Military

Soldiers are trained at the barracks from your own peasants, armed with weapons from the armoury, and led by a commander. You send them across the world map to clear bandit camps, wolf dens and the old realm's castles, or to attack other lords you are at war with. The world sends raiders back at you, so the soldiers you keep at home matter as much as the ones you send out.

All times on this page are at world speed 1 unless a line says otherwise. The server's worldSpeed setting divides every game-time timer (training, marching, raid cooldowns). A few timers are in real time and ignore it; those are called out where they appear.

The basics

• Build a Barracks (rank 2, Serf) to train soldiers. Each soldier takes peasants from the village, plus gold and often a weapon (bows, pikes or swords) from the Armoury.
• Most units need research first. Militia and captains need Militia Drill; archers need Archery; pikemen need Pike Drill, and so on.
• Your rank caps how many soldiers and how many commanders each village may keep. Soldiers in training, soldiers out with an army and soldiers posted to a capital count against the cap.
• Every army needs a commander (a captain or a marshal). Without one you cannot send it.
• You can only march on a target you have scouted recently: the scout report must be under 6 game hours old.
• An army walks at the pace of its slowest unit. Research and cards can speed it up on the way out.
• When it arrives you get 120 real seconds to place your troops on the battlefield. If you do nothing, a default formation is used.
• The battle is fought by the server in one go. You win only if a living commander reaches the enemy keep and holds it for 5 seconds. See Battles.
• Survivors walk home with whatever loot they could carry.
• New lords get 72 real hours of peacetime (the realm's admins can change this). During it no raids come and no lord can attack you. Attacking another lord ends your own peacetime at once.
• From rank 3 (Villein) wolves, then bandits, then castle troops start raiding your villages. You see their scout coming before the attack.
• A captain or marshal can also march to an empty site and found a new village there.
• Bigger AI targets (tiers II to V) need several lords. Their hoard and Renown are split by the damage each lord's armies dealt over every assault.
• Lords of the body that holds a territory can post troops in its capital. Enemies at war with that body can attack the capital, and taking it wins them the territory.

Units

Every trainable unit is listed below with its full battle stats. The battle stats are explained in Battles. A compact copy lives in the unit reference.

Trainable units

Unit	Role	Cost	Peasants	Train time	Rank	Research
Captain	commander	200 gold, 10 iron	1	600 s (10 min)	2 Serf	Militia Drill
Marshal	commander	600 gold, 2 swords, 20 iron	1	1800 s (30 min)	11 Baron	Captaincy
Peasant Levy	peasant	5 gold	1	30 s	2 Serf	none
Militia	infantry	15 gold, 5 wood	1	60 s	2 Serf	Militia Drill
Archer	ranged	20 gold, 1 bows	1	90 s	4 Freeman	Archery
Crossbowman	ranged	40 gold, 1 bows, 5 iron	1	150 s	7 Bailiff	Archery
Pikeman	infantry	25 gold, 1 pikes	1	120 s	4 Freeman	Pike Drill
Swordsman	infantry	40 gold, 1 swords, 5 iron	1	180 s	6 Reeve	Swordsmanship
Knight	cavalry	120 gold, 1 swords, 15 iron	1	360 s	9 Knight	Swordsmanship
Battering Ram	siege	60 gold, 200 wood, 20 iron	4	600 s	5 Yeoman	Pike Drill
Catapult	siege	150 gold, 300 wood, 100 stone, 20 iron	4	900 s	8 Squire	Siegecraft
Trebuchet	siege	300 gold, 500 wood, 200 stone, 50 iron	6	1800 s	12 Viscount	Siegecraft

All of them train at the Barracks.

Battle stats

Unit	HP	Attack	Range	Seconds per attack	Battle speed (tiles/s)	Armour	vs structures	Special
Captain	600	24	1	1.2	0.74	0.5	0.4
Marshal	1100	34	1	1.2	0.81	0.6	0.5
Peasant Levy	30	4	1	1.2	0.87	0	0.3	fills moats
Militia	70	8	1	1.2	0.81	0.1	0.4	cannot man walls
Archer	45	9	9	1.5	0.81	0.05	0
Crossbowman	70	20	8	3	0.62	0.3	0	x1.6 vs cavalry, x1.3 vs commanders
Pikeman	110	10	1	1.4	0.62	0.35	0.5	x2.5 vs cavalry
Swordsman	140	20	1	1.3	0.56	0.4	1
Knight	260	26	1	1.2	1.36	0.5	0.6	cannot man walls
Battering Ram	450	110	1	4	0.37	0.6	3	hits structures only
Catapult	220	90	16	6	0.31	0.3	3	splash 1, structures only
Trebuchet	320	200	24	10	0.22	0.3	4	splash 1.5, structures only

Armour is the share of incoming damage a unit shrugs off (0.4 means it takes 60%). Commanders, militia, knights and siege engines cannot be stationed on walls or towers.

