7 Lessons for understanding the basics of the Game

As every mentor will know, you have to teach your pupils 7 main subjects. Here you can find my messages, in which I explain the 7 categories.

Lesson 1; "Recruitment and maintenance of units"

Now I will teach you the core of Battlemaster: How do I recruit a unit (and where)? How can I maintain the unit? When do I have to pay the unit? Which unit should I recruit? How many men should I recruit?

Well, here's how you recruit a unit (in short):

Step 1: Go to the capital of your realm. You can travel by clicking on "Travel" on the left side of your screen and carefully choosing your route, or use the routefinder.

HOW-TO check what is the capital of your realm: you need to access the "Information" of your character (hit "Play" next to your character on your family page - this is the page your get on when you logged in). Then check "Realm and Regions" and look for Capital. It should be on top of the page, along with the councilmembers.

Step 2: Once arrived in the capital, choose "Orders" on the left, and then "Recruit a unit" or "Add recruits".

Step 3: Check how much gold you have left (bottom left of your screen, under your character's name, next to the amount of hours you have left). If you have bonds, change them into hard cash (-> Actions -> Financial Actions -> Withdraw bonds; don't forget to choose how much you wish to withdraw).

Once you have hard cash, check the prices of the units. Expensive ones are most of the time better than the cheap ones, but they'll cost more to buy and to maintain.

Step 4: Select the blip in front of the unit you wish to recruit. Scroll down and enter a nice, medieval name at "Unit Name". Do not ridicule this name. Choose a serious name. I've seen people's accounts being locked for having offensive or stupid names. E.g.; do not call your unit "The Bazookas". It's not medieval.

Step 5: Under the "Unit Name" section, at "Number", please enter the wanted number of men you wish to recruit. Alas, if you want a unit 20 men strong, enter "20" (make sure you can pay them!).

Step 6: "Recruit!". Once you hit this one, you have recruited a unit and you can (once again) go to the battlefield!

So, now you know the basics of recruiting a unit. If you have any further questions, e.g. about how to cash bonds, please ask your mentor or a realm member.

Lesson 2; "Basic combat tactics and unit settings"

Once you have recruited a unit, you will need to use it on the battlefield, or use it as a police force to arrest peasants which oppose the rule of your realm. It's all about following orders right now (more about that in Lesson 4).

So what are combat tactics, unit settings, and how can I set them anyway?

Step 1: If you have a unit, you will get orders to do something with it, from just another player which character has the authority to give you orders. As such, you have to read orders very carefully and do what they tell you to do (well, sort of; check the inalienable rights.

Step 2: The General's orders mostly contain unit settings and movement orders. A short summary of the abbreviations used by people;

Inf= Infantry/Arch= Archers/ Cav= Cavalry/SF= Special Forces/MI= Mixed Infantry Agg= Aggressive/ Def= Defensive/ Mur = Murderous/ Ev= Evasive/Norm= Normal/...

An order can look like this:

"Move to [Region Name]. Unit settings;

Inf: Middle, defensive, line Arch: Back, normal, wedge Cav: Back, normal, wedge SF: own settings (-> if you recruit SF, you mostly are rich and experienced, and you know what to do. Also, SF have all different specialties. If you wish to know more, go to the wiki and look for SF). MI: Middle, defensive, line. (-> Mixed Infantry is a mixture of normal infantry and archers. Some find it very useful, I find them bad, but they are getting better)."

As such, you will check which unit you have and change your settings. If you do not set the right settings, you will look like a fool on the battlefield (and get shouted at, cause everyone can see what you did wrong.).

Step 3: You remember your unit settings and you go to "Orders" (left) and choose "Unit Settings". Everything will be obvious from there on. If not, please ask specifically what is not clear to you (if it's everything, that's no problem).

Now you also know how to change your unit settings. You might actually want to try out the fake order mention here above, when you are moving to a region. It's a good exercise.

Lesson 3; "Realm hierarchy, allegiance and oath"

You will now learn about realm hierarchy (who's more powerful than who, who has more rights than who), allegiances (who gives money to who, and what does it mean) and oaths (what is your oath with your liege?)

Like in every state, there are leaders and the rest. It is not different in Battlemaster. In realms, you have a council. The council are the leaders of the realm and decided what should happen (unless you have a despot of course, but they don't last long). In the council are always the Ruler, the General, the Judge and the Banker. In addition, in a republic, the Dukes are also in the council. It is possible that the Ruler created an extended council, under the form of a message group.

