When units are first built (by cities), summoned or hired, they appear as active (outlined in red) units. Summoned units appear on the map square of the wizard’s city that has his or her summoning circle. Hired units (including heroes) appear on the map square of the wizard’s enchanted fortress. Finally, units that were constructed within one of the wizard’s cities appear on the map square of the city in which they were built.
All active units may do one of the following (most options appear in the unit window on the right side of the main movement screen):
Active unit (stack) Individual units Movement options
• Move by clicking on an allowed destination map square or by hitting the keys on the numeric keypad. When units are moving over long distances, a “G” appears on their pictures. Right-clicking on a unit or stack that is traveling over a long distance reveals, with tiny boot symbols, the exact path over which it is traveling.
• Pass or decide not to move for a turn by clicking on the done button (the unit may be reactivated by right-clicking on it);
• Wait until other units have moved or other actions have been performed before deciding what to do (by clicking on the wait button);
• Patrol by clicking on the patrol button. Active units set to patrol remain in the current map square. While patrolling, units have an intrinsically higher Scouting ability (see Special Unit Abilities) which allows them to see one map square farther away than normal (usually, while active, only the best Scouting ability of all units in a stack is operative). Note that most units have an intrinsic Scouting ability to see one map square away and flying units can normally see two squares away; patrolling extends these scouting ranges to two and three, respectively. Patrolling units appear grayish and only become active again if you right-click on them to open up the unit window and then click on the unit you wish to activate.
Some units can perform special activities:
• Build roads: Engineers can build roads (click on build button). After selecting this option, click on the destination square for the road which you are building. A direct path is plotted (and a road built along this path) from the map square the engineers currently occupy to the destination square. To change the destination square while building a road, activate the engineers and click on a new target map square after hitting the build button. Roads are allowed to cross rivers but not oceans. Finally, roads require from two to six turns per square to complete, depending on the terrain type (see Building Roads). Multiple engineers working on the same road speed up this process. Engineers that are busy constructing roads show an “R” on their pictures.
• Purify: Priests and shamans can purify corrupted land (click on purify button), a process that takes ten unit-turns (for example, 2 priests could purify a square of corrupted land in 5 turns).
• Meld:magic spirits and guardian spirits can meld with nodes (click on meld button), sacrificing themselves to provide a channel that draws the magic power from the node and sends it to the controlling wizard. Nodes can be stolen from enemy wizards in this way as well. Note, however, that a node that was taken by a guardian spirit can only be stolen 25% of the time; the rest of the time, the spirit that is attempting to meld with the node dies.
• Build outposts: settlers can build outposts (click on build button) on map squares that are at least three map squares from any other city.
Unit Movement
Every game turn, you cycle through all active units (only patrolling units must be specifically activated). The map window centers on the active unit (outlined in red) and a unit window appears on the right side of the screen (in place of the upkeep summary window). You can center the map on the currently active unit by hitting C on your keyboard.
If you simply wish to move the active unit, you can click on an allowed destination square (a destination is allowed if a valid path can be found). If the destination is too far away to reach in one turn, the unit “remembers” where it is supposed to go. On subsequent turns, the unit continues to make its way to the destination square.
Note that you can examine a unit’s path by right-clicking on it after it has completed its movement for the game turn. You can then change the unit’s destination or path by clicking on new map squares. On the following turn, the unit (or stack) follows its new path.
Also note that a unit stops moving when its preset path would cause it to enter a map square occupied by an enemy city or unit. This allows you to decide whether you wish to alter your path, or stop and engage in combat by entering an enemy city or a square occupied by enemy troops.
Upon reaching the destination, if the unit (or stack) has any movement points left, it appears as one of that game turn’s active units (with the remaining movement points left to allocate). If the unit has no movement points left, it becomes active again during the following turn. If you wish to do something other than move an active unit, click on the appropriate button in the unit window.
Note that units can move in stacks of up to nine units. When they move in stacks, the unit with fewest and most limited movement points governs how far and over what terrain the entire stack can move (see Movement Modes).
Destination square Unit stack
If you wish to split a stack into smaller stacks (of one or more units), click on the individual unit pictures in the unit window until all the units you wish to move as one stack are highlighted and all the units you wish to leave out of the current stack are grayed out. Move the stack of highlighted units. Repeat this process for the units that you left behind by right-clicking on the remaining stack to activate it and proceeding from there (either splitting the remaining stack or moving the remaining stack as one).
You may also split a stack by waiting until the stack has stopped moving. Then right-click on the stack and all units with movement points left become activated. These units can then be moved away from the remaining units. This is a fast way to split a stack into smaller stacks by the speed of the individual units.
Special Unit Movement: Sailing
Triremes, galleys, warships, air ships and floating islands can carry other units over oceans. These “sailing units” may only travel over ocean squares (of course, air ships can travel over land as well as sea). When sailing units are next to land, they act as de facto land squares for purposes of loading and unloading troops. That is, nonflying units can walk on or off sailing units adjacent to a land square.
When a sailing unit moves away from a land mass, it carries on board the nonflying units stacked with it. These nonflying units are automatically placed “on patrol” inside the ship. This means that when the ship pulls up alongside another land mass, the “patrolling” units on the ship do not automatically activate. Instead, to activate a unit that was carried by a ship, right-click on the ship to open the unit window. Then click on the units you wish to activate. You can move these now- active units onto land.
Note that, when leaving a port, a departing ship automatically takes a number of patrolling units corresponding to its carrying capacity with it, chosen at random. So, be careful when you pull a ship out of port (a city). You might want to wake up any patrolling units in the city’s garrison that you want to keep there, so they do not accidentally set sail! One interesting point is that heroes do not count toward the carrying capacity of a vessel (feel free to add them to an already full ship, if you like).