March speed, carry and Renown

Unit	March (world cells per game hour)	Carry	Renown to whoever kills it
Captain	12	0	12
Marshal	13	0	25
Peasant Levy	12	15	0.5
Militia	12	10	1
Archer	12	8	1.5
Crossbowman	11	8	2.5
Pikeman	11	10	2
Swordsman	10	10	3
Knight	18	25	5
Battering Ram	7	0	6
Catapult	6	0	8
Trebuchet	5	0	12

World units

These are raised only by the world. You meet them in camps, dens and raids, and you cannot train them.

Unit	Role	HP	Attack	Range	s/attack	Battle speed	Armour	vs structures	March	Carry	Renown
Bandit	infantry	60	9	1	1.2	0.87	0.1	0.4	13	25	1
Outlaw	ranged	50	8	8	1.6	0.87	0.05	0	13	20	1.5
Bandit Chief	commander	380	18	1	1.2	0.81	0.35	0.4	13	40	8
Wolf	infantry	55	11	1	1.0	1.24	0	0.1	16	10	1
Pack Leader	commander	320	18	1	1.0	1.24	0.15	0.1	16	15	6

Castle troops that raid you use the normal player roster (peasants, pikemen, archers, swordsmen, rams, catapults and a captain).

Weapons and the armoury

Archers and crossbowmen each use one bow, pikemen one pike, swordsmen and knights one sword, and a marshal two swords. Weapons are ordinary resources stored in the Armoury (capacity 200). They are made by:

Workshop	Makes	Every	Uses	Rank
Fletcher	1 bows	240 s	6 wood	3
Pole Turner	1 pikes	240 s	8 wood	3
Blacksmith	1 swords	300 s	4 iron (x1.5 speed with 2 charcoal)	4

See The Village for how workshops staff, deliver and get boosted.

Training

You order soldiers at the Barracks of one village. The rules, in the order the server checks them:

1. The unit must be a player unit, between 1 and 100 per order.
2. Your rank must be at least the unit's rank, and every research token the unit needs must be done.
3. The village needs an active or idle Barracks.
4. The village's barracks queue holds at most 5 orders.
5. The troop cap and the commander cap must have room (below).
6. The village needs enough whole peasants: peasants per unit x count.
7. The village needs every resource at round(cost x count x share), where share is (1 - card discount) x (1 - research discount). Research gives up to 25% off (Quartermasters, Mercenary Contracts, Host of the Realm).

Peasants and resources are taken when you order. Orders run one after another. An order of count units takes trainSeconds x count / trainSpeedBonus game seconds, and its units come out evenly across that time: unit k reports for duty at startedAt + k x (duration / count). The order starts when the one before it ends.

Worked example: 20 swordsmen.

time  = 180 s x 20            = 3600 s = 60 min
with Drill Yard (+50%): 3600 / 1.5 = 2400 s = 40 min
cost  = 20 x (40 gold, 1 swords, 5 iron) = 800 gold, 20 swords, 100 iron, 20 peasants
with Quartermaster's Ledger (30% off, share 0.7):
  gold   round(40 x 20 x 0.7) = 560
  swords round(1 x 20 x 0.7)  = 14
  iron   round(5 x 20 x 0.7)  = 70
  peasants are never discounted: still 20

Training cards (Cards and Crowns):

Card	Effect
Drill Sergeant	+25% training speed, one village, 6 hours
Drill Yard	+50% training speed, one village, 8 hours
War Footing	x2 training speed, all villages, 12 hours
Bulk Arms Contract	15% off training costs, one village, 6 hours
Quartermaster's Ledger	30% off training costs, one village, 8 hours

Speed cards multiply together, as do cost cards: two discounts of 15% and 30% leave 0.85 x 0.7 = 0.595 of the price, so 40.5% off. The discount never goes past 90%. Both are read when you place the order; a card that runs out later does not slow or reprice an order already queued.

Cancelling an order refunds floor(cost x unitsLeft x share) of each resource and gives back the peasants for every unit not yet delivered. Orders behind it move up to start at once.

