Anaris Family/Anton's Tome/Settings

Unit Settings

In BattleMaster, there are two levels of combat tactics: the army level, which the General and Marshals need to pay attention to, and the individual level, which each soldier needs to pay attention to. However, the army level is made up of all the individuals combined. Today's lesson will describe the various aspects of individual unit tactics.

Your tactical decisions are split up into 4 components: encounter setting, unit designation, unit deployment, and battle formation.

Encounter setting determines how a unit will act when it meets a unit from another realm.

• Murderous - the most dangerous setting there is: you will almost never want to use this. If your unit is set to murderous, they will be out for blood, and attack anyone not of your realm--even allies, if there are no enemies in the region to fight.
• Aggressive - when encountering troops of a realm neutral to yours, your men will attack them, unless there is someone they'd rather attack, or the neutral realm is fighting alongside a friend of your realm.
• Normal - your men are predisposed neither to attack nor defend, but will go with the flow, so to speak.
• Defensive - your men will prefer to be the defenders in battle, and when encountering neutral troops, will not attack unless someone allied to them is already attacking.
• Evasive - you will attempt to avoid combat altogether, though it may not work. Success depends upon the size of your unit as well as the number of troops you are trying to evade.

Unit designation indicates just what part of the army your unit is in. The various army types are as follows:

• Regular Army - just what it sounds like: regular. This is the baseline against which the others are measured.
• Sentries - meant for defense within your own realm. When on the defending side in combat, they get combat bonuses, and even higher bonuses when they are behind walls. However, they travel much more slowly than regular troops, and their morale will drop quite quickly if you take them outside your own realm.
• Vanguard - meant for swift travel. Their travel times are much lower than regular troops--but they cost more to keep, by about 20%.
• Police Force - a special setting, this allows your troops to aid the local police in rounding up suspicious characters. This has 2 uses: the most common is helping to decrease the independence rate in a certain region (which raises the Control stat you see on the region screen), and the other is making it easier to catch infiltrators attempting to do damage in the region. However, police forces aren't nearly as good in combat as regular troops.
• Mercenary - designed for fighting far from home. While regular troops will start to lose morale once you're a couple of days' march outside the realm, mercenaries are perfectly happy much further away. However, they demand 50% more pay, and they need it more often, too.

Unit deployment is very simple--it tells your unit which line of combat to deploy on. There are 4 lines: front, middle, back, and rearguard.

Battle formation is more complex. It gives your unit a shape to make, and each formation has different strengths and weaknesses.

• Line is the most basic formation. Your men form a line parallel to the line of battle. The other formations are judged relative to this. This is generally the most effective for archers.
• Box is good for defense with infantry. Your men come close together in a tight square, with some on the outside and others on the inside, where it is almost impossible for enemy infantry to hit them, but with long enough weapons, they can still attack out. This formation decreases the amount of damage your unit deals, but also decreases the amount of damage it takes.
• Wedge is a powerful attacking formation. Your men form a V-shape, with the point toward the enemy. This increases the amount of damage your unit deals and takes. It is especially effective for cavalry charges.
• Skirmish is a loose formation, designed to minimize damage from archers. However, it takes huge damage from melee combat.

Thus endeth the lesson.