Info: Land-Units

Level
Basic

Land Units
Land units are organized collections of mil (militia). They are considerably more organized collections of mil (militia). They are considerably more effective and cost-efficient than militia, and have many extra abilities. With  the  addition of land units, mil are now more or less considered to be militia instead of military, and are less important.

The way that military are incorporated into units are that the mil are load-able commodities of the unit. The offensive or defensive commands  for land units are generally similar to those of planes/ships, and will usually start with 'l'.

Land unit characteristics
Land units have some characteristics of both ships and planes, plus  some unique  ones. Like both ships & planes, they have efficiency & mobility. Like ships, they can carry cargo, and may be able to fire guns at distant  targets. Like planes, they have attack and defense values, and may be able to act automatically to defend your country. Let's look at a typical land unit: [##:##] Command : land *

0 inf   infantry     8,0       96% 100   0  93   1  50  42%  0  0 1 unit This land unit is an infantry unit, located at 8,0. In many  games,  you  will start  with 1-2 basic land units of this type. Some of the things about it are familiar. It is 96% efficient, has 93 mobility units, carries 1 food,  and  is tech  50  and  currently  contains 100 mi. It carries 0 extra-light planes and land units, and is not on a ship. The 'a' stands for army, and  is  just  like fleets  or wings, i.e. a way of grouping your units. (See Info: army for more information) Frt is the level of fortification of the land  unit. The  higher the fortification, the harder the unit is to hurt.
 * 1) unit type          x,y   a   eff mil frt  mu  fd tch retr xl ln carry

The  'retr'  stands  for retreat percentage. This land unit must begin rolling morale checks in combat whenever its efficiency goes below 75%. This  is  user settable  in  a  range  determined by the happiness of the owning country. The happier your people are, the more determinedly they fight. If,  on  the  other hand,  you "want" the unit to retreat easily, you can set this to 100% or some other high number. (For information on setting this, see  Info: morale.  For information on morale checks, see Info: Attacking)

Cargo
Each land unit can carry cargo. The cargo display for land units is very similar to that of ships, and is gotten with the "lcargo" command. [##:##] Command : lcargo *

0 infantry      8,0        96%   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0 1 unit The land unit is not carrying anything. Potentially, land units can carry  any of the commodities listed above. Unlike ships, they cannot carry mil, civs, or uw's. Land units are loaded and unloaded using the lload command, which  works pretty much like the load command for ships. (See Info: lload) Units on ships can transfer supplies to/from the ships with the "ltend" command.
 * 1) unit type     x,y    a   eff  sh gun pet irn dst bar oil lcm hcm rad

HQ's & Building land units
Like planes and ships, land units are  built  in  special  sectors. For  land units,  the  sector  is  the  headquarters  sectors, designation !. Like other units, they may require hcms and lcms, and will generally require money.

Some land units may require guns to build. All this info can be gotten  with the "show" command. [##:##] Command : show land build

lcm hcm guns avail tech  $ inf   infantry             10   5    0    40    0  $500 The  infantry  unit  takes  a  total of 10 lcms, 5 hcms, and  0 guns to build. Like ships and planes, units are built at a lower percentage, and 'grow' up to 100%,  and  any  unit  with an efficiency of less than the build percentage is dead. For land units, this minimum efficiency is 10%. The build  requirements for  land  units,  like  those  listed  above,  are for a 100% unit. Thus, the infantry would require 1 lcm and .5  hcms  (Fractional  amounts  are  randomly rounded...  i.e.  .5 has a 50% chance of being 1 or 0. It'll all even out over time)

When 'growing', land units require materials which must be present in the sector. The  amount of growth is calculated in the same fashion as planes/ships. Generally a land unit can grow by up to 2x the ETUs per update. (See the "version"  command  for exact maximums, as these are deity-settable) So, for example, in a 32 ETU game, a land unit could possibly grow by 64% per update. For the  infantry  unit shown above, this would require 6.4 lcms and 3.2 hcms. If any of these things aren't present in the sector, the unit  won't  gain  efficiency.

