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Posted on Sep 6, 2006 in Games PR

PR: Caesar IV Game Information

Armchair General

Military Structures:

To create and employ a military force the player must build a number of military structures.

The required military buildings are:

– Forts – this is where soldiers live, but is not a home per se.

  • There are four types of forts, each corresponding to a cohort type. The player chooses his troop types by selecting the corresponding fort to build.
  • One fort provides housing for one cohort. When the fort is built, the cohort is given both a name and a battle standard (displayed on the fort when the cohort is there)
  • Does not store goods other than food.
  • Does not need road access – quartermasters can go cross country

– Armory – the armory functions as a repository for military equipment

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  • Staffed by plebs.
  • Weapons and armor are obtained by its retrievers, who are dispatched to a factory, warehouse or depot to procure these items.
  • Soldiers must have available equipment before they can immigrate and move into a fort. The new soldier reserves a weapon (and armor, if needed) when it is created.
  • Depending on the type of cohort, immigrating soldiers pick up either a weapon or a weapon and armor on their way to their fort.

– Mess Hall – the mess hall stores food set aside for the army

  • Staffed by plebs.
  • Similar to food shops and retrievers acquire food from all the same sources as shops (granaries, depots, harvesting buildings).
  • Can acquire all types of food and only serves the military.
  • Additional military structures

– Drill Yard – a large training structure that allows soldiers to train for experience bonuses.

  • Staffed by equites.
  • Can accommodate one cohort at a time for training.
  • Actual visitation, not access, is used to determine training benefits.
  • All military structures have very large desirability penalties (set in the Buildings table), so the player is strongly encouraged to situate them outside the city proper.

Cohorts

The Cohort

Players can create and control four types of Cohorts:

– Light Infantry – requires weapon only
– Heavy Infantry – requires weapon and armor
– Auxilia – requires weapon only
– Cavalry Auxilia – requires weapon and armor
Enemy units are not constrained to the four types of player cohorts above, and may include

  • Siege units
  • Barbarian hordes
  • Raiders (weaker than other cohorts, with limited behaviors – no siege or scaling of walls)

Cohort UI and Feedback

Every cohort has a “battle standard”.
– It’s a themed, but unique, flag that identifies, distinguishes and provides some info about a cohort. Clicking on the battle standard is the same as clicking on any other figure in the cohort, i.e. it selects the cohort. This standard is created whenever a new cohort is created, and uses coloration and icons to provide distinguishing variations.
– For player cohorts, the standard also displays the cohort’s battle experience.
Regular: simple bronze ball cap
Seasoned: silver eagle cap
Elite: gold eagle with a laurel wreath
– The battle standard is carried by a flag bearer.
The flag bearer is a unit that moves as a part of the cohort but is not considered part of the cohort for any combat purposes, nor counted in the max figures.

Morale

The morale of a cohort is based on a number of factors, and affects both the cohort’s combat effectiveness and its willingness to fight.

  • A cohort’s current morale is its base morale minus any penalties accrued from the following:
  • Insufficient food: See Cohort Upkeep below.
  • Battle Casualties: See Battle Casualties below.
  • Time spent in the Fort allows a unit to recover from morale penalties.
  • Time spent recovering in the fort and being fed will recover morale.

Cohort Upkeep

Feeding the Army
– Occupied forts send quartermasters to the Mess Hall to obtain food for the cohort.
Quartermasters function as retrievers for the military, but are a separate figure from ordinary pleb retrievers.

Recruiting soldiers

A fort is the destination for soldiers migrating onto the map. Soldiers do not migrate from existing civilian populations on the map. Soldiers are their own social class.
– Note that this is referred to as recruitment rather than migration in game, but is essentially identical to the migration systems.
Replacements for loses or desertions follow the same recruitment rules as for new soldiers.
The replacement soldiers require new weapons and armor as appropriate to their cohort type, since lost or deserting soldiers take their equipment.

Cohort Experience

Training at drill yards and fighting in battles can earn experience bonuses for cohorts that improve their combat capabilities.
At the end of a visit, a cohort returns ‘home’ to its fort for a time similar to citizen workers at the end of a work day.
Training can be interrupted if a player chooses to deploy the cohort on the city level or dispatch it for Empire Level orders/requests.
– Training is kept track of in increments of weeks, but is displayed to the player in months.
– Experienced is earned based on the total amount of time the cohort has spent training.
Cohorts that have spent at least 24 weeks training at a drill yard gain a 25% bonus to hit points (defense) and are described as ‘trained’.
Cohorts that have spent at least 48 weeks training at a drill yard gain a 50% bonus to hit points (defense) which supersedes the 6 month bonus. These cohorts are described as ‘expert’.

