Understanding Stacking

The Basics

To really undestand stacking, you must first understand some basic groundwork, and that's what this section is for. If you already know what stacks, stack multipliers, net power, net power, dummy stacks, etc. are - then you can skip this first section and move on to the more advanced content below.

What are Stacks?

"Stack" is a commonly used term to refer to a group of units, a stack could be anything from 1 Unicorn to 10,000 Unicorns. "Stacking" is a group of stacks, or the act of ordering these stacks. You can only have one stack of a type of unit in your actual army (ie - the army you see in the Status Report). We will cover the importance of the term 'actual army' later in the guide.
 
The size of the stack in relation to your total army size, can be seen in the Battle Report with the percents next to your unit name. These percents are determined by the following formula: (( Unit Power Rank * # of Units ) / Total Army Power ).
- Unit Power Rank: The "Power Rank" listed in the Encyclopedia.
- # of Units: The number of Units in the stack.
- Total Army Power: Sum of (Unit Power Rank * # of Units) of all stacks in your army.

Why aren't my stacks listed by power?

Stacks in the Disband Screen are ordered by their position in battle rather than their actual net power. This is because in battle, different conditions cause certain units to move higher in a stacking, these are called "stack multipliers". Stack Multipliers are very important to succesful stacking in a strategic sense, and are one area a lot of people get confused. But to put it basically, there are 3 groups of units, each get a different multiplier.
- 1x Multiplier: Ranged Units, these units are ONLY the units that have the attack type "Ranged" listed in their PRIMARY ATTACK (listed as: "ATTACK TYPE" in the encyclopedia). EXTRA ATTACK TYPE does not effect a unit's stack multiplier (example: Lich is ranged, Unholy Reaver is not ranged)
- 1.5x Multiplier: Non-Ranged, Non-Flying units, these are units that do not have the ability FLYING and do not have the Primary Attack Type RANGED. (example: Sirene is Non-Ranged, Non-Flying, Djinni is Flying, Efreeti is ranged)
- 2.25x Multiplier: Flying units, these units are ONLY the units that have the ability FLYING, This overrides either of the other two multipliers. (example: Air Elemental is Flying, Mind Ripper is ranged)
 
These multipliers only apply to the units natural abilities, and are not effected by changed by the effects of items, spells, enchantments, heroes, etc. So yes, with the item Carpet of Flying you will still keep that 15% stack of Liches, behind that 10% stack of Djinni.

Is there a limit on stacks?

You can have as many stacks as there are units in the game (over 100), but only the 10 highest stacks by net power will enter combat (usually you can determine this just by looking at the percents, sometimes though you'll have stacks too close for the percents to differentiate - so then it's useful to be able to calculate - if stacks are exactly the same NP, the one that goes into battle is determined by their order in the unit database).

Have to go for a bit, still writing, will finish after I get back.