War attack fine print
From the Polandball Go Wiki
War attacks and team duels covers how an attack runs, and War scoring and the war ladder the points table. These are the details behind them.
1 A ball attacks once a war#
- A ball that has attacked is marked Exhausted for the rest of that war. This is the war's own use of the word: raid unexhaust items and statuses never bring a ball back here.
- A ball on your defense board can't attack.
- Each attack is a team of 1 to 5 of your balls. They are all spent by the attack, win or lose.
So every ball is one attack, and which balls you keep back for attacking matters as much as which ones you put on defense. See Defense planning.
2 Damage stays#
- A defender that survives keeps the HP it was left with, through every later attack in that war.
- A squad is usually worn down over several attacks. Weak attackers into strong, well-equipped defenders barely move them, so a team of low-CP balls rarely finishes anything on a strong board.
- Whether a hurt defender's Protection comes back between attacks isn't published. The game's rules say Protection never regenerates during a duel. Real war results fit better with Protection whole at the start of each attack than with it spent, and best with something in between.
3 Damage spreads across the squad#
New defenders come in by seat order after a KO, but the defense bot also Swaps. So later seats take damage before the front falls. After a first attack that KO'd one defender, that defender could have sat in any seat, and the others were usually hurt too.
4 How an attack ends#
- A full wipe: every defender still standing is KO'd. The attack clears the squad.
- The round cap: 40 rounds pass. The defenders keep what HP they have.
- A forfeit. The game records it, but what it does to the score isn't published.
- If your last attacker and their last defender fall in the same round, the attacker wins.
5 The hidden board#
- Matchmaking names both alliances and their players as soon as sign-up closes.
- The other side's defense board is hidden on setup day. A squad shows only once it is attacked.
- During attack days you see your own total, while theirs shows as "???".
See The war week clock.
6 The game's scoring lines#
The game lists each scoring line under a name of its own. The totals on the wiki's points table are these lines added up:
- duel_win 2 and first_duel_win_bonus 3: the 5 points for each defender KO'd.
- battle_win 15 and first_battle_win_bonus 30: the 45 points for clearing a squad.
- survivor_bonus 2: for each attacker still standing when the squad is cleared.
- set_defence 40: for each squad your side places.
- unfilled_slot 65: paid once for each empty squad slot on the other side, not once for each empty seat.
- zone_clear_front 120, zone_clear_middle 180, zone_clear_back 360 and full_map_clear 600.
- undermanned_bonus 3: see below.
7 The undermanned bonus#
An attack that clears its squad gets 3 more points for each KO beyond the number of balls sent. One ball that KOs four defenders and clears gets 9 extra. Three balls that KO all five get 6 extra.
That makes the wiki's "clean first strike" example, three balls into a fresh squad of five with two surviving, worth 80 points rather than 74: 25 for the KOs, 45 for the clear, 4 for the survivors and 6 for the bonus. Sending fewer balls to finish a worn squad pays a little more, as well as saving balls.
8 Matchmaking#
Matchmaking keeps wars close on war power: nearly every war is within 10%. Inside that band, the side with more war power has won about half the time. Filling the board and attacking count for far more than war power.
9 Not known#
- Whether Protection comes back between attacks, or how much.
- What a forfeit does to the score.
- Whether a ball defending in PvP or on territory can also be used in a war.