Combat

Combat occurs at the end of a turn, in any region that has at least one raiding soldier and at least one rival soldier.

If more than one rival army is present, the raiding army fights against the army with the most soldiers present.

Pairings
Combat is fought in pairings. Each soldier is randomly paired off against a soldier in the enemy army. If one army out numbers the other army, leftover soldiers 'double up' in the pairings. So if 3 yellow soldiers fight 2 purple soldiers, there would be two pairings: 2 yellow vs 1 purple and 1 yellow vs 1 purple.

For each pairing, a winner is chosen considering: the total powers on each side + a small random value. Whichever side is greater, wins. For every 5 points that they win by, they get 1 hit (you can see and hear the hits in the combat animation). In the case of a tie, both sides get one hit each. Each hit causes damage.

Rounds
In most cases, the loser of a pairing is removed from the fight and the winner proceeds to the next round. If the loser lost by one one hit and he was set to either raiding or protecting this turn, or if he blocked all hits with his shield, he does not take damage and is not removed; instead he fights on and advances to the next round, along with the winner.

If at least one soldier form each side remains, the remaining soldiers are paired off and another round of combat is fought. This continues until one army is completely eliminated from the region.

Damage
Each hit a soldier suffers causes one random damage effect. The possible effects are:

~ nothing happens (a clean escape)

~ wounded (+1 month of recovery)

~ crippled (+1 month of recovery and -1 permanent stat)

~ killed

Each effect is as equally likely to happen, but the more hits that a soldier takes, the greater the probability that at least one of them will kill him. If a soldier takes multiple hits, the effects compound. Armor reduces the effect of a hit, so it could reduce a killing blow to a crippling blow or a wound to a clean escape.

Soldiers that take damage in a region that does NOT border a region they control are in grave danger! Any hit that would have ordinarily wounded or crippled will kill them instead, as they are unable to limp away to safety.