Luck, and Morale

Hoplites shown in two attack positions, with both an overhand and underhand thrust (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In your battle reports you have probably noticed the values added for morale and luck. These are systems put in place by the game administrators to help add an element of chance to battles and to help level the playing field when very advanced players level an attack against smaller players.

Luck:

Luck works just like it sounds, by random chance. A random number generator produces a value every time you attack and assigns you a score between +30% and -30%. This translates directly to your attack value and offers you and advantage or disadvantage accordingly.

In order to ensure your victory, when you have the luxury of reliable intelligence, you can assume at the outset a -30% luck value in the simulator (the four-leaf clover icon field). Then when you send your forces even if luck is against you, you can send sufficient forces to overwhelm the defenders.

Morale:

Morale, on the other hand is a little more tricky. This is the mechanism to help level the playing fields when larger players are attacking much smaller players. It operates by the following equation, and is reported in a percentage:

[(Points Defender/Points Attacker)*3+0.3]*100

The resulting percentage is then multiplied by your total attacking value. Think of it as a handicap. It is also only activated when the attacker has a total number of points four (4) times greater than the defender.

Here is an example:

Attacking Player has 2000 points
Defending Player has 300 points

So we calculate the Morale as:

[(300/2000)*3+0.3]*100=75%

If the Attacking Player then sends 75 Hoplites with a base attack value of 1200 (sharp), you would multiply as follows:

1200*75%=900

Now, if the Defending Player has 50 Swordsmen with a defense value of 400 (sharp) and 25 Archers with a defense value of 625 (sharp) they would have a total defense value of 1025. Without morale it would not have been enough to successfully defend but with morale the defender wins the battle and destroys the attacking Hoplites