Help:Troop Settings

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Here you can fine-tune your unit's actions on and off the battlefield. These settings are only for your current unit, but will stick with it through recruiting additional men, renaming or anything else.

Encounter Settings

How your men should react to encounters with the enemy. This setting can determine whether combat takes place at all, and how your men act once it has started. There are five different settings here:

Evasive 

Your men will attempt to evade combat altogether. This is most likely to succeed if you have a small unit and the enemy force is small.

Defensive 

Your men will follow the diplomacy settings of your realm. Once in combat, they will take a defensive stance, not moving forward if they are behind fortifications

Normal 

Your men will follow the diplomacy settings of your realm firmly, attacking only if they are at war with the opposing realm. Once in combat, they will advance normally.

Aggressive 

Your men will attack even those your realm is neutral with. Once in combat, they will move forward swiftly.

Murderous 

Your men will attack even those your realm is at peace or allied with. Once in combat, they will attack with bloodlust.

Designation

Unit Designation determines under what circumstances the unit expects to use their training. It can be changed during the day on which you pay your unit.

You can only change these settings once per day, and not on the same day you recruit a unit.

Regular Army

Your troops will start out set as Regular Army. You will use this setting most often. A Regular Army unit has balanced defensive and offensive abilities, which can also be enhanced by the Unit Settings (above).

Sentry

This is a defensive designation and is helpful for alerting you to enemies in the region. Your men find ways to make themselves more hardy in combat using their knowledge of the lay of the land, creating additional makeshift armour and other things. This increases their defending combat strength by 10% and also requires 20% more gold to pay them, and additional time is required to move from region to region. They also suffer a morale loss when outside of their realm due to uncertain knowledge of outside lands.

This unit designation is most applicable when you will remain in one region for some time, such as while on a tournament.

Vanguard

Vanguard units move faster than other army types, but are not allowed to dig in.

These units make excellent scouts or fast raiding parties, and Units of over 40 men may often arrive a turn earlier if they are set as Vanguard. Units designated as vanguards lighten their burdens by opting not to bring redundant or excessive equipment, seeking out lighter superior quality replacements. This gives them the advantage of moving quicker. But for all their additional efforts and speed, they require 20% more gold than regular troops.

Mercenary

Mercenaries are men hired to fight your war, with no loyalty to you or your realm beyond their pay. Their morale stays high while far from home, but 50% more expensive than regular army (this is the only designation available to traders).

When pursuing your Leader's agenda far from home, a Regular Army will get homesick before the week is out. Their Morale will suffer. When Morale is less than 50%, it can be a real problem. Combat Strength goes down, as does Cohesion. Morale can usually be salved with gold as a Regular Army will get a boost from regular payment. If, however, you discern that this will be a problem again, sooner than would be convenient, the Mercenary setting may be your choice. No morale concerns, so Combat Strength stays high, and your Unit is more effective in battle.

Police

Police can search for rebels, raising Loyalty and Morale in a region, as well as hunt for infiltrators committing crimes in that region (to prevent an Infiltrator's deeds, your troops must find him beforehand). This is the only option for Courtiers and Diplomats.

A troop leader with a Police Unit can perform Police Work in the region they are in and arrest locals suspected of supporting the independence movement. Don't use this option if you have honour less than 15, as you won't have the option to do Police Work. Be aware that Police Units do not perform well in combat; if they are involved in battles they will suffer morale penalties during battle that will most likely result in significant Morale loss after battles.

Combat Tactics

This setting determines where on the battlefield your unit will deploy and in which formation. The combat line obviously will affect how soon your unit comes in contact with enemy forces. The effectiveness of this setting does depend a lot on those of other units within your army. For example, archer units up front can inflict horrible casualties on the enemy, but rely on infantry forces to move ahead of them and shield them from enemy close combat forces before those can engage. Archers further back are safer, but can not do as much damage. The formation determines your units' efficiency on the battlefield. The available formations are:

Line 

Your men will deploy in a wide line, usually 2-3 ranks deep depending on their number. This is the default setting.

Box 

A tighter formation with more ranks. Box formations can take a cavalry charge with less casualties and disorder, and will generally withstand more casualties before panic strikes. They are, however, slightly less effective on offense in return.

Wedge 

A wedge formation will allow the unit to break into enemy ranks easier, doing more damage than other formations do. However, the unit is also easier to break up and will likely suffer more casualties itself.

Skirmish 

Deploying your men widely, in a lose formation with considerable distance between them makes them less prone to archer fire and other ranged attacks. However, a skirmish formation is not well suited for close combat and a skirmish unit engaged in melee will take horrible casualties.

Note that combat tactics settings can be overridden if a Marshal with command staff is present on your side in the battle, as he will automatically integrate your unit into his larger strategy.

More Details

• Unit Settings page
• Marshal