Whenever you perform an activity in Total Battle, whether it be attacking a monster, or exploring a crypt, or upgrading a building, you can improve your performance using bonuses.
Some bonuses apply automatically without you having to do anything (ex. clan bonuses, talent points). Others are activated depending on which captains are active in your lineup.
But how do we know which bonuses apply, and when?
There are two types of bonuses: activity bonuses and city bonuses (my terminology, not the game's).
The activity bonuses are those that are applied to actions performed outside the city. These include:
- strength and health bonuses when attacking
- march speed bonuses
- crypt exploration efficiency bonuses
- resource gathering speed bonuses
- army carrying capacity bonuses
The city bonuses are those that apply to activities performed in the city. These include:
- research and construction speed bonuses
- resource production bonuses
- food production bonuses
- tar production and capacity bonuses
Activity bonuses
Activity bonuses are those provided by the captain who is performing an activity outside of the city.
When you attack using Aydae as your captain, your guardsmen receive strength and health bonuses based on her level and her equipment.
When you send Stror out to mine, the time it takes to gather resources and the amount of RSS he can carry back depend on his level, plus any armor he is wearing at the time he begins his march.
Other captains do not contribute to activity bonuses. If you have Doria active in your city, her Valor Points bonus does not apply when Aydae marches out to fight a monster.
And as we learned in two recent YouTube videos, the bonuses applied are those that are active at the moment the captain begins the march. If you forget to activate your personal Army Strength bonus, and do it while your captain is marching towards the epic monster, that bonus will not apply to the attack.
City bonuses
Passive bonuses
Passive city bonuses are those that apply continuously whenever a hero or captain is active and present in the city.
Helen has a food production bonus which applies whenever she is active. But if you take her out of the lineup, or send her out on a march, either to fight or mine, her food production bonus no longer applies to the city until she returns from her march or is activated again. You can test this by looking at the city stats before and after sending her on the march.
The same thing applies to other captains as well. If you have Honored Ruler armor on your hero or captain, the resource production bonuses conferred by that armor is only applied when the hero or captain is active and in the city.
In the same way, you can activate Carter and leave him idle in your city to increase your tar production speed and the maximum amount of tar your workshop can hold at any one time.
Active bonuses
Other city bonuses apply only at the moment when you begin an action. Research, construction and training speed bonuses fall under this category.
The time it takes to research a technology depends on the bonuses active at the moment you begin researching. When you want to start a research project, activate Farhad and equip him with your Honored Ruler armor. Then start the research. Once you have begun researching you can put Farhad away until you are ready to start the next research project. Activating Farhad after research has begun will not reduce the time needed to complete a project that is already in progress.
In the same way, you should activate Aurora just before beginning a construction project, and you must make sure Helen is active when you want to start training troops.
Equipment bonuses and the hero
Be sure to only equip your hero with armor that they can make use of. Your hero cannot go out to mine, so they do not get the resource gathering speed bonus from wearing Swift Wayfarer armor. However, they can still benefit from the march speed and carrying capacity bonus that armor confers if they wear it while attacking.
In the same way, the Tomb Raider armor doesn't help with crypt exploration efficiency if worn by the hero. But it can still be used to increase tar production speed and tar capacity if the hero wears it while in the city.