Mechanics

Combat

There are no dice in combat. Before you confirm an attack you see both sides' remaining HP, and the number you see is the number you get — the preview is the real calculation.

Reading the formula

Both sides scale with their remaining HP ratio: a unit at half health fights at half strength. That is what pulling a damaged unit back buys you.

Four things multiply the defender's power:

• Terrain — Forest favours the defender; see Map and terrain.
• Type advantage — Spearman defends 2 times as hard against Raider.
• Fortification — a dug-in unit defends 1.5 times as hard (see below).
• Remaining HP ratio.

They all enter the same product, so they stack: attacking a fortified Spearman in a forest with a Raider means eating three multipliers at once.

The type triangle

• Spearman ⟶ beats Raider (defense bonus).
• Raider ⟶ beats Pioneer and Siege.
• Siege ⟶ beats cities.

Fortifying

You can fortify a unit: the button in the context panel spends its remaining movement and its action for the turn, and in exchange the unit digs in.

A dug-in unit:

• Defends 1.5 times as hard — the multiplier goes alongside the terrain and type multipliers, not instead of them.
• Heals 2× as fast inside its own territory: 4 HP instead of 2 (see The turn cycle).

Fortification persists across turns; the start of a turn does not clear it. Only two things break it:

• Moving — leaving the position drops the fortification.
• Attacking — an attacking unit counts as having left its position, so the defense bonus is gone next turn.

A defender that is attacked and survives keeps its fortification: it held the ground, so it keeps the position.

Fortification is not a hidden variable: the board and the context panel both say "Fortified", and the combat preview shows the multiplier as its own line — for enemy units too.

Rules

• All attacks are made from an adjacent tile; there are no ranged units.
• Attacking ends the turn. Move-then-attack is allowed, attack-then-move is not.
• If the defender dies, the attacker advances into the tile — except Siege, which stays put.
• A side under truce cannot be attacked and its cities cannot be entered; that pair cannot fight until the truce expires (Diplomacy and truces). Zones of control are unaffected, though — a truced unit still stops you.
• Counter damage only applies if the defender survives.

Zone of control

Every tile adjacent to an enemy unit is that unit's zone of control. A unit that enters a zone of control ends its move on that tile: the remaining movement is spent and no further step is possible this turn.

That single sentence is the whole rule; the details follow from it:

• A zone of control does not close a tile. If the tile is empty you can enter it, you just stop there — which is why the range highlight keeps marking it.
• Leaving is free. A unit that starts inside a zone of control may keep walking; as long as its path stays outside, it spends its whole budget.
• Moving from one controlled tile to another is allowed but still stops you: if the new tile is controlled too, the move ends there.
• Only enemy units project a zone of control. Your own units do not, and neither do cities.
• A unit that cannot attack projects no zone of control. Today that is only the Scout: the engine rejects its attack command outright, so it projects no threat either and a rival walking past does not halt. The rule is one-directional — the Scout's own movement still halts normally inside enemy zones of control.
• A multi-step path may not pass through a controlled tile; such an order is rejected and the reason is shown.
• Stopping does not cost you your action: the unit can still attack an adjacent target from where it stopped. What ends is the movement, not the turn.

The consequence: a line finally holds. Slipping past a row of Spearman is no longer possible; the attacker has to stop in front of it. A zone of control is not a shield — whatever ends up adjacent to the tile it halts on can still be hit — but you decide where it halts, and you answer on the next turn.

Attacking a city

Against a city, a unit's attack is not used — its attack vs. city value is. The city's defense is base 3 plus building contributions plus its owner's dynasty contribution (Defensive line), and a city never strikes back. Terrain and type multipliers do not apply to cities; the one multiplier on the city side is revolt — a revolting city defends at ×0.5 (Victory conditions). The combat preview prints that multiplier as a line whenever it applies.

That is the whole difference: the Siege is weak against units, but its attack-vs-city value is 6 where the best of the others manages 2 — the Pioneer only 1, and the Scout cannot attack a city at all.

No unit ever stands on a city tile

A city tile is filled by the structure itself: no unit can stand on it. You cannot enter your own city's tile either, and the tile of a standing enemy city is closed as well. The movement highlight never offers that tile; send the command anyway and the engine rejects it with Hex occupied.

What that means in combat:

• An attacker does not have to kill a unit inside the city first — there can be no unit there. The target is the city's HP directly, and the city never strikes back.
• You cannot hold a city with a unit "from the inside". Defense happens on the adjacent tiles: a unit standing there physically blocks the attacker's path (Spearman).
• A city whose HP has dropped to zero can no longer be attacked; there is no target left. The tile opens instead, and a unit that enters it takes the city (Cities and population).
• Because attacking ends the turn, the unit that knocked the city's HP to zero cannot walk in on the same turn. Either another unit that still has its action takes the city, or you enter on the next turn.
• The unit that takes the city stays on that tile; once it leaves it cannot come back, because the city is now its own.

Fighting neutral bandits runs by the same rules: the same preview, the same terrain bonus, the same type triangle. There are two differences and both are on the bandit's side: a bandit never targets a city and never leaves the ring around its camp (Bandit camp). Killing a camp's last bandit removes the camp from the board.

A Neutral village is a city, and every city rule above applies to it: drive its HP to zero, walk in, and the village becomes your city. Nothing adds to its defense — no building, no dynasty — just the base defense and its remaining HP ratio. Nor can it be shielded: no truce can be signed with the neutral side, so a village is always a legal target.

The numbers on this page are read from the game’s balance tables.