Traps

Scalding Oil

Cauldrons on the hoardings, tipped when the ladders come up. Laid against the shield wall.

Entity ID: scalding_oil
Punishes: Infantry — and nothing else
Kills per armed trap (tier 0): 3
Kills per armed trap (tier 10): 13
Traps laid per invested tier: 5
Traps laid at tier 10: 50
Disarmed by: Siege only — each siege unit clears 2 of these before the battle proper
Siege needed to disarm a full tier-10 lay: 25 siege units

How Scalding Oil resolve

Traps bite before the battle proper, and they bite one troop type only. Scalding Oil punish infantry: each trap still armed when the host arrives kills its quota of them, spread across that type's tiers from the lowest up. Siege is the only answer — every siege unit in the attacking host disarms 2 traps of each type before anything is triggered — which is why a smart assault on a trapped keep brings engines, and why a defender who sees siege in an inbound host knows their wall is about to be read correctly.

The tier ladder

Each of the three trap types is raised independently through 10 tiers. A tier both lays more of them and makes each one hit harder — 5 extra traps and one extra kill per trap, per tier — so the investment compounds rather than merely widening.

Scalding Oil: what each tier lays, what it kills, and what it costs to reach.
Tier	Traps laid	Kills per trap	Kills if all stay armed	Wood	Stone	Iron
0	0	3	0	—	—	—
1	5	4	20	150	150	100
2	10	5	50	225	225	150
3	15	6	90	338	338	225
4	20	7	140	506	506	338
5	25	8	200	759	759	506
6	30	9	270	1,139	1,139	759
7	35	10	350	1,709	1,709	1,139
8	40	11	440	2,563	2,563	1,709
9	45	12	540	3,844	3,844	2,563
10	50	13	650	5,767	5,767	3,844

The free ramparts your Keep already gives you

Before any tier investment, the Keep itself lays traps of all three types — one per Keep level, capped at twelve. Those are free, they are laid whether you think about them or not, and they are what a raider without siege actually runs into.

Free scalding oil from the Keep alone, and what they kill.
Keep level	Free scalding oil	Infantry killed (no siege present)
1	1	3
5	5	15
10	10	30
12	12	36
20	12	36
30	12	36
45	12	36

What infantry are worth killing

Infantry are the shield wall — the highest defense and health of the three field types. They beat archers and lose to cavalry, so a host leaning on them is a host that expects to be met head on. Scalding oil is what a wall answers that with.

A trap's value is the host it removes before a single blow is struck, and losses are spread across the target type's tiers from the lowest up — so the first thing your scalding oil eat is the cheapest infantry in the column, and the last is the most expensive.

Infantry at every tier: what a trap is taking off the field.
Tier	Rank	Attack	Defense	Health	Load	Power
T1	Levy	10	14	30	20	4
T2	Footman	13	18	38	25	5
T3	Man-at-Arms	16	22	47	31	6
T4	Veteran	20	27	59	39	8
T5	Sergeant	24	34	73	49	10
T6	Guardsman	31	43	92	61	12
T7	Knight	38	53	114	76	15
T8	Vanguard	48	67	143	95	19
T9	Champion	60	83	179	119	24
T10	Warlord	75	104	224	149	30
T11	Myrmidon	93	130	279	186	37
T12	Paragon	116	163	349	233	47
T13	Legend	146	204	437	291	58

Power removed by a full tier-10 lay of scalding oil (50 traps × 13 kills), against infantry of each tier.
Tier of the attacker's column	Infantry killed	Power removed	Health removed
T1 — Levy	650	2,600	19,500
T4 — Veteran	650	5,200	38,350
T7 — Knight	650	9,750	74,100
T10 — Warlord	650	19,500	145,600
T13 — Legend	650	37,700	284,050

Guides: The Combat Guide · Defending Your Keep. Troop data: Infantry · Siege engines. Index: all three traps · the whole database.

The other traps: Bolt Throwers (vs archers) · Wood Spikes (vs cavalry)

Every figure above is generated from the shipped game code — the same constants and formulas the running game uses — and regenerated whenever the balance changes. Nothing on this page is hand-typed.

Scalding Oil

How Scalding Oil resolve

The tier ladder

The free ramparts your Keep already gives you

What infantry are worth killing

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