TA: Kingdoms Mechanics

Kingdoms looks like Total Annihilation, but many of its rules are different. It has one resource instead of two, builders slow down instead of stopping, and units heal themselves for free. The pages in this section give each rule as the game's own code applies it, in version 3.0 with The Iron Plague, with figures from the game data.

Each page states a rule in plain words, gives the exact figures and works through an example with real units. Where a detail is not confirmed, the page says so.

Time

At normal game speed, Kingdoms moves forward in 30 small steps every second. These pages call one step a tick and give times in seconds at normal speed. All income and spending values in the data are per second, and the game applies a thirtieth of each value every tick.

For how Kingdoms differs from Total Annihilation rule by rule, compare these pages with the Total Annihilation mechanics.

Topics

Mana Income and Storage

How TA: Kingdoms adds mana every tick, why a Lodestone must cover its whole sacred stone, what happens to mana above your storage and how allies share it automatically.

Building and Shortages

How TA: Kingdoms slows every builder by the same share when mana runs short, why your store never goes below zero, and how an unfinished building returns its mana as it decays.

Healing and Repair

Units in TA: Kingdoms heal themselves for free, most of them from nothing to full in 4 minutes, and repair carries on at full speed even when your mana runs out.

Personal Mana and Spells

TA: Kingdoms casters start with no personal mana and recharge it for free. Veterans pay less for their spells, and cloaking drains the same supply.

Veterancy

How TA: Kingdoms units gain experience from kills, how many levels they can reach and what each level does to damage, armour and spell costs, with worked examples.

Damage and Special Attacks

In TA: Kingdoms, splash damage hurts the attacker's own side, stuns last one tick per point of damage, and the chance of turning a unit to stone rises with the target's level.

Monarchs and Gods

The rules that set monarchs and gods apart in TA: Kingdoms, from what happens when a monarch dies to their immunities, their missing veterancy and how gods damage monarchs.