- The two armies start the fight with their Global Morale values. (100 against 100)
- Each round the morale drops due to the fatigue, damage, losses, etc.
- Each round the morale drops with 4 due to the fatigue.
- Considering the damage inflicted, the morale drops with another 1-3 each round.
- When your army inflicts more damage than the opponents your morale raises and the enemy's drops.
This is the formula:

20-50% difference = 1 morale correction
51-150% difference = 2 morale correction
Everything above 151% difference - 3 morale correction

- Thus, the morale differences can reach 1-7, which prevents the loss of a battle on a casual basis.
- After passing the 50 points of the morale, there is a chance for your army to flee with the respective percentage (49 morale = 1% chance of fleeing, etc.)
- If one army leads the other by 15 of morale it is not endangered of fleeing.
- Fortress garrison do not have morale - they simply cannot escape anywhere.
- Fortress garrisons do not require upkeep.
- If an army flees from the battlefield, it automatically loses 50% if it's remaining troops. The rest of the army returns to the province they were sent to mission from.
- If an attacker loses the Siege battle, all siege weapons are lost.
- If an army attacks "inner province" (province which is surrounded by other provinces), each province he passes in order to get to its target "punishes" him with 20 morale loss.

- Field army can be ordered to retreat from the battlefield in organized order, before a field battle starts.
- If the province is attacked with Fortress Siege attack, the army WILL fight, regardless of the order given.
- The retreat option works only when the attack is Pillaging or Field battle.

различни терени даваат различни бонуси на трупите за време на битката. видете го тоа во секцијата терен за бонуси.

There are two types of battles for each province.

- Field Battle (presumably your opponent has an army outside his Fortress)
- Fortress Siege (presumably you won the field battle)
- If there is no field army, you go directly to Fortress Siege

- Only one province can be pillaged and/or sieged during a campaign.
- Sieging converts all the resources of your opponent into gold by the fixed prices of 10wood = 2iron = 5stone = 5gold. The gold is then added to your treasury when your troops return home.
- If the attacked province has negative gold, it will stay there, you will NOT take negative gold.
- Sieging cannot be performed if the Fortress’ walls have not been brought down.
- Pillaging can be performed on a province. It means a certain amount of the province's population disappears (because it is killed or sold into slavery).
- Pillaging brings gold using the following formula: for every villager caught (killed or sold into slavery) 5 gold is awarded.
- Sieging brings gold from the resources stacked in the Fortress (if any) and raises your Honor.
- Pillaging always brings gold because it is always successful, but Honor drops, because genocide and crimes against humanity are performed.
- Pillaging destroys up to 20% of the province's population. After that the province cannot be pillaged for the next 168 hours.
- In order for the pillage to be successful, the troops' ranks have to be 10% or more of the province's population.
- In order to perform the most damaging pillage the army has to be at minimum 20% of the province's population.
- If there is a defending field army, it has to be destroyed in order for the Pillage to be performed.

This attack sends the troops to fight only with the opponent's field army, without sieging the Fortress or pillaging.

Troops engage the opponent's civil population.

- If a field army exists, the soldiers have to deal with it and then to pillage.
- Each successful pillage is punished with -4 Honor.
- For every villager killed 5 gold is awarded.
- The defending army is allowed to retreat if the option is turned on.

Troops have to overcome the enemy Fortress.

- If there is a field army, they have to destroy it and then attack the Fortress walls.
- The defending army is NOT allowed to retreat if the option is turned on.

Different kinds of troops move with different speeds.

- The army always moves with the speed of the slowest unit.
- When on mission, the army requires higher than base upkeep - x3.
- Mission preparation is required, which lasts 40 minutes. Those 40 minutes are automatically added to overall mission time.

Army movement formula:

A unit, moving with a speed of 1 (spearman) passes 1 IM for 4.5 seconds.

- Cartography Research can decrease the mission time, but not the time of preparation.
- The formula is:

X/(1+whatever % of cartography is achieved), where X is the basic speed of the army.

