In certain circumstances, Villainous forces such as Bandits, Ants, or perhaps the Duke may send attacking parties to raid your dungeon, whether for valuables, prisoners, or to end your reign of terror. While there are benefits to defending your dungeon (easier salvage and capture opportunities, fighting in terrain you designed and built, etc), eventually you’ll probably want to end the attacks so you don’t have to stay on guard for enemy attackers.
You could, of course, send an assault team and attack the enemy site. However, some sites are a serious threat when guarded. It’d probably be easier to attack if they didn’t have so many troops. Thus, counter-attacking.
If you’ve designed your dungeon well, such as building an entryway that the enemy will force rather than simply digging around, setting guards where needed, and ensuring that your troops have proper support, chances are your creatures can hold the entryway without your direct involvement, and possibly without your even having to pay attention. In this circumstance, it’s possible to take a set of troops (best-optimized for fighting your target, and ideally able to self-heal) and travel directly to the enemy map square via the compass travel interface…bypassing the enemy attack team and arriving at what will hopefully be a less-populated enemy base.
After attacking, and hopefully eliminating the enemy from their base, you won’t get the Villain-Eliminated text box. This is because the attacking troops you bypassed are still at your base. Because you aren’t actively playing your base map, everyone there is in Stasis until you get back: the time-of-day moves on but that’s it. When you return, your troops will arrive at map’s edge from the target square. Chances are you’ll have to fight your way back into the base…but conversely, the enemy who was attacking your base now has your base in their front and your attacking force coming up behind.
It’s unlikely, but possible, that the enemy may see you coming to their tile. This is a function of the specific Villain, but usually a 5-10% chance (if any at all). If they do spot you, and have the troops available, they can deploy to your arrival point, mounted up if steeds are available, ready to fight. You will be notified via a text popup.
Based on a quick code-check, there’s no way to reduce your chances of being Ambushed when traveling; a solo minion (or Keeper!) is as likely to be ambushed as is a 10-creature army. However, since the Ambush team draws from the same troops that are sent to attack your site and retained to keep the Villain’s site safe, counter-attacks will have fewer troops available to ambush them than there otherwise might be.
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