The reductions add up:

Source	Effect
Triage Tents (city technology)	−1% per level (up to 25 levels)
Battle Surgeons (city technology)	−0.5% per level (up to 20 levels)
Guild Surgeons (guild technology)	−0.5% per level (up to 20 levels)
Battle Surgery (global bonus)	−0.5% per point
Battle Physician (hero skill)	−0.5% per level, only in the army commanded by that hero

These percentages shrink the death share proportionally. For example, a total reduction of −40% lowers the 10% death share to 6%. In rallies, each participant's death share is calculated separately with their own technologies and their own hero.

Hospital and Repair Shop

The wounded are only saved if there is room:

• Siege weapons → Repair Shop
• All other units → Hospital (the strongest units are admitted first)

Building	Capacity per level
Hospital	125
Repair Shop	31.25 (rounded down)

Capacity doubles every 10 levels: a Lv10 hospital holds 125 × 10 × 2 = 2,500 wounded, and a Lv20 hospital 125 × 20 × 4 = 10,000. The Field Hospital and Field Repair Shop technologies increase this by 8% per level, and the guild technologies by 10% per level. The detailed table is on the Buildings page.

Hospital occupancy = waiting wounded + those being healed. Starting healing does not free up space; space only opens as healed units leave the hospital. Keep this in mind in back-to-back battles.

Wounded who do not fit in the hospital die. This is usually the main source of deaths. The "hospital overflowed" warning in the report shows this.

Healing is started manually. It costs 1/20 of the unit's production cost and takes 1/20 of its training time.

💡 Tip: Before a big attack, make sure your hospital has enough free space. Going into battle with a full hospital means sending the soldiers who will be wounded to their deaths.

Casualty pack 🩹

If your city falls in an attack (a single attack or a city rally) and you lose a large part of your defensive power, an aid pack arrives in Mail ▸ System. Defensive power is calculated from your city army, castle garrison and tower archers.

Loss ratio	Pack	Contents
25%+	Heavy Losses	8-hour shield, 2 medium packs of each resource, 2× healing 1 h, training 1 h
50%+	Great Devastation	8-hour shield, 1 large + 1 medium pack of each resource, 4× healing 1 h, 2× training 1 h
75%+	Catastrophe	8-hour shield, 2 large packs of each resource, 2× healing 8 h, 4× healing 1 h, training 8 h, 3× training 1 h

• The loss must be large to get a pack (worth about 1,500 swordsmen or more); very small armies do not get one.
• At least 24 hours must pass between two packs.
• The shield in the pack gives you breathing room to recover; use healing speedups right away to empty the hospital.

Reading the battle report

After every battle, a detailed report lands in the Mail → Battle tab:

• Result header: victory or defeat ("Damage dealt" for boss targets)
• Army table: sent / returned / dead / wounded for each unit
• Enemy army and the enemy's losses
• Round-by-round damage: the damage both sides dealt each round. In a city battle, each round's phase is shown with an icon: ⚔️ outside the castle, 🧱 walls, 🏰 castle assault.
• Battle notes: in a city battle, the remaining health of walls and towers, and the defender's losses group by group (outside the castle, garrison, tower archers)
• Loot and the XP your hero gained

City attack and Hades reports can be shared with a web link. Details on the Mail page.