Muster is the second mode of Hordolam. Instead of a road full of gates you get an open battlefield where up to eight players play at once. Bots fill the empty seats. A round lasts three minutes, and whoever has the strongest horde at the end wins.
Start of the round
Everyone starts at the edge of the battlefield with five soldiers and a hero carrying a banner. For the first five seconds a shield protects you, so nobody can poach you right after the start. Villagers walk around the battlefield. When you walk through them, they join you:
- farmers and hunters as archers,
- shepherds as pikemen,
- craftsmen as shield bearers.
Villagers come out of taverns, churches, markets and mills. Early in the round more of them come out, later fewer. The edges of the map have the most, and the rarer kinds are more likely in the middle.
Power and poaching
A horde’s Power is its number of soldiers, and each catapult counts as eight. When two hordes meet and one is more than a tenth stronger, it starts poaching soldiers from the smaller one. Three quarters of them switch sides, and the rest scatter nearby where anyone can pick them up. When the hordes are almost equal, they push each other back and both lose a little.
A small horde is faster. With one soldier you run a third faster than a horde of a hundred. You can almost always escape, but you have to start early. If you wait for a bigger horde to catch you, you lose soldiers by the dozen.
Troop types have their own jobs in Muster too. Pikemen add more weight in a clash. Archers shoot at rival hordes that come close and take a few soldiers every two seconds. Shield bearers cut losses from arrows, catapults and hazards.
The banner
In the middle of every horde stands the hero with the banner. When the middle of a stronger horde reaches it, the banner falls. Half of the remaining soldiers switch to the attacker and half scatter. A horde with five soldiers or fewer falls at the first touch.
If you lose your banner, you come back three seconds later in a safe spot with five soldiers and a short shield. The catapults of a fallen horde stay where they are, and the first horde to touch them takes them.
The Fog and the end of the round
A round has three parts. The first half is the Recruit phase. Then the Fog starts closing in and the circle shrinks to a bit less than half its size. Outside the circle a horde loses about three percent of its Power every second. The last 30 seconds are the Final clash: the circle stops, and anyone who loses their banner now does not come back and can only watch.
The horde with the most Power at the end wins. If only one horde or one team is left during the Final clash, the round ends at once. The camp owner can pick two or four minutes instead of three.
Gates on the battlefield
- Recruit gates give 10 to 20 archers. The same horde can use one once every 20 seconds.
- A ×2 gate adds up to 30 soldiers and stands in risky spots, such as the end of a bridge.
- Type gates give eight pikemen or eight shield bearers.
- Toll gates on shortcuts take ten soldiers.
- A Siege Gate opens in the middle twice a round. A horde that stays alone in its circle for three seconds gets a catapult. One horde can have three at most.
Bridges work as on the Warpath. On a bridge the horde narrows, and anything over the edge falls into the water. The soldiers swim ashore and become villagers again, so a rival can pick them up too.
Hero ability
Muster has one action button, and it uses your hero ability. It charges again in 15 seconds.
- Shepherd, Dash: for a second and a half the horde packs tight and moves 30 percent faster. Good for bridges and escapes.
- Smith, Shield wall: for three seconds nobody can poach your troops, and you cannot poach either. Arrows and hazards do nothing in that time.
- Drummer, Recruiting drum: for five seconds you poach faster and gather villagers from further away.
- Sparkler, Fireworks: for three seconds you pull nearby villagers towards you.
Everyone has the Shepherd from the start. The Smith and the Drummer join after the bosses of the first and second Warpath chapters, the Sparkler with the Fireworks Shed in your Village. The abilities are equally strong, and each one suits a different moment.
King of the field
When one horde is a third stronger than the one in second place, it wears a crown on the minimap. Whoever brings down its banner gets a bounty of 15 soldiers. That means the lead can change even halfway through a round, and ganging up on the leader pays off even in free-for-all.
Camps
- Quick Muster puts you in a public camp. Strangers play there too, and the loadout is always even: starting catapults do not count and everyone has just one doctrine with a small bonus.
- With friends you pitch a private camp and share the code. The camp owner picks the battlefield, the round length and the teams, and adds bots at three levels: Rookie, Fighter and Veteran.
- Training Grounds is a round with bots that works offline too. Your Workshop counts in full there, and you get half Renown.
Nobody can type in a camp. Players only send preset messages such as “Here!”, “Help!” or “Good game”. You can block or report a player who causes trouble, and the owner of a public camp can kick them between rounds. Bots always have a Bot label next to their name.
Teams
You can play free-for-all or in two, three or four teams: Falcons, Wolves, Bears and Stags. Allies cannot poach each other, pass through each other and share the minimap. The team with the highest total Power wins, so it is worth covering a teammate who is running away.
What you get from a round
Your place earns Renown, which moves your Rank up in every mode. Every banner you bring down adds two more points of Renown. The winner of a round with at least three people gets a Catapult blueprint, at most one a week. A round without a second human gives half Renown.
Bridges, hazards and catapults on the Warpath have their own guide to bridges and catapults.