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Combat & War

Combat and War are the heart and soul of the world of Utopia. While peace may allow for relative growth, combat is what allows a kingdom to expand rapidly. War results in honor and potentially rapid development. Engaging in combat comes with risks: too many enemies may bring upon a shattering downfall.

There is no recipe for a perfect military leader. The right balance can only be achieved through experience and patience. Learning from mistakes, listening to seasoned players, following kingdom goals, for example, are essential items to create a strong kingdom.

Fair Challenges

Risk equals reward: a necessary lesson learned while playing Utopia. There will be many opportunities to attack the smaller, weaker lands around the world. Many intimidators will be prying upon provinces drastically smaller. The temptation of feeding on a province already ravished by others will be great. All these scenarios are looked upon unfavorably by the Utopian Lords because such actions are not noble. The Lords will punish these procedures by negating rewards.

Conversely attacking with honor will result in amazing rewards. Attacking provinces worthy of one’s province will gain numerous resources, lands, and people. During War, cooperating with the kingdom and attacking will result in much greater rewards. It is important to understand there are innate advantages to working through the diplomatic channels of one’s own kingdom. Players who ignore a kingdom’s status or policy will gain relatively little land and resources from their attacks. View the Kingdom Relations and understand the differences between attacking Kingdoms with which the kingdom is At War and those with which it has no relations.

Attacking within the Kingdom

Provinces within the kingdom are to be considered team members, not foes. As conflict may be inevitable, the Utopian Lords disapprove of combat amongst kingdom members. Then again, combat within the kingdom may have a purpose: eliminate troublemakers, establish dominance, and complement diplomacy.

Attacking a province within the kingdom will therefore cause massive damage, but will also result in very little benefit to the attacker. Intra-kingdom combat should be used cautiously and judiciously, or it may result in a waste of time and resources. While seven attack types are available, intra-kingdom attacks are limited to Traditional March and Raze.

Plague

Undead are a unique race of creatures that carry an extraordinary and deadly disease known as the Plague. Each time an undead province - or any province tainted by the Plague - successfully attacks or is attacked by another province, there is a small chance to transmit the disease. The infected province will have no population growth, the military will have trouble defending the lands (-15% defense), and tax collection will be hampered (-15% income).

The Plague will be cured naturally on average between 10 to 12 days, but in some cases may last a month or longer. Magic may help to sweep the Plague from the lands through the Nature's Blessing spell, which has one in five chances to succeed. An additional 2% daily chance of getting rid of the Plague is given by adding hospitals.

Dragon

A dragon sent to an opposing kingdom will wreak havoc on their lands - burning fields, destroying buildings, murdering military and peasants, and much more. The dragon will continue its work for six utopian months or until destroyed by the targeted kingdom's defenses. Only the King or Queen may start (or cancel) a dragon project. Such destructive creature requires coaxing, and the only way it will fight is if there are enough gold coins to satisfy its greed.

The effects of having a dragon roam the lands are terrible: Instant loss of two tenths of new draftees, five tenths penalty to all offensive and defensive combat, reduced food production by three tenths, reduced income by two and a half tenths, and random destruction of housing. Attacking a kingdom affected by a dragon will result in ten percent higher gains.

The only defense against a dragon is soldiers. Courageous and frightened at the same time, soldiers will try their best to get rid of the dragon as fast as possible. How fast depends on the kingdom's combined effort to defeat the dragon. The amount of soldiers needed to attack the dragon one percent at a time is given by the kingdom's net worth divided by three thousand. The resulting number is then rounded up or down depending on the decimal and one is added to the total. This total number represents the amount of soldiers needed to attempt slaying the dragon. Heavy casualties are to be expected.

Attack Types

There are seven types of attacks available: Traditional March, Raze, Plunder, Learn, Massacre, Conquest, and Ambush (see below for details on each - reference numbers are approximate, and are based on fair battle). While Traditional March is the most popular attack used to gain land, the other types may be of strategic importance, and are used for diverse purposes. The success of an attack is determined by the amount of total offensive power of one’s own forces versus the total defensive power of the enemy. Despite numbers, luck can affect success in an otherwise even battle.

Attacks take both time and effort to carry out and, so military forces must rest before going to combat again. While combat in nearby islands will take between 15 and 19 days to complete, combat in progressively farther islands will take between 20 and 26 days. Attack speed and recovery can be influenced by specific buildings and the use of magic and thievery. Attack gains are influenced by the optional use of extended attack times. Sending armies out to combat for additional days (up to 4) will result in progressively higher gains (up to 12%).

Traditional March

Traditional March sends an army to march through enemy lands, destroying their military resistance, and capturing a portion of their land. Free Building Credits and Honor may be rewarded. This is the most common and valuable form of combat.

Raze

Raze Attacks focus on extensive damage to the opponent by burning land and buildings (roughly two-tenth). This type of attack bolsters the attacking army by approximately one-tenth, since the military will not care to preserve resources. There are no individual gains with this type of attack.

Plunder

Plunder sends an army with the specific intent to loot an adversary. This type of attack may be exceptionally helpful if one’s province is running out of resources and the chosen adversary has accumulated a significant amount of gold, food, and runes. Resulting in up to one-fourth of an adversary’s resources, plunderers do not suffer penalties when attacking provinces engaged in another war. Not available intra-kingdom.

Learn

Learn attacks send an army to steal approximately one-fifth of the science books of an enemy; this may be advantageous if a province wants to limit spending time and resources in research. Not available intra-kingdom.

Massacre

Merciless and effective, this type of attack sends an army to cause mayhem in the opponent's lands. The army will destroy up to one-fifth of an enemy's defense, peasants, thieves, and wizards. Massacre is useful against thievery and magic oriented provinces. Not available intra-kingdom.

Conquest

Conquest sends the military on a mission of partial capture. This attack does not require complete defeat of the opponent to capture land. Depending on the amount of military sent, smaller portions of an opponent’s land can be captured, along with Free Building Credits. Generally, Conquest will succeed mainly if one-half as much offense as an adversary has defense is sent. This attack may be used when the chosen adversary cannot otherwise be beaten. Conquest is available with restrictions outside of Relations and is not available intra-kingdom.

Ambush

Ambush can only be conducted against a province that has recently captured land from one’s own province. This option allows striking an opponent’s army away from home and recapturing one-half of the land stolen. Due to its surprise nature, no offensive or defensive modifiers are considered - only raw military strength. Provinces defending from an Ambush will do so only with the soldiers, offensive specialists, and elite units they sent out to attack the would-be Ambusher and they will fight only with 80% of their defensive strength. A province attacking anonymously or using War Spoils cannot be ambushed, the Warrior personality will be protected 50% from Ambush, and an army can only be ambushed once.

 

 

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Avoid ravaged lands

When casting a Crystal Ball on a province, the Utopian Lords will indicate whether those lands have been attacked recently and, if so, how many times (from none to extremely). To increase your gains and rewards, avoid provinces that have been ravaged already by other enemies.

Did you know?

Reading The Paper and the Kingdom Forum upon login is good practice and may keep from getting in trouble. Crucial information may be posted in the Kingdom Forum regarding diplomatic efforts to deal with recent news reported in The Paper.