[Player Guide] Buffs and Bonuses (Part 2)

Please read the first part of this guide here first!

Disclaimer: All formulas in this guide are based on a player model and are written to give you a better understanding about the way buffs and bonuses effect and may not be the exact actual formulas implemented in game.

Army Bonuses

Army Bonuses determine the way your troops will deal damage to each other during fights. These important bonuses can be categorized in three main categories: Attack, Defense and Health.

Attack determines how much damage your troops will deal to the enemy.

Defense will reduce the damage you’re receiving from enemy.

Health will determine how much damage each of your troops can handle.

Basically in this model the base formula for the way these three effect each other is:

Same damage rate will be calculated for your enemy too based on their attack and your defense and health. To learn more about the countering and the base damage ratio please read my other guide about Formations and Countering.

All the values of battle can be effected by multiple additive bonuses. In this part I will be reviewing these bonuses and will explain the conditions they will effect in. To be able to explain the way these buffs will effect each other; I’m not going to introduce them in same order that they are listed in Lords Details page like other buffs I’ve been introducing so far.

a) Attack

Attack determines the damage you can deal to your enemy. There are different kind of buffs and de buffs for attack. The attack buffs have a linear effect on Attack base value but the effect on damage ratio is a bit complex which I will talk about later on.

- [Troop Type] Attack: Single troop type attack buffs are the basic attack buffs for each troop type. For example, Infantry Attack will only buff your Infantry attack.

- Total Attack: Total attack buff will buff all the troop types.

- Great City – [Troop Type] Attack: These attack buffs will only be added when and if you’re attacking or defending in a great city (Like the great cities on map such as Winterfell or Kings landing or the ones in events like Alliance Conquest and Champion City Siege).

Your attack buff is basically the sum of these buffs. For example, for your spearman it’s:

In which “Is Great City” is 1 if the attack or defense is happening in a great city and 0 other wise.

b) Defense

Defense reduces the damage you receive from enemy. Only the frontlines defenses matter (the troops that are tanking the enemy hit). There are different kind of buffs and de buffs for defense. The defense buffs have a linear effect on Defense base value but the effect on damage ratio is a bit complex which I will talk about later on.

Just like the attack buffs, Defense Buff is calculated by adding all the related buffs together. For example, for Cavalry the defense is:

In which “Is Great City” is 1 if the attack or defense is happening in a great city and 0 other wise.

c) Health

Health determines the amount of damage your troops can take before they get wounded or die. Only the frontlines Health matter (the troops that are tanking the enemy hit). There are different kind of buffs and de buffs for health. The health buffs have a linear effect on Health base value but the effect on damage ratio is following a 1/x Pattern. This means when health has a higher value, increasing it will have less effect.

Life promotion of urban defense equipment means “Fortifications Durability” or “Fortifications Health”.

Just like the attack buffs and the defense buffs, Health buff is calculated by adding all the related buffs together. For example, for Infantry the health is:

In which “Is Great City” is 1 if the attack or defense is happening in a great city and 0 other wise.

d) Reductions

Attack, Defense and Health reductions are the de buffs you can apply to your enemy to reduce their buffs.

- Enemy Army Attack Reduction: This de buff will reduce the enemy “Attack” Buff for all their troop types. This has a similar effect to the “Defense” buffs but unlike defense buffs, it’s not a multiplier on defender’s side defense value, but it will be multiplied on attacker’s attack value.

- Enemy Army Defense Reduction: This de buff will reduce the enemy “Defense” Buff for all their troop types. This has a similar effect to the “Attack” buffs but unlike attack buffs, it’s not a multiplier on attacker’s side attack value, but it will be multiplied on defender’s defense base value.

- Enemy Army Health Reduction: This de buff will reduce the enemy “Health” Buff for all their troop types.

- Siege Attack Reduction: This de buff is basically a “Enemy Army Attack Reduction” that will only be effective if your main castle is attacked and you’re defending there.

There is also single troop type attack, defense and health reductions:

*Note: gunners mean spearmen.