Fighting in battles

– For each invasion event in which the cohort inflicts damage on an enemy unit, the cohort is considered to have fought one battle.
– Cohorts that have fought 1 or fewer battles are referred to as ‘regular troops’.
– Cohorts that have fought in at least 2 battles are referred to as ‘seasoned troops’.
Successfully returning from being dispatched for an order or request counts as one battle for all surviving cohorts.
Units that are both expert and seasoned are considered ‘elite’
– Elite cohorts gain an additional 25% bonus to attack and hit points (defense), and a 25 point bonus to base morale.
All experience bonuses are retained by a unit that suffers losses, so long as the cohort has at least one surviving member. There is no need to re-acquire bonuses when the cohort replenishes its losses.

Basic Controls

Cohorts are the only figures in the game directly controllable by the player. The basic control paradigm is left click to select, right click to set a destination or target. (Standard RTS Controls)

Selection

  • Clicking any figure in a cohort selects the entire cohort
  • Clicking the cohort’s standard/standard bearer selects the entire cohort
  • Clicking the figure tracking window when a cohort’s fort is selected selects the entire cohort
  • Double-clicking the figure tracking window of a fort selects the cohort and centers the camera over the cohort.
  • When the cohort is in the fort, pressing the ‘Deploy’ button on a fort’s selected object panel selects the cohort and moves the cohort to one of the fort’s gates.
  • – When the cohort is not in the fort, the button changes to an ‘order cohort home’ button.
  • Pressing a cohort’s hot-key selects the cohort. Pressing the hot-key a second time centers the camera on the cohort. (Hot-key groups can be set for cohorts by ctrl-# )

City Defenders

Some non-cohort player units can also be involved in combat. They are not true cohorts and generally operate independently of one another.

  • These units are not directly controllable by the player.
  • These units do not move to seek out opponents, but rather react to nearby enemies.
  • Gladiators and Praefects – in addition to their other roles, these units also defend the city by attacking enemy figures that come within their engagement range. Both are gladiators and praefects are considered melee units.
  • Wall defenders – ranged units spawned by towers that patrol sections of wall.
  • Fortifications function differently and are defined individually.

Buying off the Enemy

Buying off the Enemy – many, but not all, enemies can be bought off with large cash payments. This ends the current invasion, but does not necessarily preclude the return of the enemy at a later time.

Enemy Forces on the City Level

Enemy forces can have different strategic goals, set by Invasion Type in the editor. This generally defines the level of destruction the enemy seeks to inflict before departing, and restricts which goal types are available to their cohorts.
– Raiding – the enemies only seek to steal goods; destruction is incidental.
– Pillaging – the enemies seek to steal goods and destroy outlying property.
– Pre-emption – the enemies seek to reduce or destroy the player’s military forces, but they do not seek control of the city.
– Conquest – the enemies seek total domination of the city; destruction is one aim in this.
Caesar – Caesar does not seek to destroy any civilian buildings, but does break through fortifications as needed. ): If the player has prolonged low favor, then Caesar sends forces to remove him from power.
– Caesar’s forces seek to remove the player’s military forces by destroying all forts that currently have manned cohorts.
– In addition, Caesar’s forces seek to occupy the governor’s mansion (as above in Conquest).
If Caesar’s forces have met the military requirement (above), then occupying the governor’s mansion causes the player to lose the game and ends the scenario.
If the player does not have a governor’s mansion, then simply removing the player’s forts is sufficient to trigger the loss.

Walls

Placed by dragging the mouse from one tile to another (similar to road placement)
– Can be placed diagonally, as well as in the 4 cardinal directions.
Walls can be scaled by some types of cohorts.

Towers

Towers can only be placed on existing wall sections.
Towers require road access for staffing. Banner messages inform the player of this if they place a tower that is not adjacent to a road.
Towers intermittently shoot missiles from ballista at enemy cohorts within range
Staffed towers also generate defenders for nearby sections of wall.
– Whenever a defender is killed during the course of an invasion, that number is subtracted from the total number of defenders that tower can generate until the current invasion is ended.
– Towers employ plebs

Gatehouses

Gatehouses are passable for all player units, but not for enemies.
Gatehouses intermittently shoot missiles at enemies within range.
– This range is set much shorter than that of a tower
Gatehouses employ plebs.

Siege Cohorts

Siege cohorts (catapults and the like) are a special type of enemy cohort that exists purely for defeating fortifications.
Only some enemies have these cohorts. Raiders are never accompanied by siege cohorts.
Players do not have these types of cohorts, as the player never tactically assaults enemy fortifications.

Scaling Walls

Some types of enemy units are able to scale walls
– This is generally done by infantry (as opposed to cavalry or siege units)
When searching for a wall section to scale, cohorts continue to attempt to avoid tower missile fire and give preference to areas free from tower coverage.