II. The Military
Armies
Armies are your primary means of influence. Each nation has a distinct roster of military units. Mercenaries will also offer to sign up from time to time.
Army commands
There are six types of orders you can give an army.
A Roman Legion ordered to move along a road
 |
- Move: The move command tells an army or leader to move to a designated hex.
To give a move command, click on a unit. A red movement vector will
appear. Drag the vector along whatever path you want the unit to take.
This allows you to enter very complex movement commands if you wish.
A unit may be given a movement command which takes many days to execute.
In this case, a small red sphere will appear at each spot where the unit
would end a turn. This is advisable for ferrying units long distances
through undisputed territory, as you won't have to worry about entering
commands for these units each turn.
To edit an existing movement command, click on the terminating arrow head of the vector and drag it along whatever path you wish.
Once a move is set, you may optimize the path if you wish by
right-clicking on the unit and selecting "optimize path". This will
calculate the quickest route to your destination hex.
Clicking on a unit once will select the unit. This will turn its movement vector green so it can be easily distinguished from vectors of other units. Double-clicking on a unit will select it and clear it of all previous orders.
To facilitate movement orders over long distances, you may use the "Send
To" command, accessed by right clicking on a unit. This will give a list
of all cities which have been seen up to the current date, with the
approximate distance of each city in parenthesis. Selecting a city will
enter an optimized movement command to that city.
If a unit is involved in combat, its movement commands are erased and it
is rendered idle, thus meriting your immediate attention.
Carthaginan heavy cavalry wanders into the desert and is
intercepted by a Parthian horse archer and some
worthless peasant levies.
 |
- Intercept: An intercept command tells a unit to move towards
a designated enemy unit and engage it in combat if possible. The intercepting unit
will track its target until the target escapes the sighting range of the intercepting unit.
You may only attempt to intercept targets within your unit's sighting range at the beginning
of its turn.
Enter an intercept by holding the shift key and clicking on your unit.
This will cause a blue circle to appear. Drag the
circle to your chosen victim and drop it on him.
- Sentry (coming soon): A sentry army will stand still until it spots an enemy
unit. As soon as it sees a foe, it will ruthlessly smite it without
waiting for further orders. This is a good command to keep a
neighbour honest. Enter a sentry command by right-clicking on the unit
and choosing "Sentry". A sentry command will remain active until further
orders are given.
An army set to sentry duty has one added to its spotting range.
Sentries may be set for land or sea. If a land sentry sees a sea unit, it will not attempt to intercept, and vice versa. This prevents all your troops from rushing willy-nilly into the ocean everytime a ship goes by. Considering the strengths of troop transports vs. warships, you can see that this is behaviour best discouraged.
A sentry unit which attempts an intercept is allowed movement points equal to the percentage of movement remaining to the intercepted unit at the time of its sighting. That is, if an offending army enters the sentry's sighting range after completing 60% of it's move, the sentry is allowed to make 40% of its regular movement allowance to attempt to catch the invader.
A sentry army will not attempt to intercept a unit that already has another sentry attempting to intercept it. It will, instead, wait for another invader to appear, and attempt to intercept it. This prevents a single fast cavalry unit from "drawing off" all of a defender's sentries. Remember, the point of assigning sentries is not to win a victory in battle, but to prevent an invader from laying siege to a city during the critical first turn of an invasion. Once sentries have been activated, a player should always directly command the defence of his lands in following turns to drive the invader out.
- Guard: Armies with the guard command stay in their hex regardless of
enemy movement. The main reason you'd issue a guard order is to
garrison a city. If the unit was in sentry mode instead, it would rush out of the city to
attack a foe while leaving the city defenseless, which is generally
a bad idea. Guard commands are also good to use for armies in choke points, like bridges or mountain passes.
Armies with guard commands have one hex added to their spotting range.
Guard commands are maintained until further orders are given.
- Stay (coming soon): A "stay" command places an icon on the list control
indicating that the unit will stay in place for this turn only. This
is sometimes useful on the front lines, when you want to see what
develops before committing your forces.
