Century Games publishes the combat rules in its own English help centre, and almost none of it is on the tier-list sites. The parts that change how you play:
1. Rows are fixed
Infantry are the primary damage takers and sit in the front row. Lancers are the mobile units and sit in the middle. Marksmen deal the highest single-target damage and sit at the back. Units normally attack the enemy front row first and move to the next row only when the front is gone — which is exactly why troop ratio beats raw power. If you bring too few Infantry, your Marksmen are exposed on turn two.
2. Lancers can skip the queue
Lancers sometimes activate skills that attack enemy Marksmen in the back row directly. That is the counter to a glass-cannon defence, and the reason a pure Marksman stack loses to a balanced squad of the same power.
3. Casualty rates differ by battle type
In player City battles, 35% of the attacker's casualties die outright. In Sunfire Castle battles, casualties go to the Infirmary until it is full, and only then start dying. This is the whole argument for upgrading the Infirmary before a big event rather than after it.
4. Rally and garrison stack differently
In a rally, the initiator contributes 9 hero skills, and 4 primary hero skills — the first skill of each hero — come from the rally members. Those 4 are for the whole rally, not 4 per person: Century Games' answer on garrison teams says your team's 4 highest-level skills are recalculated when the allies that provide them leave, which only makes sense if the game is picking 4 from the pool. In a garrison, the defender with the highest stat bonuses supplies the defence bonuses, and 4 primary skills from the other garrison members are added on top. Duplicates are not wasted — the publisher confirms that rally members' skills matching the captain's do stack.
Two practical consequences. First, if you mostly join rallies rather than lead them, only your heroes' first skills matter — so a cheap hero with a strong first skill is worth nearly as much as an expensive one. Second, if you are the one leading, your full 9 skills are what the rally is built on, and it is worth being the strongest chief online before you press Rally.
5. Hero skills are invisible in the report
Battle reports list buffs, penalties, Position Perks, Pet Skill bonuses, Chief Gear, Hero Gear, Tech Research, Alliance Territory buffs, castle skin bonuses, Hero Exclusive Gear and Hero Talent bonuses. Hero skill bonuses are calculated during the fight and never appear. So a report that looks like it should have been a win, and was not, is usually skills — not a bug.
6. Troop counters do not apply everywhere
One line that quietly invalidates a lot of arena advice: Century Games states that troop counters do not apply to Exploration or the Arena. If you are reading arena results to work out what beats what in the field, you are reading the wrong data set. Field combat and arena combat are not the same system.
7. Garrison replenishment has a fixed order
Garrison troops are replenished by the highest level first, then by troop type, with Infantry taking priority when levels are tied. That is why a garrison you left overnight can come back looking different from the one you set: the game refilled it in its own order, not yours.
Sources: Combat FAQ — rows, turn order, 35% casualty rule, rally 9+4, replenishment · What bonuses appear in battle reports · Do duplicate rally skills stack · Garrison defence team skills · Where troop counters apply
Every line above is the publisher's own wording from the official English help centre. We link each one so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it.