At the start of a battle, cohorts from both armies deploy on the battlefield. Deployment may also happen during the battle when cohorts retreat or new armies join the battle (often referred as reinforcement).
Deployment for naval battles work exactly same as for land battles.
Key elements
- Unit types: Some unit types prefer deploying on the flanks instead of the mainfront. Recruit cost and maneuver affect priority for deployment.
- Cohort preferences: These change the default priorities which allows customizing the deployment.
- Preferred size of flank: This sets size of the flanks which affects how many flanking cohorts get deployed.
Default priorities
Each unit type belongs to one of these groups: main front, flanks or support. By default, these groups are:
| Group | Top priority | Medium priority | Low priority | Criteria |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main front | War Elephants | Heavy Cavalry, Heavy Infantry | Archers, Chariots, Light Infantry | Recruit cost |
| Flanks | Horse Archers | Camel Cavalry | Light Cavalry | Maneuver |
| Support | Supply Trains |
The criteria is based on values before reductions. For example reducing cost of Chariots won't lower their priority.
Priority for an individual cohort further depends on its manpower/strength and location on the cohort listing of an army.
Cohort preferences
Default priorities can be customized by selecting preferred cohorts. This leads to following priorities for the main front:
- Selected primary cohorts
- Selected secondary cohorts
- Main front group (ordered by cost)
- Selected flanking cohorts
- Flanks group (ordered by maneuver)
Flanks have following priorities:
- Selected flanking cohorts
- Flanks group (ordered by cost)
- Selected primary cohorts
- Selected secondary cohorts
- Main front group (ordered by maneuver)
Support cohorts are deployed only when no other cohorts are available.
Preferred size of flank
The size of the frontline (combat width) is 30 slots. Flank size can be set to be 2, 5 or 10 slots which leaves 26, 20 or 10 slots for the main front.
The preferred size of flank only matters when nearly filling the combat width. With low amount of cohorts all cohorts will deploy the same way regardless of this setting because flanking cohorts will be just placed on the main front.
On medium sized battles selecting the correct flank size may reduce losses or even make you win the battle. Too low flank size deploys flanking cohorts too far away from enemy so they won't be able to attack the enemy until some cohorts retreat and make space on the frontline. Similarly too high flank size puts flanking cohorts on front of the enemy cohorts (which of course could be intended).
Reinforcement
Deploying during the battle causes cohorts to lose 5% of their max morale. This excludes cohorts selected as the secondary cohorts.
Multiple armies
Each army in the battle deploys independently using their own preferences. Even when an army joins an ongoing battle, the instantly deployed cohorts don't count as reinforcements so they don't suffer the 5% morale penalty. Instead they may suffer a 10% morale penalty (after 4 rounds when a retreat is possible).
After that the cohorts deploy as reinforcements, and may suffer the 5% morale penalty.
When multiple armies arrive at the same time, the order of their deployment can be seen by selecting those armies. The army on top of the list deploys first, then the next one and so on.
Examples
Proper usage of preferred size of flank
20 Light Infantry and 10 Camel Cavalry versus 10 Heavy Infantry. The preferred size of flank is 5 (default value). This causes Camel Cavalry to deploy at edges of the battlefield which prevents them from attacking enemy Heavy Infantry. The attacker still wins but will take heavy losses.
The situation can be greatly improved by setting the preferred size of flank to 10. This reduces average length of the battle by ~35%, morale losses by ~35% and manpower losses by ~45%.
Multiple armies
Two armies of 5 Heavy Infantry and 5 Light Infantry versus one army of 10 Heavy Infantry and 10 Light Infantry. The defending army deploys normally, 10 Heavy Infantry at center surrounded by Light Infantry (5 on each side).
The attacking armies deploy independently. The first army deploys with 5 Heavy Infantry at center surrounded by 5 Light Infantry. Then the second army deploys causing 5 Heavy Infantry to surround the Light Infantry from the first army and then 5 Light Infantry surround the Heavy Infantry.
Micromanagement
The deployment can be fully micromanaged by using multiple armies. 5 Archers and 5 Heavy Infantry versus 3 Heavy Cavalry, 5 Horse Archers and 2 Light Cavalry. There is only 35% chance to win (reduced to 20% if Archers deploy first).
However with multiple armies 3 Heavy Infantry can be deployed against enemy Heavy Cavalry, then 5 Archers against enemy Horse Archers and finally 2 remaining Heavy Infantry against enemy Light Cavalry. This boosts win chance to 55%.