Anocris units and combat: how battles really work

New to the game? Start with the Anocris hub and the beginner guide. This page is the reference for everything military.

How a battle works

Every unit belongs to one of two groups, and the group decides the order in which it fights:

• Combat units join the battle first and are the first to be hit. While at least one is alive, they shield your support units.
• Support units only join when every combat unit on their side is gone. They are weak, but cannot be touched while combat units stand in front of them.

Before any of this, an attacker has to break one level of the defender's City Wall. A higher wall means more attacker losses. Each successful attack destroys one wall level, but never the last one, so even an emptied nomad camp still has a wall to beat.

Every unit has six values, all listed per unit in the Sekhmet Temple:

Combat units

Support units

The Sesh and Wabau numbers are the most important in the table. Both are cheap, and at full ratio they add half again to your army's strength and heal half the wounded each round. That is why staff and veteran players keep telling beginners to recruit them early, and why a classic level 3 nomad mix posted on the forum was 200 spearmen, 200 Khopesh soldiers, 200 Wabau and 200 Sesh.

High Priests and Neith Priestesses can only be recruited during events such as The Treasure of Tutankhamun, paid in faience pearls; Neith Priestesses can also come from the Dendera wheel. Both switch to the attacker's side if the defender holding them loses.

Espionage is not random

The official espionage guide is unusually precise:

• A spy mission always succeeds if your Espionage research is higher than the target's and always fails otherwise. No luck involved.
• The more units a target holds, the more Bedouins you need for a complete report.
• Send too many Bedouins and they get noticed, which turns the mission into a battle. If your spies win that battle you still get the report.
• Spy battles against nomads do not use up one of your five daily attacks.

Start with one Bedouin, then two or three, then five, until the report lists troops as well as resources. The High Priest is the advanced spy: sent with the Spy command, it reports enemy troops on the move to or from a city, including arrival time and composition. If the target's moving troop holds more High Priests than you sent, you only see where it comes from and where it goes.

The combat simulator

The simulator unlocks at Espionage 15. It shows the outcome and the loot for both sides of a one on one battle. Useful tricks from the official FAQ:

1. Load reports with one click. The icon in the top right of a spy or battle report fills the simulator.
2. Double click Attacker or Defender to fill in your own troops, buildings and research.
3. Set luck pessimistically: 0 percent for you, 10 percent for the opponent.
4. Check the Sed Festival box only if it will really be active when the battle happens; +100 percent combat power changes everything.
5. Export simulations you will reuse and import them later.

The simulator cannot handle joint attacks. With several participants each one is drawn into the fight in turn and damage is shared differently, so adding everyone's troops together gives a wrong result. And if hours pass between spying and attacking a nomad camp, another player may have raided it or it may have been replaced by a new camp.

Luck, festivals and the score ratio

Luck adds up to 10 percent combat power. The Sun Villa level plus bonuses set the upper limit; each battle rolls a value between 0 and that limit. Festivals from the Amun Temple stack on top: the Sed Festival gives +100 percent combat power, but only to the troops of the player who started it, even in a joint attack.

Who can attack whom is set by the server's score ratio, 1:5 by default. A player with 100,000 points can attack and spy on players down to 20,000 points, but not below. Some servers use 1:3 (special and speed economy servers in 2026) or 1:2 (peace servers). Inactive accounts, seven days without login, lose this protection completely. After a stronger player beats one of your cities, that city gets 12 hours of protection from that player.

Defending your city

The official defense guide lists six habits:

1. Leave few resources in the city so you are not worth attacking.
2. Upgrade the Serdab to hide more resources.
3. Upgrade the City Wall to raise attacker losses.
4. Recruit defenders, Ra Warriors first, Anubis Warriors later.
5. Work with your tribe and station troops in each other's Horus Fort.
6. Save troops and resources overnight. Send them on a spy mission to a level 1 nomad camp or a low score inactive player; the travel time there and back keeps them out of reach.

If your troop includes High Priests, do not use a spy mission to save them, because each spy mission with High Priests uses one up. The staff guide says to use an attack on a low score inactive player instead. Shop items add more layers: Sekhmet items for 12, 24 or 72 hours of attack protection, and peace mode with the Udjat Talisman, which lets raiders take resources but spares your troops.

Let's Play Anocris 007: the first attack, in German (iFloGaming)

For a daily routine that puts all of this into practice, read the tips for fast progress. To see how combat fits the rest of your city, the buildings and resources guide covers the Sekhmet Temple, Imhotep Temple and bonus buildings.

FAQ