陆战

Combat in Imperator occurs when two armies at war with each other are in the same city. The army first in the city is considered the defender, unless the other side has control over fortifications in the province.

Deployment

In Imperator, there is a Primary Frontline and a Secondary Frontline. The First Frontline will enter battle first, damaging the opposing side until its morale breaks or it suffers enough damage to be eliminated. The Secondary Frontline will then begin to move forward to become the new front. On the sides the units designated as Flank units will be deployed; these will first fight and kill the opposing flank if there is one, and then start targeting the center if they can.

In the army interface, you can select which unit type you want to be prioritized for First Frontline, Second Frontline and Flank. The preselected choices will depend on your Military Traditions but they can be changed freely by the player or the AI for each army. The size of the flank can also be set, either 2 cohorts, 5 cohorts or 10 cohorts.

Additionally some unit types deal or take more morale damage or more physical damage, making them more or less suited for each role. In most cases this means that there is effectively a first skirmish phase where the Primary Frontline of Archers or Light Infantry try to do as much damage as possible to the other side before their morale breaks and they retreat. They are then followed by the units of the Second Frontline, potentially composed of heavier units such as Heavy Infantry or/and Elephants.

The best units to deploy on the flanks are usually ones with a high maneuver value, such as Horse Archers, that would allow them to deal damage far into the center once they have defeated the opposing flank. However, it may be better to prioritize countering the opposing flank.

When there are not enough of the preferred unit type for a role the game will fill out with units in order of how high their build cost is.

Combat

Each day, each unit will fire on one target in front of them, or towards the side, if they have a high enough flanking ability. Damage is determined by adding up the dice with the combat modifiers from terrain and leaders, where a total of 0 or below gives 2% damage, and the maximum of 15 from terrain and dice gives 30% of damage.

Terrain

Crossing a river, or doing a naval landing, gives -1 to the attacker. Mountains gives +2 to the defender, while Hills, March and Forests gives +1 to the defender. Leaders impact combat as well, with the difference in martial giving a bonus to the one with the highest martial. Then the damage value is modified by the following before being applied to the target.

Combat tactics

For each army, exactly one tactic is chosen out of battle. Each tactic is strong (giving a bonus to damage) against two other tactics, and poor (giving a penalty to damage) against two more. The base effectiveness of a tactic is determined by the army's composition, with each matching unit type giving a bonus to effectiveness. A given tactic will be useless if the army has no cohorts that give a bonus to it.

The first five tactics are available to all countries, while the others are unlocked by military traditions.