Troop and commander caps

A village may keep a limited number of soldiers. The count includes troops at home (stationed on the castle or not), troops still in training, troops out with armies, troops escorting the village's carts and caravans, and troops posted to a capital or marching to or from one. Every unit counts as one, siege engines included, even though a trebuchet took 6 peasants. Commanders on a founding march do not count.

The Army panel shows the selected village's count against both caps under its troop list (Soldiers 103 / 130, Commanders 1 / 1), with how many of those are in training or away. A lord with more than one village also sees the total across all of them against the sum of their caps.

Rank	Name	Soldiers	Commanders
0	Peasant	0	0
1	Cottar	0	0
2	Serf	30	1
3	Villein	45	1
4	Freeman	60	1
5	Yeoman	80	2
6	Reeve	100	2
7	Bailiff	130	2
8	Squire	160	3
9	Knight	200	3
10	Banneret	250	3
11	Baron	300	4
12	Viscount	360	4
13	Earl	420	4
14+	Marquis and up	500	5

Research adds to the cap for good: Mustering Rolls +20, Garrison Rolls +30, Royal Armouries +50 and Host of the Realm +50, so +150 in every village with all four (research.md). Troop cap cards add soldiers to the cap while they run: Muster Roll +20 (one village, 24 h), Call to Arms +50 (one village, 24 h), The King's Levy +60 (every village, 48 h). Soldiers over the cap stay when the card ends; you just cannot train more until you drop below it. No card raises the commander cap.

Troop cards (Village Levy, Band of Militia, Hired Captain, Household Knights and the rest) add soldiers at once with no cost or barracks, but only up to the free room under both caps. If nothing fits, the card is refused.

Commanders

Captains and marshals lead armies and found villages. A marshal is much harder to kill (1100 HP, 0.6 armour against the captain's 600 and 0.5) and marches a little faster (13 cells per hour against 12). In battle commanders hang back until the way to the keep is nearly open; see Battles.

An army with only knights and a commander still marches at the commander's pace, because the commander is the slowest unit in it: 12 with a captain, 13 with a marshal. Knights alone would do 18, but an army cannot leave without a commander.

Troops at home

Soldiers who are not in training and not out with an army are at home. You can station them on your castle (see Castles). Stationed troops stay in the village's troop count; they are not consumed. They cannot be sent on an army or a founding march until you take them off the walls.

Everyone at home defends when a raid or an enemy army arrives. Stationed soldiers fight from their placements. Everyone else gathers at the corner tile just outside the keep (one tile up and left of the keep's top-left corner) and spreads to the nearest open tiles, three to a tile. Troops away with an army do not defend.

Sending an army

Attacks work the way they do in Stronghold Kingdoms. Scout the target first. Open it on the World map (a camp, den, old-realm castle or an enemy's village) and its panel shows an Attack section: how old your scout report is, the defences the scout counted, and a From list of every village with soldiers at home, as the scout menu has. A village with a commander leads the list; one without is marked "no captain", and choosing it shows its troops but keeps Line up army shut until a captain is there. In its place the form offers a way to get one:

• Play a card from your hand that brings a commander (Hired Captain), if the village has room under both caps. The captain joins at once.
• Train a captain at that village's barracks, with the cost and training time shown. The button is greyed out with the reason when it cannot be done: rank, missing research, no barracks, the troop or commander cap is full (a commander away with an army still counts), or too little gold or iron.
• March from another village that has a captain instead.

Once a captain is in training there, the form shows how long until it is ready. The same offer appears on the Army panel's New attack form and on the Attack the siege camp form.

Pick the village, the troops and the orders, then press Line up army. That opens the battle map as your scout saw it, where you place your troops along the edge and press March. The army sets out with that formation. Against camps, dens, caravans and AI castles the battle is fought the moment it arrives, whether or not you are online. Against a lord's village or a capital it first camps before the walls for the siege period, then storms (see Sieges and strongholds). When it is over a notice offers to play the battle back.

The Army panel's New attack form does the same from a list of fresh reports, marching from the village selected in the top bar, and also has March, deploy on arrival, the older way described under Arrival and deployment.

