Lasanar/Mentor Lessons/Game Basics
Where am I and what am I doing here?
Although there is a lot to be said about things like Medieval life and Republic politics, at the most basic level your character (a noble) is located in a region on the island of the Far East and can perform a certain number of actions each day.
On every island in BattleMaster except for the Colonies, each day is broken down into two, twelve-hour periods we (the players) refer to as 'turns.' Some important things to know about turns:
- Turns 'change' at 6AM and 6PM CET (the time in Germany, where the BattleMaster server is located).
- Each character has a 'time pool' that holds up to 12 hours in which your character can do things.
- Every turn, 8 hours are added to your time pool (up to the maximum of 12)
- Hours are spent by traveling from one region to another, by fighting battles, or by performing actions.
Regions and Travelling
Much of your time will be spent travelling across the Far East. Your character travels with his or her soldiers at all times, so the time it takes to get from one region to another can change depending on the number of soldiers you have and their troop type -- for example, travelling with 20 cavalry is considerably faster than travelling with 40 infantry.
Travel occurs at the turn change. To see how long it will take you to get from one region to the next, click on the 'Travel' button; you will see all neighbouring regions and the time it will take you to get there. There is also a 'routefinder', which will calculate the quickest path from where you are to where you want to go (optionally travelling through only allied lands).
For example, if you are travelling from the Rural region of Aanos to Lasanar's Capital city of Ozrat, the travel time is about four hours. Once you start travelling, you can't do anything else that turn except send out scouts to your destination -- so be sure you've done everything you want to do before you start to travel. You can 'turn around' (stop traveling) but it will cost you an hour.
Note: You can only move one region per turn, even if you have enough hours to continue on to the next region (as you can set both your current destination and the following one at once). When this happens, you will 'almost arrive' with only one hour left to travel before reaching your second destination -- but you will still be en route and unable to do anything in the stopover region.
Note: Travel can actually end up taking up to 3 hours more or less than the travel time indicates. To be fairly certain you will arrive on time, it's a good idea to leave an hour or two more available every turn than you need to get where you're going. For large-scale military operations where it's crucial that everyone arrive at the same time, always leave three hours more than you need.
Note: Some travel times are 12 hours or greater and can result in a 'two turn move.' If you have fewer hours available than the number required to complete travel, you will spend the following turn 'between regions' -- and there's not much you can do when you're between regions. This is sometimes unavoidable, and also sometimes done intentionally; if a large army is making a move that takes 12 hours, the possibility that it might actually take 15 (more than anyone has) means that half your army might not arrive -- not a good thing! When this happens, you can spend enough of yours hours doing something else (training, resting, or scouting, for example) until you have fewer than 9 (the fewest it could possibly take) and then initiate travel.
Travel times can be influenced by the following:
- The number of soldiers you have with you
- The type of soldiers you have with you
- The type of army you have (more on this later -- but 'vanguard' armies move more quickly than regular ones)
- Carrying siege engines will slow you down considerably
- Having several scouts (3 or 4 is usually a good number) can influence the likelihood that you will arrive sooner than anticipated.
- Enemy infiltrators (spies/assassins) can cause delays if they are present.
