The round cap
From the Polandball Go Wiki
A PvP duel ends when one side knocks out three of the other's five balls. If neither side gets there in 24 rounds, the duel stops and the game compares how much of each lineup is left. The side holding the larger share of its HP plus Protection wins. Defense teams do far better in duels that end this way than in duels decided by KOs, and that changes what a good defense looks like.
1 How the share is counted#
At the cap, each side's share is worked out over its whole lineup, all five balls:
- Left: the HP and Protection each ball still has, added up. A knocked-out ball counts zero. A ball that sat on the bench untouched counts in full, Protection included.
- Out of: the max HP and starting Protection of all five balls, added up.
The side with the larger fraction wins. The numbers aren't compared directly, so a lineup with a huge HP pool doesn't win just by being big: it has to have kept a bigger share of what it started with. The rule picked the winner correctly in every round-cap duel checked against it.
Protection counts the same as HP here. That matters because Protection only comes from Economy and the item's defense. In a KO race, Economy is a fairly weak stat. At the cap it counts point for point. See Country stats.
2 A worked example#
The attacker fields five balls that each start with 7,000 HP and 1,000 Protection, 40,000 in all. By round 24 it has KO'd two defenders and lost two balls of its own. Its active ball is down to 1,200 HP, one bench ball was swapped out hurt at 3,000, and one is untouched at 8,000. That's 12,200 left out of 40,000: 30.5%.
The defender fields five balls that each start with 7,500 HP and 2,500 Protection, 50,000 in all. It has also lost two balls. Its active ball has 4,000 left, and two bench balls are untouched at 10,000 each. That's 24,000 out of 50,000: 48%.
Both sides have two KOs, and the defense wins on share. The attacker would have needed to strip another 9,000 or so from the defense, a few more hits, to come out ahead.
3 Why the cap favors defense#
Attackers win most PvP duels. The defending side is played by the game's bot, which picks its own moves, and the attacker has the initiative. But that edge shrinks as a duel runs long. In the first weeks of duels, attackers won about four duels in five that ended in KOs, but only a little over half of those that reached round 24 in the Open League. In the top tiers, Crystal and above, defenses won most round-cap duels. Roughly one duel in six reaches the cap.
The reason is simple. A short duel means the attacker's damage got through. A long one means blocks, swaps and big HP pools soaked it up, and at the cap the bench balls the attacker never reached count in full for the defender.
4 How many rounds a duel needs#
Twenty-four rounds is fewer than it sounds. Three KOs on balls with around 9,000 HP and Protection each, against an Attack of about 3,000, takes nine landed Attacks at the least. Every round lost to a Block, a Swap, or a resisted hit pushes that back:
- A Block stops an Attack completely. The bot Blocks in roughly a quarter of rounds.
- A Swap brings in a fresh ball, and its full HP and Protection start over.
- A resisted hit at Multiattack 10 loses a quarter of its damage, or half against both of a ball's types.
On average a duel ran about 17 rounds in early October, so the cap is in reach of any fight that goes slowly.
5 Building a defense for round 24#
- HP and Protection pools. High Population sets max HP, and high Economy plus a high-defense item sets Protection. Both raise the number the attacker has to chew through before your share drops. See Weapon and item power for the 60% Protection cap.
- Resistance. Multiattack orbs cut the damage of hits your balls resist, which is often the difference between three hits to a KO and four. See Type proficiency and orbs.
- Depth. Every ball counts at the cap, so a defense with five solid balls is better than three stars and two filler balls the attacker can KO cheaply.
- Typing spread. If your five balls share a weakness, one attacker can run through them all. Mixing types makes the attacker swap or eat resisted hits.
6 Playing toward the cap as the attacker#
The cap cuts both ways. If you're behind on KOs going into the last rounds, the share is what you still control:
- Swap a hurt ball out to save it. A ball at 10% that survives still adds its HP to your total, and the ball coming in takes the hit instead.
- Spend Weapon charges. Charges left at the end count for nothing, and a Weapon goes through a Block for half.
- Count both sides. If you have two KOs and the defense has none, but your active ball is nearly dead and theirs are fresh, the share can still go their way.
7 Wars and territory#
Alliance war attacks have a different cap and a different meaning. An attack is a team duel against every defender left in the squad, with a cap of 40 rounds, and the attack wins only by knocking out all of them. At the cap there's no share count: the attack simply fails, and each defender keeps the HP it was left with for the next attack. See War attacks and team duels.
Territory attacks since update 5.0 are duels won at three KOs. The game hasn't published a round cap for them.
8 On polbielytics#
The Meta page shows how PvP duels end, by KOs or at the cap, and Recent PvP battles shows each duel's rounds.