What's the deal with commanders in this level.
I attacked a commander that had 1 army with 15 of mine and lost
That attack stopped and left 8 armies in my territory.

What's the deal?
1. Why did it stop?
2. More importantly, how many do I need to attack with to beat the commander?

I wish each level had a basic info screen for stuff like this.

Check the kill rates.

What do you mean?

where do I find that?

When in combat, commanders act like a stack of 7 armies. For example, if you attack with your commander along with 3 armies, it will do the same amount of damage that attacking with 10 armies would do. Similarly, if you are defending against an attack with your commander and 3 armies, you'll do damage to the attacker equal to if you were defending with 10 armies.

https://www.warlight.net/wiki/Commanders

so why didn't my 15 armies kill a commander with 1 army?

Commanders are worth 7 armies, so in default kill rates and luck, you need at least 11 armies to kill a commander.

^ did you watch the turn or just skip to end?

Was it a boss or commander?

Edited 8/22/2016 21:53:55

It was a commander. I watched the turn. My 15 attacked until there were 8 and then it stopped leaving me 8.
So the 7 I lost explains why I didn't kill him (he had 1 army), but I don't understand why the attack stopped.

^that happens, there are defensive and offensive kill rates (which define how many armies are killed), if your armies don't kill an enemy stack yet they also don't take out all your armies, you get the armies that are still alive back

Dan, with default rates 10 kills 6. You need 11 attackers to kill a commander at a minimum, though obviously you should attack with more expecting reinforcements.

Joe, if you had a stack of 15 and were left with 8 that means 7 of your 14 attackers died. That would mean your opponent had ten defenders (commander plus 3) which would require 16 attackers (stack of 17) to kill.

The luck and kill rates will change the likelihood of destroying him too. He may have also reinforced the commander. If you didn't watch the turn you might have missed that.