Combat Mechanics: Defensive Troop Type Testing

One of the hardest concepts to understand in Iron Throne is Combat Mechanics. The biggest question everyone wants to be answered is “How Do We Defend?”

Combat Mechanics

First things first, let’s broadly go over general combat mechanics. Each troop is strong/weak against another, as the graphic below shows, with the exception of Siege. Siege is its own entity, weak to nothing and strong against Traps.

Within each type of troop, there are six tiers (T1-T6), each tier becoming stronger than the last. The relative troop strength of each is shown below.

Breakdown

Troop Tier	Power Per Troop
Tier 1	3
Tier 2	5
Tier 3	7
Tier 4	8
Tier 5	9
Tier 6	10

Defending Combat Mechanics

What does this mean for Defending? In the testing below the Gear remains constant. We are only testing the differences in the Troop Tiers upon defending against an attack on a tile. In each battle, the Attacker sent 1,200 T4 Infantry Troops, while the Defender used 120 thousand troops on the tile. In all tests, the Attacker lost 100% of their march.

The Attacker’s gear set in these tests was a full +15 Conqueror Set. The Defender’s gear is shown below.

Scenario Grouping 1

In this group, the Defender has even mixed Infantry, Archer and Cavalry on the tile.

Breakdown

Deaths	T2 Mix I/A/C	T3 Mix I/A/C	T4 Mix I/A/C	T5 Mix I/A/C
Defender Losses	10,3669	7,537	6,073	0

Scenario Grouping 2

Strong Type T2 only on the tile (Infantry)

Breakdown

Deaths	T2 Infantry	T3 Mix Infantry	T4 Infantry	T5 Infantry
Defender Losses	8,803	5,827	4,654	0

Scenario Grouping 3

Straight Siege was sent to the tile from the Defender.

Breakdown

Deaths	T2 Siege	T3 Siege	T4 Siege	T5 Mix Siege
Defender Losses	9,506	6,841	5,503	0

Scenario Grouping 4

So what happens if we combine Siege and the troop type corresponding to the GC Gear strengths? We added additional troops and ratios into the mix. In the tests listing “strong troop,” is Infantry as the Defender’s guard captain is primarily infantry-based. The ratio when offsetting was 80 thousand Strong Troop to 40 thousand other and visa versa. In all cases when 40 thousand T5 was included the Defender lost nothing.

Breakdown

Deaths	T2 Siege with T2 Strong Troop Heavy	T2 Siege Heavy with T2 Strong Troop	T2 Siege Heavy with T2 Mix Troop	T2 Siege with T4 Strong Troop	T2 Siege with T4 Mix Troops	T2 Siege with T5 Strong Troop	T3 Siege with T3 Strong Troop Heavy	T3 Siege Heavy with T3 Strong Troop	T3 Siege Heavy with T3 Mix Troop	T3 Siege with T4 Strong Troop	T3 Siege with T4 Mix Troops	T3 Siege with T5 Troops	T4 Siege with Strong Troop Heavy	T4 Siege Heavy with Strong Troop	T4 Siege Heavy with T4 Mix Troops	T4 Siege with T5 Strong Troops	T4 Siege with T5 Troops
Defender Losses	8,777	8,810	10,109	9,729	9,729	0	6,353	6,316	7,314	7,092	7,092	0	5,100	5,056	5,871	0	0

You’ll notice that in the test where troops were taken from the bottom layer T2 and added to T4, the Defender lost more. Why is this? We can draw one conclusion from that. All troops are attacking, as the Attacker always loses a full march. But the bottom tier is defending. When troops were removed from the T2 layer and added to T4 the Defender lost more because there were fewer troops defending.

As an additional test, troop counts were doubled to ensure accuracy and consistency. Both the Attacker and Defender lost exactly double the troops, allowing us to scale these tests for real-world use.

Kill Event Points Considerations

Within a kill event, whether it be weekend KE or Blood Moon, be cognizant of the points you’ll be giving away when deciding how to build up. You may lose less with T4 and higher level troops, but you also have to factor in the points given away to the Attacker’s team. Assuming many attackers use T4 for cost benefits, T4 on T4 may look good but could end up being a loss from a points perspective. Conversely, the Attacker may get excited to see a ton of dead T2 troops, not realizing that the points they got were less compared to the Defender’s haul.

Looking at T2 Siege versus T3 Siege, the points for a weekend KE would look as such:

T2 Siege with Strong T2 heavy: 456,404 vs 535,680

T3 Siege with Strong T3 heavy: 993,891 vs. 535,680

Conclusions

So what does this all mean? It depends what you’re trying to accomplish. It also depends on your gear. Are you trying to Cap or win on Points? If you’re trying to capture the opponent’s hero, higher tier troops are the way to go, and a lot of them (especially if your Kingdom has large attackers).

If you are attempting to “burn trap”, lower Tier troops will accomplish a net positive points scenario, assuming you do it right. Create a substantial T2 meat shield, focusing on your strong type troop. Add siege for an additional buffer. As an example, train 2 million each type of T5. Add 10 million strong type T2 (Infantry in the above defender’s case), and 15 million Siege T2. A decent amount of T5 or higher tiered troops are a must. Just using a meat shield of T2 Siege/Strong type T2 with nothing else won’t give the results anyone is trying to achieve. So train up!

Join the Conversation on our community sites! Make sure to like our content and if you want to stay up to date with our new releases, connect with us on Facebook or chat with us on our Discord and Line channels!

Stay Tuned for more great information from our Elite Team as Iron Throne continues to evolve.

Click here to sign up for email alerts when the new guides are posted.