Now time to go into the core of the battle mechanics, this is where all the fun happens.  There are a few aspects of the game that is still confusing and don't make sense, mainly dealing with the fortification attacks.  I will cover that later on when the mechanics of defense is brought into play.  I will be taking a lot of this information from the website previously mailed out but explaining it a little better and correcting a few of the mistakes on it.

The first thing that needs to be understood is the core battle mechanics.  They are as follows:

-1) The starting distance of the battle is based on the longest BASE state + 200 yards.  Key emphasis is on BASE.  Your technologies do not play a part in this starting number.  An example is if you attack a city with only archer towers (base of 1300 yards) with no other fortifications and neither side has mechs.  The start of the battle will be at 1500 yards (1300 + 200).  To emphasize another point, technologies play no aspect in the distance.

-2) The rounds are based on a fixed schedule like action list.  First will always be unit movement, then unit battle, then fortification battle.  A unit will only move if it does not have a unit to attack in range (slight exception is ranged, read below).

-3) Units move in order of SPEED.  For example: cavalry will always move before archers, which will always move before workers.  If a unit is tied, the defending players unit will move first (i.e. if both sides have cavalry, the defenders cavalry will move first).  I am unsure yet if this takes technology into account yet, I'm going to be running any cases off of everything is based on the base movement speed.

-4) As stated earlier, units will not move if they have a unit to attack within range (slight exception is ranged units which will be explained shortly).

-5) Melee units will attack any unit that gets in range first.  Melee units will stop moving when a unit gets in range, they will not do their full movement and run past the target.  If mulitple melee units are in range, it will attack the unit with the HIGHEST TOTAL ATTACK (number in that group times the attack to figure out the total attack).  Technology bonuses are a mute point in this case as the bonus is given to all units, not individual ones.

-6) Here's a bit of the tricky part, dealing with ranged units.  There is a special rule just for them that is a bit confusing at first.  Ranged units (AT's, trebuchets, archers, ballista, catapults) will only attack ranged units first, assuming they are in range.  If a ranged unit is out of range but a melee unit is in range, then the melee unit will be attacked.  If multiple melee units are in range, the ranged unit will attack the FASTEST unit first. Now to the confusing part.  There is a semi-special case where if the AT's are in range, the archers will attack them first.  After the AT's are destroyed, the archers will then go to the HIGHEST ATTACK VALUE unit.

-7) Just to keep with the website linked earlier, I'll split the scouts into two points: offensive and defensive.  The offensive scouts will not move until all the other offensive troops are killed.  While this sounds like scouts are useless in battle, their main point in the battle is to absorb blows.  An example would be in the case of archers attacking the fastest unit first.  That one scout you have will take all the attacks from the archers and basically be a nice distraction giving your other units an extra turn to move forward.

-8) Scouts on the defensive side will not move at all during the battle.  They absorb some blows when the ranged units are in range.

-9) A unit type will only attack one unit type per round.  This is a key rule when taking minimal amount of losses.  90,000 archers, for instance, will all attack 1 scout.  Or in the case if there are ranged units, 90,000 archers will attack 1 archer before attacking any melee unit.  These are great tactics to buy your other units a free turn at the expense of 1 unit loss.

Those are the core battle mechanics of the game.  While it might look like a lot, once understood, you will become a master tactician and be able to defend and attack with minimal amount of losses while defeating anyone in this game.  There are three case studies on the website that was previously linked.  See if you can figure them out based on these core rules.  I will be including more mails later on with some cases and how to attack and defend against certain attacks and why.  If you are confused or have any questions, feel free to mail me and I'll try my best to answer them.