Enemies

Enemies come in four tiers: basic, elite, master and boss. Basic enemies make up the waves of every regular fight, and some of them come as elites, tougher versions of the same fighters. Each regular fight also brings one master, a stronger fighter picked from the act’s own, and each act ends in a fight with its boss.

An elite is the same fighter as its basic version, with 75% more health and 35% more damage; the list gives each one’s health. How many of a fight’s basic enemies come as elites depends on the act: up to 40% in Carthage, 60% in Germania and 40% in Rome.

Every enemy has a way of fighting, which the list gives as its Style:

• Melee fighters close in and fight you hand to hand with what they hold.
• Assault fighters go straight at you: they hold just inside their reach, step back if you crowd them, and attack the moment they’re ready.
• Ranged fighters keep their distance: where others would close in they back away, and they throw or shoot at you from there. Without a weapon they come in close like anyone else.
• Lobbers hang back the same way, and lob what they throw to come down where you are.
• Flail fighters swing a Flail, whose page says how it swings and spins.
• Wrestlers never swing at you: they come at you bare-handed and, once within 7 metres with a clear view of you, tackle you, unless you’re already pinned.
• Netters throw a net at you, then tackle whoever they’ve netted.
• War-machine crews man a ballista or a catapult and fire it at you once you’re in its sights.
• Masters and bosses each fight in their own way, which their pages describe.

Some come in two variants on top of their style. Evasive ones dodge your attacks with a quick dash, and then can’t again for a few seconds; some dodge your throws too. Defensive ones carry a tower shield.

The health the list gives is an enemy’s base health. In a fight it has that × 1.8 × the day’s factor, which grows with the days you’ve finished: ×0.9 at the start of a run and 1.08 times more for each day after, as the table shows. Basic and elite enemies take the factor of their act’s first day (Carthage after 0 days finished, Germania after 3, Rome after 6 and the Senate after 9), so they’re as tough on its last day as on its first; masters and bosses take the day you’re on. With more than one player, masters and bosses get 5% more health for each player after the first. A boss gets more on top of that: ×1.68 with two players, ×2.28 with three and ×2.8 with four, and by a factor the difficulty you play on sets.

Every kill counts toward the five kill achievements, named for their counts in Roman numerals: X for 10, L for 50, C for 100, D for 500 and M for 1,000 kills.

Some enemies fight in formation, as a group. Each keeps its place in it, and the group decides who to go for. In Rome’s boss fight the boss leads one, with Praefectus (Rome), Sword Guard, Ballistarius Captain, Catapult Captain and Bow Guard in its ranks.

Down the Line asks you to hit every enemy in a formation with the same attack, and Formation Breaker to trip every one of them. A formation needs at least 3 enemies in it for either to count.