In effect, this is a guard command which is cleared each turn. The reason we've included this command is because we don't want a unit in this
situation to appear idle when you review the units list. If it has a stay command,
you can ignore it and quickly finish entering commands. Also, a unit with a "stay" command will be skipped over when you hit the space bar to select the next idle unit.
Units with stay commands will appear as idle in the following turn. If you do not want your attention called to the unit in the next turn (i.e. it is far from any potential battle situation) use a guard command instead.
- Disband: A disband command will cause an army to leave your service. Since large armies are essential to any despot, you would probably only use this command when you were in the unfortunate situation of being no longer able to afford your troops' upkeep. You might also wish to use it in a war where you've achieved sea supremecy and wish to disband some expensive warships which are no longer being used.
Armies will not peacefully disband without provision for their retirement, however, and the more service they've given, the more gold they demand. Disbanding has a cost equal to the unit's upkeep value, multiplied by one for green units, two for regular units, three for veteran units, and four for elite units.
You may not disband an army if you can not pay its disbanding cost. This means that if you see yourself in a potential debt situation, and wish to avoid the rebellions which debts can accompany, you should plan to disband units a turn or two before you start operating in the red.
To disband an army, right-click on the army and select "disband". The cost of disbanding will appear in brackets next to the disband option in the menu. If you can not afford to disband, the disband option will be greyed out.
Naming armies
In addition to setting commands, right-clicking on an army will also allow you to access its properties. From here you can give individual names to each of your armies. Names are optional. When a unit is named it retains its title (e.g. "2nd Celtic Swordsmen") for ease of reference.
Leaders may not be renamed.
Idle units
Idle units are those which have no commands entered. In most situations you do not wish to end your turn while still having units. Idle units may be easily found by pressing the space bar. This will select the next idle unit on your list of armies.
Note: Currently there is a focus problem with the next idle unit command. It will only work if you have the Armies list selected in the list control and if you click on the map to give it focus. We'll fix this shortly.
A good way to enter military commands is to roam around the map, first entering all commands which you feel are critical to your strategy, and then start hitting the spacebar and entering commands to all idle units which are subsequently selected. When you get a popup announcing that there are no more idle units, you will know that all of your armies have commands and that you are ready to either end the turn or move on to another component of the game, such as espionage or diplomacy.
Leaders
Leaders are the individuals who command your armies. An experienced and skillful leader will usually mean the difference between triumph and defeat on the battlefield. Leaders are attracted by fame and represent the most capable and willful citizens of your empire. Unfortunately they have their own agendas. Keep close watch on your leaders. Many rulers have been toppled by ambitious generals.
Loyalty Ratings
Most types of leaders have loyalty ratings representing their attitude towards you. A leader with a high rating can generally be trusted to do your will. Those with low ratings may commit a multitude of treasonous acts, ranging from petty embezzlement to outright rebellion. Leaders have the ability to send their own email and sometimes offer information to your opponents. They may even offer to betray you at a critical battle if their price can be met.
Loyalty ratings of your leaders are not known to you. You can order spies to watch those you suspect, but be warned that heroes do not take kindly to having their honour questioned.
Types of Leaders
There are four types of leaders:
Captains
These are the minor commanders of your forces. They are the only type of leader which may be bought as regular units, though they can only be recruited at your capital. The other two classes of leaders, heroes and legends, arise spontaneously according to your fame.
Captains don't have loyalty ratings and may always be trusted. They are also the only type of hero which is not unique. That is, you may have as many captains as you can afford to buy and maintain and they don't have individual names. Captains don't make terribly effective generals, though.
Heroes
A heroic unwashed barbarian
 |
Each nation has a list of heroes associated with it. Heroes are unique, and when they die they are removed from the game. As individuals, they have their own motivations and thus have loyalty ratings. Heroes are much more effective commanders than captains.
In the beginning, you will only receive heroes from your own roster, but as events unfold you may be offered service by a hero of another nation. When heroes switch allegiance, their loyalty rating is reset to its original value.
Legends
Legends serve no one, but they may work with you for a while if they like you.
