Part of the Troops Series:
- Troops and Combat Hub: Understand the army behind the report.
- Troop Formations: Choose a formation for the actual battle.
Quick Answer
Read a battle report in this order: mode and participants → deployed troops → casualty categories → applicable stats → skill and system effects. Only then decide whether the next change should be formation, equipment, a hero upgrade or simply avoiding an opponent you cannot beat.
A victory label, settlement Power total or one large attack percentage does not explain a battle on its own. The report describes a particular fight with particular conditions.
Open the Right Report
Open the battle notification or the mode's battle history and select the engagement you want to inspect. Event interfaces can provide their own history buttons; a settlement attack, an Arena round and a rally may expose different levels of detail.
The report interface has evolved. Troops Overview and Amplification were added in 1.16.50. Version 1.20.80 added clearer side-by-side stat comparisons, bonus sources and more detail on kills/protection from Tempest Arms, Vehicles and Island Terrain skills. A cropped older screenshot may omit the field you need.
Keep the time, opponent and mode visible when saving a report. For a multi-round event, open the individual march result instead of using only the combined match outcome.
1. Establish What Kind of Fight It Was
Start with the question the report can answer. “Why did this march lose?” differs from “Why did my settlement troop count fall?” A report can help with both, but you need different fields.
Record whether you were attacking, defending, leading a rally, joining it or entering a special event. Check who supplied the formation and whether reinforcement or joining rules affected the stats.
The rally roles guide explains why the leader's account and a joiner's contribution cannot be evaluated identically. Do not blame a joiner's personal attack percentage for every weak rally result.
2. Check What Actually Entered the Battle
| Field or section | Question to ask | Mistake to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Deployed troop count | Did both sides field comparable numbers? | Comparing a partial march with a full one |
| Troop type and tier | Which Infantry, Riders and Hunters were present? | Treating settlement inventory as deployed troops |
| Hero lineup | Were the intended heroes and versions selected? | Assuming the saved preset is still complete |
| Participants/reinforcements | Was this a solo result or combined force? | Attributing a group outcome to one hero |
| Supporting systems | Which eligible vehicles, Behemoths or equipment were shown? | Comparing a supported march with an unsupported one |
If a new hero appears to win after you also increased march capacity and changed troop tiers, the report does not isolate the hero's contribution. Those may all be useful upgrades; they simply answer a different question.
3. Reconcile Casualties Before Retraining
| Report outcome | Where to check next |
|---|---|
| Surviving troops | Returning marches, reinforcements or settlement inventory |
| Lightly wounded | The returning march; ordinary light wounds recover on return |
| Wounded/heavily wounded | Hospital or the mode's designated recovery system |
| Killed | Battle-type rules, eligible Enlistment or event revival |
Use the same troop types and tiers when reconciling numbers. Do not add an Enlistment allocation on top of the killed category as though it were an additional independent loss: recovery systems can refer to a subset of those losses.
For an illustrative ordinary report with 100,000 deployed troops, 70,000 surviving, 10,000 lightly wounded, 15,000 hospitalized and 5,000 killed, the categories total 100,000. On return, the lightly wounded are not a 10,000-troop retraining requirement. Hospital healing and any eligible recovery of the killed group must be checked separately.
The Hospital and Enlistment guide explains recovery eligibility and capacity. A report's killed figure is not proof that every death qualifies for the same revival percentage.
4. Compare Applicable Stats and Their Sources
Compare the same troop type and same named attribute on both sides. Infantry health versus Hunter attack is not a meaningful like-for-like comparison. Overall troop benefits and type-specific benefits may also be presented separately.
Where the interface lets you expand a bonus source, use that to identify the missing development. A gap associated with research calls for a different plan from a missing equipment assignment or a temporary buff.
If one side shows +500% and the other +550% for the same stat, the displayed difference is 50 percentage points. Do not automatically call that “50% more damage.” Even the ratio of the underlying stat multipliers would not by itself describe total battle damage, because other attributes and skills still contribute.
Keep ordinary attributes, Amplification and explicit damage-increase/reduction effects distinct. Do not add every percentage in every panel together to invent one total-strength number.
5. Inspect Skills, Damage and Protection
Use the available skill-effect and system sections to see whether the expected build actually contributed. Check the skill name and version, activation conditions and what the displayed measure represents.
A protection figure is not necessarily an extra troop count you should add to survivors. A damage figure from one source is not proof that every other effect is absent. Some effects change later damage rather than producing an independent hit.
For heroes with Completion, compare their actual military descriptions. A classic skill and its enhanced replacement can share the same hero portrait while behaving differently. The Completion guide explains that development boundary.
Use a missing or unexpectedly weak effect as a question to investigate: was the required hero present, did the mode accept the effect, and was its condition met? Do not turn one missing display into proof of a hidden combat formula.
A Repeatable Formation Comparison
Use an available low-risk or no-loss mode where its rules permit meaningful comparisons. Do not create settlement casualties just to gather a data point.
Record the following for a baseline attempt: target, mode, troop count/tier, formation, heroes, equipment, support systems and temporary bonuses. Then change one intended variable.
| Attempt | Intended change | Observe |
|---|---|---|
| A | Baseline | Result, casualties, damage and relevant effects |
| B | One hero or one formation adjustment | Did the targeted weakness improve? |
| C | Repeat under comparable conditions | Was B a repeatable improvement or one variable result? |
An opponent changing its defence between attempts invalidates a clean comparison. Random skill activation can also vary results. A repeated small difference deserves more caution than a consistent large improvement under the same conditions.
What to Fix First
An empty or incorrect preset: correct it before buying materials.
Too few deployed troops: check capacity, available healthy troops and the mode's allocation rules.
A clear development gap: identify the applicable source and price the next useful improvement.
A mode-specific mismatch: use a formation suited to that objective. A boss-damage preset does not automatically survive ordinary PvP.
An overwhelming opponent: preserve resources. A report can tell you that changing a small troop ratio will not close the gap.
F2P and Spender Tips
F2P: use reports to avoid spending scarce materials on the wrong problem. Fix assignments and choose realistic targets before redirecting a long-saved upgrade reserve.
Spenders: require a specific expected benefit from the next purchase. More settlement Power is not enough to explain why it should improve the matchup you care about.
Common Mistakes
- Comparing different modes, troop counts or tiers as though only the hero changed.
- Treating lightly wounded troops as permanently lost.
- Adding recovery allocations to the original losses twice.
- Converting a percentage-point stat gap into the same percentage damage claim.
- Inferring a hidden formula from one battle.
FAQ
Why did I lose to someone with lower Power? Inspect the deployed formation, relevant stats, equipment and skills. Settlement Power includes things that may not determine that particular fight.
Does higher attack guarantee a win? No. Troop numbers, tiers, survival attributes, skills and mode rules also matter.
Can I tell exactly how the damage formula works from a report? A report can reveal comparisons and effect contributions, but one result does not establish the full hidden formula.
Which report should I share with my alliance? Include the mode, deployed troops, both sides' relevant stats and skill details, plus the question you are trying to answer.
Key Takeaways
- Establish the battle conditions before interpreting the numbers.
- Reconcile casualties and compare matching stat fields.
- Change one variable and use repeatable results to guide upgrades.