Attacking

Abstract

Attacking is an important activity for any growing warlord. It's a quick way of getting land, and a way of stopping others who might challenge you. The myriad of reasons to attack will soon grow apparent. In this, there will be no specific strategy - just an explanation of how things work. (For strategies, see the Strategy Guide).

The Most Simple Form

In the most simple explanation of attacking, your forces go against the enemy's, and if you have a 5% advantage (5% more offenisve points than they do), you win. You loose troops no matter what, but so do they.

That explanation leaves out health, bonuses, special abilities, attack types, and strategy but retains the basic idea: whoever has more points wins.

What about Raise Defenses? Doesn't that impact things?

Raise Defenses thirds your losses (where you might loose 300 troops, you actually loose 100). It does not stop the enemy from taking your land. Don't think that raised defenses helps you so much. But don't disregard it either - if you have a feeling you will be getting attacked, having more troops at the end is a good thing.

Health

There is only one way to decrease your health - by attacking. There are two ways to increase your health: the health leader action, or taking turns doing anything except attacking.

Health is a multiplier for your offense - or defense points. So, if you had 50% health, you'd multiply your offensive points (say you had 1,000,000) by 50% (getting you 500,000). Same goes for defense points.

Most attacks take 6% health (except Surprise, which takes 18%, and leader attacks [an entirely different discussion], which take 2%). That means that each consecutive attack has 6% less power.

Bonuses

Each race has a modification to their attacking and defending ability. These racial bonuses are, like health, multipliers. A 10% bonus for offense increases your offensive points by 10% (Say you had 1,000,000 Offensive points. You would then have 1,100,000)

Lizards and Painted ones have special abilities which add to their attacks. The lizard's is a 10% increase on all troop attacks. The Painted ones have a whopping 30% bonus - but only for Surprise Attacks (which have a 25% bonus anyway).

Attack Types

Each attack has it's positives and negatives, and there's one for each situation. For the specialty attacks (Guerilla Strike, Bombardment, Frontal Assault, Naval Assault), the only troop types used in calculations are the troops for those attacks.

• Standard
  Pro: Beyond employing your full offensive power, a standard attack is the only one which captures buildings.
  Con: It employs the enemy's full defensive power - which, if they have a good spread of defensive troops, can stop you in your tracks.
• Surprise
  Pro: It's a 25% bonus to your offensive power - you don't have to have a larger army than your opponent to win. Their allies can't help out.
  Con: It employs their full defensive power, you loose more troops, and it takes 18% health.
• Enslave
  Pro: You get workers, as well as land - improving your production. Con: It employs their full defensive power, and you get much less land than usual.
• Guerilla Strike
  Pro: Rats have a 2:1 Offense to Defense ratio. You only need a little over half as many rats as your opponent.
  Con: You need quite a lot of rats - and rats eat more, and cost more. it takes 250 rats to overpower each tower your enemy has.
• Bombardment
  Pro: You can sometimes end up really surprising your enemy, who may not have built up a troop that they hardly attack with. You destroy lots of buildings.
  Con: You need a lot more weasels to win, and weasels aren't very powerful.
• Frontal Assault
  Pro: Stoats have a favorable Offense to defense ratio. So you don't need quite as many as your opponent. They are also 250% more powerful than rats.
  Con: Stoats are harder to build up quickly. You get less land than usual.
• Naval Assault
  Pro: Few people have large Skiff armies, and skiffs have more offensive points per unit than anything else.
  Con: Skiffs are hard to build up, and you need many more skiffs than your opponent to hold an advantage.

Strategy

Strategy adds another dimension to attacking - the ability to maneuver troops to your greatest advantage. But first...

A Note on Discussing Strategy

The notation for writing out strategy is:
(Group 1 Rats,Group 1 Weasels,Group 1 Stoats,Group 1 Skiffs: Group 1 AttackType)
(Group 2 Rats,Group 2 Weasels,Group 2 Stoats,Group 2 Skiffs: Group 2 AttackType)
(Group 3 Rats,Group 3 Weasels,Group 3 Stoats,Group 3 Skiffs: Group 3 AttackType)
(Group 4 Rats,Group 4 Weasels,Group 4 Stoats,Group 4 Skiffs: Group 4 AttackType)

So, the default attack would be written as:
(25%,25%,25%,25%: Attack)
(25%,25%,25%,25%: Attack)
(25%,25%,25%,25%: Attack)
(25%,25%,25%,25%: Attack)

Setting up your enemy's groups

The setup of your own groups will depend largely on your opponent's group setup. The attack type you choose for the group determines the type of enemies. It works like this:

When you choose an attack, it will put "points" for that troop type into the enemy defense. Then, the actual amount of enemy defense is determined as the points for that group divided by the total points for that troop type...times the total amount of troops for that troop type (TotalTroop*GroupTroopPoints/TotalTroopPoints)

To better understand how the points are apportioned, an overview of the attack types.

• Attack
  1 point for each troop type. You cannot loose land while attacking.
• Vs. Rats
  10 points for rats.
• Vs. Weasels
  10 points for weasels.
• Vs. Stoats
  10 points for stoats.
• Vs. Skiffs
  10 points for skiffs.
• Flank
  1 point for each troop type. 20% Chance of a 20% bonus to offensive points, 80% chance of 30% bonus to losses.

As a last note, You have to have at least one point in each troop type to be able to attack, or else your generals will refuse.

Setting up your own groups

Now, set up your own groups to take advantage of your enemy's weaknesses and strengths.

You get a certain percentage of the land that your groups conquer. If you beat 65% of the enemy's army, you get up to about 7% of 65% of their land.

If the enemy beats you in a group, and your attack type is not "Attack", you can loose land. You loose 1% of your land if the defense is 70% more powerful than you (50% if you are trying to flank), and 2% of your land if the defense is 140% more powerful than you (100% if you are trying to flank).