Intermediate WoK

Overview

Intermediate WoK is pitched somewhere between the classic games of WoK IV and WoK V. - Provinces have different terrains, players can upgrade their troops to specialise in a terrain, some worker's AIMs are better in one province type than another. - But players do not need to worry about feeding their population or paying their troops. They also don't get to make and cast spells!

The Beginning

You start the game with a tech level of 0, 100 GOLD, 100 WOOD, 99 EFF and with a single, randomly selected province.
Provinces have the following attributes:

Each players' starting province (their home) contains:

Neutral provinces (everything that is not a home province) start with:

Neutral provinces gain 2 armies each turn (including turn 0) also their workers will increase the defence level.

Phases

Most of the phases are similar to Standard WoK, but with a few twists. There is also a brand new phase (upgrade troops) and the order of the phases is different.

  1. Upgrades
  2. Bombing
  3. Attacking
  4. Entropy
  5. Working
  6. Transformations
  7. Upgrade Troops
  8. Growth
  9. Movement
  10. Workers' Aim
  11. Spying

Upgrades.

A player has the option each turn to spend gold to get certain bonuses.
The first upgrade of a turn costs 100 gold, the second 200 and the third 300 gold.

Possible upgrades are:

NameEffect
Tech LevelPermanently increase tech level by 1.
EFFGain 30 EFF
DEFAll provinces gain 0.5 DEF
LEVAll armies gain 0.3 LEV
MISAll provinces gain 5 MIS
SPYAll provinces gain 2 SPY

Bombing.

You can bomb a neighbouring province with a chance per missile of successfully hitting something equal to your EFF percentage. You can also bomb any province which a neighbour of a neighbouring province. In this case your chance per missile of successfully hitting something is ¾ of your EFF.

Each successful missile has a chance of hitting the defences of the province equal to 10 X the DEF value. In this case 0.1 DEF will be destroyed, otherwise the hit will land randomly among the ARM, PIK, ARC, KNI, CAT and SPY in the province, with a chance of hitting each type proportional to the numbers in the province.

Attacking.

You can only attack a neighbouring province. At the start of the game, you have three attacks. Increasing your tech level will unlock additional attacks, up to a maximum of seven.

Upgraded troops specialise in a certain terrain. When upgraded troops are fighting in their preferred terrain they grant 0.05 extra level to the power calculation. This extra level affects all troops that are fighting, but will decrease as the upgraded troops are killed.

The preferred terrains for each troop type is:

Troop TypePreferred Terrain
ArmyNone
PikemanDesert
ArcherForest
KnightPlains
CatapultMountains

Whether an attack is successful depends upon a number of factors. The formulae used are as follows:
Power of Attacker ("PATT") = EFF X 10 X (level + bonus level)
Power of Defender ("PDEF") = EFF X (10 X (level + bonus level) + 4 X defense)

The game engine compares a random number for the attacker from the range of 0 to PATT, with a random number for the defender from the range of 0 to PDEF, and the player with the lower number loses one army (if the rolls tie neither side loses an army). This is repeated until one side has no troops left. If the attacker loses all of his troops, nothing else happens. If the defender loses all of his troops, then all of the attacker's remaining troops move into the defending province. The attacker also gets 80% of the population and workers that were in the province, and 60% of the missiles and spies. These fractions are rounded down.

In addition, the Level of the remaining troops increases as follows:
+0.006 per attack round if the attacker wins
+0.003 per attack round if the defender wins
If the attacker attacked a province with no troops in it, the attacking troops gain level equal to 0.2 divided by their current level instead.
At the end of the fight, injured troops in the victorious army will recover. Injured troops are those which lost the combat roll, but the difference was less than half the higher roll.

Once a battle is decided, the game engine will then process your next attack instruction, up to the number of attacks which you are allowed. If you do not own a province for which you entered an instruction to attack from, or if you already own a province which you put in an instruction to attack, or if you put in an instruction to attack a non-neighbouring province, then that instruction is ignored. Only valid orders count towards your attack limit, but you can only ever enter seven orders.

Entropy.

In the entropy phase you lose one point of effectiveness for every province in your empire. No orders are required.

Working.

During the working phase of a turn a player's workers in each province produce things based upon the AIM of that province. No orders are required.
Each province type is better for producing a certain resource. Workers in a province with the appropriate AIM will produce 50% more of the resource:

Province TypeAIM
DesertLEV
ForestCHO
MountainMIN
PlainsEFF
SwampDEF

Additionally, your workers will receive a 5% bonus per tech level, regardless of AIM or province type.

