Starting a Battle

Giving the order

An attack is given on the map: go to the target city's island, click the city and press Attack the city in its window. If you have more than one city, you choose which one the army leaves from. You set each unit with a slider, by typing into the box beside it or with All; Select all puts in every unit at once and Reset clears the order. The card at the top names the target's island and owner, and the foot of the window shows how many soldiers are going, their total attack power and how much plunder a raid could carry. The army marches, or crosses by sea. The army screen lists no other player's cities; there you only move soldiers from the city you are in to your own cities and the cities you hold.

The window works out the journey while you write the order, and asks again whenever you change a unit, a share or a ship. The send button is named for what the attack is for — Send the raid, Send the occupation or Send the relief — and only opens once the journey has been worked out for the order as it stands. If the order cannot go, the reason is written beside the button.

You also choose what the attack is for on the What it goes for cards: Raid or Occupy. Each card says what happens after a victory and how many times the usual upkeep the army pays meanwhile. A raiding army that wins takes what plunder it can carry and comes home, so you also set your raid priorities: what your army’s carrying space goes to first — goods, Gold, or captives. An occupying army that wins stays in the city and takes no plunder.

A city's walls and garrison are not visible before you attack. You either learn what is there through intelligence, or you read it in the battle report.

The city's window

Clicking a city on the island opens a small window. At its top are the city's name, its owner and the owner's alliance: press the owner's name for their player page, or the alliance's name for its page. The frame on the left holds the owner's portrait, or the first letter of their name if they wear none. The band under the name says where the city stands to you: an ally's, your own, occupied, fought over, under beginner protection, its owner on holiday, or an agreement between you.

In an enemy city's window that city is already the target. Under Military are Attack the city and Attack the harbour, under Other Send resources and Send a spy; if you have a forward base, a harbour you hold or an army standing in an ally's city, the orders from those are added under Military. The icons at the foot of the window write to the city's owner, send them a friend request, or, with the flag, report them to the moderators. The window tells you nothing from inside the walls: its buildings, troops and resources are not public.

On an occupied city the band names who holds it. Attack the city is closed there and Send a relief appears beside it; if you or an ally are holding that city, Move troops appears instead and adds soldiers to the force holding it. Attack the harbour stays open on an occupied city, because a fleet sails at the harbour, not at the streets. A city of your own alliance has no attack and no spy; under Support, Defend stations your army in it, and you can also send it resources or a fleet.

Clicking your own city opens a window too, with no attack, spy or message in it: under Actions are Enter the city, Send resources, and Move troops and Send a fleet from another of your cities; if your city is occupied, Send a relief too.

An order that cannot be given right now stays in the window but cannot be pressed, and the reason is written under its name. If the owner is under beginner protection, attacks and spies are closed until it ends; if they are on holiday, everything sent at the city is closed until the holiday ends. With only one city, everything in your own city's window but Enter the city is closed, because a city sends no soldiers, ships or resources to itself. If you and the owner have an agreement, the band reminds you of it; a non-aggression pact ends when either side attacks, but the window does not close the attack. If you share a cultural treaty, the attack window says the attack will break that too: Attacking your partner.

An army crossing the sea boards first

If the target is on another island, the army first boards ship at your own city's War Harbour and sets sail when boarding is done. A city without a War Harbour cannot send an army overseas. An army marching to a target on its own island never calls at a harbour.

An army that is boarding is on campaign: it leaves your home army, pays campaign upkeep and shows as Boarding on the Army screen. Recall it now and it comes off the ships and is home at once. Its place at the War Harbour is freed too: any army queued behind it moves up. It fights the moment it arrives: there is no separate wait to come ashore.

The journey in the order window

Transport ships

In an attack across the sea, the transport ships needed to carry the units you chose are worked out and set aside automatically. You do not choose their number and cannot lower it: the space your soldiers, support units and siege engines take up aboard decides how many are needed. If your harbour does not have enough idle ships, the order cannot be given; the window says how many ships are needed and how many are idle.

A raid can add extra ships to the required ones; an extra ship makes room to carry more plunder home. An occupation takes only the required ships. Idle ships are those not away on another campaign, a shipment or a colony voyage. Every ship that sails stays bound to the campaign and only counts as idle again once it is back home. Transport ships are never sunk in battle; even if you lose, every one comes home.

Move troops

You send your army into your own city, a city you hold, an ally's city or a city an ally holds with Move troops in that city's window; in an ally's city the order is called Defend. At the top of the window you choose which of your cities the army leaves from; the destination is the city you clicked. Each kind of unit has its own row: say how many go with the slider, by typing the number, or with All. Select all fills every row and Reset empties them. As soon as you choose troops, the window shows how long the journey takes and when it arrives; if the destination is on another island, it also shows the boarding time and how many transport ships are needed.

