Warfare

A large battle

Each army is made up of a commander and warriors. Only lords can be commanders. The higher the commander's Command skill, the lower the chances of warriors fleeing when taking damage.

Armies can be selected either by selective their commander or their banner on the map. They can be ordered to move or attack manually with the right mouse button.

Warriors who are not in an army can be ordered to patrol the area around a placed Patrol Banner during evening. Warriors on patrol will catch criminals and prevent the escape of slaves. Patrol reduces Rest but if there are any free warriors the ones on patrol will be automatically rotate to avoid this being an issue.

Warriors

An army being created

In the Army menu you can recruit warriors. The menu will display the Combat skill underneath each character. There are four ways of recruiting warriors:

1. From peasants, which requires a Training Ground building. They will be more cowardly for a short while after being recruited.
2. From slaves, which will give them freedom.
3. From mercenaries, which cost 20 Gold for every point of Combat skill they have and need one to two days to arrive. They will not leave the city if they have low Mood but they may instigate a rebellion.
4. Lords can always be added as warriors.

Warriors are more effective if they have weapons, armor and shields. If they have any in the inventory they will use them, otherwise they can be given equipment. Shields and armor are very effective against speaks, moderately effective against swords, not very effective against maces and and destroyed by axes.

Combat mechanics

A character heavily injured from a battle

Each character has a pain threshold, which is 50, or 100 if the army's commander has the "Defender of the city" personality trait active. Units hit during combat will accumulate injuries, which cause pain. Injuries are displayed in the States list when a character is selected. Alternatively the Thoughts list will display a "Pain from injury" thought that shows the total pain. If pain becomes greater than the pain threshold the character will fall unconscious. If pain becomes double the pain threshold the character will die. There are various types of injuries, each with its own pain and time it takes to go away.

Each character has a Courage value that is equal to half of its Mood, or equal to its Mood if the army's commander has the "Defender of the city" personality trait active. If the value of the "Pain from injury" and "Pain from sickness" thought exceed the Courage value the warrior will flee. Mood is also increased by enemies being killed, unconscious or running away, especially the commander, and decreased by the same happening to allies.

Wounds may cause bleeding, typically if caused by cutting or piercing weapons. Minor bleedings can accumulate into moderate and then severe bleeding, which can kill a character. The severity of bleeding will be displayed with an icon in the States list when a character is selected. A character with bleeding can apply self-treatment or be aided by other characters using improvised means to stop the bleeding. Wounds have a chance to be infected, which has to be treated with a Medicinal Salve in less than 48 hours or will become gangrene.

If a character loses consciousness during a battle and their army loses they victorious army will tie them up as prisoners and peasants will later bring them to the settlement where they will become slaves.

Once an army begin fighting it cannot be given new orders until is victorious or defeated.

Warriors with a temple may become fanatics. Fanatics derive pleasure from pain but if unhappy can cause a religious uprising.

Battle calculation

In battle, characters take turns attacking each other. Depending on the attacker's weapon and the defender's armor, different-sized packets of "tickets" are thrown into a figurative "bag" and one ticket is drawn from this bag with each attack - this is the result of the attack.

For example, a dagger adds 10 "cut" tickets into the bag, while light armor adds 10 "blocked by armor" tickets. Thus, there will be a 50% (10:10) chance that the attack will hit the target and the defender will receive a "cut". Heavy armor adds a packet of 30 "blocked by armor" tickets, so the chance of a cut in this case will be 25% (10:30).

The bag will also have a number of "dodged attack" tickets for the character with higher Combat skill, equal to the difference in skill between the opponents.

Tickets can include not only wounds or parrying attacks but also weapon damage, armor damage and stun.