Kampfinsel

Kampfinsel Handbook — How to Play & Wiki

Combat

A flying boulder does not read peace treaties.

TL;DR: Battles unfold in five phases -- calculated entirely on the server.

- Naval battle, harbor defense, land combat, building destruction, looting

- Losses are permanent -- destroyed units and ships are gone

- Cargo shares the fate of its carriers; troops left without transport space after ships sink drown before land combat

- Combat reports show the exact course of each phase

How Combat Works #

When your fleet reaches an enemy island, combat is automatically resolved in five consecutive phases:

=======================================
  Naval Battle -> Harbor -> Land Combat
       -> Building Destruction -> Looting
=======================================

Naval battle, harbor defense and land combat can halt an attack. Once the attacker wins the land battle, building destruction and looting follow; loot does not require effective catapults.

The Five Phases #

Phase 1 -- Naval Battle #

Long before the coast comes into view, the warships of both sides clash on the open water. It is a duel of firepower at sea. Whoever loses here sees their invasion end before it even began. Trade ships do not participate in naval combat -- they wait behind the front line.

A lost naval battle is not a total sinking -- and that holds for the losing side of both roles. The closer the fight, the more of the beaten side's ships cut themselves free and make it home; whoever is crushed outright, however, loses almost everything. A beaten defender additionally saves at least roughly a quarter of every ship type into the home harbor -- where only a handful of ships of one kind sailed, though, no one gets through. What the victor pays follows the Victor's Reckoning -- more on that in a moment. Against ruins and uninhabited islands none of this applies: there, the naval battle is reckoned as it always was, without the Victor's Reckoning -- whoever loses can forfeit the entire war fleet. If the island is conquered, however, the escaped ships and all the defender’s remaining ships and troops are lost too.

The Victor's Reckoning: Both sides of a naval battle are reckoned by the same rule. The victor loses roughly the share of his fleet that the loser held of the total fighting strength -- when two equally strong fleets meet, victory costs about half; against clear superiority it stays at a few ships. That applies to attackers and defenders alike, whenever they win -- except against ruins and uninhabited islands. The narrowly beaten side brings many ships home -- but its share of losses always stays larger than the victor's. Winning narrowly is better than losing narrowly.

If an attack meets an overwhelmingly superior naval defense, no battle is fought at all: the captains recognize the odds and order an Orderly retreat -- that is exactly how the report will be titled. Part of the fleet is lost in the escape, the rest returns home with its crews -- there is no loot, and the defender remains entirely untouched. Only those who sail with a single ship lose it in the process. Against ruins and uninhabited islands there is no retreat: there, battle is joined as it always was. A colonization never turns away either -- whoever sails with a colony ship always fights to the end.

Phase 2 -- Harbor Defense #

The surviving attacker ships must pass the enemy's shipping lane. The defender's harbor hurls fire pots at the invaders. The higher the harbor level, the fiercer the resistance. Even without a fleet, a defender has a chance here. If the harbor stops the attack, all assaulting warships and troops without remaining transport space may be lost.

Phase 3 -- Land Combat #

In the wet sand of the coast, war turns archaic. Attacking troops leap from their boats into the surf while defenders hold behind their walls. The stone wall provides a substantial defensive bonus. Research (Spear, Shield, Bow) heavily influences the combat strength of both sides.

Phase 4 -- Building Destruction #

If the attacker wins the land battle and brought catapults, these can damage chosen defensive structures and reduce their levels.

Siege Reform: catapults are pure siege weapons. They shatter walls, harbors and the Main Building — workshops, warehouses and economy buildings remain untouched. A siege battery must be larger the higher the defense level: the next level demands at least as many catapults as it already counts.

Phase 5 -- Looting and Colonization #

On normal islands, loot comes only from the warehouse; loot protection and carrying capacity limit the haul. The cargo is split evenly between Gold, Stone and Wood.

How much an attack can take at all is shown in your spy report: next to each resource there is the column "Of which plunderable" -- whatever lies above the warehouse's protection, as of the time of spying. Old Empire ruins lack this column, but warehouse protection and carrying capacity still apply there.

A winning attacker can additionally plunder knowledge plans from the defender's island. The size of the cut depends on the strength ratio — a clear victory yields more than a narrow one. See the chapter "Knowledge Plans" for details.

Whoever attacks the same island more than once in quick succession carries off less with every visit — every attack that reaches the island counts, even a lost one that brings back nothing. No one is left completely empty-handed, though, and after a pause the loot recovers. Only the first strike of such a run yields knowledge plans; further attacks yield no more knowledge plans.

If the attacker brought a colony ship, it survives the fight, the attacker wins the land combat and the Main Building ends at level 1 or lower, the island can be colonized -- it changes ownership (chapter “Colonization”).

Reading Combat Reports #

After every battle, both attacker and defender receive a detailed report showing the course of all phases: which ships sank, which troops fell, and what was looted.

