Combat

This one page is enough to understand a battle from start to finish: who stands where, how a round goes, how things change in front of a wall, what is lost and what you should bring. For the detail, follow the article at the end of each part.

How an attack is given, what happens on arrival, and who can join a battle in progress.

A round is 10 minutes, and the order of what happens at a boundary matters.

Your whole army does not fight at once, and this is why.

The roles, and why “stronger” is not the same as “better”.

Defence does not deal damage. It means endurance.

You cannot take a walled city with a wall still standing unless you brought siege engines.

Ammunition is on the men's backs — and the line may only spend what the line is carrying.

Morale is not health. A broken army does not die; it refuses to fight.

The reserve is not held back: it is queueing. And the ground belongs to the side, not the player.

Supply and ammunition are not the same resource.

The priest, the physician and the engineer do not fight; they look after the army's morale, its wounded and its broken engines.

Defending is not attacking in a mirror.

A battle ends when one side is no longer on the field.

The shield that keeps a new player safe from attack until they have grown, what ends it, and how you can end it yourself.

What a victorious army takes, what it cannot, and why it may come home with less than it asked for.

How to stop a battle: call off the siege, or give up the city.

Holding a city: temporary military control, not conquest.

Sending warships to sea: the fleet order, the two lines, and what it costs.

Holding a harbour: how it starts, what it gives, what it does not, and how it ends.

Finding an alliance, joining it, running it and leaving it.

What a soldier costs depends on where he is standing.

Eight situations showing how the rules work together.

What players ask most about battle, raiding and occupation.

The words used in this handbook.

Each unit's place in the army, in short. The numbers are in the Units table; the info button in the production windows shows the same description, with the unit's attack and defence.

The way to learn what is in another player's city before you attack it.

The pirate cove off every island is nobody’s city, yet every player has a cove of their own: if you have a city on the island you raid it with your galleys, and if you win you bring goods home from its store.

The force in your city, its roads, its enemy and its wars; land and sea apart.

The pirates now and then blockade anybody’s deposits. Raid a pirate cove and they do more: they land at one of your cities or ambush a shipment of yours at sea. A player who leaves the coves alone has their cities and cargo left alone.