Travel

Distance and Travel Time

In order to set travel to an adjacent region, go to the Travel link on the sidebar. There will be a list of links for all the regions you can travel to, the distance to that region, and an estimate of how long it will take. For example:

Neighbouring Regions

travel to...

Brahe (Keplerstan) 71 miles, ca. 7 hours

The distance will always be the same for a given two regions, but the estimated time will change depending on a number of factors:

Unit
- Size of unit
  - Organizing large groups of men can make travel difficult
- Type of unit
  - Cavalry travels faster than anything else
- Unit setting
  - Vanguard units are faster, because they leave much of their baggage behind
  - Sentry units are slower, because they're not obliged to be as efficient with their equipment
Paraphernalia
- Scouts will not affect estimated time, but will help you make better time on the road
- Carts will help transport wounded troops so that they don't slow you down
- Caravans can slow you down, especially if you have several of them
  - Remember: each caravan consists of multiple wagons. 10 Caravans could be a train of 100 wagons or more!
- Siege engines will slow your whole unit down considerably
Seasons
- Seasons will also affect travel time
  - It takes much longer to travel in winter.

In general, these slowdowns can be summarized simply: The more you're dragging around with you, the longer it will take to travel between regions. When travelling, you need to use whatever roads are available, and you need to keep the whole unit together. A group of ten men with a good scout can take shortcuts that an army of 50 men hauling siege engines wouldn't even consider.

Travel, as anyone who travels will attest, is also fraught with delays. In rare cases, natural "oops, an axle broke" or "darn, I had the map upside-down" delays usually don't cost more than an hour or so. Sometimes while travelling, everything will just plain go your way, and you'll make better time than you estimated -- which can be a blessing or a curse.

Then again, sometimes delays can be not so accidental...

How Travel Uses Hours

The hours will not be subtracted immediately when you give the order to travel to another region. Instead, your unit will be marked as "travelling". During this time, your activities will be curtailed -- your character will be on the road, and will be generally organizing that move. This means no visiting the bank, no visiting your aunt, and no popping into a local pub.

At the end of the turn, the unspent hours will be put toward the travel, including delays. If you left enough hours unspent, then you will arrive at your destination, and if you happen to still have hours left over, then they'll be carried over to the next turn, like normal.

Setting a Next Destination

If you know what region you are travelling to after you arrive, then you can go ahead and set it a turn in advance. Upon arriving in the region, you will immediately set out for the next region, and may even make a few hours' progress toward it. The downside to this is that if you have business in the region you are passing through, you may not simply cancel travel -- you will have to turn around and move back, which will take an hour of your time. The same is true if you desire to change destinations. Despite these disadvantages, there are two main benefits to this practice:

You know or strongly suspect that you will not be able to log in the next turn, and wish to make a movement that turn
In certain cases, you can shave turns off a long journey.

The second case bears some explaining. When you set movement ahead of time, then you can spend your hours very efficiently. In certain cases, this can result in arriving sooner than you would otherwise.

Note: Even if you have sufficient hours, you cannot travel through more than one region per turn. If you want to travel through a sequence of five regions, the best possible travel time is five turns, no matter how close together they are.

Multi-Turn Travel

Sometimes it will take multiple turns to travel between two regions, in which case you will spend one or more turns in between regions -- you'll be listed among the region's occupants, but you will not be able to take advantage of everything the region has to offer, such as banking and entertainment. You will also not be as free to scout when you are between regions.

At some point during an especially long travel time (such as between mountainous regions) your unit will be moved from one region to the next. This does not, by itself, mean that you have arrived, simply that you have passed the border.

Delay arrival

Sometimes it becomes necessary for the General of an army to order a "2-turn move". This tactic can help ensure that an Army makes it to a given destination together. Note that slow moving troops (burdened by wounded, certain types of Paraphernalia, as described above, or unknown causes) as well as some Infiltrator actions can significantly delay travel times for opponents, negating the relative effectiveness of the "2-turn move".

'Delay arrival' is an option available after you have started travelling, and will keep your troops from entering the region at the next turn. This is useful when coordinating for multi-turn travels to ensure that there is no early arrivals.

Misdirecting

Sometimes you only want to appear to be travelling, but you really want to stay where you are. This is known as a misdirection, and can be done once you've given the order to travel. Basically, you'll make all the preparations -- packing up the tents and gear, getting the horses saddled, etc. -- but you'll never actually go anywhere. Scouts visiting the region only take a cursory glance, so they can't tell the difference between this and real travel. (This cuts both ways: if your own realm mates appear to be travelling, then you won't be able to tell the difference either!)

Priest and Adventurer Travel

Priests and Adventurers work differently than the other classes in that they receive 1 hour per real-time hour (up to a maximum of 16). When travelling between regions, the travel occurs instantly if there are enough hours to do the travel. Freed from the turn-change, this does mean that Priests and Adventurers can travel through multiple regions within the space of a turn.