The reports now explain the outcome more clearly: they make it plainer why a phase went the way it did — whether a decision was close, whether position and fortification tipped it, or whether a repeated attack brought back less. So you can read at a glance what a battle hinged on.

In the reports list you can tick several reports at once and mark them as unread or delete them — spy and trade reports included. Deleting only affects your own list: the other side keeps their report, published chronicles remain, and a saved direct link still opens the report.

A box at the top of the reports list ticks every report on this page at once. In the inbox (tab “Received”) you can tick and delete conversations page by page in the same way. Messages addressed to you also disappear from the other side’s sent list and conversation history; messages they received themselves remain.

As the attacker, you can prepare another attack from an ordinary combat report using “Attack again”. The link is absent after a successful conquest, an Orderly retreat or a fortress battle. The form fills in the target, composition and departure island; missing ships or troops are trimmed to your current stock. Even after a failed colonization, it prepares an attack. All dispatch rules apply when you send.

Fairer Losses in Land Combat #

How many troops a land battle costs depends on how close the outcome really was. A razor-thin victory takes its toll, while overwhelming force stays gentle — so losses mirror the course of the fight instead of following a rigid pattern.

Added to this is a small measure of bounded uncertainty: wind and fortune get a word in in land combat, so no outcome is fully plannable on paper anymore. Their influence stays tightly bounded — it shifts the losses on both sides a little, but never decides who wins. This applies to land combat alone.

Defenders Have the Edge #

Defending your island draws a noticeable benefit from position and fortification. Wall, harbor and Main Building work together strongly, so a well-built island is hard to crack.

Fortification only unfolds its full effect together with a garrison, though: walls alone, with no troops behind them, protect only up to a point. Whoever truly wants to stand firm keeps stones and spears together.

Repeated Raids Bring Less #

If the same attacker hits the same island again and again in quick succession, the loot shrinks with every strike. A neighbor can no longer be emptied out on an endless drumbeat — even after several raids, the island always keeps a remainder.

A short sequence currently means 20 hours: if you raid the same island again within that time, it brings less loot — in your active island’s ocean, the island window on the map tells you when this applies. The reduction also applies in other oceans, even without that notice.

For everyone who has fallen behind in the field, that is a breather: whoever is no longer plundered around the clock catches up faster. The first raid brings full loot — only the repeat is dampened. What counts is every attack that reaches the island: a lost, loot-free probing run counts exactly like a victorious one, and the outcome of the earlier attacks changes nothing about the dampening — a spy report on the target's stores says nothing about it either.

The Combat Calculator #

Before you send a fleet, you can run the attack through the Combat Calculator. You reach it via the navigation ("Calculator").

You load your own fleet with one click — from a saved template or an island’s current fleet. Enter the target by hand or import it from your own successful spy report on an inhabited player island. Reports on ruins, fortresses and uninhabited islands cannot be imported.

As a result, the calculator gives a tendency — "Likely victory", "Close call", or "Likely defeat" — along with a rough loss tier for each side: none, light, moderate, heavy, or near-total. If you like, sharpen the estimate in the advanced mode with research, stationed garrisons, harbor, and catapult target. For an Orderly retreat it instead shows “No battle — Orderly retreat”; a sea strike without enemy warships shows “No battle”.

This is an estimate, not a guarantee. For an Orderly retreat, the calculator shows specific ship counts for losses and return. You can enter the target’s research or import it from a spy report; unknown bonuses are missing, and an older report gives a less reliable picture. Battle luck remains part of the sea — only the fight gives final certainty.

Clearer Attack Alerts #

So that a swarm of small attacks does not flood you with messages, the game groups routine combat alerts per island and time window — one collected notice instead of ten separate ones.

Alerts about a looming colonization or heavy hits on your Main Building can also be grouped. Email and Discord direct messages arrive only if you enable the corresponding alerts in settings. The fall of the Main Building is reported separately without grouping; its in-game message arrives regardless of those settings.

The Fog of War #

A sail on the horizon does not announce its purpose. When a hostile force closes in on a player island or Old Empire ruin, your fleet list carries it at first as nothing more than "Battle group (type unknown)": where it comes from and whom it belongs to you see as always — whether it means to plunder or to take the island stays in the fog.

As it draws nearer, that fog lifts. From then on the kind of mission stands in the list, and beside it a rough magnitude of the force — a sighting never names exact ship numbers; what lookouts report from afar remains an estimate. When the mask falls is decided by the watchtower of the threatened island: the higher it is built, the sooner it becomes clear what is rolling in, and even an island without a watchtower learns the kind of force in good time before the impact. A neighbor who merely watches the movement at the edge of his own field of view never learns more than the threatened captain himself — both see clearly in the same instant.

That magnitude is one of five steps. From the smallest force to the largest:

Where exactly one step turns into the next, a sighting does not reveal — it only names the magnitude the force falls into.