Front lines of the army are arranged as follows:

1. Infantry is stationed in the center.
2. Cavalry fights in the center and/or on the flanks.
- Cavalry no more than 20% from the total army(excluding the archers) can be positioned on the flanks!
- Light cavalry is always arranged on the flanks first.
- Cavalry gets 50% attack bonus when it is on the flanks.
- When in center, it receives 10-30-50% one time bonus, depending on its level:
3. Archers can shoot 1 or 2 rounds before the battle starts. After that they fight like everybody else:

- Light Archers shoot 1 round before battle.
- Heavy archers shoot 1 round before battle.
- Elite Archers shoot 2 rounds before battle.

Each military unit has its “anti-unit” in IO.

- Cavalry beats totally archers (it is 4 times more cost effective)
- Cavalry beats normally swordsmen (it is 2 times more cost effective)
- Archers beat totally spearmen (they are 4 times more cost effective)
- Spearmen beat totally cavalry (they are 4 times more cost effective)
- Swordsmen beat normally archers and spearmen (they are 2 times more cost effective)

By cost effective we mean that with cavalry, for example, the army can annihilate 4 times more expensive army of archers without great loss.

These are the battles that are conducted between the attacking army and the Fortress garrison. To do this, the attacking army has to eliminate the field army of the opponent (if any) and then continue with the Fortress siege.



Fortress Siege Characteristics:

Fortress Siege is handled in two phases:
1. Phase one - destroying the walls.
2. Phase two - after the walls fall.
- When the Fortress walls fall, the combat with the garrison is like a normal field combat.

Until the walls fall there are certain rules that apply:

- In any given time the attacker cannot use more army than the x4 the maximum garrison of the fortress to assault its walls.
- Cavalry cannot be used in the battle until the walls fall.
- Spearmen and swordsmen are the only non-siege units who can damage the walls. Their amount of damage is their normal attack.
- If there are spearmen, swordsmen and cavalry in the Defender's garrison, they do not engage in battle until the walls fall.
- Attacker's archers shoot at the Fortress garrison with 0,33 of their normal attack and damage it until the walls fall.
- Defender's archers shoot at the enemy with x4 of their normal attack and receive 1 round extra attack, because of their high grounds position.
- Fortress garrison does not depend on morale. They simply don't have anywhere to escape.
- If there is no garrison in the Fortress, it still has to be stormed.
- If the attacker flees due to low morale, his troops suffer 50% casualties.
- If there are less than 50 troops in the Fortress, they will desert and disappear before the battle.

- Siege weapons do not participate in the field combat.
- If the battle is lost, all siege weapons are lost.
- Siege weapons cannot be destroyed when they are at home.

There are 3 major Fortress classes:

Level 1, 2, 3 - Small Class Fortress
Level 4 and 5 - Middle Class Fortress
Level 6+ - Grand Class Fortress

Thus:

- The Small class Fortress is designed to defend the province from the first class units.
- The Middle class Fortress is designed to defend the province from the Heavy class units.
- The Grand class Fortress is designed to defend the province from the Elite class units.
- When the attacker comes with rams, they start the fight along with the infantry.
- Catapults and Trebuchets engage in the combat from the first round.

- After the walls are down and the garrison is dealt with, the attacker takes all the resources of the province, converted in gold by the fixed rates.

- When a Fortress is taken it is considered destroyed.
- In order to rebuild it, the player has to pay 1/3 of its building price in stone.
- The rebuilding is instant.
- Until the Fortress is rebuilt, players cannot build other buildings in the province or order any research from it.
- All other Fortress features remain.

As soon as the battle is over, both armies restore some of their lost troops.

- Loser, if vanquished, restores 17% of his starting army.
- If the losing army flees due to low morale, it suffers 50% additional casualties on all remaining troops and then the restoration % is applied.
- Winner restores 32% of his army. Winner, also, takes the loser's supply train. Its size is the 24h upkeep of the destroyed army in gold.