Legends are not associated with any particular nation. They are in a common pool, roaming the world and adventuring with any ruler who will offer them enough gold. These are the titans of the ancient world, adventurers who become the stuff of saga. As can be expected, such famed personages consider themselves the equal of any king and will betray their employer without remorse if they feel provoked.
Rulers
There's more to the ruling of realm than eating figs, drinking wine, and plotting the deaths of your enemies. You wouldn't have survived your family quarrels and ascended to the throne if you didn't have at least a rudimentary understanding of the arts of battlefield tactics and troop inspiration. If worst comes to worst you can personally lead your troops into battle. Usually your skills are best reserved for the defense of the capital, but if you're feeling especially glorious and foolhardy you can venture to the front and show your generals a thing or two.
One obvious point: if you die, you're out of the game. A wise ruler lets others do his dirty work for him.
There are four types of rulers in Fortunes of War:
- The Conquering Hero
- The Craven Survivor
- The Ruthless Thug
- The Resorceful Weasel
The type of ruler each nation has in a given scenario is decided by the scenario designer. The attributes for these four archetypes are given in the appendix.
Leader commands
Attached and detached leaders
The most important thing to understand about leader commands is the difference between attached and detached leaders.
An "attached" leader is one that has been assigned to a particular army. When the leader is attached, the leader moves with that army, at that army's movement rate. You do not have to worry about assigning movement and intercept commands to attached leaders. You simply move the army as if the leader wasn't even there.
Leaders should always be attached, except when you're reassigning them to other armies, or if a battlefront is lost and you want to pull all your leaders back as quickly as possible. Attaching leaders has two benefits. One, it makes the process of entering commands easier, so there is less chance that you'll make a mistake and leave a leader stranded. Two, it ensures that a leader always has the protection of his troops. Unescorted leaders usually wind up captured or killed rather quickly.
To toggle between attached and detached states, right click on the leader on the main map and select "attach" or "detach" from the leader's menu.
The commands you may give leaders are:
- Move: Attached leaders simply move with the army they're assigned to. They do not need their own leader commands. Detached leaders may be given seperate move commands similar to armies. The only difference between an army's movement and an unattached leader's movement is that the leader's movement vector is purple instead of red.
- Intercept: Attached leaders fight with their armies and do not need intercept commands. Detached leaders may be given their own intercept command. Their intercept vector is purple rather than blue.
The only time you'll want to give an detached leader an intercept command is if you encounter another unescorted leader and wish your leader to engage the other leader in leader vs. leader combat.
- Attach / Detach: Use these commands to toggle the attachment of a leader to an army. Once detached, a leader may immediately be given his own movement or intercept commands.
Recruiting armies and captains
Right-clicking on a city will give you a menu listing the types of units that city can produce and their costs. To buy a unit, select it from the list. The unit will appear on a marble background which can be dragged and dropped into any legal production hex, which is defined as any hex within or adjacent to the city producing the unit. The new unit will appear next turn on the hex you've selected.
If all legal production hexes are filled, the unit will be greyed out on the recruiting list.
You may only buy one unit per city per turn.
Note: If a city is filled with armies, right clicking will give you the army commands menu instead of the the city menu. In this situation, you'll see that you can reach the city menu by using the "city menu" option at the top of the army menu.
You may also access the city menu directly by right-clicking while pressing the shift key. This is a little faster than using the city submenu on the army menu.
There are two situations in which units available are restricted:
- A city under siege will only allow purchase of armies of a lower caste than that of the city. That is, a besieged capital will only allow the production of city caste and village caste units, and a besieged city can only produce village caste units. Besieged villages may produce no units. For more information on castes, see the castes subsection of the economic section of the manual.
Armies which are not available due to siege will be greyed out in the city's purchasing menu.
- Conquered capitals may only produce city and village caste units of the conquered nation. It is not possible to ever produce capital caste units of conquered nations.
Note that captains are the only types of leaders which may be purchased, and they may only be purchased at your capital. Heroes and legends come around on their own time, and are only attracted to fame.
Be aware that all units have an ongoing upkeep cost as well as their initial price. Running out of money will have disastrous consequences.
Next section: Combat