From Eagle to Shardok

Eagle is the strategic layer. Shardok is the tactical layer. The two connect when armies meet in a province and Eagle needs a battlefield result instead of a simple strategic update.

Strategic Movement

For a compact round-by-round view of the entire process, see March and Battle Timeline.

In Eagle, armies move through the March command. A moving army has an origin province, destination province, arrival round, heroes, battalions, and supplies.

Because Eagle is simultaneous, multiple factions can send armies during the same strategic phase. Those armies arrive later during movement resolution, after every relevant player has had the chance to submit orders for the phase.

Arrival

When an army reaches its destination, the first question is whether it is friendly to the province’s current ruler.

Friendly armies arrive during Province Move Resolution. Their heroes, battalions, gold, and food enter the destination province at that point.

Hostile armies do not immediately enter the province. They are converted into hostile army groups later in the round, after player commands, with one group per attacking faction. Each group keeps the armies, units, supplies, and approach direction from the province it marched from.

After hostile setup, Eagle checks for cases that do not need a tactical battle:

• If a hostile army reaches an unruled province, the largest army group takes it during Uncontested Conquest. Ties are broken by troop power and then a deterministic random tie-breaker.
• If a single attacking army is attacking and there is no defending army, Eagle can resolve the attack directly as a conquest.
• If diplomacy or truces apply, armies may turn back before fighting.

Otherwise, the player may see attack or defense decision phases before a battle is requested.

Attack and Defense Decisions

Hostile army groups first wait for an attack decision. An attacking faction can choose whether to press the attack when the game asks for that decision.

If an attack proceeds against a ruled province, the defender may need to choose a defending army. The chosen defenders become the province’s defending army. If a fallback province is available, the defender may also need to choose where the army should flee or retreat if Shardok produces that outcome.

Battle Creation

When Eagle creates a Shardok battle, it sends:

• The province’s Shardok map.
• The attacking armies.
• The defending army, if any.
• Each side’s food for the battle.
• Victory conditions for each player.
• The battle type and battle id.

Attackers in a normal province assault are trying to take the province. Defenders are trying to hold it or survive long enough for the attacker to fail.

The battle food sent to Shardok is limited. Attackers bring up to one month of food consumption from their carried supplies. Defenders bring up to one month of food consumption from the province’s food, and that food is removed from the province when the battle is created.

Tactical Resolution

The battle then runs in Shardok. Players place units, move, attack, use profession commands, spend Action Points, and try to satisfy their victory conditions.

Eagle waits in the battle resolution phase until outstanding Shardok battles report back.

See Shardok battles for the tactical overview and Shardok victory conditions for battle-ending rules.

Returning To Eagle

When Shardok reports a result, Eagle applies battle consequences before deciding who owns the province.

The battle result can change:

• Hero locations and status.
• Battalion size and survival.
• Captured heroes and prisoners.
• Supplies brought by attacking armies.
• Province devastation.
• Quest progress and battle history.
• Prestige. Winners gain battle prestige; losers lose battle prestige.

Battles add devastation to the battle province. Surviving units may return, flee, become outlaws, be secured, or be captured depending on the tactical result.

Attackers’ remaining gold and food are added to the battle province as part of battle resolution. If the defender holds the province, those supplies become part of the defended province. If an attacker later conquers it, the province changes hands with the supplies already present.

If The Defender Wins

If the defending side wins, the province remains with its current ruler.

Attackers who did not flee, become outlaws, or get otherwise secured may be captured by the defending faction. Captured attacker battalions can be destroyed. The defender receives a Province Held result and any captured heroes become prisoners in the province.

If One Attacker Wins

If exactly one attacking faction wins, that faction conquers the province directly.

Conquest does several things at once:

• Sets the conquering faction as the province’s ruler.
• Removes the old ruling-faction heroes from the province.
• Adds the surviving non-fled conquering heroes as the new ruling-faction heroes.
• Replaces the province battalions with the surviving conquering battalions.
• Clears the defending army.
• Sets province support to 0.
• Resets province orders to Entrust.
• Captures non-fled defenders and former ruling heroes as prisoners.
• Clears the old owner’s focus province if this province was their focus.
• Clears recon on the province for all factions.

Prisoners already held in the conquered province can also be freed. Prisoners from the conquering faction join the new rulers at freed-prisoner loyalty. Prisoners from allied factions are sent toward the closest allied province when possible; if no allied province exists, they can become outlaws.

If Multiple Allied Attackers Win

If multiple attacking factions win together, Eagle cannot automatically know who should keep the province. It creates a pending conquest decision for the surviving attacking claimants.

During Battle Aftermath, each claimant may be asked to choose:

• Keep Province: claim the province. Only one claimant can keep it.
• Withdraw: leave for an adjacent province, taking up to the gold and food that claimant brought into the battle.

If an ally has already claimed the province, the remaining claimants must withdraw. If only one undecided claimant remains and nobody has claimed the province, Eagle auto-resolves that claimant as keeping it.

When aftermath finalizes, the keeper conquers the province through the same conquest rules as a single attacking winner. Withdrawing claimants become incoming armies to their chosen adjacent provinces, arriving next round with the gold and food they chose to take. These aftermath withdrawals do not apply shipment transit loss.

Aftermath

Some battle results need another Eagle decision before the round can continue. This happens mainly when multiple allied attackers win the same province or when captured heroes create follow-up handling decisions.

Battle Aftermath happens after tactical results return but before the strategic round fully moves on. It is not a second Shardok battle; it is Eagle deciding ownership, withdrawals, supplies, and captured-hero consequences from the battle that already ended.

Captured heroes can create separate follow-up decisions after this. Those decisions determine what the capturing faction does with the hero now that the battle result has placed them in custody.