Battle Director

The Battle Director was released with the Xylander Build (1-9-2015). This mechanism was made for War battles. War battles are generated by the Generals (real players) and so they may be unbalanced. To help balance the war battles, the Battle Director was implemented. The Battle Director works by deciding whether a battle is 'fun' or 'not fun'. This is done by checking whether there are enough resources from each faction involved in the battle, in order to meet the 'fun' conditions.

Timing
The Battle Director will engage 10 minutes after a match has been created (5 minutes after the battle preparation time). If at this point, the battle is not deemed 'fun', the faction which failed to meet the 'fun' conditions will automatically retreat their Assault teams. They will also receive a penalty of -25% to their resources and lose 20 points of morale from each Assault team.

If both sides have met the 'fun' conditions but not enough players join the battle after 6 hrs and 5 minutes, the Auto-Resolver initiates and chooses a winner which is usually the faction with the most resources in the battle. No resources are lost by either side in this scenario, only morale points are deducted, 10 for the winner and 20 for the loser (5 minutes of battle preparation, 6 hours of idle).

Spawns needed for 'Fun'
A battle is declared to be 'fun' if there are sufficient spawn tickets available for 18 players per faction in a 2-faction battle and 12 players per faction in a 3-faction battle (for assault and skirmish battles). For encounter battles enough spawn tickets for 12 players are needed. “Sufficient” tickets per player are defined according to the table below.


 * Infantry spawns per player       - 12
 * Paratrooper spawns per player    - 121
 * Tank spawns per player           - 10
 * Plane spawns per player          - 10
 * Recon spawns per player          - 10

At least 50% of the players (9 for 2-faction battles, 6 for 3-faction battles per faction) need to be provided with with sufficient infantry or paratrooper tickets. The remaining players can be a mix of all classes.

The above works out so that the easy rule of thumb is you need 216 infantry to make an assault or skirmish fun. If you have a mix of units the more nuanced math above is important.

1This refers to grounded pathfinders and Paratrooper Assault teams. For Airborne Paratrooper units, the requirements per ticket are 12 paratrooper spawns, 4 paraplanes per ticket.

Resolving Battles
Assault battles
 * Both factions fun: No resolve, the battle continues to be available for 6 hrs and 5 minutes.  **If they are both fun, and no players join the battle after 6 hrs and 5 minutes the Auto-Resolver kicks in. (5 minutes of battle preparation, 6 hrs of idle)**
 * Attacker fun, defender no fun: Attacker loses nothing, defender loses 20 morale and supply (according to retreat rules) and retreats (if he can’t retreat he will get destroyed with 0 morale and 0 supply)
 * Attacker no fun, defender fun: Attacker loses 20 morale and supply (according to retreat rules) and retreats (if he can’t retreat he will get destroyed with 0 morale and 0 supply), defender loses nothing
 * Both no fun: attacker 20 loses morale and supply (according to retreat rules) and retreats (if he can’t retreat he will get destroyed with 0 morale and 0 supply), defender loses nothing

Skirmish battles Skirmish battle resolution into encounter map vs skirmish map
 * Both factions fun: No resolve, the battle continues to be available
 * Faction A fun, faction B no fun: A loses nothing and advances, B loses 20 morale and supply (according to retreat rules) and retreats
 * Both no fun: a winner A or B is declared randomly. The winner loses nothing and advances, the loser loses 20 morale and supply (according to retreat rules) and retreats
 * if infantry/para only exist in the battle at the end of the 5 minute prep time, skirmish is an encounter map skirmish, and you need 144 infantry/walking-para spawns to make it fun
 * if armor and/or recon also are part of the battle at the end of the 5 minute prep time, then the skirmish is a skirmish map skirmish, and the standard 216 spawns (see above) is needed to make it fun.
 * type of skirmish battle can not be changed after the 5 minute prep time.

Any assault, skirmish, or encounter battle where one or both sides are not “fun” will result in the auto resolve timer kicking in at 10 minutes (5 min prep time and 5 min idle).

Calculator
To see if a battle is fun or not, Click here to use this excellent tool by player yUVIKA.