Military

Every house has soldiers, drafted from its peasants. Every race also has an offense specialist, a defense specialist, an elite and a thief, plus upgraded offense+, defense+ and elite+ units. Unit slots run in that order: soldiers, offense, defense, elite, thief, then the three upgrades. Each race's units and their numbers are on its race page.

Soldiers and the draft

Soldiers fight at 1 offense and 1 defense, the same for every race. They cost no gold to train: they're drafted from your peasants. They do draw 0.22 gold a tick each in wages.

• Your draft rate is the share of your population you want under arms: troops at home, away and in training, soldiers included. New houses start at 55%; you can set 0 to 90%.
• Each tick, while you're below your rate, up to 1% of your peasants are drafted, never past the rate. Set 0 to stop drafting.
• Drafted peasants no longer pay gold, so a high rate costs income.

Releasing troops

You can stand troops at home down at once:

• Soldiers go back to the fields as peasants, and work and pay gold again. If that leaves fewer under arms than your draft rate, the rate comes down to your new share (rounded down to 0.5%), so the next tick doesn't draft them straight back.
• Specialists, elites, their upgrades and thieves drop back into soldiers. What they cost to train isn't returned.
• Troops away with an army can't be released, nor can mercenaries.

Releasing is how you cut wages you can't pay before troops desert.

Training

Soldiers train into specialists, elites and thieves.

• Each costs gold (its price, times your training cost modifier) and one soldier.
• Timing is a bell. Most trainees are ready after 9 ticks. The rest finish spread up to 2 ticks earlier or later; the fewer, the further from the middle. Trainees still eat.
• Not everyone makes it. 2% fail and go back to being soldiers; their gold is lost. 0.5% die in training.
• Some excel. 3% of trainees into offense, defense or elite units come out as the upgraded (+) unit at once, at no extra cost.
• A general from the ranks. Training elites has a very small chance (2% per 1,000 elites) of raising a general for free, if you have room for one. No elites are retired for it.
• Up to 1,000,000 at a time.

Recruiting straight from peasants

You can skip the draft and recruit specialists, elites and thieves straight from your peasants, at a price:

• 30% more gold, and 50% longer to train.
• A wider bell: up to 3 ticks either side of the average.
• 6% fail (back to peasants, the gold lost) and 2% die.
• None come out upgraded.

Wages

Your army costs gold every tick, paid straight after income:

• Each trained unit, at home or away, costs 0.1% of its training price a tick. Thieves count; units still in training don't.
• Each soldier costs 0.22 gold a tick.
• Mercenaries are paid when you hire them, not here.

Desertion. If you can't pay in full, you pay what gold you have. Then up to 2% of each kind of troop at home deserts, scaled by the share left unpaid: with half the wages unpaid, up to half that share leaves. Troops away don't desert. Your news reports who left and how much gold you were short.

Worked example. 1,000 elites that cost 2,000 gold each to train draw 2,000 gold a tick. 10,000 soldiers draw 2,200. A big army needs a steady income, not just the gold to train it.

Numbers last updated 8 Oct 2026.

Upgrades

You can upgrade offense specialists, defense specialists and elites you own into their + form. An upgraded unit's main stat is 25% higher (offense+ in offense, defense+ in defense, elite+ in both), unless its race sets its own numbers. Offense+ also gains 1 defense, and defense+ 1 offense. Races with elite_plus_plus can upgrade elite+ once more, into elite++ (another 25% on both stats).

• Cost: 1 bauxite per unit, 2 per elite. Each elite also takes 1 amber. See Materials.
• The units are in training for 9 ticks, then return upgraded.

Medics

Medics don't fight; they save troops who would die in battle. A medic costs 250 gold, 1 sulfur and a peasant, and is ready after 9 ticks.

• Each medic per 100 troops in a fight saves 2% of that side's deaths, up to 50%.
• Medics you send with an attack protect your attackers and come home with the army. Medics at home protect your defenders.
• Example: 400 troops sent with 40 medics is 10 medics per 100 troops, so 20% of the deaths are saved.

