⚔ Bandits

⚠ Spoiler: this opens in chapter 4.

From chapter 4 bandits now and then visit the colony. The party is noticed 6 h ahead (with a watchtower — earlier and with its exact strength); it heads for storage. The choice: fight back, hide (they’ll take part of the supplies) or pay them off with gold.

Defense is the guard (the “Guard” job; stronger with the “Combat” skill and weapons), watchtowers and the palisade.
In the last hour the guard takes their posts: melee fighters in a half-ring before storage facing the party, archers by the watchtowers or as a second line.
The party’s strength grows with the number of settlers, the raid number and how rich storage is. A colony stronger than usual for its chapter (⚔ might at the top) is visited by even bigger parties — defense has to grow together with the colony, and paying off costs more.
They fight blow by blow: a free bandit goes for the nearest free guard. A hit depends on the fighter’s strength (the “Combat” skill, weapon, master or elder, illness) against the opponent’s; towers and the palisade help in every fight. A melee miss is sometimes a block.
Numbers matter: when there are more bandits than guards, two of them gang up on one guard and hit harder. A free guard comes to help a neighbour and hits any bandit within reach. A wounded fighter hits weaker. A guard who is alone against two, badly wounded and with no one of his own nearby, steps back (without a bruise).
Armour and shields: a helmet and body armour (a helm and mail best of all, a rarer item — a little better) take part of every hit. With an armory, guards with a one-handed weapon (cleaver, club) carry a shield: it catches some blows and arrows. Some bandits wear helmets, mail and shields too.
Morale: every party has a leader (in a helmet with a red crest). If the leader falls or half the party is beaten, the rest break and flee.
Walls: the palisade is a real wall — nobody walks through it. Put a palisade gate in it: settlers pass through the gate, bandits don’t. If the colony is closed by fence and gates on all sides, the band has to break a fence section or a gate first (the gate is sturdier). While they break it, the guard stands inside by that spot: archers shoot, spears reach over the fence, the bandits’ melee can’t reach anyone. The section’s strength is the bar above it. If the wall is never broken through by the end of the fight, the bandits leave with nothing. If you rebuild the wall during a raid (close a gap, finish a broken section), the band picks a new place to break. A broken section turns back into a building site — builders put it up again.
Archers by a watchtower climb onto its platform and shoot from above: farther (+2 tiles) and more accurately.
The weapon decides how they fight: bow — reach 5 tiles, damage 1.1; spear — reach 1.7 tiles, damage 1.05; cleaver — reach 1.15 tiles, damage 1; club — reach 1.15 tiles, damage 1.1; fists — reach 1.1 tiles, damage 0.8. A bow shoots from afar and first, keeps its distance (it hits weaker up close), and archers also hit other opponents within reach; a spear reaches sooner than a cleaver or club; without a weapon — fists. Bandits are the same — with a watchtower you see what the party is armed with.
Everyone has 5 health (a bar above the head). It only comes back out of the fight, when no one has hit the fighter for a while: a wounded winner is weaker in the next fight. When it runs out, a guard runs home (sometimes with a bruise) and doesn’t fight until the raid ends; a bandit runs back where they came from.
All bandits fled — the raid is repelled. No guard left at storage — the bandits loot. The fight dragged on — the remaining forces decide the outcome.
Victory — gold and sometimes a trophy item; defeat — stolen supplies, bruises, and with a big bandit advantage, sometimes a burned building.
🛡 Alarm bell: in the raid window — “🔔 Ring the bell”. Everyone except the guard drops work and hides in houses until the bandits leave. If robbed, they take half as much, and settlers are less upset. The cost — work stops for that time.

Buildings: 🛡 Watchtower, 🛡 Palisade, 🛡 Palisade gate, ⚒️ Armory.

This guide is built from the data of the game “Oskolki” — a browser colony simulator on a floating shard among the ruins of the ancients. Play for free in the browser.