Raiding
Unclaimed islands hold stockpiles of resources guarded only by wild defenders. A well-planned raid can fill your coffers — a careless one will cost more than it returns.
Combat
Espionage
Fleet & GarrisonHow Raiding Works
Send a war fleet to any uninhabited island. Your forces engage the wild defenders on arrival — if victorious, your ships load up whatever resources the shore holds and sail home. The fleet returns automatically; surviving units and plunder are delivered to your harbour on arrival.
- Only uninhabited islands can be raided. Attacking a player settlement is a full assault, not a raid.
- Warships provide both combat power and cargo space. Troops fight but carry nothing.
- Use spy ships beforehand to reveal an island's resource tier and current stockpile.
Resource Tiers
Every uninhabited island has a resource tier that determines its base stockpile, wild defender strength, and withdrawal risk. Higher tiers hold more but bite harder.
| Tier | Base / resource | Defender Atk | Defender Def | Attrition Base |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barren | 260 | 1 | 3 | 0.6% |
| Poor | 320 | 2 | 5 | 0.8% |
| Average | 420 | 3 | 7 | 1.0% |
| Rich | 900 | 3 | 8 | 1.3% |
| Abundant | 1,500 | 2 | 7 | 1.1% |
Carry Capacity
Plunder is limited by your fleet's total carry capacity. Each ship type has a fixed cargo hold — troops occupy deck space but carry no resources themselves. Plunder is split evenly across available resource types, capped by what the shore actually holds.
| Ship | Carry Capacity | Troop Capacity | Attack | Defense |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Small Warship | 40 | 5 | 10 | 10 |
 Large Warship | 90 | 10 | 30 | 30 |
| Small Merchant Ship | 80 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
 Large Merchant Ship | 200 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
 Colonisation Ship | 5000 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
Withdrawal Attrition
Even a victorious fleet suffers losses during the chaos of loading and withdrawal. Each surviving unit rolls independently against an attrition chance determined by the shore's tier and the size of the naval force sent:
attrition % = tier base + (naval ships sent × 0.18%)
Capped at 14% per unit.
Sending fewer ships means a lower attrition rate. A lean fleet that just barely carries the plunder will lose far fewer crews than an armada sent against a weak shore.
Attrition by Fleet Size
| Ships Sent | Barren | Poor | Average | Rich | Abundant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 1.5% | 1.7% | 1.9% | 2.2% | 2.0% |
| 10 | 2.4% | 2.6% | 2.8% | 3.1% | 2.9% |
| 15 | 3.3% | 3.5% | 3.7% | 4.0% | 3.8% |
| 20 | 4.2% | 4.4% | 4.6% | 4.9% | 4.7% |
| 30 | 6.0% | 6.2% | 6.4% | 6.7% | 6.5% |
| 50 | 9.6% | 9.8% | 10.0% | 10.3% | 10.1% |
Diminishing Returns
Raiding the same shore repeatedly yields less each time. Each raid within a 12-hour window multiplies plunder by 0.95 per prior raid.
| Prior Raids | Plunder Multiplier |
|---|---|
| First raid | 100.0% |
| 1 | 95.0% |
| 2 | 90.3% |
| 3 | 85.7% |
| 4 | 81.5% |
| 5 | 77.4% |
Resources regenerate at 15% per hour, up to 150% of the tier's base stockpile. Rotate between multiple islands to keep returns high.
Treasure Chests
Successful raids have a 10% chance of uncovering a buried treasure chest, yielding between 5,000 and 10,000 bonus coins.
Rarely (2% chance), a cursed chest is found instead — destroying all landing troops while the ships escape unharmed. A costly surprise, but one that makes treasure hunting a gamble worth watching.
Raiding Strategy
- Scout first. Send spy ships to reveal the tier and current resources before committing warships.
- Right-size your fleet. Match carry capacity to the shore's stockpile. Over-sending warships inflates attrition for no extra plunder.
- Favour rich and abundant shores. They hold 3–5 times the resources of a poor island for only modestly higher attrition.
- Rotate targets. Diminishing returns punish repeated hits on the same island. Spread raids across the map.
- Use cheap troops. Stone throwers are expendable — they fight adequately and cost far less to replace than spearfighters or archers.
See Plunder Protection for how a Storehouse shields your own resources from enemy raids.