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    Posted: 01 Mar 2010 at 08:43
ARMIES IN ILLYRIAD

First up, let's have a look at building troops - and forming an army.

BUILDING TROOPS & COMMANDERS

To build troops you will need:
  • a Barracks in your town,
  • the Military Technology necessary to unlock the unit you wish to build,
  • sufficient Equipment (spears, swords, armour etc) to build the unit
Troops also require pay - in the form of Gold taken hourly from your town's coffers, and different troop types require different amounts of pay. If you run out of Gold in your coffers and do not have positive gold income, you cannot support your troops. 

Those troops you cannot afford will disband and return to their homes, so be careful to make sure you have sufficient Gold income to support your troops.

TIP: You can generate more Gold in your town by changing the tax
rate
in the Castle's Taxation tab. Bear in mind you can only change tax
rate once per 24hrs, so be careful what you change it to!

The Taxation tab also shows you a summary of your current
Military upkeep, and also what the future upkeep cost will be
after you complete your current unit build orders.

To actually build troops, go to the Production tab in your barracks, and you will see a list of available troops, and some information about them.

Enter the number of troops you wish to build and press "Build" - this will debit your resource appropriately and start the production of these troops.


THE UNIT POOL
Troops you have built will stay in your town in a "Unit Pool".  This is a collection of all the units in your town that are not assigned to armies.

You can see the unit pool on the Military Overview page.

Military units in the Unit Pool will defend your town if attacked, but they will defend it better if under the leadership of an expert Commander!

COMMANDERS
To get troops to do anything other than wait in the unit pool at your town, they need to be led!  Commanders lead Army Divisions, which themselves contain troops. 

Commanders are also capable of giving additional bonuses to their troops, as well as being heros in their own right; with combat abilities worth dozens of normal soldiers.

Commanders are really, vitally important.  The leadership they can give the troops in their Division will make all the difference between glorious victory and ignominious defeat.

To turn a unit into a commander, you need the Command technology.  You may have one commander for each of the main Military upgrade technologies:
  • Militia,
  • Conscription,
  • Call To Arms,
  • Standing Army, and
  • Warcraft
To promote a Unit Pool unit to a commander, go to the Commanders page, choose the unit type you wish to promote to a commander, name your commander, and press "Promote".  You can always change your commander's name later.

TIP: Always promote the best unit you can currently create to Commander. Having said that: ANY Commander is better than NO Commander.

Once a commander has been created he is removed from the Unit Pool, and uses up one of your "Available Commander" slots - until he is dead.  You can then choose to resurrect him, or to promote a new unit to take his place. 

If you wish to free up a commander slot and start a new commander, you will need to kill-off your existing commander.  A solo mission directed at the highest ranked "Defense" score enemy player should do this nicely Smile

You can see your commander's abilities on the commanders screen by clicking the right-arrow next to his name.

COMMANDER HEALTH & REGENERATION

Commanders differ from troops in that they have health, which degrades during combat.  The damage a commander takes varies depending on the relative success or failure of the attack in which he was engaged.  Commanders can also take damage from Diplomatic Assassination attempts.

A commander that sinks to zero Health is dead, and will need to be replaced or resurrected (although there are technologies such as Defy Death that might allow your commanders a chance to scrape through surviving an unfavourable engagement).

Resurrecting commanders takes time and Gold - the amount of time and Gold increases with the experience level of the commander.  Keep your commanders as safe as possible!

Damaged (but still alive) commanders will also regenerate a small amount of health hourly, and the regeneration rate can be increased through researching Military technologies such as Accelerated Healing and assigning them as skills to your commander when you level him up.

COMMANDER EXPERIENCE & LEVELLING UP

Commanders differ from regular troops in that they gain experience with every combat (successful or otherwise) that they and opposing troops participate in.  The amount of experience they gain is dependent on the total Gold upkeep value of the enemy troops slain in the engagement.

Experience can be converted into Commander upgrades that either benefit him personally, or all of the troops under his command. 

It is your choice which command skill you choose to upgrade, but to level up a commander:
  • you must have researched the pre-requisite Command technology before you can upgrade that particular command skill,
  • your commander must be alive

TIP: You may only research ONE Command technology per level
of the Barracks in your town, so choose your upgrade path wisely!