The line at the foot of the window says how many units you are sending and what stops the order right now; if nothing does, it says what the move does to upkeep. Load carts and extra transport ships go only to a base: a city you hold, an ally's city or a city an ally holds. They carry the plunder of the raids that leave from there. Extra ships are added only to a move across the sea; a move between your own cities offers neither carts nor extra ships.

Orders from the army screen

The New order window on the army screen gives orders from the city you are in to your own places; an order at another player's city is given on the map. The To list holds your own cities, the cities you hold and the harbours you hold. Three tabs say what you send: Troops go to your own cities and the cities you hold; a Fleet either stations in the harbour of one of your cities or joins the fleet in a harbour you hold; Goods go to your own cities only. A place the open tab cannot go to stays pale in the list and cannot be chosen. What you choose on one tab stays when you switch to another.

Each unit, ship and resource has its own row: set the number with the slider, with − and +, or with All. On the Goods tab your city's transport galleys carry the load from its Port, on the same island or across the sea; the rules are those of sending resources. A slider never goes past the hold, and the button of a row the hold cuts short becomes What fits. The foot of the window says what stops the order or when it will arrive, the send button says what it sends, and Reset empties only the open tab. Moving transport galleys to another of your cities and taking extra ships to a base are not in this window; both are in the island's windows.

A closed shore stops a landing

If enemy warships are waiting in the target city's harbour — a fleet holding it, or warships of the city's owner and their allies — your army cannot come ashore. It never sets foot on land: it turns round with all its soldiers and all its ships and goes back the way it came, the return takes as long as the way out, and nothing is lost. Nobody is stopped in open water; the harbour is the only place that says no.

An order is refused at the outset only for a blockade everyone can see. How many warships are waiting in a harbour is hidden, so you often learn that the shore is closed only when your army gets there. An army marching on its own island is never affected.

When the army arrives

Nothing is resolved on the spot. The army takes up position in front of the city and the clock is set for the first round, which is fought at the next round boundary.

If a battle is already running at that city, no second battle opens: your army joins the one that is there. Everyone attacking the same city fights on the same ground, on the same side.

The attacker

The attacker comes from outside. It fights with the men it brought, carries its own ammunition and campaign supply, can make no ammunition in the field, and can be reinforced later by further armies. The only thing that can bring walls down is the siege engines it brings.

It gets nothing from any city's production. In a long siege the attacker's worst enemy is not the defender: it is its own logistics.

The defender

The defender fights at home. The size of the ground is set by the defending city's Town Hall; while the wall stands the city is shut: infantry neither walks in nor comes out; the Arsenal and the Siege Workshop turn out ammunition every round, and the Town Hall feeds the garrison; and a garrison fighting on its own ground loses less of its will to a bad round.

But the defender is not immortal. Morale breaks, ammunition and rations run out, walls are breached, garrisons rout and garrisons die.

Seeing a battle from the island

While a city or its harbour is being fought over, everyone on the island can see it. The map says over the city whether the battle is on land or at sea. If the city is occupied or its harbour blockaded, this line stands on its own beside theirs. The city's window tells you which round the battle has reached, when the next round comes and who is attacking. How many soldiers or ships are there is not shown. You join either side from the Battle section at the top of the window.

Joining a battle in progress

Reinforcing from the battle screen

If you are one of the sides of the battle, you can also send an army from the battle screen. While the battle lasts, a Send a reinforcement button stands above the battlefield. Pressing it opens the order from the city's window on the island, aimed at the battle's city: Join the attack if you are on the attacking side, Move troops if the city is yours, Join the defence if you are defending someone else's city. In a sea battle these become Join the sea attack, Send a fleet and Defend the harbour. Once you send the order the window closes and you stay on the battle screen. If you cannot join that side, the button cannot be pressed and the reason is written under it. A battle for an occupied city or harbour has no such button.

Nobody fights their own alliance

While you or a member of your alliance are on the attacking side you cannot join the defence, and while one of you is defending you cannot join the attack; the window says so under the row. The sides can change while an army is on the road: if the battle is over when it arrives, or a member of your alliance is now on the other side, your army comes home without a fight and you are told why.

A force sent to defend pays campaign upkeep from the moment it leaves home until it is back, and its losses are struck from its own city. An army sent with Defend to a member of your own alliance stays there after the battle as well (Standing in an ally's city). In a battle for an occupied city or harbour, only the occupier's alliance helps with the defence (A city or harbour an ally holds).

Troops moved in

Troops and warships you move to another of your own cities become that city’s the moment they arrive. They are counted among its soldiers, take their orders from it and no longer show among your missions. Their upkeep goes with them; soldiers are no part of the population, so neither city's population changes. If that city is under siege when they arrive, is occupied, or has its harbour held by someone else, they stay a force moved in and defend as a force of their own: their losses come off the city that trained them, and they cannot be called home while the battle lasts. Once the city is free again, they become its own. If the city falls to an enemy, the survivors are not taken captive; they make a real journey home.