Repair of Land units
Ships  can  repair themselves in any sector, and can use work from their crew, or from a harbor they are in. Planes can only be  repaired  in  airports,  and only  use  work  from  the  airport. Land units can be repaired in HQ's or in fortresses, and use the work of the HQ or fort. This  means  that  front-line units in forts will repair themselves each update, assuming that the necessary materials and work are available. They can also gain efficiency in other  sector types, but at a much reduced efficiency (1/3rd normal gain)

Land unit statistics
Each  land  unit  has certain vital statistics which show how it will operate. These are obtainable from the show command: [##:##] Command : show land statistics

s  v  s  r  f  a  d  a  a  x p  i  p  a  r  c  a  m  a  p att def vul  d  s  y  d  g  c  m  m  f  l infantry                  1.0 1.5  60 23 15  2  1  0  0  0  0  0  0 The infantry unit has an attack multiplier of 1.0, and defensive multiplier of 1.5. It  has a vulnerability rating of 60, a speed of 23, a visibility of 15, spy value of 2, reaction radius maximum of 1, no firing range, no accuracy, no firing damage,  uses  no  ammo,  has  no aa fire, and can't carry extra-light planes.

When attacking, a unit's value is expressed in 'mil-equivalents', i.e. 1  mil-eq  is  as  strong as 1 mil. To find a unit's attack value, find the number of mil currently in it, and multiply by the attack multiplier and efficiency. In the   case  of our  infantry  unit  the  unit  has  an  attack  value  of  96 (100*1.0*.96), and a defense value  of  144  (100*1.5.96). Some  units,  like tanks,  will  have  high  attack  multipliers, and medium defense multipliers. Some, like most infantry, will be better at defending  than  attacking. Some, like artillery units, will be bad at both.

As  time  goes  on, and your tech increases, the stats of your land units will get better. This reflects the technological breakthroughs you  have  made  in that you can now build better units of the same type.

The  vulnerability  of  a  unit  determines how easy it is to hurt the unit by shelling it, bombing it, or when it encounters land mines. The lower the  vulnerability, the better. Values range from 1-100.
 * Spd  is  the relative speed of the land unit. Land units move by marching (see Info: march), and use mob depending on their speed and the terrain  they  are moving through. For more info and formulas, see Info: march.
 * Vis  is  the  visibility  of  the unit. This is a measure of how easy it is to see/detect the unit. Lower is harder to see, and the numbers  can  range  from 1-100  or so. When a land unit tries to use the "llookout" command to look for enemy land units/planes, its chances of success are  affected  by  the  target units' visibility (see Info: llookout for more details).
 * Spy is the other side of the equation, i.e. how well can the unit find things? A unit with a low spy won't be very good at locating other units, and won't be able to report much when it encounters them in battle. A high-spy unit will be able to use the "llookout" command with more chance of success,  and  will  be able  to  more  accurately  report information about the units it runs into in battle. (See Info: Attacking  for  information  about  intelligence  reports)

Units  with  radar capacity also use their spy value to determine how far they can see. Spy values range from 0-127, with low numbers being most common.

Don't confuse this spy value with the "spy" capability of a unit. See  Info: Spies for more information.
 * Rad is the maximum reaction radius for the unit.
 * Frg  is the unit's firing range. The unit can fire as far as the frg, modified by the unit's tech. Accuracy is the  unit's  firing accuracy,  and  helps  to determine  how  much  damage  it will do, along with the dam of the unit. When firing at sectors, damage is based  solely  on  the  damage.  When  firing  in defense  of a sector, or firing at ships, damage is based on both acc and dam. (See Info: fire for more information)
 * Ammo is the number of shells a land unit uses every time it fires or  participates  in  combat. If the unit does not have enough shells when firing, damage will be reduced proportionately. If a unit does not have enough shells in combat,  it will be out of supply, and have its combat strength cut in half. (See Info: supply and Info: Attacking  for  information on  supply  and  how  it affects combat)
 * Aaf  is  the  unit's  anti-aircraft fire value. The higher the value, the more damage the unit will do to planes flying overhead.
 * Xpl is the number of extra-light planes the unit can carry. Planes can operate from  a  land  unit  in  the  same fashion as if it were a carrier.  Normally, extra-light planes are SAMs, so units can carry  SAMs  for  air-defense.  This particular unit can't carry any.

Land unit capabilities
There  are  many  different capabilities that land units may have. They may be seen with the show command: [##:##] Command : show land capability

capabilities infantry                  5f light assault The command shows the cargos the unit can carry (5 food in this case), and its abilities. See  Info: Unit-types  for a complete description of the various capabilities.

