Orders and Movement

From Almansur Battlegrounds

One of the main features of this game is that it reproduces the movement and all military warfare realistically. You will have to move your armies through a map, with different terrain types, some where your army will perform better, other that may benefit your opponent!

Like a real Leader, you will have to locate where your enemies armies are, which are their strong and weak characteristics, and then try to anticipate their moves and plans in order to improve your chances of success. The best choice of where and when to give battle, where to create strong defensive points and where one should avoid the enemy is an important component of any strategy you may determine.

To make an army to do what ever you intend, you must give it an order. An order is a command given to a military unit to perform an activity at a target territory. If the unit is not in the specified target territory at the moment the order is activated, it will start moving towards the target territory, at a speed, which is dependent on the capacities of the contingents it has (operational speed), and the level of cautiousness desired. Highly cautious means marching in almost a battle formation, so it’s really slow but battle ready, and the opposite means marching columns, which are fast but not at all battle ready.

Bellow you’ll find a list of the possible speeds your armies may assume, it’s impact on the speed of the movement and it’s impact on the effectiveness the army has if it battles an enemy at that marching speed:

If there is a battle, the battle strength and performance of the army depends either upon it’s marching speed if it is attacked while marching (see table above), or upon the activity the army is executing at the moment of the battle (see table bellow). Once an activity is under execution (the day after the army gets there) the speed used to get there becomes irrelevant. So choose your options carefully when you are near enemy forces, since the influence of these modifiers can be determinant.

When the order is to be performed at a different location, the army will start moving towards that location, using the shortest (in number of traveling days required) distance to get there, with a preference for friendly territories for similar options, and then change it’s order to the queued one when it does get to the target territory. You never give march orders to get to a territory in order to perform whatever order you want, the army will always automatically set it self in “march” to get there and then change to the intended order once it reaches the intended territory. So if for example you order your army to “conquer” a target territory, it will do battle in “march” order if called for battle during the move or the first day it gets there, and in “conquer” order the following days, until such order is concluded.

Armies will move around the map, using the slowest contingent’s modified base speed that composes the army, and the given march speed ordered by the player to determine how many days it takes to move from territory to territory. This will then be greatly influenced by the territories terrain in two ways, which, together with roads, produce the mentioned “modified” base speed:

• All contingents are affected by terrain other than entirely flat, and the ones that are more at ease with that terrain will be less penalized. These are Elves in forests, Orcs in swamps, Dwarves in mountains. Barbarians are not so much penalized all around as other Humans. The number of days they require to move from one territory to the other increases in a exponential way as the level of forestation, roughness and swampness of the terrain increase, so for example the difference between moving trough entirely flat territory and low hills can be very small, but the difference between moving trough hills and high mountains will be great;

• Cavalry contingents are more affected by the difficulty of the terrain, specially the roughness, and can be extremely slow in high mountains. This includes wagons. Mules, although classified as cavalry, are more versatile that the other types, and as such are not so much penalized.

Roads will affect the speed of the contingents, making it faster. This effect naturally increases according to the road level of the territory, and is especially significant in rough terrain. So the same level of road in a flat land will have some effect, but in a mountain will have a much more significant effect on the units speed. This is so because in flat land you can spread your army through the territory and they will all move at a good pace, but when crossing a mountain it will be extremely helpful to have a road since you can’t spread your army around to move it, you must use the few available mountain paths.

The effects of these terrain modifiers and road modifiers will determine what is the actual speed of each contingent of the moving army, and thus determine who actually is the slowest unit. In flat terrain militia contingents are always the slowest, but in a high mountain they will be faster than cavalry. And always all the army will move at the pace of the slowest unit.

The final travel time will then be affected by how crowded the path is. This means that the more soldiers you have in both the territory you are moving from and the destination one, the more time it will take you to complete the move. Again, this effect will be much more significant in highly roughed terrain, since you can’t spread your men around the territory to avoid queuing behind other soldiers.

If armies move from the same current territory to the same target destination at the same time (typically the beginning of a game turn), they will adjust their speeds to move simultaneously and arrive there together. Coordinating assaults upon a target location from different starting points will be harder to achieve…

The terrain a unit must cross to go from location A to adjacent location B is half the terrain of A plus half the terrain of B. So it’s for example easiest to go from plain to plain than from plain to mountain, and that would be easiest than going from mountain to mountain. This also means that if you want to make a move entirely using roads you need to have them both in the territory you are moving from and the destination one. If you give a move order to a location that is not adjacent, the army will automatically determine the best path to get there, best being the one that takes less time, preferring friendly territory for similar paths, and decompose that in a succession of moves from adjacent territory to adjacent territory, with, eventually, different travel times to complete each move.