To send an army you need:

• rank 2 (Serf) or higher;
• a target that is a merchant caravan, another lord's trade carts or caravan on the road, a bandit camp, outlaw camp, wolf den, an old-realm castle, an outlaw fort, a robber baron's keep, a warlord's stronghold, the Usurper's citadel, another lord's village, or a territory's capital;
• at least one commander in the army;
• enough of each unit at home and off the walls;
• a scout report on that exact target that is no more than 6 game hours old (scoutFreshSeconds = 21600). See World map for scouting. A report from one of your spies who got in unseen counts the same (see Espionage).

For a capital, see Attacking a capital. For another lord's village, or their carts on the road, you also need to be at war with them through your guild (Guilds and Houses), and they must not be in peacetime or sanctuary, and you must not be in sanctuary yourself. Sending that army ends your own peacetime on the spot. The defender gets an alert and an inbox entry with your name, the army's size, its orders if they are Capture and the expected assault time, and sees it in their incoming list until the assault.

Attack goals

When attacking a lord's village you choose a goal:

Goal	Share of each stored good taken on a win	Buildings
Pillage	30%	none
Raze	10%	2 destroyed and 4 damaged, chosen by a seeded roll
Capture	none: the village itself changes hands	3 damaged; the rest are yours

Capture has its own rules (the stronghold falls last, your rank must have room): see Sieges and strongholds.

The goal makes no difference against camps, dens, caravans and old-realm castles: a win there always takes the site's hoard (for a caravan, its cargo). Caravans move, so the army marches to where the caravan will be when it arrives (see World map). A lord's carts are attacked the same way: their escort, if any, defends the wagons, and a win takes what the survivors can carry while the carts go home empty (see Markets). Loot, razing and Renown are worked out in Battles.

There is no way to recall an army on the march. An army besieging a village or capital can lift the siege and march home.

Lining up before the march

Line up army asks the server to check the attack (rank, commander, troops, war and peace, report age) without sending anyone, and returns the battle map drawn from your scout report with a suggested formation for the troops you picked. The header shows how old the report is and roughly how long the march will take, counting any storms forecast along the way. Placement follows the same rules as deployment on arrival: groups go within 4 tiles of the map edge (deployDepth), and any troops you leave out fall in by the suggested formation. The server checks the placement again when you press March, and refuses it then if a group stands outside the band, so nobody leaves home on a bad plan.

When a planned army arrives at a camp, den, caravan or AI castle there is no deployment window. (At a lord's village or a capital it camps first and storms with the plan when the siege ends; the plan can be changed during the siege.) The server checks the formation against the target as it stands at that moment; if the field has changed so a group no longer fits (a different castle size), the whole army uses the default formation instead. The battle is fought on the spot, the report arrives, and online lords get a Watch battle notice.

The plan is drawn against what your scout saw. Pieces built since then, traps (never shown to scouts) and a garrison that has grown or moved are all in the real fight. A fresh report is the best defence against surprises; reports older than 6 game hours cannot be used at all.

Arrival and deployment

An army sent without a plan (March, deploy on arrival) works the older way against camps, dens, caravans and AI castles. At a lord's village or a capital it camps instead, and storms in the suggested formation unless you set one during the siege. When it reaches any other target it switches to deploying and you get the deployment screen. It shows the defences as a scout would see them (no traps, no hidden pieces), the garrison, and a suggested formation. You have 120 real seconds (deploySeconds, not scaled by world speed) to place your troops within 4 tiles of the edge of the battle map. Submit, and the battle is fought at once and the replay opens. If the time runs out, the default formation is used. Any unit you leave out of your own placement is added by the default formation, so nobody stays behind.

The battle is fought against the target as it stands at the moment of the battle, not as it was when you scouted. If the target is gone, or your war with that lord has ended, the army turns for home without fighting.

Attacking a capital

A capital is attacked from its territory panel (click the territory on the map). The rules are the village ones with these differences:

• You must be at war with the body whose banner flies over the territory, or with a body above it. The war can be your guild's, a body above your guild, or your own as a lord. If you are at war with it only as a lord, you also need a guild, because a territory is held by a body.
• A capital nobody holds cannot be attacked, nor can one that flies your own banner.
• Peacetime does not protect a capital. Sending the army ends your own peacetime, as with a village.
• Everyone in the holding body gets an alert when the army sets out.
• The battle is fought on the capital's castle against whoever is posted there (see Garrisons at capitals). Nobody else defends: a capital with nobody posted has empty walls.
• If the war has ended, or the capital changed hands to someone you are not at war with, when the army arrives, it turns for home without a fight.

When your captain takes the keep you get 150 Renown on top of the kills, and the territory passes to the body whose war let you in, until someone takes the capital back. The old holder's troops in the capital, and any on the way, turn for home. The territory's taxes go to the new owner, it counts towards the new owner's lands, and village counts no longer decide who holds it (Lands and territories). The battle report says "The capital is taken".

There is no loot from a capital. Its castle keeps the damage the battle did until the holder repairs it.

Garrisons at capitals

Any lord inside the body whose banner flies over a territory (the banner body itself, or any guild, order or house inside it) can post troops to that territory's capital from the territory panel. You pick the village and the troops; siege engines stay at home, and so do soldiers stationed on your village castle. You need rank 2.

• The troops leave home at once and march to the capital at the pace of the slowest, like an army (storms slow them). Research and cards do not speed them up.
• While posted they stay yours. They count against your village's troop cap, and the capital's castle stands them on its towers and walls (see Castles).
• Recall turns them for home from wherever they are, on the road or in the capital. On arrival they rejoin the village's troops.
• If you leave the holding body, or the banner over the territory changes to a body you are not in, your troops are sent home on the next tick. Troops arriving at a capital that has changed hands turn straight back.
• The owning body's treasury pays 0.02 gold per soldier per game hour while they stand there. If it cannot pay, the whole garrison of that capital is sent home (Garrison upkeep).

When a garrison fights, each unit type's losses are split over the lords who posted that type, in proportion to how many each had there, rounding to the largest remainders. The Renown for attackers killed is split over the posting lords by the hit points of the troops each had standing. Every posting lord gets the battle report.

Example: Aldric has 30 archers and 10 pikemen posted, Bertrand 10 archers. An attack kills 20 archers and 4 pikemen. Aldric loses 15 archers and 4 pikemen, Bertrand 5 archers.

AI targets in tiers

Wolf dens, bandit camps and outlaw camps are tier I, for one lord, and work as before. Above them sit four new kinds of target. Their numbers are in the AI targets reference.

Tier	Target	Meant for	Garrison	Comes back
II	Outlaw fort	2 to 5 lords	60 to 130 bandits, outlaws and archers behind a palisade	2 to 4 game days after it falls
III	Robber baron's keep	a guild	200 to 600 in a stone castle	7 game days
IV	Warlord's stronghold	an order	1,000 to 1,400 behind two stone rings	14 game days
V	The Usurper's citadel	a house or kingdom	3,000 to 4,000, fighting 700 at a time	at the end of the season after the one it fell in

• A failed assault leaves every target thinner: the soldiers it lost stay lost. Tier I and II targets mend their walls between assaults and only come back whole when they respawn.
• From tier III up a target also keeps its wall damage, and regrows soldiers and mends walls by a share of its full strength each game hour: 1% for a keep, 0.6% for a stronghold, 2% for the citadel. Regrowth is applied in steps of 2% so slow regrowth is not lost to rounding, and it goes first to the units it lost most of. The map and the target's panel show how far it is worn down.
• The Usurper's citadel only puts one wave of up to 700 soldiers on its walls per battle. Beating that wave does not take it while soldiers are left: the report says the next wave drove the army out. The citadel falls only when an assault wins with nobody left behind it.

Shared loot and Renown

Every assault on a tier II to V target records the damage your army dealt: the hit points of every defender it killed plus the hit points it knocked off walls, towers and gates. This adds up over all your assaults on that target and is kept until it falls.

When it falls, its hoard and its Renown for taking it (150, 600, 2,000 or 8,000 by tier) are split over every lord who dealt damage, in proportion to that damage, rounding each good to the largest remainders. Each share is carted at once to the village the lord last attacked from, up to its storage; what does not fit is lost. The winning army carries nothing extra. Everyone with a share gets the battle report, which lists each lord's share, goods and Renown. Kill Renown for each battle still goes to the army that fought it.

A levy or muster host books its damage per lord, split by the worth of the troops each put in. See Musters and levies.

Example: Aldric's armies dealt 30,000 damage to an outlaw fort over two assaults. Bertrand deals 10,000 and takes it. Its hoard holds 1,000 gold. Aldric gets 75% (750 gold and 113 of its 150 Renown), Bertrand 25% (250 gold and 37 Renown).

March speed

An army's pace is set by its slowest unit:

pace      = min(marchCellsPerHour of every unit present)
outbound  = pace x (1 + research marchSpeed) x card multiplier
real ms   = max(60 000, cells / (outbound x armySpeed) x 3 600 000) / worldSpeed

cells is the straight-line distance between village and target. armySpeed is a server tuning knob (default 1). Every trip takes at least one game minute.