The Ruler: He/She is the leader of the realm. Always elected by all nobles, sometimes re-elected once every month. He/She has the highest power and deals with the foreign affairs of the realm (diplomats can do this too, however), as well as monitoring internal affair. He/She decides who we shall fight.

The General: He/She leads the army of the realm. You also have marshals, who lead smaller armies, but the General is in the overall command of the armies. You'll mostly get orders from the marshal of your army, rather than from the General.

The Judge: The "Sheriff" of the realm, deals with the jurisdiction. If you did something against the laws of the realm, the Judge will punish you.

The Banker: comparable with the Minister of Economy. Sets the tax rates (though with the current system, the lords can set their own rates) and deals with the food situation in the realm.

Make sure you read the bulletins of these people. That is; -> Information (under Local Information).

Don't be desperate. It might look much, but it isn't. I just make it look much. The game is easy, believe me. Even more; it's a really good game to play. Yes, there are no real graphics of dudes moving around, but the text and the contact with other players (+1000) really make it worth it. If you like Roleplay, this is the game-to-play!

Lesson 4; "Allegiances and oaths"

If you want to have money to buy a unit, you better get an oath. You should look for a lord who is willing to pay you some gold in exchange for your services. If you cannot find one yourself, or you are a bit lazy, you can contact the council too (just say you are new and they'll find one for you).

An oath is simple; You get for example 5% of a region's tax income (which can be 50 gold, for example) and in exchange you defend that region and you "work" for the Lord of the region. Not like serving his food, but like running your mansion there, making your servants help the local authorities and such. He will assign you to an army, where you will get a marshal (see next lesson).

An allegiance looks very much like an oath, but is used more to express the connection between regions. Your Lord can assign his region to a certain duchy (like e.g. Anfalas to the Duchy of Barad Gardor). This means that the Region you are knight of, the Lord of that region (at the same time your liege), and you, all the peasants and the army, are part of the duchy your region belongs to. This divides the realm a bit, but makes it easier to maintain it.

Lesson 5; "The military chain of command - armies, marshals, and the general".

Once you have been assigned to an army, the real fun can get started. You will now have to follow "Army Orders", given by the marshal of the army you belong to.

The Military Chain of command is different from realm to realm, but no matter where you are, the General is the overall leader of the army. He will send out orders that are most important. However, he will most likely send orders to the marshals, so they can send their orders to their armies.

Every Lord can create an army and assign his knights to that army, or to another army. You will most likely be assigned to an army in your realm that is fairly large . From there on, you take orders from the Marshal. You make sure you follow the orders whenever you can!

Lesson 6; "The inalienable rights"

READ THIS VERY CAREFULLY. The inalienable rights are your rights, and anyone breaking your rights will be punished by the Titans (GameMasters).

You can find the Inalienable rights on the wiki, clicking on the link I just gave you.

The inalienable rights are:

• Playing at your own speed, timing and activity level, i.e. logging in as often or seldom as you like, at whatever times you like.
• Choosing which type of unit to command
• Going to tournaments
• Pausing your character(s) because you have a real life to attend to
• Choosing your class (one exception, see wiki)

Lesson 7; "Out-of-Character"

I will explain the separation between each character, the separation between characters and players.

This game is built on roleplaying. Your character is a person you create and guide in his life, but it is (preferably) not yourself. You make it do things, say things, but you cannot abuse your own knowledge if you know your character doesn't possess it.

E.G. for mixing characters:

You are talking in realm A about an attack on realm B. You happen to be in realm B too. If you now just send a message in realm B about the orders given in realm A, you will have mixed your characters, which is considered cheating and will get you banned (from the game).

E.G. for mixing characters and players:

It is not because a character is rude to you in game, that you should get back on its player. There is a clear separation between player and character. One might look like a total dork in game, he can be the funniest guy you have ever seen in real life! So never take someone for what his character says.

Brief explanation of term;

Out-of-Character; You might have noticed that messages sometimes are sent with a light grey background. That is because these messages are sent Out-of-Character . The writer is not being his character at that moment, but just the player.

So be aware that there is a very clear separation between Out-of-Character and In-Character. Talking about "Merry Christmas" or you getting married with your real wife (in your real, not battlemaster-life), you are talking OOC (Out-of-Character).

I hope these lessons have been very useful to you. If you have any more questions, please ask them, no matter how dull they are. I'm sorry if my English might sound poor to you; I'm only 19 years old, and I'm Flemish (Dutch speaking Belgian). I'm doing my best.

Any remarks, please give them. Read the 7 lessons? You now know how to play Battlemaster, just the way everyone does.