Horses and chariots

• Stables breed horses each tick, up to what they can hold.
• A horse adds 1 offense to the troop it carries; a chariot adds 2. One mount per troop sent (thieves don't ride).
• A chariot is built from 1 horse, 1 timber and 100 gold. Timber is refined from pine.
• Mounts die at the same rate as your attackers; medics don't save them.

Attacking

You choose how many troops of each unit slot to send, and the kind of attack: an Assault for land (the default), or Breach, Reclaim, Torch, Sack, Massacre or Blockade; within your own state, only Raze, for clearing out idle houses. Every kind fights the same battle; they differ in what a win takes and what they need. The battle resolves at once.

Armies out at once. Each attack sends an army, and it counts until it comes home. You may have 2 armies out at once, and 1 more for each general you have. With all out, an attack is refused and tells you when the first is back. A second strike joins the army already out.

Mercenaries. You can hire Mercenaries for an attack: 150 gold each (times your mercenary cost modifier), at most one for every 5 of your own troops sent. They fight at 3 offense, die like the rest, and the survivors leave after the battle instead of coming home. Some races differ: the Unlithians may hire more per troop sent, may hire them upgraded (upgraded_mercenaries in the attack, for the upgrade material), and keep some survivors as offensive specialists; see each race's page.

1. Offense = the offense of every unit sent (elites times your elite offense modifier), times your offense modifier, times battle luck (up to ±5%). A general leading the army adds its traits.
2. Defense = the defense of every unit the target has at home (elites times their elite defense modifier), times their defense modifier, plus 1 point per acre they own. Their defending general adds its traits.
3. If offense is higher, you win. An assault takes 10% of their land; other kinds take what the Attacks table says. They lose it at once; you receive it when your army returns. You take more from a state that is Unfriendly or Hostile toward yours, and more still from one you're at war with.
4. Win or lose, 8% of the troops you sent die, less what your medics save. Every attack costs you at least 1 troop(s), however small.
5. Up to 4.5% of the target's troops at home die, less what their medics save. That full share dies when your offense at least matches their defense. A weaker attack kills in proportion: at half their defense, half as many die. A token army kills almost nobody.
6. An attack with less than 25% of the target's defense is weak. It is fought as usual, but it counts for nothing else: it adds nothing to the hostility meter, doesn't count toward declaring war, can't put you among a mirroring race's attackers or afflict the target, and leaves no mark on their main general's record.
7. An assault, breach or reclaim that wins earns renown.
8. Sacked goods travel home with the army and arrive when it does.
9. A house hit often lately loses less to each new hit, in land and in troops (see protection from repeated hits).
10. Your army comes home 12 ticks later, times your return time modifier.

Troops that are away don't defend your house.

You can't attack houses in your own state (except to raze an idle one), across a ceasefire, or while either house is under protection. No attack of any kind can be sent in the last 24 ticks of the age (see End of the Age). Every attack raises the target state's hostility meter toward yours.

Renown

Renown is public, like land. A successful attack earns up to 20 renown, scaled by how close the fight was: defense ÷ offense. Beating a well-defended house earns the most; crushing a defenceless one earns little. Renown is also scaled down against a much smaller house, by the target size curve. Attacks on a state you are at war with earn 50% more.

Renown is never spent. Where it comes from:

• Attacks: a winning assault, breach or reclaim (above). Other kinds of attack earn none.
• Wars: winning a war gives every house in the state 100; a peace gives both sides 30; the loser gets none.
• Colloquium: 1 for every 1,000 books you give to a project.
• Ancestral Hall: renown every tick.

The renown gain modifier (from race, personality and the Heraldry project) raises renown from attacks, the Colloquium and the Ancestral Hall, but not from wars.

What it does:

• More trait slots for your generals (at 0, 200, 500 renown), and the right to choose traits instead of drawing them at 300.
• Heir slots at the end of the age (1 at 500 renown, 2 at 2,000 renown, 3 at 5,000 renown).
• Rankings: houses are ranked by renown at the end of the age. It doesn't count toward the state's score.

What you learn

You see your own offense, whether you won, the land taken and the losses on both sides, but never the defender's defense. The defender's news tells them who attacked and what they lost. To size up a target first, spy on it.

Thieves don't fight. They are used for spying.