Moving
Land units move with the "march" command, which is  pretty  identical  to  the navigate command. Marching units can run into land-mines, be interdicted, etc. See Info: march for more information. See Info: mission for  information  on interdiction.

Units & ships
Each  type  of  ship  is rated on the number of land units it can carry. Land units that are 'light' can be loaded onto ships using the normal  "load"  command  (see  Info: load). Units that also have the 'assault' ability (see Info: show and Info: Unit-types for explanations of abilities)  can  be  used  in assaulting sectors. (See Info: assault)

Supply
Units need supplies in order to attack. See Info: supply.

Fortification
Land  units  are  able  to  "fortify" themselves to better resist damage. Each point of mobility spent increases the fortification level by 1, up to a  maximum equal to the maximum mobility of a land unit. A fully fortified unit takes one half the normal amount of damage. Fortification  is  lost  when  the  unit moves  or retreats. (Note that a reacting defending unit "can" have a fortification value. This is an abstraction) Read Info: fortify for more details.

Looking
Land units can use "llookout" to look around. This command is analogous to the look  command  used  by ships. When llooking, land units have a chance to spot other land units and also planes. Recon units tend to have better spy  values, and so are better at this. (See Info: show and info "Unit-types" to find out more about recon units)

Radar
Some units can use the "lradar" command. This command  works  like  the  radar command. Radar range is determined by the unit's spy value. (See Info: show and Info: Unit-types to find out more about radar units)

Engineers
Some land units have the 'engineering' ability. These  units  can  do  several things. Engineers  are  the  only units that can lay land-mines, and the only units that can sweep them when moving (like a  minesweeper). Attacking engineers  also halve the defender's mine bonus. Engineers can also use the "work" command, which allows them to raise sector efficiency. (See Info: work)  They also tend to be quite expensive.

Attacking & defending
Info:  Attacking has a complete treatment of this, but I will summarize here. When you decide to attack a sector, you can use mil and  units  from  adjacent sectors. The attack value of your forces is the combined attack values of all attacking land units, plus the number of mil coming in from adjacent sectors.

The defense value is equal to the  mil  in  the  defending  sector,  plus  the defense values of any defending units in the sector, as well as any that react and move there.

Friendly ships/forts/artillery units/planes can contribute "support". Support starts  at  1.0. Each  friendly ship/fort/artillery unit/ plane that can help adds its damage/100 to the support. For example, if you were attacking a sector,  and  a friendly battleship was close enough to fire there, it could support you. If it would normally do 23% damage when firing, it  would  add  +.23 support, making your support number 1.23. The enemy also gets support from all his stuff.

When all support is totaled,  the  attacker  strength  is  multiplied  by  the attacker's  support  to  get the total attacker strength. The defender's total strength is determined similarly. Both sides have their strength  modified  by the  terrain. (show sector stats will show the defensive value of a sector) He can also get support by having mine-fields in the sector (see Info: lmine and Info:  Attacking  for more information). Planes support only if assigned to a support mission. See Info: mission for information on support missions.

Combat is done fairly normally, with a series of rolls for attacker/  defender casualties,  until  one side is dead or retreats. Land units take damage after all mil on their side are dead, and each 'hit' on a land unit does 1 mil  damage. (Therefore, a unit that takes 100 mil to build would take 1% damage when it suffers a casualty. A unit that takes 50 mil would take  2%,  etc)  When  a land unit's level of damage taken in a battle reaches it's 'retreat level', it must begin taking morale checks. When it fails one, it will retreat. Retreating attacking units go back to the sector they came from. Defending units will attempt to retreat to an adjacent owned sector. If there are  none, the unit will take extra damage and continue fighting.

If the attacker wins, he captures the sector, and his mil/units will move into the sector if he ordered that. If the defender wins a combat, his units in the sector  stay  there. His  reacting defending units that did not fail a morale check return to their starting point. Defending units who started in the  sector stay in the sector.

In both cases, retreated units end up in the sector they retreated to.

Units and retreating
Ships can use the "retreat" command to specify when and how they will run away from trouble. Land units use a similar  command  "lretreat"  to  do  the  same thing. See Info: lretreat for more details.