Advanced Battle Mechanics

In this article you will find lots of basic and advanced battle rules and formulas.

Before the battle starts, players have one minute to deploy their units on the battlefield and assign hotkeys for them. When deployment is finished, a player can signal with the «Ready» button.

In World of Battles all major events on the battlefield are signalized:

Combat Events

• You will be notified if your unit will be under attack;

• You will be notified if your unit will start to attack enemy unit;

• You will be notified when your unit will die.

Progress Events

• Everyone will be notified about N minutes left till the end of match.

• Everyone will be notified about Leader that has changed.

Boost effect - moving units receive temporary Attack bonus based on their Attack, Movement and Weight. After the unit stops, this bonus will be effective for a short time and then will disappear!

Overkill - If more then two units of archers shoot at the same unit they hinder each other. The more units are shooting at the same target, the less damage each of them deals due to overkill.

Range Bonus – depending on the height where shooters are standing they gain bonus to their range of fire.

Best target

“Best Targets” button is active and shown when one or several player's units are selected. It shows a list of “Best Targets” (1 to 3) as icons above the button:

Player can order units to attack best targets directly from “Best Target Pad” that is located in a right-bottom corner of the screen in battle.

Power Rating

Power Rating is a measure of unit's battle effectiveness, displayed on the hood of every flag in battle and on unit icons in menu.

Idle state

ONLY FOR MELEE UNITS! When an enemy unit appears near the unit our unit starts moving to the enemy trying to attack automatically (with action radius equal to current radius of aggression mode). When enemy leaves the action radius our unit stops. In stand ground units don’t have any aggression.

“Radar” effect: units in idle state are always seeking for enemy inside their aggression radius and stop only if there's no enemy inside.

Aggressive Move

Units in Aggressive Move mode follow the rules for Idle state (in aspect of reacting on enemy units); when enemy unit leaves aggression radius, unit in Aggressive Move mode continue to move to its destination point.

Attack

Player press right button on enemy unit and selected units (one or more) go to the enemy trying to attack if it’s possible. If enemy unit tries to go away, they pursue this unit. They don’t react on any actions from other units (like now follow unit in aggression mode). Player could interrupt it by ordering other command (move, attack other unit, stop, etc.). If targeted unit was eliminated or disappeared from sight then our unit stops in idle state (or hold position if it was set by default in settings).

Move

When “Move” command is given unit moves to the selected point and then stops in idle (aggressive) mode when that point is reached. Unit in moving state doesn’t react on any actions from other units till it reaches its final moving point.

Stop Button

Interrupt any previous action and changes unit's state to “idle”.

Hold position Button

ONLY FOR MELEE UNITS! Can be switched “on” and “off”. When “on”, it works like “hold position” - units in this state don’t react on approaching enemies and hold this position.

Switching it “on” interrupts any previous actions (attack, moving).

Switching it “off” changes unit’s state to “idle”.

When player presses “attack” or “move”, hold position mode is switched off.

If unit in “hold position” is attacked, it turns on the spot to fight the attacker.

Attack describes unit's possibilities to inflict damage. Usually “Final Attack = Attack + 1/3 * Strength”.

Armor describes unit's protection from receiving damages in melee and from ranged attack. Usually “Final Armor = Armor + 1/4 * Resistance”.        

Simple formula is: “Damage = 2*Power - Defence” So if power equals to defence damage will be 100% of power. In maximum damage can be 200% of power when defence is zero. In minimum damage can be 20% of power when power = 40% of defence or less.

So if you have 40 power and hit unit with 40 defence in result damage will be 40hp per round. If defence of unit is 10, so damage will be increased to 70hp. When defence of unit bigger than 100 damage will be minimum 8hp.

You can observe damages done during the battle - numbers that fly from units that are in combat. Green - damage done. Red - damage received.

Game has many calculations connected on round or its part. For now round is 30 second. To make game flow continuously all damage parts inflicted in each logical step (5 steps per second).

In game we have 5 weapon skills. Fencing, Bludgeoning, Slashing, Marksmanship, Piercing.

block final melee damage that unit receive (from 10% to 40%). Don't work when unit is charged!

ignore part of target units defence in melee (from 20% to 70%).

permanently decrease target unit defence, but not more than 50% of initial defence of unit. Speed is liniarly depends from Slashing skill per minute. Slashing effect is stackable. If attacks several units - slashing effect is divided between all of them.

Fencing, Slashing, Bludgeoning and Marksmanship don't work when unit is charged!

(skill of archers) Temporary decrease target unit defence, but not more than 50% of initial defence of unit. If Marksmanship(M) bigger than target Resistance(R) speed will be “M per minute”. If R>M speed will be “M * M/R”.

