This section contains answers to commonly asked gameplay questions. It does not specifically replace the manual. The manual explains the basic interface, concepts and abilities. To be honest, even if you do not have the manual it is possible to learn most of the game's features from a combination of the tutorials and the readme file on the CD.

You can in multiplayer/skirmish mode. There is only one campaign, which is based on Romans. There are a few opportunities during the campaign to use or train non-Roman troops, however there are no missions that use entirely non-Roman forces.

Difficulty influences the size and makeup of your initial forces. For example, the first non-tutorial mission, Crossing the River Arar (see below), includes two units of Auxiliary Infantry and three Legionaries on "easy", one less Auxiliary Infantry on "Normal", and one less unit of Legionaries on "Hard". The enemy generally has additional units on harder settings. RogueImpaler notes: "Enemy villages will produce lots more troops on hard also." Less obviously, on harder settings the enemy's AI (Artificial Intelligence) is better. Centurion, on harder difficulties: "The AI was employing better tactics such as flanking my archers by moving through woods, but the blatant change was that I had less troops starting and there seemed to be more enemy troops. I thought arrows from enemy archers/mounted archers inflicted a little more damage."

Yes. Such a list may be found in section 3.2 of the game's readme.htm file.

The camera height can be changed _slightly_ by altering the slider found under game options. This can also be achieved by rolling the mouse wheel or pressing Page-Up/Page-Down. The map cannot be rotated. It is not clear why the developers decided to lock the camera. [This is because the objects on the map were not designed to be viewed from the back. ~TAFN]

No, although you can pause single player games by pressing Esc to bring up the game menu.

Select the required units, assign a group by pressing CRTL+1-9, then 1-9 to recall the group, and 1-9 again to jump to them. Snowden adds: "You can add units to an already existing group by selecting the new troops, then holding shift and pressing the number of your existing group and finally once again assign a group number. It is possible to have troops belong to several groups. To activate this you need to go to the Game Options panel and click the 'Troops in Multiple Groups' button."

The width of individual units cannot be changed, except by changing the facing or (for certain units) adopting a special formation. Facing can be changed by selecting the unit, then either: (1) right clicking at the destination, holding down with the mouse and moving it in the direction desired to face, or (2) by selecting the 'facing' icon from actions menu in the bottom right of the screen, and then clicking at a point you wish the unit to face. Multiple units can be set into a formation of variable width. Gaius Julius writes: "After you've selected your troops, right-click where you want them to go; don't let go of the right mouse button yet, then either use the mouse's scroll wheel to set the width of the formation, or you can use the Page up, or Page down buttons on the keyboard." There is no direct way of ensuring certain units take certain positions in the formation. However, Shamaani writes: "In order to get spearmen in the front, standard army corps in the middle, and archer behind I do like this: Select army corps and set them to 'Defend' the pikemen. Select archers and set them to 'Defend' the army corps. For moving the whole army, just move the pikemen." Alternatively assign groups to different sets of units and order them separately.

New squads can be trained using a village or barracks. Sometimes during campaign missions additional reinforcements will join your army during the mission. Injured troops can be healed with a healer such as a Physician. The Physician can be ordered to heal a specific unit. Alternatively units within the Physician's area of influence will slowly be healed. Where an existing squad is missing men, squads can be joined. Select the units to be joined and press the join button (or J). For example, two half-strength (15 man) legions can be joined to form one full strength (30 man) legion. No one squad can ever exceed full strength.

Villages must first be captured by destroying any existing garrison, building your own garrison next to the village using infantry, and then assigning a commander (Centurion or similar) to recruit at the village. Barracks have fixed ownership and cannot be captured, only destroyed. Barracks do not require a commander. Barracks are only ever found inside fortresses. Both barracks and villages can be destroyed. Destroyed villages or barracks cannot be rebuilt or captured; they are permanently removed from the map for the rest of the mission.

Both villages and barracks function in the same way: Assuming you have completed the steps above, left-click on the building, then select units to train from the menu in the bottom-right of the screen. Up to seven units may be queued for training. Training will automatically stop if there is insufficient population, honour points or unit control points (see below).

You don't. Instead commanders are promoted from other units. Select a unit and then press Promote on the actions menu in the bottom right of the screen. A small tent will appear momentarily. One member of the unit will become a level 0 commander and the remainder of the unit will be unchanged. The civilization of the commander is determined by the civilization of the promoted unit. For example, if you want a Chieftain rather than a Centurion, you must promote a Barbarian unit (in most circumstances you will only control one civilization, and so will not have this choice). Prior combat experience or unit type is not transferred to the promoted unit: There is no advantage to promoting battle-hardened Praetorians instead of Auxiliary Infantry. Commanders instead gain experience from combat within their area of influence. Any regular or special unit can be promoted. Characters, single man units such as scouts, and siege engines cannot be promoted.

There is a limit to the number of commanders you may promote. This limit is not entirely understood. It seems that you may have one commander per 1-100 troops. For example if you have 30 troops, one commander; 190 troops, two commanders; 210 troops three commanders. You may never have more than five commanders in total. There are some oddities, particularly in campaign missions where this may not hold true. For example, certain named character commanders may not count towards the five-commander limit. If you are already at the limit and additional commanders join your army, you automatically keep all the commanders and exceed the limit.

Overall army size is limited by Unit Control Points (UCPs) and Troop Control Points (TCPs). These are specified by the mission and cannot be changed.

Typically UCPs range from 500 to 1000, TCPs from 50 to 75. To display the current values, press and hold down Shift to show the Battle Status Panel. Gaius Julius adds: "If you enabled it in the 'Game Options' section, it should be visible on screen." Unit Control Points refer to the total number of men you may command, so a unit of Legionaries might count as 30 men, a scout as one man. Troop Control Points refer to the total number of units that may be commanded as separate entities (yes I know that sounds the wrong way round), for example a unit of Legionaries counts as one TCP, as does a scout. Commanders, healers and scouts are exceptions to this rule. Commanders are described above (see How do I train a Centurion or commanding officer? above). Healers are restricted to two. Scouts are restricted to five. These levels can sometimes be exceeded during the campaign when additional troops join your army. For example, if the UCP limit is 500, your starting army accounts for 400, and 200 points worth of reinforcements join you, you can still keep the total 600 points worth. You will not however be able to train any new units at a village or barracks until the total drops below 500.

The village or barracks recruiting the unit must have the pre-requisite population available. Most villages grow population slowly over time, although there are occasional campaign reports of villages where population does not re-grow. Any honour point requirement must be met (see How do I gain Honour points? below). There must be enough space remaining in your army for the units (see What limits the number of units? and What are Unit and Troop Control Points? above). Full troop requirements are shown in the Unit Training appendix. Not all units are immediately available in the campaign. This varies by mission and is listed at the start of the walkthrough for each mission. Generally, special units are not freely available until later in the campaign. The only mission where absolutely every unit from every civilization is available is the final mission, Just One... More... Fight (see below).

Honour Points (or "Honor Points" for Americans) are required in order to recruit certain units types, notably cavalry (1 point per unit) and special units (2 points per unit). Honour points are gained from battle. They accumulate slowly as your troops gain experience from fighting. The precise relationship between combat experience and honour points is unknown. Gaius Julius notes: "The number of HPs you accumulate varies by troop type." The current honour point total is displayed on the Battle Status Panel (press and hold down Shift). Gaius Julius continues: "You'll see an icon of a star with a wreath around it, next to it you'll see a number. This number is the number of HP's you have. To the right of this you'll see a bar, when it fills up completely, you've earned another HP."

Written by timski