All-Out War: Combat & Fighting!!

All-Out War, the new game mode that's here is a new and exciting event that combines elements of gameplay from other events like Army of the Dead, Glorious Battle and Siege of Winterfell. We've already had a look at the basics from the event and how farming and logistics works (which can be checked out here: All-Out War!! Intro, Basics, Farming & Rewards!! – GoT Winter is Coming Official Forum (gtarcade.com))

With farming out the way, let's jump into the spicier side of the event with Combat and fighting. How does it all work?

To start with, players will begin to build their armies from the barracks. To do this simply click the barracks and select your army slots, filling in your commanders, dragons, vehicle and troop types. This is exactly as it is in Siege of Winterfell, except now you have the addition of the vehicle to help with healing, farming or fighting. All stats that you go in with will be locked upon entry just as they are for Siege of Winterfell.

A note when you creating your armies now - there is a new and special feature that allows you to 'upgrade' or alter your troops, if you run a pure one troop type army. I say 'upgrade' because each change comes with perks and drawbacks. Let's have a quick look at them:

1. Infantry to Ironclads. Ironclads have reduced movement speed but counter all sources of damage while increasing their own counter coefficient.
2. Cavalry to Kamikaze. Kamikaze units deal increased damage at the start of the battle and have increased movement speed outside of combat, however they also take increased damage.
3. Spearman into Odd Formation soldiers. Odd Formation soldiers take 15% less damage from pincer attacks, 5% reduced total damage, and in return their skill effects deal 25% less damage.
4. Bowman into Eagle Eyes. Eagle Eye soldiers have an increased 300% range, cannot be countered (except for Ironclads), have 30% reduced movement speed, cannot recover rage and have 25% reduced damage.

Once you've created for armies, up to three, you can head out and begin your conquest.

First step militarily is looking at the surrounding villages that are dotted all over the map, hundreds of them, all sitting between the city objectives. To capture a city first we must have control over the surrounding villages.

To attack a village a player needs to simply have owned objectives next to it (either in the form of a city or another village) and then they will have the option to 'Launch Occupation' where it becomes open and if ally troops sit in the circle they can claim it for their faction. This is very similar to the occupy mechanic used in Siege of Winterfell, as well as a similar fighting idea - fighting over an objective, it will go in the favour of those with greater forces or those that eventually win out in the skirmish.

I will mention here the Hotkeys. If you want to become skilled at the game and completely actions quickly (develop a high APM/Actions Per Minute) then you need to learn the Hotkeys. For Launch Occupation of a village, the Hotkey is set to A, as shown below.

For general use of your army there is a wide range of actions with the subsequent hotkeys for each. Let's have a look at a few.

Q = Garrison. W = Return to City (with limited uses). E = Enable alerts. A = Recover Resilience. S = Self Heal. Z = Initiate Rally. X = Adjust Supplies. C = Disband Troops. ESC = Leave Selection.

As you can see there is a wide variety of actions available for each army and familiarising yourself with the hotkeys and then steadily better more comfortable and faster using them could help a lot in your fights.

Back to the Combat system within All-Out War. Once you have your armies mustered and have taken villages, commanders and lieutenants can signal to attack cities, either neutral cities or cities held by opposing factions. If the signal is given on a neutral city, there will be a waiting 'declaration period' of 5 minutes. If the city is owned by another faction, there is a 10 hour waiting declaration period to give the defending faction time to ready themselves.

Once the fighting starts, step one is taking down the City Gate. This is simply done by clicking on it and having your army destroy it's health bar. Of course in Player vs Player you would also need to contend with enemy armies swarming around just outside the gate, and the gate itself will fire at your armies. However the gate itself isn't that strong on it's way, and once you're inside the major objective is the Municipal Centre.

Similar to the City gates, Archery towers will attack enemy armies that come too close, but inside and outside of the walls. However these are not major objectives and if they can be avoided they should be.

The major objective within the city. Just like the city wall and the archery tower it will attack you back but without much strength. If you can take down this building the city will open up and armies inside will have a chance to sit in the occupation ring and look to gain (or regain) control. The faction with the largest army in the ring will fill up the occupation bar faster. This is exactly the same mechanic as we see in Siege of Winterfell. After a successful siege the defending troops that had failed will be teleported out to their base, likewise if the siege fails the attacking troops will be ported out to their home base.

Finally, as for PvP fighting itself once again the combat is almost identical to that in Siege of Winterfell. Armies will clash and steadily soldiers will be killed (and at times healed) depending on the stats and commander skills of both armies. Here it will show those attacking you, and what both you and your opponent have lost troop wise.

That's it for the Combat review for All-Out War. Remember to check out my other story on the basics, farming and the rewards within All-Out War! I'm looking forward to playing this with BDR, and seeing how it plays out with players allowed to enter and fight whenever they have time rather than during fixed event times like we usually see.

Good luck to all of you taking part! ~