What if there is not enough gold for the upkeep of the army?

If on the march, your army continues its mission, generating minus gold in your province.

- The army cannot start its mission unless the gold in the province is positive.
- If the gold in the province is negative, no building or researches can be started.

This is the information that is gathered from all the traveling folks (merchants, peasants, artists, etc.).
- The only requirement is to have the Espionage technology.
- The higher the level of the Espionage, the more rumors are granted (version 4 gameplay rules only! In other versions – only 5 rumors each 24 hours can be performed!)
- The information is with +/-50% confidence interval.
- Other information available via rumors is the type of units enemy has (normal/light, heavy or elite).
- The price of each rumor is 2 gold.

Espionage is the most reliable way for gathering information about the enemy.

- The movement speed of the spy is 5 times faster than the Light Cavalry's.
- The chance to perform a successful mission depends on the level of the Espionage.
- The price to send a spy is 20 gold per espionage level.

1. The spy can be caught before he is able to infiltrate the enemy. The enemy will know who sent the spy.
2. The spy manages to infiltrate successfully, he can start sending reports.
- It will keep sending reports for 24 hours until called back or is caught by the enemy Counter-Intelligence.
- Catching spies on the border is done automatically
- To seek & destroy infiltrated spies a Counter-espionage can be performed.
- Every infiltrated spy can be caught until it is called back home.

The technologies that influence the calculations are:

- Espionage.
- Border outposts - this is the Counter-espionage.
- The chances of successful infiltration, if the levels of espionage and outposts are equal, are fifty-fifty.
- For each level difference another 25% are added, thus if the difference is more than 2 levels the spy always succeeds or fails, yet there is still a minimal (under 1%) chance for successful infiltration.
- After successful infiltration the spy will stay at the enemy's province for 24 hours until caught or called back.

The spy report consists of the size and type of the army in the province (in/out the fortress), the amount of resources gathered in the fortress, the level of the fortress.

By clicking on it all infiltrated spies can be seen (it is possible for the sender to remain anonymous if his spy level is 2 levels greater than the defender's outposts).

само за светови од верзијата 4!

When part of an alliance a player gets the additional bonus to use his/hers allies spy reports. There reports are shown in the player lists - the most current spy report done by the player or his/hers allies is always visible there. (Warning: these reports are not giving current information but the information that was found at the time of the spying)

Particularities based on Espionage and Surveillance network levels during attack

- If attacker's Espionage and defender's Counter-espionage are equal levels, the defender will see the attacker's army composition 30 min before the attack arrives

- For every level difference 10min are added or subtracted to the base 30 min. For example - if the attacker has level 10 Espionage and the defender has level 9 Counter-espionage the defender will see the composition of the attacker's army 20 min before the attack.

- Attacking an enemy that is out of the allowed coefficient. (x2)
- 0.1-1 coefficient out of the allowed one(total of x3 the points), the attacker loses 2 points per 0.1 difference, the most loss is 20 points if the difference is x3.

- For recalled army before a battle (so it is avoided) - 1 point.
- For Pillaging a province (for conducting total war) - 4 points.
- For attacking an ally - 10 points

- Winning a field battle - 1 point (the winning army must lose at least 5% of its units)
- Winning a siege battle regardless on which side (defender or attacker) - 2 points. (the winning army must lose at least 5% of its units)

- For every 1000 men killed in battle, the winner earns 1 more point of Honor which is added to the ones above. The battle must still meet the requirements for honor. (5% casualty rate)

Positive Honor:

It grants the player with bonus to the Global Morale. The bonuses are given at the following levels:
- 100-199 points 2 points morale for the army
- For every 100 points thereafter the bonuses stack (example: at 500 honor your morale will be with 10 more)

Negative Honor:

It punishes the player with loss of Global Morale. The anti-bonuses are given at the following levels:
- 100-199 points 5 points anti-bonus to the morale of the army
- For every 100 points thereafter the bonuses stack (example: at -500 honor your morale will be with 25 less)