💥 Damage

Damage Overview

Damage is defined as the number of casualties dealt by one army against the other in an instance of combat. When combat is initiated (i.e. one army attacks another), damage is calculated from troop numbers, troop tier, biome effects, stamina penalties, battle timer penalties, and Combat v3 role modifiers.

Combat Process

When an army attacks another from an adjacent tile, the following sequence occurs:

Stamina Assessment: The attacker must have sufficient stamina to engage in combat, the defender must have enough to avoid a low-stamina damage penalty
Damage Calculation: Damage is calculated for both combatants using the damage formula
Casualty Application: Damage is applied simultaneously to both armies
Battle Timers: Each combatant receives a battle timer, which prevents them from initiating new attacks while active.
Refunds: Damage-ratio refunds are calculated and applied to battle timers and stamina

Combat v3 Role Modifiers

Crossbowmen can attack from 2 hexes away. Range-2 attacks deal 70% damage to field armies, deal 30% damage to structure guards, ignore biome damage modifiers, and receive no counter-damage.
Knights specialize in structure combat. Adjacent Knight assaults deal +15% damage to structure guards, and Knight guards take 15% reduced incoming damage while defending structures.
Paladins keep their high-mobility cavalry role; their main balance pressure comes from biome movement and damage affinities.

Range-2 Crossbowman attacks are ranged pokes rather than full battles: they apply shorter battle timers and bypass the normal damage-ratio refund calculation. Ranged attacks can clear structure guards, but structures still require adjacency to claim.

Damage Calculation

Combat Damage Calculation

The damage dealt by an army during combat is calculated as follows:

D_x = K · T_xT_y · x · C^−z · B · S · T

Where:

D_x — Damage dealt by army x
K — Global damage modifier = 2
T_x / T_y — Tier ratio (attacker tier ÷ defender tier)
x — Number of troops in army x
C^−z — Scaling factor where C = total troops (x + y), z = 0.2
B — Biome damage modifier
S — Stamina penalty modifier
T — Battle timer penalty modifier

The damage scaling coefficient (z = 0.2) reduces damage in larger conflicts so that bigger battles require more combat rounds to resolve. The global damage modifier (K = 2) provides a baseline multiplier for all combat interactions.

Battle Timers

Immediately after damage is applied, each combatant receives a battle timer that prevents it from attacking an army or Realm until the timer expires. Armies are free to take any other action while the timer is active. The base duration is the length of a single Phase (one minute in Blitz). Timers for different armies are maintained independently of the world clock.

If an army that currently has a battle timer is attacked by another army, it will deal 15% less damage during that combat round. This reduction is represented by the battle timer penalty modifier (T) in the damage equation and reflects the army's reduced combat readiness while recovering from previous engagements.

Damage-Ratio Refunds

The combat system includes a refund mechanism designed to prevent smaller, weaker armies from indefinitely stalling larger forces. When combat is significantly imbalanced, the dominant army receives:

Stamina Refunds: Based on the damage ratio between armies
Battle Timer Reduction: Shorter cooldowns for overwhelming victories

Refund Calculation

The system calculates a Refund Factor based on the damage ratio between armies x and y:

Damage Ratio (R_x): x's damage ÷ y's damage
Refund Factor f(R_x): determines the amount of stamina refunded and battle timer reduction

If Rx ≥ 10:       f(Rx) = 1              (maximum refund)
If Rx ≤ 2.5:      f(Rx) = 0              (no refund)
If 2.5 < Rx < 10: f(Rx) = (Rx - 2.5) / (10 - 2.5)

For army x:

Refunded Stamina   = (combat cost) × f(Rx), rounded up
Battle Timer Length = (base timer) × [1 - f(Rx)]

The same calculations are applied for army y.