Because of heavy unit has more resistance than light so it is harder to lower their defence and they restore it quicker.

While shooters are in melee combat Marksmanship does not work!

(skill of pikeman) increase power against enemy unit in melee. Bonus depends from your attack and enemy weight. Also adds additional bonus when unit is charged of fight in melee face to face. Bonus cup linearly depends from pierce skill value.

Works like bludgeoning skill(but not require it). Flank ignore 10% of enemy Armor and Back attack 20%. Is stackable with Bludgeoning combat skill.

In normal situation unit inflicts 100% damage to front unit. If he is attacked from flank he delivers 25% of damage to this flank. So if unit is attacked from both sides he will inflict 50% to the front and 25% to each side. Unit doesn't deal any damages to back attacking unit!

Heavy melee units have “Stand Ground” ability that allows to block enemy units that try to move through it. Block works successfully when “Penetration force” of passing unit is smaller then “Penetration protection” of unit in “Stand Ground”. Penetration force(pF) depends greatly from strength     and weight. Value shown in Strength tooltip in manage army screen. Penetration protection(pP) depends from resistance. Value shown in resistance tooltip in manage army screen.

Breaking stand ground

When cavalry successfully charge unit with “Stand Ground” ability (can be enabled or not), this ability is disabled for charged victim instantly. After that unit can`t activate “Stand Ground” for next 30 seconds. Effect “Crushed” appears for the same period of time and unit message “I'm crushed!”. Same thing happens when unit's “Stand Ground” is broken by other unit (of course this unit has greater Penetration Force than defenders Penetration Protection).

Normal disabling of “Stand Ground” does not lead to any cooldown.

This unit has 2 unique abilities: Trample and Charge.

- Trample: increase unit power when fighting in melee with lighter unit. Bonus depends from attacker and defender units weight and trampling unit attack. So Heavy Cavalry has trample bonus when fight even Light Cavalry! Examples: wA=400, wD=100 bonus=33% of attack( wA - Weight of attacker, wD - Weight of Defender), wA=600, wD=100 bonus=43% of attack, wA=400, wD=350 bonus=7% of attack, wA=700, wD=350 bonus=20% of attack.

- Charge: inflict instant damage when unit pass through enemy. After each charge cavalry loose Penetration force, may become tired and loose possibility to charge for some time. Bar near the flag of Cavalry Unit indicates Charge Readiness status.

This short video shows how Cavalry can inflict instant damage using it`s “Charge” ability: http://youtu.be/ivApJCQg1SE

First Damage Coefficient is affecting damage during Charge. It depends from pF(penetration force) and pP(penetration protection) and can't be more than 200%. Examples: if pF/pP=1 than kDamage=100%, if pF/pP=0.5 than kDamage=70%, if pF/pP=2 than kDamage=150%, if pF/pP=10 than kDamage=200%.

Second final power is calculated. Formula is “FinalPower = NormalPower + WeightBonus + ArmorBonus”. “ArmorBonus=Armor*15%”. WeightBonus depends only on weight. Bonus gives for light cavalry not more than 10%, and for heavy cavalry 25-50% of NormalPower. Charge damage formula is “ChargeDamage = kDamage * FinalPower / 3”.

• Unit selection:

To select a unit in the battlefield, move your mouse over it and left-click. You can also hold the left mouse button and drag a rectangle around several units to select all of them. Pressing «Ctrl+A» selects all of your units on the battlefield. All units are shown as icons in the bottom panel; selected units have a white border around them. You can add or remove a unit from the selected group by holding the «Ctrl» button and clicking on that unit or you can select a unit with the selection rectangle while holding «Ctrl».

• Unit movement:

You can order selected units to move by right-clicking on the battlefield or on the mini-map. You can also set a path with several checkpoints on the battlefield by holding «Ctrl» with selected unit and right-clicking checkpoints.

You can order several units to move to one place. When they arrive, they will stand separately, so they won't interfere with each other.

«Stop» allows you to stop the selected unit (or units) where they are. If they are moving collectively, they won't stand separately when stopped this way.

• Units positioning in battle:

Units interfere with each other when their ranks are intermixed. Such positioning leads to the «Crowd» effect and your units' battle efficiency will be reduced:

The Crowd effect depends on the level of intermixing between two or more units and has maximum impact when more than 50% of the units are intermixed.

The Power and skills of these units will be somewhat reduced as a result of this. As soon as units are moved out of the intermix, the Crowd effect is removed from them.

The Crowd effect can only occur when two or more of your own units are intermixed, not when they are intermixed with enemy!

