Overview
Ever wonder how damage is calculated? If you want to know how attack, armor, and bonus damage works, this guide is here to help.
Introduction
Welcome! This mini-guide is designed to help you understand how damage is calculated during combat.
First, there are a few basics which need to be clarified. There are two kinds of attacks: melee attacks and pierce (ranged) attacks. Every single combat unit deals one (and only one) of these kinds of attacks.
Likewise, there are two kinds of armor: melee armor and pierce armor, which reduce incoming damage from the corresponding type. In-game it’s represented like this:
1+2/0+2
The melee armor is the first number and the pierce armor is the second. The unit’s innate (or base) armor is always shown first, and any modifiers (like Blacksmith upgrades) are after the + sign.
There are two more important numbers, but these are hidden by the game. The first is bonus damage and the second is bonus damage reduction. Bonus damage is extra damage dealt against specific unit types. The Halberdier, for example, deals significant anti-cavalry bonus damage even though their base attack is 6, and they deal even more bonus damage against War Elephants specifically.
Bonus damage reduction is a modifier applied to a specific type of incoming bonus damage (anti-cavalry, for example) only.
Complete bonus damage tables are available here:
[link]
Remember, attacks and bonus damage are different, just like armor and bonus damage reduction.
The Formula
Now, on to the basic formula.
(attack – armor) + (bonus damage – bonus damage reduction) = final damage
Three notes:
- The difference of (attack – armor) can never be < 0
- The difference of (bonus damage – bonus damage reduction) can never be < 0
- The final sum of (attack – armor) + (bonus damage – bonus damage reduction) can never be < 1
So, a unit will always deal at least 1 damage, even if its opponent’s armor is greater than the unit’s attack. That minimum damage can come from either the normal attack or from bonus damage, as long as a minimum of 1 damage is done.*
Bonus damage is applied after armor reductions, and bonus damage reduction applies only to incoming bonus damage – it does not affect normal attack numbers in any way.
*I confirmed this by testing Elite Mangudai vs. Siege Ram, which has 195 pierce armor. The Mangudai dealt 4 damage per shot, but when I increased its attack to 200, the damage increased to 9 per shot. If the minimum 1 damage were being added to the bonus damage, the Mangudai should be doing 5 damage per shot instead of 4.
Examples
Some examples might make this easier to understand.**
Fully-upgraded Halberdiers have 10 attack and do 32 bonus damage against cavalry while Paladins have 5 armor and 0 bonus damage reduction. So, if we follow the formula, the result will look like this:
(10 – 5) + (32 – 0) = damage
5 + 32 = 37
What if we change the Paladin’s armor to make it greater than the Halberdier’s attack? Let’s change it to 12. When we do that, the Halberdier still does 32 damage. Why?
(10 – 12) + (32 – 0) = damage
0 + 32 = 32
Remember, a unit will always deal a minimum of 1 damage, so the 12 armor would normally reduce the incoming 10 attack to 1. But because bonus damage is already being applied, the game allows the normal damage to be completely nullified.
Extra armor is not applied to the bonus damage.
Elite Cataphracts have 5 armor and 16 bonus damage reduction. If we plug in the numbers, it looks like this:
(10 – 5) + (32 – 16) = damage
5 + 16 = 21
What if the bonus damage is completely nullified by the bonus damage reduction?
The Elite Genoese Crossbowman has 10 pierce attack and deals 7 bonus damage against cavalry, but the Elite Cataphract has 5 pierce armor and 16 bonus damage reduction.
(10 – 5) + (7 – 16) = damage
5 + 0 = 5
Now for our final example, one for you to try!
Remember, the Mameluke deals melee damage, not pierce damage. Here are the relevant stats:
- Elite Mameluke: 17 attack, 12 bonus damage vs. cavalry
- Elite Cataphract: 5 armor, 16 bonus damage reduction
- Paladin: 5 armor, 0 bonus damage reduction
The Mameluke does 12 damage vs. the Cataphract and 24 vs. the Paladin – can you figure out why?
**All units were tested at their maximum upgrade level
Conclusion
I hope this guide was helpful – please don’t forget to rate up! If there are any errors, I will be happy to test out situations and then correct my guide.
If you’ve got questions about other combat basics, check out my other guides!
[link]