Before bonuses are applied, the base rates of production for each AIM are:

AimEffect
Chooping (CHO)Each WOK produces 1 WOOD
Defense (DEF)0.1 DEF for every 8 WOK
Level (LEV)LEV increases by WOK / (ARM X LEV) (maximum of 1)
Missiles (MIS)1 MIS for every 3 WOK
Mining (MIN)Each worker produces 1 GOLD.
Effectiveness (EFF)1 EFF for every 4 WOK

Transformations.

A player can input up to 7 different instructions for transforming population into workers or armies. However, a player can only use a maximum of 3 instructions for transforming population into armies. It takes 2 population to make 1 worker, and 4 population to make 1 army. The maximum number of population that can be transformed per instruction is 50. There is also a "backwards transformation" instruction which can be done, to change 2 workers into 1 population. Newly-made armies have a Level of 1.000; if you have existing armies in the same province in which you are making new armies, the levels will "mix" proportionately, resulting in a new overall Level for all of the armies in the province.

OptionTransformation
POP->WOKConvert POP to WOK in a ratio of 2:1
POP->ARMConvert POP to ARM in a ratio of 4:1 (max 3 times per turn)
POP->SPYConvert POP to SPY in a ratio of 5:1
WOK->POPConvert WOK to POP in a ratio of 2:1

If there are not enough of the unit you are converting from in the province, all that are available will be used.
If the number converted is not a multiple of the ratio, the extra will be lost.

Example: An order to convert 16 POP->ARM in a province with only 15 POP will remove all the POP and add three new armies to the province.

Upgrade Troops.

You can convert between troop types in this phase accoridng to the following actions:

  • Change ARM into PIK, ARC, KNI or CAT, costing 5 WOOD per unit converted.
  • Change PIK, ARC, KNI or CAT back into ARM, reclaiming 2 WOOD per unit.
  • Change between PIK, ARC, KNI and CAT, costing 3 WOOD per unit.

At most 50 units in one province can be converted per order.

Growth.

Population in a province will grow. No orders are required for this phase.
The amount of growth depends upon how much POP is in each province according to the formula:
Percentage Increase = 100 * e-POP / 100

Movement.

A player can input up to 7 sets of instructions to move things around. A player can move population, workers, armies, missiles, or spies, but can only move a maximum of 50 for each set of instructions.
As well as moving a specific unit type, you can also specify to move troops (TRO) in which case all troop types will be moved, starting with ARM and working up through PIK, ARC, KNI and CAT if there are no more (or none) of the previous types to move.

You can only move things from a province into a neighbouring province, unless you have reached tech level 10, in which case you can move directly between any two provinces you own.

Workers' Aim.

Each turn, a player can change the workers' aim in up to 4 provinces.

AimEffect
Chopping (CHO)Workers will chop WOOD.
Defense (DEF)Workers will build DEF
Level (LEV)Workers will train troops, increasing LEV
Missiles (MIS)Workers will produce MIS
Mining (MIN)Workers will min GOLD
Effectiveness (EFF)Workers will increase EFF

Spying.

Spying only works on other players, not neutral provinces. You can input a maximum of 5 spying instructions; there are a number of options, the success of which always depends upon your EFF, the number of spies you send and the distance between the source and target province as follows:

  • If the target neighbours your empire (or the part of your empire the spies are in if it's been broken up) then this is a short range operation, the spies will automatically reach the target province.
  • If there is no path through your empire to the target, then each spy individually has an EFF% chance of reaching the target.
  • If any spies make it to the target, they have to avoid defensive spies in the province. - They roll EFF against the enemy spies until one group is exhausted, much like in combat.
  • Any spies that make it into the target and evade the enemy spies will then perform their mission.
  • Successful spies return to their source province and can be used in subsequent orders
  • Note: Defensive spies are not removed by counter espionage but attacking spies are.

The possible spy operations are:

OrderActionDescription
1Spy Province.See the full contents of the target province.
2Spy Player.See the total POP, WOK, ARM, MIS and SPY, along with the average LEV and DEF for the player's empire, but not any province specific breakdown. Also see the player's EFF, GOLD and Tech Level.
3Spread Propaganda.Reduce the province owner's EFF by 2 points.
4False Orders.Stop the workers in the province from doing anything until their AIM is changed.
5Steal Gold.Every spy used will steal 10 gold. - You will only gain gold that is there to steal!

Each spy has an EFF% chance of succeeding in the mission. For the first four operations, all surviving spies will return as soon as one succeeds. For Steal Gold, each spy will attempt to steal in turn.

You may only use each spy operation once per target province per turn. You may use more than one operation against the same province, or the same operation against more than one province.

End Game

As always, play until you dominate the map, you achieve the win condition, or everyone else gives up!

Variants

Currently only skirmish games can be played using the intermediate game engine.