Combat in Anvil Empires is real-time and player-driven. Battles are not scripted: they happen wherever two factions meet, from a roadside ambush to a thousand-player melee in front of a fortress. The studio's custom r2 server technology is designed to keep that scale playable in a single shard. The fundamentals below apply to both small-scale skirmishes and large army fights.
Combat Roles
Infantry: Front-line melee. Sword and shield, spear formations, and mace teams targeting heavily armoured foes.
Skirmishers: Light troops with bows or javelins. Cannot wear Armours heavier than light because Bows and Spears cannot be armed in reinforced or heavy armour.
Cavalry: Mounted players using Vehicles (horses) for raiding and rapid response.
Siege engineers: Operate Sieges equipment, supply ammunition, and repair vehicles under fire.
Logisticians: Run caravans, pack carts, and keep Logistics and Supply Lines feeding the front.
Damage Types
Most weapons deal one of several damage types. Different damage types interact differently with armour and with siege engines.
Damage Type | Primary Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Slashing | Swords, axes | Default melee damage; standard armour mitigation applies. |
Crushing | Maces, Rock Slab | Damages stability and is effective against heavily armoured targets. |
Cleaving | Combat Axes | Damages siege weapons in addition to players. |
Missile | Bows | Ranged damage; weapon and bow tier roll a damage range per hit. |
Burning | Burning Oil, Oil Flask, Torch | Damage over time; Burning Oil also directly damages siege engines. |
Water | Water Bucket | Used to extinguish burning effects on structures and players. |
The Stability System
Heavy hits, particularly from crushing weapons, reduce a player's stability. A staggered or knocked-down character cannot block or attack effectively. Crushing damage is the main answer to opponents who stack heavy armour; a coordinated mace line will out-trade a sword line against the heaviest plate.
Armour Interaction
Armour mitigates incoming damage by category. Wearing heavier armour does not just reduce damage; it also restricts the weapons you can wield. Bows and spears cannot be armed in reinforced or heavy armour. This forces a real tactical choice: a heavy infantry line cannot also be a missile line, and vice versa. See the Armours article for the multiplicative mitigation formula.
Battle Scale
A single battle can support up to one thousand simultaneous combatants on the same field. In practice, encounters of dozens to a few hundred are more common, but the network architecture is built around the larger number so that the climactic battles of a war are not capped. Battles are always organic: there is no instance, no queue, and no battlefield boundary other than the world map itself.