Battles Basics covers two major concepts. i) Battle Lines and ii) Battle Plans.

Battle Lines is an interesting feature that can often be neglected by players.
Usually if you have more than four units of infantry, it will be splitted to two lines,
which is called two battles lines.



Each battle line is indicated by colored frame, the first line with yellow frame and second line with red frame.(The third one's frame is blue and the fourth one is green). The maximum battle lines player can have is four lines.



From the above, you can see one stack is splitted into three battle lines. In the first line, I deployed archers, the second line halberd and the third line is my general's bodyguard. In hex, it shows the same result as the unit card at the bottom of screen.

Then how many units can be deployed in one battle line? It depends on the unit width. As infantry, one baltte line can only have four units. However, for cavalry, since its unit widith is much smaller than infantry, we can deploy five units in one battle line. You can see from the pic below that the first line of cavalry has five units.



Why battle lines concept is so important? Because it will affect the battle plan execution that I will elaborate in the battle plan part.

When you click the battle plan button, it shows eight battle plans. The default one is the first one, "assault", followed by "charge", "harrass", "outflank", "ambush", " defend", "support" and "withdraw".
Then we need to bring up the battle line concept because some battle plans require form the battle line first, and then take plan action while some other battle plans do not require to form the battle lines.

These battle plans can be categorized by "offensive plan" and "defensive plan".
Offensive plans: attack, charge, harass and outflank.
Defensive plans: ambush, defend, support and withdraw.

1. Attack Attack plan requires to form the battle line first. So your unit would advance to form the line, and after all the units in the same battle line are in the position, they will advance again to engage the enemy. If half of the front rank has missiles or the battle line has more missiles than the enemy, the attack plan will be delayed(not so eager to engage).

2. Charge This plan does not require to form the battle line first. Instead, the units will immediately engage the enemy by melee attack. So if the enemy has reinforcements, you may use this plan trying to defeat the target first and then turn around to engage the incoming reinforcements. Or to disrupt the enmey while they are still on the way to form the battle plan. Charge suffers small amount of defense penalty against missile and melee attack.

3. Harass This plan does not require the form the battle line either. Horse archers, chariots and archers will skirmish away from the threatening enemy.
This plan is useful for missile armed cavalry to wear down the enmey with missile fire, or to send infantry missile units forward to shoot up the enemy while forming up, or to counter enemy doing the same, or to prevent units in small adjacent stacks from being integrated into the battle line and disrupt the unit arrangement.

4. Outflank This plan does not require to form the battle line first either. You can use this plan if you are outnumbering the enemy then take adavantage to outflank them.


5. Ambush Ambush plan is only effective in forest terrain. In other terrain, it will be treated as 'support' or 'harrass'.
If all units are using ambush plan in the forest terrain, they will stay hidden until enemy stack comes adjacent to it. And also the stack will remain hidden and battle not triggered until an opportunity arises to attack the enemy in flank or rear adjacently. When ambushing unit reveal themselves, the battle plan is changed to attack or harass.

6. Defend Form up the battle line first and waiting for enemy's attack. Hold the position and only attack(or advance) when enemy is very close, receiving small bonus against melee or missile attacks.
The defend plan is useful when there is terrain to defend. Units at high ground receiving bonus defending against uphilling enemy. Also defending plan can also prolong the missile shooting time since archers do not advance but hold the ground and shoot. When you have multi-battle lines in one stack, defend plan may keep certain battle line out of battle when others are issue 'attack' orders or so.

7. Support Forming up the battle line first. Chariot, cavalry with missiles and archers can skirmsh away from the enemy provided that they have nearby friendly unit to retreat behind.
So this plan is useful for archers to place them in the front battle line to let them shoot and retreat while enemy getting close.

8. Withdraw Just like the name of plan. Unit try to avoid engaging with the enemy. However, keep in mind that you need rearguard to let your intended retreating unit to withdraw successfully. Otherwise it has large possibility to be caught by the enemy.

When engaging the enemy in open field, players not only need to check the opponent's army type but also to examine the terrain around. If the players have the friendly units nearby to work as the reinforcement, they also need to consider whether these reinforcement could arrive in time or not.


I set my archers in the front battle line to support battle plans, in order to soften the incoming enemy. My second battle line are my halberds are in assault battle plan to engage the enemy not too slowly because they don't have shields, but they won't too eagerly to engage because my front battle line is actually defensive. I sent my general's bodygurad in 'defend' battle plan then they will try to avoid engage with the enemy but only when enemy is too close. I don't want to risk my general since their number is small and easy to get overwhelmed.

One thing I need to point out is that the battle line either has 'offensive' feature or 'defensive' feature according the battle plan. A line is offensive if at least one unit has the offensive plan and the line is defensive if all battle plans are defensive.

For example,

Here, I have one stack with two battle lines. And you can see, for the front battle line, I set one with 'assault' battle plan and the other two with 'defend' battle plan. Will it work as intended that one unit will assault towards the enemy and the rest two are holding the ground? Surely not. Since they are in the same battle line and one has offensive plan, the whole battle line will be offensive. So the front battle line will all advance towards enemy.

The basic logic behind the siege is to successuflly reach the settlement center. The settlement without the wall has four free entrances to reach the center. However, it the settlement has the wall, first things first is to breach the wall.
1. wooden palisade: can be breached by fire arrows or better equipment.

2. rammed earth wall: You can still use the fire arrow to light the gates. Once the gate is on fire, that means you gained access. If there is no garrsion, you can reach the settlement center with no problem. If there is garrsion, you need to defeat the garrsion unit to reach the center.

However, fire arrow cannot break the wall, which means the maximum entrances to break through is only four! That is not efficient because the city could be easily defended by only four units. Certainly more breach on wall, less time consumed to do the meatgrind at the gates. So we need siege engine. Whirlwind or anything better could effectively crush the rammed earth wall to let you have more entrances.

3. high rammed earth wall: More sturdy than rammed earth wall. You need better engine but the logic is the same as the above.

Two things I have to mention is you have to pay attention to.
First, you need to pay attention to your siege engine's effective. Yes, that thin yellow bar. When effectiveness is depleted, you may still find the siege engine throwing projectiles to the city. But finally you will find you can't breach the wall and taking centuries to capture the city. That is because the effectiveness. The projectiles either land at the gate, which may already be fire or they fall into the center of the city, which has no effect. So, in this situation, give your engine some rest or get fresh siege unit to replace them.
Second point is on the efficiency of city capture. You breach unit, either archers or siege engines will try to break the closest possible entrance first, gate or wall. Then archers will walk around the city to make another breach while siege engines will get a new piece of wall to destroy. However, walking cosumes time. Queuing the target consumes time too. And time is limited during the battle resolution! Why not let severl breach units start working at different positions.

The Above, I placed my units on one side of city. To tell you the result, it is very hard and almost impossible to capture the targe.

And if you split your units and place them at two possible breach entrances, it will be more efficient.
Of course, the more units surrounding the city, the target will be easy to fall. But usually your have limit resournces. Try to split them and then attack. For sure, if you see enemy has reinforcements to relieve the siege, defeat them first and then continue your siege.

At last, the priority of attacking unit you want to use for meatgrind at the breach can be set by the battle plans.
Charge has the highest priority. Units with this battle plan will head for the breach first. Attack has the second priority. If you set some units in Defence battle plan, they will try to avoid participating the battle.