Using the conquer order and attacking a damaged stronghold means the stronghold is reduced to 0 strength, not -1 correct? Also the card says "during the battle". I assume "during the battle" includes the strength tally after all units have been used, and that the battle is not over until the Replace Units phase has ended.

Damaged strongholds have a strength of 3, Conquest reduces the value by 3, therefore it is zero.  Where did -1 come from?

And yes, "during the battle" extends to the tally strength phase (and probably replace units, too.)  The ability wouldn't be much use if it didn't ;)

Hi,

Steve-O is right.

The Conquer-Order reduces a strongholds strength to 2 and the strength of a damaged one to 0.

As the strength is only used for determine the winner of the battle, the bonus takes into account for tally strength, too. Otherwise it does not make sense.

 One little side-note related to this, too: because the Conquer Order's supremacy doesn't take place until the Tally Strength step, if you are planning on using a Brilliant Maneuver card to play Conquer out-of-order, you do NOT have to play the Brilliant Maneuver card until that point.  IE, you don't have to play it at the beginning in hopes that you will need it, you can see if it will help you win or not.

As an aside, I would be inclined to say that no individual contributor to a side's final strength can ever be negative.  Thus if you somehow did have a penalty that would negate all benefit from something like a stronghold, I would say the penalty stops at zero, yes.  Not that it actually applies to this example.

Steve-O said:

I agree, though having a final strength of a negative number would be unusual (and is not possible in the current rules; it would have to involve some kind of fan-made creation or a future expansion).