Duel 1v1

How it is won

Raze the enemy keep before yours falls. Nothing else ends a duel.

If no keep has fallen after 7 minutes, War Weariness sets in: every 75 seconds the damage keeps take climbs by another 25% of its normal amount, up to three times normal. A stalemate always breaks into a final push.

The field

The arena is walled and dealt fair — both sides are given the same ground. It is drawn from eighteen layouts:

• Fords. A river war — hold the crossings.
• Causeway. One dry road across the water — a siege of a single choke.
• Expanse. No walls, no cover — the flanks decide it.
• Gorge. A wall of crags splits the field into two wars.
• Thickets. Ambush country — cover everywhere, reach is blunted.
• Delta. The river braids — take the islands, own the middle.
• Bastion. A ruined fortress holds the fast road; the flanks run open.
• Heights. High ground everywhere — win the vantages, win the war.
• Sanctum. An arcane precinct — warded stone, and waygates that carry an army.
• Emberwastes. Burning ground between every road — check what you are marching into.
• Frozen Lake. Charge straight over the ice; just do not be caught standing on it.
• Haunting. Fog and blight — nothing is seen coming and no wound closes.
• Seams. The gold is in the ground. Stand on a seam and it pays you.
• Mire. Bog, thorn and fog — nothing here is quick, least of all you.
• Pass. One way through the mountains, and a long way round either end of them.
• Old Wall. An old wall down the middle, and no way past it but its gates — the gates are the war.
• Terraces. A ladder of high ground from each keep — whoever holds the higher step shoots down the rest.
• Walled Town. A walled town: its gates are the only way in, its streets are the lanes, its houses cover, and its square pays whoever holds it.

Gold and the army cap

You open with 800 gold and earn 39 a second from the horn — more every minute the battle lasts, up to six times the opening rate. Every enemy troop you kill pays 8% of what it cost to field, and an enemy Builder is worth 1,500 gold; bounties grow as the battle goes on.

Your army is capped at 240 population. A levy counts for one; the biggest troops in the game count for up to 11.

Kingdoms

Any of the ten kingdoms.

Ranked

Duel 1v1 has a ladder of its own, the Duel Ladder: a standing in it is yours in this battle and no other.

Starting one

Choose Duel 1v1 on the home screen and march. You are matched with other commanders, or you can start straight away against the AI — and a War-band, raised from the home screen, lets friends march together.

New to it? Read how to play first; the controls are one page.