This will update our formulas for our three examples (Spearman Attack, Cavalry Defense, Infantry Health) like this:

In which highlighted blue buffs are by one of the players in battle and highlighted orange buffs are from the other player in battle. In these three examples we’re calculating the damage ratio of Spearmen attacking Infantry and Cavalry. Note that the defender is also attacking attacker frontline at the same time and defenders attack and attackers health and defense matters for calculating that ratio.

Please pay attention that all troop types you have will engage and attack the enemy frontline at the same time. That being said only health and defense of your frontline matters as long as they aren't all wounded or dead when all troops attack buffs matter all the time.

e) Tavern Combat Rate

Tavern offers an interesting buffer – de buffer concept called Combat rate. Only in PvP fights if Player A has higher combat rate than player B, then Player A attack, defense and health will be increased by a value of 0.025 for each extra combat rate they have more than player B.

This means for example, if Player A has 2000 combat rate more than player B, then player A will have 50% total attack buff, 50% total defense buff and 50% total health buff.

Because of this we can say, Combat rate is a buffer for the player who has higher combat rate, and a de buffer (reduction buff) for the player who has lower combat rate.

f) Others

- Rallied Army Attack Bonus: This buff is also an attack buff that will be added to rest of your attack buffs if you’re the rally leader of a rally and has no effect otherwise.

- Wall Defense Increased: Wall durability is like Health of troops and Wall Defense is like the defense of troops. Wall deal no damage to enemy but still can receive some and follows the same formulas.

- Wall Health Increased: If you consider wall durability like the base health, this buff is a boost to that. More Wall health means less amount of durability drop with same damage.

- Army Carrying Capacity: Transport Capacity buff which I mentioned in economy buffs was for Market res transfer. Your troops can carry resources in different situations, like when you attack another players castle and you win, if they have more resources than what they can protect, you will pillage it. Or when your troops gather resources they have to carry those resources back. Army Carrying Capacity will increase your troops carrying capacity for such uses. This multiplier buff has a linear effect.

- Reinforcement Capacity: This Determines the amount of reinforcements you can in your castle. Reinforcements are your allies’ troops which will be added to your defense and will fight with your bonuses.

- Max. Defense Troops: This determines the maximum amount of troops of you that can participate in battle if your castle is defending. If you have more troops than this limit, the best tier troops and equal from each type will join the fight. The default limit for all castles is at 12m troops.

- Total Counter: This buff that can only be modified because of the Ancient (Red) passive dragon skills which are available on Winter Raffle event, will increase the counter effect. Normally troops deal 2.3 to 3 times more damage to the the troop type they counter (Infantry against spearmen for example). This buff will increase this multiplier. Because of the nature of this buff, it has more effect if you have a higher attack bonus for your troop (as it multiplies on your attack bonus)

So in conclusion we have:

Highlighter blue and Orange parts mean that they are for the different sides of the battle. Enemy damage is based on their attack and your health and defense and your damage is based on your attack and their health and defense. These two will be calculated separately.

Because of this we can say neither of attack or defense buffs have linear effect on damage ratio because it also depends on the enemy buffs, but if we consider enemy values fixed, they have a linear effect. Same with Health, but health in that case will show a 1/x curve on damage ratio.

Marching Bonuses

a) March Speed

These buffs will increase troops/caravans March speed (so they can reach their target faster). The effect of these buffs are 1/x on the march time.

- Marching Speed: Will increase your march speed for all scenarios.

- Gathering Marching Speed: Will increase your march speed for when your troops are on the way toward a gathering node or are returning from one.

- Transport Marching Speed: Will increase your march speed when you’re sending resources to allies from Market (or afterward when your marches are coming back).

- Reinforcement Marching Speed: Will increase your march speed when you’re reinforcing another ally.

- Increase Your Marching Speed When Targeting a Great City: Will increase your march speed when you’re marching toward or from a great city (includes the normal Great cities like Winterfell or Kings Landing or the cities in events like Alliance Conquest or Champion City Siege)

b) March Size

These buffs are related to your march (solo, rally, gathering etc) sizes. The more these are, more troops you can send out in single march.

