                             Concept : Land Units

NAME
   Land-units - How to use land units

Level: Basic

Land  units  are 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 auto-
matically to defend your country.  Let's look at a typical land unit:

   [##:##] Command : land *

      # unit type          x,y   a   eff mil frt  mu  fd tch retr xl ln carry
      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.

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 simi-
lar to that of ships, and is gotten with the "lcargo" command.

   [##:##] Command : lcargo *

   lnd# unit type     x,y    a   eff  sh gun pet irn dst bar oil lcm hcm rad
      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.

HQs & 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 in-
fantr1 would require 1 lcm and .5 hcms (Fractional amounts are randomly round-
ed... 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 sec-
tor. 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 "ver-
sion" command for exact maximums, as these are deity-settable) So,  for  exam-
ple,  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 effi-
ciency.

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 on-
ly use work from the airport.  Land  units  can  be  repaired  in  HQs  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 sec-
tor 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 vul-
nerability, 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 de-
termine how much damage it will do, along with the dam of the unit. When  fir-
ing  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 partici-
pates 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 com-
bat, 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 af-
fects 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,  ex-
tra-light  planes are SAMs, so units can carry SAMs for air-defense. This par-
ticular 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 ca-
pabilities.

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" com-
mand (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 as-
saulting 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 maxi-
mum 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  fortifi-
cation 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 engi-
neers 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 de-
fense 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 sec-
tor, and a friendly battleship was close enough to fire there, it  could  sup-
port  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 at-
tacker'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 dam-
age. (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.  Retreat-
ing 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 sec-
tor 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.

SEE ALSO
   Unit-types, show, supply, LandUnits