Research that speeds armies (Research): Captaincy +10% and War College +10%, added together for +20%. The Swift Riders line (Swift Riders, Post Horses, Royal Couriers) speeds captains and marshals riding out to found a village, not armies.

Cards multiply on top: Light Packs x1.25 (one village, 4 h), Forced March x1.5 (one village, 6 h), The Royal Road x1.75 (all villages, 12 h). Two running at once multiply. A march card played while an army is already marching out or home, or a march research that finishes then, cuts what is left of the trip by old pace over new (Cards and Crowns). Armies deploying or camped in a siege are standing still and are not affected.

Storms slow armies, founders and raiders while they cross the territories under them: each step of the route takes 1.3 times as long in a rainstorm, 1.45 times in a thunderstorm and 1.75 times in a snowstorm, judged by the weather over that step at the moment the army gets there. The arrival time is fixed when the army sets out, using the forecast, so a storm that blows up later does not change it. See Weather.

Worked example: a captain, 30 swordsmen and 20 archers march 15 cells.

pace     = min(12, 10, 12) = 10 cells/h (the swordsmen)
plain    = 15 / 10 = 1.5 h = 90 min
Captaincy + War College: 10 x 1.2 = 12 cells/h -> 75 min
plus Forced March: 12 x 1.5 = 18 cells/h      -> 50 min

A trebuchet drags the same army down to 5 cells per hour, which is 3 hours for those 15 cells.

The trip home works differently. It uses the slowest survivor and armySpeed, but no research and no cards. In the example above, if the swordsmen survive, the walk home is 90 minutes even though the walk out was 50. If every swordsman died, the captain and archers walk home at 12 cells per hour: 75 minutes.

Returning home and losses

After a battle the dead are gone for good. Survivors walk home carrying their loot, and on arrival they rejoin the village's troops. The loot is added to the village's stores, but only up to storage capacity; anything over is lost. If nobody survives, the army simply disappears.

On the defending side, every soldier killed is taken off the village's troops. Stationed soldiers who died are taken off their castle placements as well. Damaged and destroyed castle pieces stay damaged until you repair them (Castles).

Peacetime

The first time the military system sees a lord, it gives them 72 hours of peacetime. Admins can change that number for lords who arrive later (the Peacetime group on the Tuning tab; PEACETIME_HOURS sets its starting value), and can give, extend or end peacetime for any lord, or for everyone, from the Lords tab. This is real time; world speed does not shorten it. While it lasts:

• no PvE raids are rolled for any of the lord's villages;
• no other lord can send an army at their villages.

It ends early if the lord sends an army at another lord's village. Attacking camps and dens does not end it.

The Sanctuary card adds 24 hours and Royal Protection adds 72. If peace has already run out, the time counts from now.

Every village of a lord in peacetime says so on its card on the world map, with the time left, so you can see who is off limits before you scout them. The line goes away within a few seconds of the peace ending.

Peacetime is checked when an army sets out and again when it camps and when it storms: an army camped before a lord who has since gone into peace turns for home.

Declared sanctuary, for lords going away for days, is a separate rule with its own cooldown: see Sieges and strongholds.

Founding new villages

Your first village is claimed directly on the world map. Every later one needs a commander to walk there. Rules:

• Only a captain or marshal can found. It must be at home and not stationed on the castle.
• The site must be free.
• Villages you hold plus founding marches still on their way out must be below your rank's limit, the Max villages column of the rank table (Ranks and Renown). The name you give can be up to 32 characters; empty means the site's own name.

Founding pace:

pace = commander marchCellsPerHour x (1 + research commanderSpeed) x card multiplier x foundingSpeed

foundingSpeed is 1. The commander-speed research is Swift Riders +10%, Post Horses +15% and Royal Couriers +20%, so +45% with all three. Army-speed research (Captaincy, War College) does not apply to founders. March cards do, and so do captain cards (Spare Remounts, Captain's Courser, The King's Commission, Relay of Banners, The Founders' Ride), which speed founders only. The full formula's card multiplier is every march card times every captain card in play. A captain card, march card or Swift Riders research arriving while a commander is already on the road hurries that commander too. Then the same travelMs formula as armies applies, including armySpeed.