Individual attacks and colonization fleets against player islands and Old Empire ruins are veiled. Trade, spying and reinforcements sail openly, as do voyages against uninhabited shores and Corsair Fortresses. The uncertainty is deliberate: you decide before you know what is coming. Upgrading your watchtower improves sightings of fleets that depart later; it does not affect fleets already approaching.

Arrival Within a Time Window #

While a hostile force is still far out, the fleet list does not name an arrival to the second but a time window: the span within which it will stand off your coast. The true moment always lies inside it, though never neatly in its middle — and the window is fixed once, when the force sets sail, and does not wander afterwards. Looking again and again does not narrow it.

The higher your watchtower, the sooner the window becomes an exact time. And shortly before the impact it always does, even without a watchtower: this last certainty is guaranteed to every island, so that a span always remains in which you know the exact hour for your evasive move. The exact time never appears before the kind of force does, though — first the fog lifts, then the clock sharpens.

Over very short routes the window looks wide, sometimes wider than the voyage itself lasts. That is intended.

None of this changes the reliable baseline warning: you are still warned in good time, the window concerns only the precision of the hour. More on that in the chapter "Fleets & Travel".

Tips for Attackers #

Tips for Defenders #

Capitulation #

In an individual attack, overwhelming force can make the defenders capitulate: the crew surrenders instead of fighting on. Looting proceeds as usual, but troop and ship losses are significantly lower on both sides.

Important: capitulation applies only to individual attacks on inhabited player islands whose crews can choose between death and surrender. Uninhabited shores and Old Empire ruins make no such choice — their fanatics fight to the last, however overwhelming your force. There is no capitulation against Combined Attack waves either.

Another exception belongs to conquest itself: when a colonization fleet approaches, no one ever capitulates. Where it is not plunder that looms but the end of home -- flag, name, and freedom -- no crew lowers its sword. The defenders fight with full force to the last man, however overwhelming the odds.

Drift timber #

When ships sink in battle, part of their timber drifts on the water — drift timber. Naval battle and harbor defense can produce it. A successful conquest yields none; victorious Combined Attack participants receive none either. Where a war brings wreckage, it takes the place of drift timber (chapter “Alliances”). Otherwise, the winner salvages the timber in addition to loot. For attackers, the surviving fleet’s carrying capacity limits the entire return cargo, including drift timber. Warehouse capacity also applies on arrival; a victorious defender stores drift timber directly. Anything that has no room is lost.

Wild Shores and Ancient Ruins #

Uninhabited islands are rarely masterless. Natives, wild clans, or the remnants of old admiralties defend the land with their own means. An attacker who thinks easy prey awaits will run into real resistance.

An Old Empire ruin is plundered by the normal rules: whatever its warehouse protects remains untouched. Conquest brings no loot, but the island comes with its stores: whoever takes over a ruin gains the island, its buildings and its stores — as far as the damaged warehouse can still hold them, just like any conquest. At the very least, your settlers bring a small starting supply of gold, stone and wood.

Where a wealthy ruin still has barracks or a harbor, it raises its own guards out of its stores — and when an empire falls for good, its last stores arm the garrison once, and the rest decays. See the chapter "Old Seas & Corsair Fortresses" for more.

Allied Reinforcements #

Allied reinforcements can help defend an island. Each garrison fights from the moment it arrives, with its own sender's research, and losses are distributed proportionally across all parties. Whoever arrives on the island before the attack is part of the battle. Details: chapter "Fleet Dispatch".

Retribution #

After a substantial plundering by an individual attack, the victim holds a retribution claim against the raider for a short time. A successful individual attack on one of the raider’s islands can bring home more loot than the holds normally carry — up to what was stolen. Nothing new is created; only what was lost is reclaimed. Your next individual attack on the raider automatically consumes the claim at departure. Recall, bouncing back or defeat do not restore it. No claim arises within the same alliance; joining an alliance later, signing a treaty or agreeing to an armistice does not cancel an existing claim. It can pierce their attack restrictions for a short time.

Rebuild losses #

Below a regular combat report with your own losses there is a Rebuild losses button. One click queues the lost troops and ships again on the island that lost them, as many as you can currently afford. If something can't start because the Barracks or Harbor is busy or resources are missing, one sentence tells you what is missing. Afterwards you see when everything will be ready – if an earlier order is waiting for a missing requirement, it says instead that your orders are waiting.

You get the button as attacker and as defender, for your own troops and ships; it does not rebuild reinforcements on other players' islands; your own troops that you had moved to the attacked island count too and are rebuilt there. Reports of a special kind – such as an Orderly retreat or an alliance attack wave – have no button. The prices and rules of the Barracks and Harbor apply -- if troops and warships currently cost half, you pay only half here too. Whatever you already reordered from a report, another click does not order again; only what was too expensive or could not start can be made up later. If the island no longer belongs to you, you cannot rebuild anything there.

Register now