• By holding the right mouse button and moving the mouse, you can rotate a selected unit or formation so they face a desired direction. The formation will automatically regroup, adjusting to the terrain.

• Attack command:

To command your unit to attack, select the unit (or group) and move the cursor over the enemy unit you wish to attack. When the cursor changes to a sword, click the right mouse button to attack.

You can command your army to move to a desired place while attacking everything in its path. To do this, select the units to command, press the «Attack all to position» button and left-click on the destination point.

• Sides of Attack:

It is important to know what side to attack a unit from in close combat Front attack: a simple attack with no bonuses. A unit that is not engaged with the enemy will always receive a new attack from the front; it will turn to meet the enemy. The only exceptions are:

1. When a unit is retreating, it can be attacked from the flanks and back
2. When a unit is executing the Stand Ground order, it does not turn to meet the enemy because it's holding position until the order is canceled.

Flank attack: the attacked unit has 10% less Defense when attacked from flanks. The “flank attack” icon marks it.

Back attack: the attacked unit has 20% less Defense when attacked from the rear. The “back attack” icon marks it.

Your units try to choose the optimal side to attack. For example, if two or more units are ordered to attack an enemy in close combat, they will try to surround the enemy unit to deal more damage to it.

• Cavalry charge:

Cavalry units increase their Power when moving according to their speed. Cavalries can attack enemy units with this speed bonus, or charge through them, dealing instant Charge damage. However, the higher enemy Resistance is, the lower cavalry Defense is.

To charge through an enemy unit, a cavalry must be ordered to move through it by clicking on a destination point beyond the enemy unit. Alternatively, you can direct your cavalry to the second-line enemy squad (a common practice of hiding archer units behind infantry or pikemen could be countered this way). In this case, the cavalry will attempt to charge through the first-line unit (dealing it some damage) and engage the second-line unit.

After each charge, the cavalry unit is weakened temporarily, which is reflected by the Charge sickness effect . The more units the cavalry charged through, the more weakened it will be. For each following charge, it will receive more damage due to its weakened state. A cavalry unit can be wiped out completely by attempting to charge through several strong units one after another.

• Standing ground and breaking the lines:

Infantry and pikemen units can hold the line of battle when executing the «Stand ground» order . In this case, it is much more difficult for enemy units to break through, when attacking from the front. Note that enemies executing flank and rear attacks have no difficulties breaking through the unit holding the line (this reflects expecting the attack from the wrong direction).

This short video shows how to use “Stand Ground” ability: http://youtu.be/ynihvQIKUVI

A unit's ability to hold the line is measured by its Resistance stat; an enemy's ability to break through is measured by its Strength.

If you don't order your unit to hold the line, the enemy unit can pass through them in close combat (which can be important, for example, if you have an archers unit in the second line of battle and want to protect them from the enemy).

• Battle modes:

Fire at Will mode is a mode for archer units. When this mode is on (as it is by default), archers would attack the first enemy unit that comes into their range of fire (or, if there are several enemy units, the closest one). When they start firing at a certain unit, they will continue while it's in their firing range (i.e. until it's either destroyed or fled).

• Melee:

If your unit is engaged in melee, a symbol of the enemy unit it currently fights will appear at the top right of the screen. Below this symbol, the icons of enemy units attacking your unit are stacked (if there's more than one unit in melee with your single unit).

A unit can switch targets and start to fight any enemy unit it's engaged with, if you click on their enemy unit's symbol; alternatively, you can drag and drop an enemy unit's symbol over your own unit symbol in the bottom panel.

Ranged fire: All archer units have a special ability that helps them take their mark on enemy units more efficiently the longer they're firing at it. This ability is reflected by the Marksmanship skill. The longer they fire at a single unit, the more they reduce this unit's Defense and the more damage they deal.

• Different close combat weapons provide different abilities in close combat. The abilities that unit have developed are displayed as icons near the unit's pictograph (only if they are applicable with the selected weapon).

Combat interface of World of Battles consists of the following elements:

• Minimap (bottom left) is a reduced schematic reflection of actions taking place on the battlefield.
• Unit selection panel (bottom center) displays all unit icons. Selected unit icons are bordered with a blue frame. The squad that is currently active is highlighted with a green frame.

Under a unit's icon its status is displayed as a pictograph:

• - moving
• - melee
• - under fire

The color of this icon depicts the level of danger this unit is in; the more losses the unit takes each minute, the richer the red color of the icon.

• Order panel (above “Unit selection panel”) contains all the buttons and abilities the selected unit can use: Attack all positions,Run, Stand Ground, deactivate Fire at Will, etc.

An enemy unit can be seen if it is in sight range of any of your or ally unit.