Worked example: a captain founds a village 20 cells away.

plain:                 20 / 12           = 1.667 h = 100 min
all three researches:  12 x 1.45 = 17.4  -> 20 / 17.4 = 1.149 h = 69 min

Founding is a race. Whoever arrives first gets the site. A commander who arrives to find the site taken gets a dispatch ("Beaten to ...") and turns for home. You can recall a founding march while it is still going out; it turns round from wherever it is. On success the commander stays in the new village as its only soldier.

PvE raids

Wolves, bandits and the old realm's castles raid player villages. They run on a schedule, scout first, wait, then march.

Who gets raided

A village can be raided only when all of these hold:

• the lord is rank 3 (Villein) or higher (safeBelowRank = 3);
• the lord's peacetime is over;
• no raid truce card is running for the village (Watch Fires 4 h, Bribed Bandits 12 h, The King's Peace 48 h on every village);
• the last raid on this village started at least 12 game hours ago (cooldownHours);
• no other raid on this village is still scouting, waiting or marching.

Raid kinds

Raid	Min rank	Per game day	Range (cells)	Loot share on a win	Razing on a win	Renown lost on a win
Wolves	3 Villein	0.6	25	30%, food only	none	5 + 1% of Renown
Bandits	4 Freeman	0.5	30	25%	none	10 + 2% of Renown
Castle troops	6 Reeve	0.25	45	35%	1 building destroyed, 3 damaged	25 + 4% of Renown

Wolves come from wolf dens, bandits from bandit or outlaw camps, castle troops from old-realm castles. The source is the nearest camp of the right kind within range of the village. If there is none in range, that raid kind cannot hit you.

How often

The server checks regularly. Each check covers the time since the last one, at most one hour of it. For each raid kind, in the table order, the chance this check is

p = 1 - exp(-(perDay x worldSpeed x intervalMs) / 86 400 000)

The first kind that rolls a hit and has a source in range starts a raid, and no other kind is tried for that village on that check. Over a full game day with nothing else in the way, the chance of at least one roll for each kind is 1 - e^-0.6 = 45% for wolves, 1 - e^-0.5 = 39% for bandits and 1 - e^-0.25 = 22% for castle troops. The cooldown and the one-raid-at-a-time rule cut that down in practice. The admin can scale all rates with RAID_RATE (0 turns raids off).

Raid sizes

Raids grow with the target lord's rank r. Each count is jittered by round(n x (0.85 + rand x 0.3)), so it lands between 85% and 115% of the base:

Raid	Party
Wolves	wolves 4 + 2r, 1 pack leader
Bandits	bandits 5 + 3r, outlaws r from rank 5, 1 bandit chief
Castle troops	peasants 6 + 2r, pikemen 4 + 2r, archers 4 + 2r, swordsmen 2r - 12 from rank 8, 1 ram from rank 7, 1 catapult from rank 10, 1 captain

Example at rank 6 (Reeve): wolves come 14 to 18 strong with a pack leader. Bandits come 20 to 26 strong, with 5 to 7 outlaws and a chief. Castle troops bring 15 to 21 peasants, 14 to 18 pikemen, 14 to 18 archers and a captain.

Scout, wait, march

1. Scouting. A raid begins with a scout walking from the camp to your village at 18 cells per game hour, a third of your own scouts' pace (times scoutSpeed tuning). You get an alert and the raid appears in your incoming list with the scout's arrival time. The scout shows on the world map as a hostile marker.
2. Waiting. When the scout arrives you are told an attack is coming. The party waits 30 game minutes (scoutLeadMinutes) at its camp and is not shown on the map.
3. Marching. The party sets out at the pace of its slowest unit and armySpeed. You get an alert with its size and the incoming list shows an estimate. Wolves march at 16, bandits at 13, castle troops at 11 (the pikemen), or 7 with a ram and 6 with a catapult.
4. Battle. On arrival the battle is fought at once, from the default formation, on the map edge facing the camp. Your research bonuses and card bonuses (wall strength, battle boosts) apply to the defence.
5. Return. Survivors walk back to the camp and the raid is removed when they get there.

Worked timeline: a bandit camp 20 cells away.

scout   20 / 18 h = 66.7 min
wait    30 min
march   20 / 13 h = 92.3 min
total   about 189 min from the first alert to the attack

Outcomes of a raid

If the raiders win they take the loot share of each good (wolves only take food), scaled down to what the survivors can carry. Castle troops also burn one building and damage three. Your lord loses round(flat + share x Renown), never more than you have. If you win, you get Renown for every raider killed. Full formulas are in Battles.

