Why You Must Never Bring Vehicles to a Rally
Русская версияMany players believe Vehicles are bad in a rally because they slow the march down. They do not: in this game Vehicles do not reduce your march speed. Speed is not the issue at all.
The real reason is a different one — and here it is.
Short version
Never bring Vehicles (catapults, ballistae — the "carts") to a rally. Not T1, not T5, not T10. The tier does not matter.
They are not just useless on their own — because of them the entire rally takes losses, including the strongest players in the march.
1. How troop types work
There are four troop types in the game: Infantry, Archers, Cavalry and Vehicles.
The first three form a classic rock-paper-scissors triangle:
Each of the three has both a victim and a predator. Vehicles only have predators.
| Troop type | Counters | Is countered by |
|---|---|---|
| Infantry | Archers, Vehicles | Cavalry |
| Archers | Cavalry, Vehicles | Infantry |
| Cavalry | Infantry, Vehicles | Archers |
| Vehicles | nothing | all three troop types |
Vehicles are the only troop type that loses to every other type. This is not bad luck with the enemy's composition and it is not a matter of upgrades: against any enemy troops a Vehicle is at a mechanical disadvantage. T1 or T10 — the weakness stays.
2. Why they deal no damage in an attack
Rally damage is simple: troop power × number of troops, summed over every march taking part in the rally.
Vehicles contribute the least of all: they have the weakest attack of the four types, and on top of that every enemy troop type counters them. Their share of the total damage is close to zero. They take up march capacity and deal nothing.
That alone would already be a reason to leave them at home. But it is not the real problem.
3. The real problem: Vehicles make the whole rally bleed
Here is the detail that most people miss. The damage the rally receives is spread across every participant, not only the player who brought the weak troops.
- Vehicles are the softest target in the march, and enemy troops hit them with a counter bonus.
- They die immediately, having dealt almost nothing in return.
- The rally has already taken that damage — and it lands on the whole roster. Strong players lose troops too.
Bottom line: a single player bringing Vehicles can multiply the losses of the entire rally — in practice by tens of times compared with the same rally run without that player at all.
A weak march full of Vehicles is not "slightly less damage". It is strong alliance members losing troops they should never have lost.
If you are the one starting the rally and your own march is full of Vehicles, you are effectively deceiving the other players with the size of your march. Everyone expects real troops in there, they join the rally — and take heavy losses.
That is worse than joining someone else's rally with Vehicles: there you only let down the people who already gathered, here you are the one calling them into it.
Don't do that. If you start a rally, start it with proper troops — or don't start it at all.
So "don't bring Vehicles" is not nitpicking at newcomers. A march with Vehicles hurts your allies more than it helps them, and sending nothing at all is better than sending Vehicles.
4. What to bring to a rally
- Infantry, Archers, Cavalry — the highest tier you have.
- Fewer troops of a proper type is better than a full march padded out with Vehicles.
- If you do not have enough proper troops even for a small march — say so in chat and send nothing. That is fine, nobody will blame you.
- Do not fill your march with Vehicles to make the power number look bigger. The power number goes up, the damage does not, and everybody's losses do.
5. What Vehicles are actually for
Vehicles are not junk — they simply have a non-combat job:
- Gathering resources on the world map — Vehicles have the highest load capacity in the game. This is their main purpose.
- Working on fortifications — walls and defensive structures of an enemy castle. They are weak against troops, not against buildings.
- Cross-kingdom events — this is where Vehicles really matter, and it is the reason to keep them at all. That is a big topic of its own, and we will cover it another time.
One line to remember: Vehicles for gathering, troops for rallies.
Get in touch
Found a mistake? Got a question about the mechanics? Want a guide on a topic that is not here yet?
Write to pnc.wiki.101@gmail.com — I will fix it, answer it, or write it.
One request in particular: if something in the game does not match what is written here, send a screenshot from the client. A screenshot settles the question faster than any argument, and in these guides it outranks any outside source.