Barbarian villages send raiding parties at lords nearby. A raid is a battle at your gates against a barbarian army, and you can win it, lose it or avoid it. This guide covers who gets raided, what a raid costs you and how to stop one.
Who gets raided
Villages run from level 1 to level 10. The higher ones keep much bigger garrisons.
A village only raids a lord if all of these are true:
- Your title is 1st Freeman or higher.
- You are within about a dozen fields of the village, and the raiders can reach you in under ten minutes.
- You are in the game. Raids only start against lords who were active in the last five minutes.
- You have no beginner protection and no Truce Seal running.
- Nobody has raided you in the last four days, and no other party is already on its way to you.
A village’s level is limited by your title. A level 1 village raids from 1st Freeman, and each higher level needs a better title, up to level 10 at Prince Regent. A village goes for lords above its level three times as often as for lords exactly at it.
| Village level | Raids lords from title | Garrison (Marauders, Horse-raiders, Slingers, Hurlers) | People an hour if you hold it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1st Freeman | 22, 7, 8, 0 | 1 |
| 3 | 2nd Baron | 74, 24, 27, 3 | 3 |
| 5 | 1st Viscount | 300, 75, 70, 18 | 8 |
| 7 | 3rd Marquis | 1,050, 220, 200, 66 | 13 |
| 10 | Prince Regent | 9,500, 1,700, 1,500, 600 | 25 |
Each village sends a party every 30 to 60 hours, and no lord is raided more than once in four days.
How big a party is
The party is worth about 35% of the troops you keep at home, and never more than half of the village’s garrison. There is also a floor, so a city with no troops at home still meets a small party. Keep more at home and the party grows, and so does the prize for beating it.
The Captain tells you when a party sets out and where it is heading. The march takes anything from one minute to about nine and a half. If you log off while a party is on the way, it waits outside your city. When you return you get ten minutes’ warning, and after a day away it gives up and goes home.
What a win pays
Beat the raiders and they leave their spoils behind.
Drive off the party and the village pays a bounty worth 60% of the party’s strength, split evenly across Wood, Stone, Iron and Grain. A party of 100 Marauders pays 6,600 of each. You also earn prestige for every barbarian you kill: 2 for a Marauder, 4 for a Slinger, 8 for a Horse-raider and 20 for a Hurler.
Gear is a separate roll. The chance starts at 15% and adds 1% for every 10,000 of strength in the party, up to 60%, so that party of 100 Marauders gives 19%. If no gear fits the party’s budget, you get enhancement stones instead.
A fight that reaches the twentieth round counts as a win for you, the same as in any other battle.
What a loss costs
If the raiders break through, they take at most 5% of each resource you hold above your Hidden Cellar’s protection. They don’t damage buildings. No raid can kill more than 35% of any troop type you had at home, so even a bad defeat leaves most of your army standing. The war report lists what you lost.
Ways to stop the raids
Hold the wall. Your Town Wall fights in a raid like it does in any other battle. A wall of traps, caltrops and turrets thins the party before your troops meet it. The Town Wall guide has the costs. Raids are a fair test for a new wall, because the party is sized at about a third of your home army.
Seal up. A Truce Seal blocks raids for 12 hours or 5 days, the same as it blocks attacks from other lords. It costs Coins if you don’t have one, and it ends the moment you attack someone yourself. Since a lord is raided at most once every four days, a Seal is rarely worth buying for raids alone.
Take the village. A village is captured like an oasis, by beating its guards, and the guards are tougher than an oasis’s. A village you hold never raids you, and it sends people to your city every hour, from 1 at level 1 to 25 at level 10. You can hold one village to start with. The limit rises by one every six titles, to four at Prince Regent. If you let a village go, it leaves you alone for three days.
Survivors carry home what they can, but not what the Cellar hides.
Before the first raid
Build a Hidden Cellar so that a loss costs less, as the resources guide explains. Keep your army at home when you are online, and scout the village from the map before you decide to take it, which the world map guide walks through. The battle guide explains how the fight itself runs.