Rounds
A round is 10 minutes, and the order of what happens at a boundary matters.
A round is 10 minutes
A battle is not recalculated every second. One round is fought every 10 real minutes, and everything in that round happens at once.
The battle panel on the city screen shows when the next round is due, and every round writes a line into the log.
What happens at a boundary
- Arrivals join
- The city arms its garrison
- Reinforcement morale is applied
- Broken forces withdraw
- The line forms
- THE ROUND IS FOUGHT
- Casualties are applied
- Physicians and engineers work
- Supply and morale update
- Next round
The order is not arbitrary.
Why this order?
Your reinforcement counts before the fighting: a relief that lands exactly on the boundary both stands in the line and lifts morale that round.
A broken army does not have to survive the fight that broke it: routs are confirmed before the round, and a force still broken leaves without fighting it.
Everything happens at once
Everyone in a round aims at the same start-of-round battlefield. The practical consequence is that a soldier who dies this round still struck this round. There is no initiative mechanic.
The same rule covers the wall: a city whose wall falls this round keeps its cover for the whole of that round. The breach counts from the next one.
Watching a battle
A battle that is being fought has a screen of its own, and it shows you the latest round the server has resolved. The line under the round's title says where the battle stands: while you follow it, it reads Live, with how long until the next round and which round was resolved last. That countdown is when the next round is EXPECTED; reaching zero does not mean it has been fought — the screen changes when the server resolves it.
You may look at an older round; the war goes on behind you and your screen stays where you put it. Return to live on the same line takes you to the latest resolved round. Watching or closing the screen changes nothing about the fighting.
You see the array of the army in front of you while the battle runs too: which unit stands in which lane, how many in the line and how many in reserve. What you cannot see until the battle ends is how the other side is holding up: its morale, its supplies, its ammunition and the wounded it has carried off are hidden. At the opening of a siege the besiegers have not fought yet; the screen draws them in the lanes their units will stand in, with how many there are.
When the battle ends the screen says how, and the same battle can be replayed round by round.
What the movement on the field means
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| A unit's picture and the number under it | The men of that formation still alive at the end of the round. |
| A figure marked “−” above the number | The men who fell in that round. |
| “in reserve” under a unit | It is not in the line; it is not fighting and is waiting its turn. |
| The unit card says “Waiting behind the wall” or “Waiting before the wall” | The wall is standing; that formation can reach nobody. Nobody reaches a defender behind the wall; an attacker before it is found by the arrows from the wall. |
| Arrows, sling stones, javelins, catapult stones or oxybeles bolts fly | That formation is on the field and throwing this round. While the wall stands, a formation it keeps out of range throws short: its volley falls before the wall and reaches nobody. Nothing flies from an empty quiver, from the reserve, or from defenders waiting behind their wall. |
| The unit card's “Struck this round” line | Where that formation's blows went this round and each one's share: an enemy line, the wall, or the rams at the foot of the wall. The missiles on the field land in the same places. A formation that reached nobody has no such line. |
| A ram swings back and forth at the foot of the wall | The ram is battering a standing wall. The bowmen on the battlements give it part of their fire. Once the wall falls the ram goes back to the siege line. |
| A stamp comes down on the field in the last round | The battle is over. The stamp lands on the army that lost and says how it ended; if both sides lost, it is in the middle of the field. |
| A unit is drawn faded | It withdrew or was destroyed that round; the word under it says which. |
The movement is representative, and can be switched off
The unit pictures and what flies in the air are representative: an arrow in flight is not a shot, and a ram swinging forward is not a blow. What is left, what was lost and what is left to shoot are the numbers under the unit and on its card, and those are the only things to read. The number of things in the air does not grow with the number of men, and none of them is aimed at anybody in particular.
With effects on, every round that was fought has its missiles in the air and its losses rising over the units; nothing flies while the armies form up. The wall comes down only when the round itself says it did: in that round it breaks in two and is stamped “The wall is breached”, once. The wall strip above the field says the same in words: while the wall stands, its remaining integrity is a bar and a figure, with how much it lost in that round beside it; once it has fallen the bar is gone, and the strip says in which round the breach opened. The last round of the battle opens once with a stamp that says how it ended.
The Battle effects switch above the battlefield turns the movement off. It is not Play/Pause: with effects off, live following and replay both still work and every number stays where it was. If your system asks for less motion the field is drawn still by itself, and changing that setting while the page is open takes effect at once.
Finding battles that are over
The battles you were in are listed on your army screen: newest first, which city, which side of the wall you stood on, what your own force came to do, how many rounds were fought and how it ended for you. The list opens a page at a time; older battles fetches one more.
Opening one from the list opens the same screen you watch a battle on: the outcome at the top, the battlefield and its rounds below it, and under those what happened in the round, the card of the unit you picked, the losses, the plunder and who fought. You can replay it round by round from there; there is no separate replay page.
Rounds and time
| Rounds | Real time |
|---|---|
| 6 rounds | 1 hour |
| 36 rounds | 6 hours |
| 144 rounds | 1 day |
The figures come from the game's own content. Balance updates can move some numbers; the rules themselves are as written here.