Interactions

• Automation: premium lords can have each village train soldiers up to set numbers on a timer, through these same barracks orders and caps, and march on nearby tier I camps on a fresh scout report (auto-fighting).
• Realm events: event hosts (a warlord's camp, raiders, invaders, the Black Knight, rebels and the relic procession) are tiered targets fought by these rules, and some of them storm capitals.
• Getting started: when a new lord first meets the barracks and raids.
• The Village: the barracks, armoury and weapon workshops, and peasants, which every soldier costs.
• Popularity: peasants arrive and leave with popularity, and training uses them up.
• Weather: storms stretch the travel time of armies, founders and raiders.
• Ranks and Renown: rank gates units, caps troops and villages; battles move Renown.
• Research: unit unlocks, attack and defence bonuses, march speed.
• Quests and Cards and Crowns: troop, training, march, truce and peace cards.
• Premium: castle and garrison templates.
• Battles: how fights are resolved.
• Faith: a village under the Truce of God cannot be attacked or raided for 4 hours, and an army arriving then turns back. Sending any army breaks your own truce. Faith never changes a battle.
• Bounties: clearing a target or beating a lord's village can pay a bounty from the battle report.
• Castles: stationing troops and the defences they fight from.
• World map and Lands and Territories: scouting, camps and distances.
• Guilds and Houses: war, which you need before attacking a lord or a capital.
• Musters and levies: many lords' troops fighting one battle as one host, with loot, Renown and losses shared by worth.
• Lands and territories: which body holds a capital, its garrison upkeep, and what taking one does.
• Biomes, Feasts and Markets: where the gold, iron and food for an army come from.
• Unit reference.

For maintainers

Source files:

• server/src/features/military/index.ts: training queue, caps, armies, deployment, founding, raid scheduling and battle consequences.
• server/src/features/military/units.ts: the roster, marchSpeed, GARRISON_UNIT.
• server/src/features/military/pve.ts: pveConfig, militaryContent, raidArmy, raidChance.
• server/src/features/military/rules.ts: loot, razing and Renown.
• server/src/features/world/tiers.ts: TIER_RULES (tier, persists, regrowPerHour, waveCap, clearRenown), TIER_GARRISONS, TIER_HOARDS, regrow, splitByWeight, seasonalRespawn.
• server/src/features/capitals/index.ts: postings (post, recall, adminPost), attackCheck, defence, afterBattle (conquest), payUpkeep. armyBattle in military calls these for { type: "capital" } targets.
• tierAssault in military books tier II to V damage and splits a fallen hoard, for lone armies and for levy hosts (hostBattle, see musters-and-levies.md). owned counts troops away in a levy or muster through musterApi.unitsFrom.
• server/src/features/military/deploy.ts: deploy zone and default formation.
• server/src/features/world/travel.ts: travelMs, minimum trip of 60 game seconds.
• server/src/features/cards/index.ts: marchSpeedBonus, commanderSpeedBonus, trainSpeedBonus, trainDiscount, troopCapBonus, raidTruce, takeBattleBoost.
• server/src/features/research/tree.ts: army research effects.
• server/src/tuning.ts: armySpeed, scoutSpeed, worldSpeed.
• packages/protocol/src/features/military.ts: shared types.

Key constants: CAPTURE_RENOWN = 150, MAX_ORDERS = 5, train count 1 to 100, armyMinRank = 2, scoutFreshSeconds = 6 x 3600, deploySeconds = 120 (real), deployDepth = 4, troopCapByRank, commanderCapByRank, foundingSpeed = 1, peacetimeHours = 72 (real hours, live from tuning peacetimeHours; env PEACETIME_HOURS sets its default), safeBelowRank = 3, cooldownHours = 12, scoutLeadMinutes = 30, raid rules table in pveConfig.raids, env RAID_RATE, MAX_REPORTS = 30, MAX_REPLAYS = 300.

Oddities found while writing this page:

• The raid scout's speed applies the scoutSpeed tuning twice (worldContent.scout.cellsPerHour already includes it and startRaid multiplies again). At the default of 1 nothing changes; at 2 the raid scout is four times as fast.
• The Swift Riders research line and captain cards speed founding commanders only. Army speed research is Captaincy and War College.
• Commanders on a founding march are not counted against the commander cap.
• A lord who shares in a tiered hoard without having fought the last battle sees the report as if they were the defender ("Your losses" shows the target's).
• Old-realm castles (npc_castle) are left out of the tiers: their loot is not split.