Military attacks

In Army window, click the right button (with red arrow) to switch to Attacks tab - see picture.

What lands can I attack?

You can only attack adjacent lands - those, that are shown in the Treaties window of your land. See "Map terrain and movement" in Game map section of the Help for more info on what "adjacent" means.

If you have Free Pass treaty with some land, it means you can also attack lands that are adjacent to that other land (but you can't declare war on them, they aren't displayed in Treaties window). Names of these lands will be shown in different color when selecting target of your attack.

In some lands at the border of the world map are portals, that connect the land with one at the opposite end of map. You can declare war and attack through portal, as if that land was next to your land.

Sending an attack

Before you send an attack, make sure you declared war on the land you are attacking.
If war was not declared (see Treaties), attack is lower by 30%!

On the Attacks tab, enter the number of soldiers that will be sent to attack (you can also select your hero here), choose target land, type of attack (Conquer land), and click Send Army button. You will see the attack and its strength near bottom of the window. If you want to cancel your attack, tick the box to the left of it and then click Cancel button. If you want to reinforce your attack, always cancel it and send again with higher number of soldiers - do not send 2 separate attacks. Each attack would be evaluated separately, and probably both would fail.
If your attack is higher than defense of the land, the land will be conquered during recalculation (at midnight in standard leagues), and next day it will be added to your lands.
You can read all about your attacks in Reports on the next day.

How strong should my attack be?

Well, the stronger the better, especially if you are attacking another player. Remember you can't see the enemy army (and fortresses) before recalculation, so your opponent may have already recruited a huge army, but you still see seemingly empty land with no defenses. When attacking neutral (unoccupied) land, attack strength slightly lower than total strength of target land (displayed on map) is enough. This is not true if the land was originally occupied by some other player, and that player resigned from league today! Such lands are very hard to estimate, and mostly are much stronger than it seems; often it is better to postpone your attack until the next day.
On the starting day (day 0 - before first recalculation) is required attack in standard leagues 49, and in action leagues 39. Caution! This is only true for lands that have no defense bonus! If the land has 20% bonus to defense, attack must be by 20% higher. With every recalculation, the strength of unoccupied lands is growing, and you need stronger attacks to capture them. It is to your advantage to cast Content (see Spells) on the land you are attacking. Population will grow quicker, so that you will be able to recruit more soldiers there and continue your attack further at once (or defend the land).

Evaluation of attacks

In standard leagues all attacks are evaluated at midnight, in action leagues is the recalculation every 15 minutes during the playing time. You can see the time of next recalculation on top of the screen, in infobar along with your gold, mana and number of turns.
It makes no difference whether you send the attack in the morning or just before midnight. Attacks are evaluated in random order.
First three days all players are protected and you can only attack unoccupied lands. If two players attack the same unoccupied land, the first will be holding this land tomorrow. The second army will return home (without losses, since the protection didn't allow battle to start).

Calculating attack strength

Example: you send 20 soldiers into attack. Each of them has attack 3. Attack strength is 20 * 3 = 60 (if war was duly declared).
The defending land has 10 soldiers, each of them has defense 4, so defense of the army is 10 * 4 = 40. Additionally, population of the land is 10, each inhabitant has defense 1, so that is 1 * 10 = 10.
Total defense of the land is 40 (army) + 10 (population) = 50.
Attack strength (60) is greater than defense (50), so your attack was successful - you conquered the land and now it is yours.

Attack types

  • Conquer land: if you win, you will capture the land and it will belong to you.
    Remember that in this case (and only against this type of attack) population will defend the land together with soldiers!
    Attack to conquer brings substantial losses in both armies. When attack is successful, 10% of houses is destroyed, and population is reduced to minimum. Your army remains in the conquered land, if there are enough houses to accomodate them. If not, part of the army will return back to the attacking land.

  • Pillage: if you win, you will destroy 30% of houses and all buildings in the land. Army losses are lower than when attempting to conquer. You will gain max. 1/4 (25%) of price destroyed houses and buildings. Hero's levels destruction and steal can help. Soldires maximum load gold = 10 x attack power, maximum load mana = 1 x attack power.

  • Move army: transfers the army from one of your lands to another. You can only order the army to move if there is enough houses in the target land to accomodate arriving soldiers.
    Target land must be your or unoccupied. Moving soldiers do not defend any of the lands, and they will only arrive after the attacks are evaluated. If the target land is conquered by other player, they will join his forces! If the target land is still unoccupied, you will lose the soldiers; if you conquered it, they will join your army (if there are enough houses for them).