Winning and Losing

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

How a battle ends

No battle ends because a round count ran out. There are three ways off the field: being destroyed, breaking and withdrawing, and giving up.

The last two are not the same: a broken force refuses to fight, while a force under the white flag decides to stop. The flag is a decision, not a defeat: the attacker lifts the siege and goes home empty-handed, the defender yields the city and keeps its soldiers (The White Flag).

Outcomes

Outcome	What happened
Besiegers destroyed	The last of the attacking army fell.
Besiegers broke and withdrew	The attacker's morale went; the survivors are marching home.
Defenders destroyed	The last of the garrison fell — but if the wall still stands the battle does not end.
Defenders broke and withdrew	The garrison stopped fighting — but if the wall stands, the battle does not end for that reason either.
The city fell	The garrison left the field AND the wall is down.
Both sides routed	Both armies' morale went and both left the field. There are survivors marching home on either side.
Both armies were destroyed to the last man	Nobody survived on either side.
Neither side had a force left on the field	The field emptied, but not for a single reason: one banner may have left alive while another was overrun. The game says no more here than it knows.
The siege was called off	The attacker raised the white flag and abandoned the attack.
The city surrendered	The defender raised the white flag and opened the gates.

The report of a battle

Every battle that is over reports four different things separately: who won it, how it stopped, what your own force came there to do, and what came of it. They are not the same thing — winning the field and coming home empty-handed happens, and so does taking a surrender without a fight. The report sits above the battle screen; from the same screen you can replay the battle round by round, and you find older battles under Battle history (The Army Screen).

Won or lost is said from your side: the same battle is won for the attacker and lost for the defender. How it stopped is a separate sentence: a surrender is not a rout, a withdrawal is not an annihilation, and a rout on both sides is nobody's victory.

The report is read from records written while the battle was being fought; it is not worked back from the city as it stands today, from the army that came home, or from today's balance. For battles fought before those records were kept, the report says what is unknown is unknown, rather than inventing it.

Plunder and occupation outcomes are written just after the fighting ends; if one has not been written yet the report says the result is still being recorded, and looks again a few times by itself. If it still has not arrived the report stops looking, says so, and gives you a button to look again; that wait is never shown as nought plunder or as a failed raid.

The referee's note

Our operators can ask a referee to look at a battle you lost, including those you lost to the pirates: a pirate landing on your city, a raid of yours on a pirate cove, or a blockade you could not break. The referee writes with AI: it reads the battle's records, and the game fights the same battle again with one thing changed, such as a larger army, more battering rams or a higher wall. It then writes you a note on why you lost, how the two sides differed and what would have won it. The note stands at the top of that battle's report and only you can see it; when it is written you hear of it in the bell and, if you have notifications on, on your phone or in your browser. No player or city names are sent to the referee. The note is written in the language you play the game in; if you change the game's language, the note is translated into the new one shortly after.

If the outcome of a battle seems wrong to you, you can ask for a review yourself. The report of a battle you lost shows a Referee review card while there is no note yet. The Ask for a referee review button passes your request to our operators. A battle can be asked about once, and only by the side that lost it: the city's owner if the attack won, the first attacker to arrive if the attack failed. A request does not guarantee a note. If the referee reviews the battle, the note appears at the top of the report and the bell lets you know. Battles lost to pirates have no such card.

What happens when a city falls?

The city does not change hands — there is no conquest. After a raid the surviving besiegers go home; after an occupation the army stays and holds the city for a while, but it is still its owner's city.

If the attack set out as a raid, the winner takes what it can carry from the city’s stores, its treasury and its people, and leaves. A city that surrendered does not change hands either: surrendering to a raid means being plundered, surrendering to an occupation means being occupied.

Armies that withdraw

Side	What happens
Attacker	The survivors march home the way they came, with their ammunition and their support units.
Defender	It marches nowhere — it is already home. It stops fighting and the men stay in the city.
An attacker who called the siege off	It breaks contact and re-forms first — the army screen shows this as Regrouping — and only then walks home the way it came.

Long battles

As long as both sides keep feeding it, a battle can run for hours or days. A persistent siege is an event players can intervene in, in real time.

A long siege works against the defender too: as it drags on, fatigue wears at the garrison's morale, and neither the wall, nor a priest, nor the city's production can stop that.

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