who's the sucker who attacks second?

[Zooko]

I'm attacking from province A to province B, and my enemy is attacking from province C to province B. Province B is currently independent. Now one of us is going to get a nasty result -- a battle with independents immediately followed by a battle with the enemy army. Which one? Who's the sucker who attacks second?

[Zooko]

P.S. And does it make a difference if in addition to attacking from province A to province B, I also teleport in a mage from province D to province B?

[Ironhawk]

I think that normal combat of the kind you described is resolved randomly. But not positive.

I can say for sure tho that your teleporting mage will fight first (and alone!) since he will be moving and fighting during the Magic phase of the turn generation.

[Graeme Dice]

Zooko said:
P.S. And does it make a difference if in addition to attacking from province A to province B, I also teleport in a mage from province D to province B?

The mage will show up in the magic phase, and have to deal with any independents that are there.

[Zooko]

So the answer is that it is random? That's fair, at least. Is there any way to make it less fair -- to influence the result?

[Chazar]

I remember that someone once claimed that the nations ordering influences the result, or the speed of the army. I do not believe in either, but I wont do test runs to proof these claims wrong either... ...tell us the result if you do!

[The Panther]

I have always thought that this was a mistake in game design. To be fair, the battle should first be resolved between the two invading nations and THEN the survivor fights against the province. Obviously this gives problems if more than 2 nations are invading at the same time, but I have never seen that happen before.

[Zooko]

Panther: that would be a good improvement!

[liga]

Chazar said:
I remember that someone once claimed that the nations ordering influences the result, or the speed of the army. I do not believe in either, but I wont do test runs to proof these claims wrong either... ...tell us the result if you do!

I think that this was fixed in one of the patches ... in the original Version of the game the intrinsic number of each nations was used!

good play
Liga

PS. I like the idea that a concurrent invasion of a land could be somewhere driven by a random factor ... if something of not random must be introduced I would like that the army with less strategic movement will go first (and fight the independents) ... if tied the biggest army will go Last (they have more explorators and are slower!)