When you move you will suffer attrition. Attrition represents the men that are lost when you move around, usually either by defecting of by being killed by low level warfare. Attrition is calculated contingent per contingent, taking into account the characteristics of each one, which means that inside the same army the levels of attrition can be different. The amount of attrition suffered depends upon:

• The ownership of the territory. This is the main factor. In your or friendly territory you’ll suffer no or very little attrition, in neutral territory you’ll suffer a bit more, and in enemy territory again a bit more;

• The status of the moving contingents, the lower it is the more attrition you get;

• The experience of the moving contingents, the lower it is the more attrition you get;

• When in enemy territory, will depend upon the order. While performing “hostile” actions, such as conquer or assault, the contingents suffer more attrition than while resting or training;

• The marching speed, the faster you make your soldiers march the more attrition they will get. The actual marching speed of a contingent may be slower than the one you ordered. This happens because each contingent will check to see what speed it really needs to keep the pace of the slowest unit. So for example you may order a force march to a army with light cavalry and militia, and in flat land where their base speeds will not be much affected, your militia would be force marching (as ordered), but your cavalry will be below normal speed, since that would be all they needed to keep up with the pace of the militia.

To assign orders you can go to Military => Armies and select the army or armies you want to order, or you can go to the details page of a army to order that one, in Military => Armies => Army X, or you can issue it through the interface provided in the map.

The complete list of orders an army may assume are the following:

There are three ways to actually give the army the intended order:

• The easiest way is using the map, you can select the army you want to issue order(s), and you simply select, using the cursor, the target territory and chose the intended order. If the army has to move to get there (from his previous order), you’ll be asked to chose the marching speed;

• In Military => Armies you can use the select box to chose one or more armies to issue a order, using the “New order:” segment of that page, and indicating:

• • The order you want the army/armies to execute (battle, rest, train or conquer);

• • The target territory where you want that order to be executed. If you do not indicate one, the army will assume the same territory as that of the previous order, which is also the territory where he is in case he has no queued orders;

• • In the case of the territory where you want the order to be executed being a different one from the one stated in the previous queued order (if the army has to move), you need to select the speed at which the army will travel (from more cautious to faster, slow, cautious, normal and forced).

• By entering a army’s details page, in Military => Armies => Army X, you’ll have the same interface as that described in the previous point to issue order(s) to that specific army.

This system allows you to queue several orders to be executed by the same army. When the army finishes one order, he checks if there is another queued and starts executing it. The moment when an order is finished depends upon the order itself, as described bellow:

• For “Rest” and “Train” the army checks when a new turn starts if it has more queued orders. It such exists, the stops resting or training and starts the next queued order. If not, he keeps resting or training;

• For “Conquer” the order is finished when the territory is conquered or, when there is an enemy fortress in the territory, after a single assault attempt on such a fortress is made;

• For the order “Battle” the army searches the territory for enemy forces he can attack. If there are such forces presents, he attacks them and repeats the procedure the day after the battle (if he is victorious). If there are no enemy armies in the territory (other than those “locked” inside a fortress in garrison), he checks to see if there more queued orders, if so, he starts the next one, if not he remains in battle until the end of the turn and then checks again in the same manner as rest or train.

You can queue any number of orders, which may take any number of turns to be executed. In future turns you may cancel some or all of the remaining orders the army has and issue new ones, or allow the same orders to be executed. For example, if you are in a 30 days per turn game with your army in territory A, if you issue a train order followed by a battle order to territory B, followed by a conquer order to territory C, followed by a rest order and finally followed by a conquer order to territory D, the army will in start training and remain the entire 30 days of the first turn training (since that order will only end at the beginning of the next turn), in the beginning of the second turn, he’ll move from A to B in march, the day after he arrives in B he assumes the battle order and searches for an enemy to fight, the day after there are no enemy forces in B he starts marching to C, the day after he arrives in C he assumes the conquer order of that territory (see Military => Conquering Territories if there is no fortress, Military => Assaulting Fortresses if the is one), the day after that conquer attempt is finished he will start resting to recover status, and in the beginning of the next turn after he assumed the rest order (regardless of how many days, between the possible 1 and 30, he was actually resting, depending in each day of the previous turn the rest order started), the army will finally start marching to territory D to then attempt to conquer it.

Another important concept to keep in mind is the relation between orders currently being executed and participation in field battles. According to its orders, an army may:

• Avoid field battles. This happens if the current order is garrison. If in garrison, the army will remain inside the fortress if an enemy army enters the territory and/or there is a field battle in the territory. In this order the army will only fight against an army attempting to assault the fortress;

• Be available to participate in field battles but not to start them. This happens if the current order is rest, train or march. In one of these orders the army will not start a field battle when enemies are present, but if one is started by the enemy army they he will fight. This means that they can be attacked but they will not attack. So, for example, enemy armies may cross the same territory when marching and not fight each other, or be in the same territory resting or training and not attack each other. However, as soon as one of them changes to one order that may start a field battle (see bellow), he will attack the other army:

• Be available to participate and start a field battle. This happens if the current order is conquer or battle. In one of these orders an army will actively search enemies to fight and begin a field battle if he finds any.

When an army enters a territory that is not his, the local inhabitants will detect it and send its owner a message with their estimative of how many infantry and cavalry the external army has. This report will be accessible in Land => Reports => Territory Reports. Any army can pass through a territory without conquering it, simply if it is using any orders other than conquer. The army will always do just what it is specifically ordered to do. If you want to conquer the territory, see Military => Conquering Territories and Military => Assaulting Fortresses for details upon the use of the conquer order.

Bellow you’ll find a resume of the possible orders a army may have: