Evony Buff Guide: How to Read Skill and Decoration Tooltips

To ensure your stat buffs apply in combat, inspect the specific condition clauses on skills and items, avoid pairing duplicate skills on assistant generals, and verify the resulting numbers on your march details screen. Large percentage bonuses displayed on generals and cosmetics often apply only under narrow combat situations or while an item remains actively equipped.

Check Skill Trigger Clauses

A buff does not automatically apply to every battle. In Evony, the qualifying clause attached to a skill determines whether the bonus is active on an offensive march, during keep defense, or while reinforcing allies.

• "When General leads army to attack": Functions exclusively on offensive marches launched against enemy keeps, resource tiles, or monsters. This bonus provides zero value if the general defends your main city wall or reinforces an allied building.
• "When defending in the city": Applies only when assigned as the Main City Wall General and your keep is attacked. It provides no defense bonuses on outside marches or reinforcement destinations.
• "When General is leading army": Activates whenever the general commands troops, including offensive attacks, external reinforcements, and wall defense (if assigned to the wall).
• Unconditional troop buffs (e.g., "Ground Troop Attack +X%"): Functions as a passive bonus across all combat situations unless paired with a restrictive role header.

Distinguish Between "Owning" and "Using" Cosmetics

Castle skins, march effects, and avatar frames display total bonus percentages that combine two distinct buff types:

• "Owning" buffs: Permanent, passive account increases. Once unlocked, these attributes add directly to your monarch stats regardless of which skin or frame you visually equip.
• "Using" buffs: Conditional bonuses that apply only while the specific decoration is actively selected and displayed on your city. If you switch to another cosmetic to use a different buff, the previous "Using" stats immediately deactivate.

Before acquiring cosmetics, review the attribute breakdown under the item preview to see how much of the advertised total comes from permanent ownership versus active use.

Avoid Incompatible Assistant General Skills

When assigning an assistant general to a march, duplicate skills will conflict. The assistant system does not stack identical primary bonuses.

If an assistant general has a base skill or an equipped skill book that shares the same mechanical trigger or attribute type as the main general:

• The conflicting skill on the assistant grays out during march setup and provides a 0% stat contribution.
• Adding a skill book (such as Level 4 Ranged Troop Attack) to an assistant fails to apply if the main general's primary skill already provides that exact base attack buff.
• Specialty and covenant bonuses from assistant generals do not apply unless explicitly supported by game mechanics.

Always inspect the troop selection screen before dispatching a march. If any skill icon appears grayed out next to the assistant general, replace the skill book or swap the general pairing.

Differentiate In-City Defense from Reinforcement Buffs

Defensive skills designed for your keep do not transfer to coalition battles:

• In-City Defense: Skills specifying "In-City Troop" or "when defending as Main City General" protect only the troops stationed inside your own city walls.
• Alliance Reinforcement: When reinforcing an ally's keep, an alliance building, or a battlefield structure, in-city buffs drop to zero. Reinforcement marches require generals with universal march buffs ("when General is leading troops") or dedicated "Reinforcing Troop" multipliers.

How to Audit Your Combat Buffs

Do not rely solely on tooltip text to calculate military power. Verify that your bonuses are actively registering through these three checks:

1. Check the Monarch Details screen: Open your Monarch Profile, select Details, and review your troop statistics. This list tracks baseline permanent numbers, including passive research and "Owning" decoration buffs.
2. Review the March Setup Buff tab: Form a march, select your main and assistant generals, and tap the march details icon on the troop slider screen. This screen displays the exact combat buffs applied to that specific march, allowing you to catch grayed-out assistant skills before launching.
3. Inspect the Battle Report: Attack a test target or low-tier monster, open the resulting battle report, and select Player Details. Compare the final calculated stat percentages against your expected totals to confirm all conditional clauses triggered properly.