The Command Skills which you can research and level up are divided into four main categories:
  • Offensive Tactics (Group Bonuses to all troops in Commander's Division)
    • Charge (Bonus to Cavalry Attack)
    • Close Quarter Penetration (Bonus to Spear Attack)
    • Bloodlust (Bonus to Swords attack)
    • Concentrated Fire (Bonus to Ranged attack)
  • Defensive Tactics (Group Bonuses to all troops in Commander's Division)
    • Square Formation  (Bonus to Defense against Cavalry)
    • Agile Defence (Bonus to Defense against Spears)
    • Interlocked Shields (Bonus to Defense against Swords)
    • Tortoise Formation (Bonus to Defense against Ranged weapons)
  • Discipline (Group Bonuses to all troops in Commander's Division)
    • Forced March (Bonus to Movement Speed)
    • Force of Will (Bonus to Magical resistance)
    • Military Logistics (Bonus to Troop Carrying Capacity)
  • Seasoning (Personal bonuses to the Commander himself)
    • Avoid Charge (Personal Defence against Cavalry attack)
    • Break Spear Wall (Personal Defence against Spear attack)
    • Sword Mastery (Personal Defence against Sword attack)
    • Cover (Personal Defence against Ranged attack)
    • Heroism (Personal Attack bonus: the type of bonus - Cavalry, Sword, Spear or Ranged - will  depend on the type of unit that the commander is)
    • Vitality (Greater maximum Health for the commander)
    • Accelerated Healing (Greater regeneration for damaged commanders)
    • Uncanny Sense (Increased chance of resisting Diplomatic Assassination attempts)
    • Defy Death (Chance of getting out of a mortal engagement by the skin of his teeth)
Each one of these skills may be levelled up a maximum of 10 times, and you can see what difference levelling up that particular skill will make on the Commander screen in the Barracks.

Now that we've learnt about commanders, let's move onto Creating Armies.


CREATING AN ARMY

Go to the Armies page, name your army and "Form" it. You can always change the Army's name later.

You will now need to name and create a Division in this Army.  You can always change the Division name later.

If you have an available Commander, you should now assign him to this Division by choosing him from the "Appoint Commander" drop down list, and pressing "Appoint".  Your army will be unable to move out of your city unless at least one division has a Commander attached to it.

You can now move troops from your Unit Pool to this Division.  They will immediately receive whatever bonuses the Commander is giving. 

You can also move troops out of Divisions and back into the Unit Pool.

TIP: Assign troops to a Division with a Commander that provides the
right bonuses!  Spearmen assigned to a Commander who gives Cavalry
Attack and Movement Speed bonuses does not make much sense -
unless you're defending, and have no other commanders available.


If you have multiple Commanders, you can assign them to multiple divisions.

How you distribute your armies, divisions, commanders and troops is entirely up to you - the only rule is that an Army must have a Division, and at least one division must be led by a commander.  Otherwise your army will refuse to move.

EXAMPLE ARMY STRUCTURE

Say I have 2 Commanders (Commander 1 and Commander 2), 30 Archers and 50 Spearmen.

I could structure my army like this:

  • ARMY 1
    • DIVISION 1 (led by Commander 1)
      • Archers x30
    • DIVISION 2 (led by Commander 2)
      • Spearmen x50
or like this:

  • ARMY 1
    • DIVISION 1 (led by Commander 1)
      • Archers x20
    • DIVISION 2 (no Commander)
      • Spearmen x20
  • ARMY 2
    • DIVISION 1 (led by Commander 2)
      • Archers x10 & Spearmen x20
  • Unit Pool (left at home)
      • Spearmen x10

or any other way I choose.

Once you've assembled your army, it's time to send it on the move!

MOVING ARMIES

There are 6 different movements you can order an army to perform. 

These are called Stratagems and most must be researched from the Military technology tree (you are always able to use the Attack stratagem).

CHOOSING A TARGET FOR YOUR ARMY'S ORDERS

You must select a target to move the army to.  You can choose a target:
  • either from the World Map by clicking on a location and selecting "Send Army", or
  • by typing information into the Orders page (such as a player name, or an X | Y location
Your list of available stratagems (orders) will change to what is appropriate for that particular target, and which strategems you have researched.  ie. If you select a friendly city, the option to reinforce will be there if you have researched Reinforcement, but not the option to attack etc

If you need to specify the amount of time to carry out this order (in the case of Blockade, Siege and Occupy strategems), this option will be offered to you. 

If you need to select a direction of attack on a square next to a town (in the case of Blockade and Siege) you will be prompted to do so.



MOVEMENT ORDERS (STRATAGEMS)

ATTACK
This strategem can only be applied to Enemy or Neutral locations. 

This is the default order, and means that your army will attack the location until one side or the other is victorious.  If the army has attacked a town, the surviving troops of a victorious attacker will carry away basic resources (Wood, Clay, Iron, Stone & Food) that they find outside the city.  Once the army has attacked, the survivors will return home.

RAID
This strategem can only be applied to Enemy or Neutral locations. 

Similar to attack, the raid order will attack the location and attempt to steal resources.  Unlike Attacking, Raiding only commits a portion of your troops to the actual raid.  This strategem is useful if you are unsure of your opponent's defensive power, and wish to preserve the main force of your army. One the army has raided, the survivors will return home.

REINFORCE
This strategem can only be applied to Friendly (or Neutral) towns, but definitely NOT enemies!

When you choose to Reinforce a town, your army will be added to the defensive power of that town.

You will need to specify in advance how long you wish your army to reinforce the location.  When the reinforcement timer runs down, your army will return home.

OCCUPY (HOLD POSITION)
This strategem can only be applied to map terrain squares without a town on them.  The purpose of occupying a square is to deny access to this square to a hostile force, and is especially useful when you are holding a square with extra resources on it that your caravans are gathering.

You will need to specify in advance how long you wish your army to Occupy the location.  When the Occupation timer runs down, your army will return home.

BLOCKADE

This strategem can only be applied to Enemy or Neutral towns, but definitely not friendlies!

When you target a town to blockade, you take up position outside the town, and hold this position - attempting to intercept incoming and outgoing trade caravans, and divert them to your own city.  The chance of intercepting a trade caravan is high, but can be reduced by the caravan's owner if they have researched some of the Blockade Running skills in the Trade technology tree and have a high level marketplace.

Bear in mind that your chance to intercept caravans applies to both outbound caravans leaving the blockaded city as well as any inbound caravans when they arrive at the blockaded city - including those from neutral third parties and/or friends.  Alliance friendships and confederations do not apply to caravans in a blockade circumstance, just as they don't in a resource harvesting/bump situation.

Intercepted caravans are severely damaged by the experience - they will head to the town of the intercepting player at a very slow pace, deliver their resources to the town, and then return back to the original owning town.  Once they return to their original owner's town, they are repaired and back under control of the original owner's town.

In order to take up a Blockade position at an enemy town, you must target the town you wish to Blockade and you will then be prompted to choose an unoccupied square next to the town - which is where your blockade will assemble, as well as how long you wish to blockade for. 

Please note you cannot set up a Blockade at another next-door town, or on impassable terrain tile such as a Volcano, Lake or Canyon.  This means that towns with natural defences surrounding them have limited angles of attack. Towns surrounded on all 8 sides by other towns are effectively invulnerable to blockade, and so an attacking force will have to attempt to capture or destroy the cities one by one to "blast a route through" to the target city.

Only one army may occupy a Blockade location at any one time, and in the event of multiple armies blockading the same city, only the first person to set up the blockade will have a chance to intercept the caravans.

You will need to specify in advance how long you wish your army to Blockade the city.  When the Blockade timer runs down, your army will return home.

SIEGE
Sieging a town is the ultimate projection of force, and is a stratagem that can only be used on Enemy or Neutral towns.

To siege a town you must set up a siege encampment outside the town (as in blockade, any available neighbouring square will suffice).

As in Blockading, you cannot set up a Siege encampment at another next-door town, or on impassable terrain such as Volcanos, Lakes or Canyons.  This means that towns with natural defences surrounding them have limited angles of attack.

Only one army may occupy a Siege encampment location at any one time, and you will need to specify in advance how long you wish your army to Siege a town.  When the Siege timer runs down, your army will return home.

From a Siege encampment you will be able to unleash the full fury of the Siege Equipment you have brought with you - either to destroy buildings with projectile weapons such as catapults and trebuchets, or to damage and destroy the town's city walls with Rams and Sappers, and thus make the city ripe for the taking.

Siege encampments gain strength the longer they are in place, and do more damage over time.

Once a town has been battered enough, the siege encampment can choose to storm it (or another army, sent from elsewhere, can choose to attempt to storm it).  Once a city has been taken it can either be captured or razed to the ground - in which case it disappears off the map, and the terrain returns to a state of nature.  Note that Capital cities are currently exempt from capture or razing - but can certainly have their buildings destroyed via the Siege mechanic.



FURTHER STRATAGEM OPTIONS
There are currently 2 other strategems that can be applied in addition to any of the main army orders, if you have researched them.

These are:
  • Feint
  • Covert Operations
Feint means that your army follows its orders, with every intention of carrying them out, but just before they engage they turn around and come home.  This is a very useful method of distracting an opponent, or - indeed - pretending to support an ally (Reinforce + Feint)...

Covert Operations means that your army follows its orders to the letter - but that your army's tribune does NOT report this particular military action to your Alliance comrades.  This means that it is possible to play both sides against the middle, if you are so inclined. 

If you are not in an Alliance, Covert Operations does not do anything.

Next Guide: 5. Combat


Edited by GM Luna - 03 Jul 2012 at 18:35
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