Tier Surfacing

Tier Resurfacing is a new display feature being rolled out in Empires & Allies.  This feature doesn't involve any change in the combat mechanics of the game.  It's just labeling combat units (yellow stars in image) according to their Tiers, which have existed as long as E&A itself.

Long-time readers of this blog will already know the following:

"Higher Tiers do more damage! Look for Unit Tiers in the yellow star. Unit strength isn't all that matters in combat!"

It's a misconception that combat units with higher Strength always deal more damage and are thus better.  This is generally true because higher Tier units usually have higher Strength.  It doesn't help that "Strength" in E&A is used to describe what in other games is called "Health" or "HP" or "hitpoints".  Also, in many games, "Strength" alone is used to determine damage.  However, in E&A, Strength is primarily how much damage a unit can take.  It's also a factor in how much damage a unit deals, but it's not the only factor.

Another factor is the Tier of the unit.  So far, there have been eight Tiers of units introduced in E&A.  If everything else is the same, a unit with a higher Tier will deal more damage.  A third factor is the current (not maximum) Strength of the target unit.  Attacking units deal more damage the lower the current Strength of the target unit is.

There are examples of combat units that have higher Strength than other combat units but deal less damage due to being a lower Tier.  One example is the Owl Fighter and Harpy.  The Owl Fighter has base Strength of 850 and upgraded Strength of 1020, while the Harpy has base Strength of 800 (you don't see this in the game) and upgraded Strength of 960.  From Strength alone, it would seem the Owl Fighter would deal greater damage than the Harpy, but the opposite is true.