A Battle at a Glance

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.

Who stands where, and who hits whom?

Your army stands in five lines. The ground in front of a city is narrow, so not everybody fights at once; whoever does not fit waits in reserve and steps in when someone falls.

The five lines at a glance

Line	Who	Whom it hits
Front line	Spearman, Hoplite, Phalangite	The enemy front line first, then the flank. It reaches the lines behind only once the enemy front line has fallen.
Ranged line	Archer, Slinger, Cretan Archer	The enemy front line first. It reaches the lines behind once the front line has fallen. It runs out of ammunition.
Flank	Peltast, Swordsman, cavalry	The enemy flank first. Once the flank has fallen it reaches the ranged line and the engines behind it.
Siege engines	Battering Ram, Catapult, Oxybeles, Helepolis, Chelone	The wall first. With no wall, the enemy's engines first. The Battering Ram and the Chelone strike only the wall.
Support column	Physician, Priest, Engineer	It strikes nobody, and nobody can reach it.

How does a round go, and how does a battle end?

A round is 10 real minutes. Everybody strikes at once, looking at the battlefield as it stood when the round began; a soldier who falls in that round has struck too.

Losses lower morale, while the losses you inflict on the enemy lift it back a little. An army whose morale sinks to the lowest band stops fighting a round later, if it is still there, and marches home with its survivors: that is a rout.

A battle has no round limit. It ends when a side is destroyed, routed or raises the white flag. The detail: Rounds, Morale and Victory and Defeat.

A walled city

In a walled city a battle has two phases. While the wall stands the city is shut: nobody walks in and nobody walks out to fight. The attacker's foot and flank wait in front of the wall: they can reach nobody, but the arrows from the wall find them. The defender's foot and flank wait inside.

Only fire speaks. The attacker's archers shoot over the wall, but they reach only the men on the battlements and the ranged line behind them, and very little of each shot gets through; his engines strike the wall. The defender's archers and shooting engines shoot out at full strength and hit whoever is nearest the wall: first the attacker's front line, then his flank. The ranged line and the support behind them come next only once those in front have fallen. Every siege engine strikes the wall from its foot, and only the archers on the battlements fire at it there. A ram waiting in the defending city does not take the field.

From the round after the wall falls, everything is as on an open field: foot and flank fight too, the battlements are gone and the engines look for each other first. The ram still strikes no man, but now it can be struck.

What brings a wall down?

Only siege engines bring a wall down. An attacker with no engines waits in front of it while his foot melts under the arrows; his morale falls every round and within a few hours his army withdraws. One who comes with only a few rams is eaten up at the foot of the wall by the archers on the battlements. One who brings enough rams gets through, and having his own archers shoot over the wall to silence the battlements first helps the rams.

The detail: Walls and Siege and Defending a City.

What do you lose, and what do you keep?

Not every soldier who falls is dead. Each round the physicians carry a share of the fallen off the field as wounded; if your army leaves the field alive, the wounded go home with it. The engineers haul a share of the smashed engines back to be mended.

If you win a plunder raid, your army carries off as much goods, Gold and prisoners as it can hold. Goods the Warehouse protects cannot be taken. A city never changes hands: there is no conquest in this game. If you want to hold a city, you choose occupation as the purpose of the attack.

The detail: Support Units, Plunder, Occupation and Storage.

Pirates

Now and then the pirates come on their own and land at your city; a battle with them follows the same rules. From the first level there are a few archers among them, and while the wall stands only they shoot over it. So does their plunder: they take a share of the goods the Warehouse does not protect, and they never occupy the city.

The detail: Pirate Raids and Pirate Cove.

What to bring

What you bring depends on where the battle will be fought.

By situation

Situation	Bring	Why
Attacking a walled city	Enough Battering Rams, and a Chelone for the highest walls; Archers to silence the battlements; a front line and a flank to fight once the wall falls	While the wall stands only engines and archers do anything; the rest wait.
Defending your city	Archers and Slingers to put on the battlements, a few shooting engines, a full front line; the Arsenal and a high wall	Only those who shoot strike from behind the wall; once it falls, the front line and the flank come in.
On an open field	A balanced army: a front line to hold, ranged units behind it, fast troops on the flank and a reserve	Everybody can reach everybody; the front line shields what is behind it and the reserve replaces the fallen.

The figures come from the game's own content. Balance updates can move some numbers; the rules themselves are as written here.