	Tactic	Unit effectiveness	Against other tactics	Casualties	Description
	Shock Action	Heavy Cavalry: 100% Heavy Infantry: 100% War Elephants: 200%	Envelopment: +20% Padma Vyuha: +20% Bottleneck: −10% Phalanx: −20%	+10%	Sometimes, caution must be thrown to the wind - few foes can stand against a massed charge, though we must be wary of those that can field a staunch defense. This is the default tactic for any new unit.
	Envelopment	Camel Cavalry: 100% Chariots: 50% Heavy Cavalry: 50% Horse Archers: 50% Light Cavalry: 100%	Deception: +20% Phalanx: +20% Shock Action: −10% Padma Vyuha: −10%		Drawing forth an enemy counterattack, and then plunging into the side of their exposed formation can cause massive losses. Against an enemy who can quickly martial their men to multiple fronts however, increases the risk of this maneuver.
	Skirmishing	Archers: 50% Camel Cavalry: 25% Horse Archers: 25% Light Cavalry: 25% Light Infantry: 100%	Bottleneck: +20% Cavalry Skirmish: +20% Deception: −10% Triplex Acies: −10%	−25%	If the enemy exposes a series of flanks for us to harry, this maneuver will surely pay off. We should not employ this tactic against stalwart offensive lines, however.
	Deception	Camel Cavalry: 100% Chariots: 100% Horse Archers: 150% Light Cavalry: 150%	Skirmishing: +20% Triplex Acies: +20% Envelopment: −10% Hit-and-Run: −10%		A staggered assault can wear down an enemy's resolve faster than one might imagine, and allows us to respond to mobile threats with great ease. The greatest weakness of this tactic stems from our vulnerability to skirmishing behavior.
	Bottleneck	Archers: 50% Heavy Cavalry: 80% Heavy Infantry: 100% Light Infantry: 25%	Shock Action: +20% Hit-and-Run: +20% Skirmishing: −10% Cavalry Skirmish: −10%		Against a massed charge, nothing performs better than a solid defensive line. However, if the enemy is clever enough to pick us off one by one, we may encounter problems.
	Phalanx	War Elephants: 100% Heavy Infantry: 100% Light Cavalry: 75% Light Infantry: 75%	Shock Action: +25% Cavalry Skirmish: +25% Envelopment: −10% Triplex Acies: −10%	−10%	The Phalanx originated as a highly defensive method of formation fighting, used primarily by Greek city-states. It was further developed by the Macedonian military, who built their armies around a heavily armored Phalanx formation. Requires Greek war traditions, or Levantine and Arabien war tradition "Greek Warfare".
	Triplex Acies	Heavy Infantry: 100% Light Cavalry: 60% Light Infantry: 100%	Skirmishing: +25% Phalanx: +25% Deception: −10% Hit-and-Run: −10%		Like the Hellenistic Phalanx the Roman tactic formation known as the Triplex Acies, or triple lines, is inspired by the Phalanx of the Greek City states. Where the Macedonian or Hellenistic Phalanx has gone for cohesion the Roman Formation instead emphasized flexibility. Requires Latin war tradition "Triplex Acies".
	Cavalry Skirmish	Camel Cavalry: 50% Heavy Cavalry: 50% Horse Archers: 150% Light Cavalry: 150%	Bottleneck: +25% Padma Vyuha: +25% Skirmishing: −10% Phalanx: −10%	−10%	Ordering cavalry to harass and skirmish, rather than remain in formation, can often be used as a tool to deny an entire flank to hostile troops. Requires Greek war tradition "The Companion Cavalry", North African war tradition "Wild Charge", or Persian war tradition "Cavalry Skirmish".
	Padma Vyuha	Archers: 100% Chariots: 50% Heavy Infantry: 75% Light Cavalry: 50% War Elephants: 100%	Envelopment: +25% Hit-and-Run: +25% Shock Action: −10% Cavalry Skirmish: −10%	−10%	A highly complex defensive formation, the labyrinthine appearance of the Padma Vyuha is designed to confuse and misdirect foes while defending more vulnerable friendly troops at the core. Requires Mauryan war tradition "Padma Vyuha".
	Hit-and-Run	Archers: 50% Camel Cavalry: 50% Chariots: 50% Horse Archers: 100% Light Cavalry: 100% Light Infantry: 100%	Deception: +25% Triplex Acies: +25% Bottleneck: −10% Padma Vyuha: −10%	−10%	In the face of an overwhelming enemy an asymmetric approach can often be more successful than a head-on one. Ambushes, raids, and hit-and-run style tactics were common in ancient warfare, especially in Gaul, Germania, and Iberia Requires Barbarian war tradition "Ambush".

Unit Objectives

Unit objectives allow you to assign individual armies orders to act autonomously under the control of the AI. Unit objectives are a way to outsource the management of some armies to the AI, essentially using the same things that the AI itself uses to control its armies and navies. You can at any time select an objective for each army or navy under player control (or several units at once, in which case the objective applies separately to each one currently), which enables AI for said unit, making it automatically take actions almost as if it was controlled by an AI country.

Available Objectives

• No Objective: The unit remains idle unless ordered by the player. This is the default for players.
• Independent Operations: The unit acts independently, attacking enemy armies/navies, occupying enemy cities, etc. as it sees fit.
• Naval Landing: If there is at least one available and sufficiently large navy which has Naval Landing selected, ordering an army to move to a city that's accessible only by sea will make this navy pick up that army and ship it to that city.
• Defend Borders: The army will stay inside friendly borders, fighting enemy armies that enter and retaking occupied cities.
• Hunt Fleets: The navy will seek out enemy fleets and attempt to engage them.
• Fight Rebels: Army will focus on destroying rebel (slave revolt) armies and retaking rebel-occupied cities.
• Reconnaissance: Patrols across the country's borders or nearby seas reporting enemy movements.
• Keep in Reserve: The army will stay within the country's borders and actively avoid contact with the enemy unless superior.

Special Objectives

There are also many Unit Objectives that you cannot pick but that you may still encounter. Disloyal Generals will make use of a specific unit objective where they essentially do what they themselves want to. Making you unable to order them around or do things like send them to a certain death. Likewise Mercenaries that you do not pay will stop taking your orders and operate on their own.There is also special logic for Slave Revolts, where rebel stacks will seek out the closest rich city to attempt to loot and set free more of their kin.

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