PvE battles: know your enemy

Since the question was asked several times in chat, I thought I'd share my experience of what you face in PvE battles.

- The number of enemies you will face seems to be based solely on the number of armies you bring and the difficulty setting.
- Their level seem to based solely on the difficulty setting, with a certain amount of randomness within a range.
- Their type is based on the difficulty setting.
- The enemy never brings gear or heroes.

So if you bring level 10 heavy infantry armed to the teeth in godlike items and led by a hero to a easy battle, it will face the exact same enemy as if you were bringing a rookie light infantry.

The rewards do scale up according to AP (and difficulty), at least CP, gold and resources, so all in all an army with gear and/or heroes will have an easier battle than an army without but with more units for the same final reward (but you do want to bring at least four units in nightmare, preferably 6)

So, here's what I've observed, keeping in mind that I might be off a little bit on the levels.

Easy Difficulty:
- The enemy brings as many squads as you do.
- Their level varies from 1 (rookie) to 2
- You'll face only light infantry, assault and archers

Normal Difficulty
- The enemy brings as many squads as you do.
- Their level varies from 1 (rookie) to 4
- You'll face only light infantry, assault and archers

Hard Difficulty
- The enemy brings one more squad than you do.
- Their level varies from 2 to 7
- You'll face light infantry, assault and archers mostly. The enemy sometimes brings one heavy infantry, whether you do or not. I don't recall ever seeing more than one though. If you have unlocked your cavalry the enemy may bring one instead of the heavy infantry.

Nightmare Difficulty
- The enemy brings three (3) more squad than you do.
- Their level varies from 4 to 10
- You'll face at least one heavy infantry (sometimes more), and the enemy might bring cavalry and artillery too, whether you do or not.

A special word about the nightmare difficulty on the last line of defense before the castle:
The last line of territories before a faction's castle can only be attacked by the other faction in PvP or Nightmare. When attacking on nightmare, the enemy level is upgraded to 9 to 10, and you will face at least three heavy infantries. You also must bring at least 7 troops of your own.

COOP

The enemy has the same amount of troops than you have.

He brings assault Light Infantry and Archers.

if you or one of your allies sends a better troop the enemy can get the same units (HIs for His, Cav for Cav ...

No heroes no gear in his troops.

level varies from lvl 0 to lvl 10 (Seems a bit influenced bye your troops, but he can send lvl 10 Troops even if you only have lvl 5 troops at your side.)

Saalko wrote:

if you or one of your allies sends a better troop the enemy can get the same units (HIs for His, Cav for Cav ... )

In CO-OP, it's more about what is the highest tier of troops available. If you bring only cav or Artillery, enemy can have some heavies, even if you don't have one on your side.

So far, I didn't see Arty nor Cav when you only bring heavies.

Saalko wrote:

COOP

The enemy has the same amount of troops than you have.

He brings assault Light Infantry and Archers.

if you or one of your allies sends a better troop the enemy can get the same units (HIs for His, Cav for Cav ...

No heroes no gear in his troops.

level varies from lvl 0 to lvl 10 (Seems a bit influenced bye your troops, but he can send lvl 10 Troops even if you only have lvl 5 troops at your side.)

The enemy has two troops more than you, as far as I know. It can have Light Infantry and Archers, and with very high AP setups you can face Heavy Infantry without having any on your team. The units ranks up to match the AP setting. Artillery/Cavalry is only found when your team has Artillery/Cavalry.

Fizban wrote:

Hard Difficulty
- The enemy brings one more squad than you do.
- Their level varies from 2 to 7
- You'll face light infantry, assault and archers mostly. The enemy sometimes brings one heavy infantry, whether you do or not. I don't recall ever seeing more than one though. If you bring cavalry the enemy may as well.

I thought it was like this too... But twice in a row today, I have to fight against 1 cav unit on a hard battle when I only bring infantry (heavy / light / archer). There was no heavy though.

Have you unlocked your own cavalry ? Do you own one that you didn't bring ? I have this theory that the enemy might look at what you have, not what you actually bring, but I haven't been able to prove it...

So far I have seen the following on hard:
If I bring a small army of 3 units including HI, I fight against 4 units always (might have HI too, sometimes more then 1)

If I bring 3 units without HI, I fight vs 4 units without HI or 3 units with HI.

So my guess is that its either +1 unit with the strongest units depending on yours or same amount of units but higher tier units.

Fizban wrote:

Have you unlocked your own cavalry ? Do you own one that you didn't bring ? I have this theory that the enemy might look at what you have, not what you actually bring, but I haven't been able to prove it...

Yes, I have unlocked cav, but it never happens before, and it was twice in a row... Goddam RNG

Edited the first post to take this into account, as well as what I've just experienced on region 23 (last line of defense before the dark castle). Nightmare battles there are extra tough.

Can you please update this post for your opinion, in terms of the new merc units?

Well Skeletons and a cave giant lead to death if you don't have any HI...

Waterflame wrote:

Well Skeletons and a cave giant lead to death if you don't have any HI...

Do you mean "the combination of Skeletons and a Cave Giant"? or do you mean "skeletons or a cave giant"?

The first one: hmmmm, some workarounds; archers are the best for dealing with Cave Giants, so as long as your LI can stand ground long enough to deal with the skellies you'll be fine. Cavalry also works, but if you have Cav; then you have at least unlocked HI, even if you're not using it.

The second one: Utterly false! either skeletons OR a cave giant are quite beatable without using HI.