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
This setting affects available orders and payment for your men. Police units especially have options that other units do not have. Mercenary units are meant for campaigns far away from your realm, which incur a huge morale penalty on non-mercenary units. Sentries fight better within your realm's borders but travel slower, and Vanguard units travel faster but have reduced combat effectiveness.
All these unit types are described in detail in the manual, on the Unit Settings page.
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.