- Army Size: Will increase your march size. The higher this value is the more troops you can send out when attacking others, joining rallies, gathering or for any other purposes.

- Rally Size: Will increase your Rally size. The higher this value is the more troops your allies can send to join your rally. Your army size is never reduced from this value, so your total troop count in a rally can be your Army Size + Rally Size

- Army Shelter Capacity Increased: Will increase the amount of troops you can hide in shelter.

- Gathering Troop Expansion: Will increase the amount of troops you can send in gathering marches.

- Increase Your Rally Size When Targeting a Great City: Will increase your rally size when you’re marching toward or from a great city (includes the normal Great cities like Winterfell or Kings Landing or the cities in events like Alliance Conquest or Champion City Siege)

- Reroute: This buff that can only be modified because of the Ancient (Red) passive dragon skills which are available on Winter Raffle event, will increase the percentage of enemy troops which will be rerouted from battle before battle happens. Rerouted troops won't participate in battle. Reroute can effect both for defense and attack and is "Enemy march size reduction" in another sense.

d)    Deployment Limit

The total number of marches you can send out at the same time.

At castle 25, this value is 5. With researches you can increase it to 8.

Expeditions Bonuses

a) Motivation Bonuses

Motivation is the currency to do more expeditions. These buffs will help you to get more of them or to manage them better.

- Motivation Recovery Bonus: Will increase the regenerated motivation in same period of time. This buff effect is linear.

- Motivation Cost Reduction: Will reduce the cost of doing expeditions. The effect of this buff is 1/x.

- Motivation Limit: This scalar bonus determines the maximum capacity of motivation. If this capacity is reached, no more motivation may will be generated over time.

b) Expeditions Bonuses

These buffs are related to the expedition itself.

- Expedition Troop Marching Speed Increased: Will increase the marching speed toward expeditions.

- Expedition Combo Cap: As long as the combo cap limit is not reached, each time you attack a rebel leader, you get a bonus damage for the next attack on that same rebel leader.

- Expedition Damage Increased: Increase your commanders damage when they are doing expeditions.

- Expedition Troop Health Increased: Increase your commanders health when they are doing expeditions.

- Expedition Troop Heal Effect Increased: Increase the heal effect of healer commanders during the expeditions.

- Expedition Troop Initial Might: During the expedition, commanders refill their might when they attack enemy or take damage. When their might is full they will use their active ability. This bonus will increase their initial might, so they will do their first use of their active ability faster.

Rebel Camps Bonuses

- Total Attack/Defense/Health Increased When Attacking Rebel Camps: These buffs are like normal “Total Attack”, “Total Defense” and “Total Health” and will be added to attack, defense and health when you’re the rally leader who is rallying a rebel camp.

- Speed Increased When Answering Rebel Camp Rally: Increases your march speed when you’re joining another players rally on a rebel camp. This buff has a 1/x effect.

- Speed Increased When Attacking Rebel Camp: Increases your march speed when you’re the rally leader who is marching toward the rebel camp (after the rally preparation is over).

- Troop Expanded When Attacking Rebel Camp: Increases your Rally size when you’re rallying a rebel camp.

- Merchant Guild Auction Shortened: Reduces the time for auctioning the chests acquired from rebel camps in Merchant guild.

Other Bonuses

- Stamina Limit: Increase the limit of stamina which can be regenerated without spending wairwood hearts. Stamina is useful to do wairwood stages.

- Talent Points: Increase the total count of talent points you can spend in Lord talents page.

- Bonuses Resources from Instant Rescue: When your castle is attacked you get back a portion of the cost of your lost troops back as “rescue”. This bonus will increase that amount linearly.

- Endurance Recovery Bonus: Increases the endurance regeneration through time. The higher this is the more endurance will be recovered on same time period.

Thanks for reading this! Don't forget to like and leave comments or to ask questions if you had any about the guide! Enjoy