Glossary
The words used in this handbook.
Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Battle | A fight that opens in front of a city and runs until one side leaves the field. |
| Round | The unit of a battle: 10 real minutes. Everything in a round happens at once. |
| Round boundary | The moment between two rounds. Reinforcements join here; routs are confirmed here. |
| Attacker | The side that came from outside. It fights with what it brought. |
| Defender | The side fighting in its own city. It draws on that city's production. |
| Battlefield | The whole ground. Its width comes from the defending city's Town Hall, and it is fixed the moment the battle opens. |
| The line | Whoever fits on the ground and is actually fighting this round. |
| Front line | Where the heavy infantry stands. It shields the lanes behind it. |
| Ranged line | Where archers and slingers stand. Archers can shoot over walls; they all spend ammunition. |
| Flank | Where swordsmen, light infantry and cavalry go. Clearing the enemy flank lays open the ranged line and siege engines behind it; the support column stays out of reach. While a wall stands the defender's counts as behind it; the attacker's waits before it and takes the arrows after its front line. |
| Siege line | Where the engines stand. The only lane that can harm a wall. |
| Reserve | Troops waiting because they did not fit. They neither strike nor are struck. |
| Support reserve | Where the priest, physician and engineer are. It takes no frontage and nobody can reach it; if the army's last soldier falls, the camp is overrun and the support column goes with it. |
| Ammunition | Arrows, shot, bolts, stones. It is on the men's backs. |
| Supply | The rations and kit that keep an army operational on campaign. |
| Local logistics | What a defending city hands its garrison each round. |
| Morale | An army's will to stay in the fight. Not health. |
| Routing | A broken army leaving the field. It happens a round later. |
| Breach | A wall's integrity reaching nothing. Cover ends at the end of that round. |
| Wall integrity | What is left of the masonry. It never repairs itself during a battle. |
| Cover | How little of an arrow shot over the wall reaches the men behind it, while the wall stands. |
| Wall phase | The time the wall stands: no hand-to-hand fighting; only archers, shooting engines and wall-breakers do anything. |
| Foot of the wall | Where every siege engine strikes the wall while it stands; the archers on the battlements fire at it. |
| Damage | Wear carried by survivors. Not casualties yet. |
| Casualty | A soldier who fell in battle. The wounded a physician carried off are counted among them: they are the part of the losses that comes home. |
| Wounded | A soldier who fell but did not die, carried off the field by a physician. He fights no more in that battle. The attacker's wounded go home with the army if it leaves the field alive; the garrison's are already in their city. If the camp is overrun, the wounded are lost too. |
| Defence | How hard a unit is to kill. It deals no damage. |
| Attack | How hard a unit hits. Counted only while it is in the line. |
| Reinforcement | A fresh force joining a running battle. It brings its own ammunition. |
| Priest | A support unit that reduces what a bad round takes from morale. |
| Physician | The Iatros: a support unit that, each round, carries a share of that round's fallen off the field as wounded. He does not raise the dead or change how the battle goes. |
| Engineer | The Mechanikos: a support unit that, each round, hauls a share of that round's wrecked siege engines back to be mended. A hauled-back engine does not shoot again in that battle and goes home with its army. |
| Boarding | The time an army bound for another island spends getting aboard at its own city's War Harbour before it sets out. The army screen shows it as Boarding. There is no separate time for coming ashore. |
| Required transport ship | The fewest ships that carry an army across the sea. Counted automatically; it cannot be reduced. |
| Extra transport ship | A ship a raid adds to the required ones. It sails empty, and its whole hold is plunder space on the way home. |
| Raid | Taking what an army can carry from a city after a won attack. The army takes and leaves; the city does not become yours. |
| Plunder | The load coming home: goods, Gold and captives. It cannot be spent until the army is home. |
| Plunder priorities | The shares that say which plunder your army's carrying room should go to first. They set how your own room is divided, not what share of the target you take. There are three categories: Goods, Gold and Captives. |
| Goods | One category in a raid: wood, stone, marble, iron and grapes. They are not picked one by one; the goods share is split as evenly as possible between the goods the target can actually lose. |
| Carrying capacity | How much plunder can come home. On a raid across the sea it is what the surviving soldiers carry, plus the ship space the soldiers do not fill; on a raid on your own island the load carts and the hold of the transport galleys you take set it. |
| Captive | A civilian carried off in a raid. Once your army is home, the captive becomes an ordinary citizen of your city: pays tax and can be put to work. Soldiers are not taken captive, and the fallen are not turned into captives. |
| Warehouse protection | The stock the Warehouse protects. A raid never reaches it. |
| Loading spoils | The time an army that won a raid overseas spends loading the plunder and the survivors onto the ships on the enemy shore. The attacker's own War Harbour sets the pace. A raid on the same island has none. |
| White flag | The order to give up a battle. In the attacker's hands it lifts the siege; in the defender's it surrenders the city. It takes effect at the battle's next round. |
| Surrender | The defender's white flag. The garrison is neither destroyed nor routed; it stops fighting and stays in the city. The besieger gets what it came for; the city does not change hands. |
| Lifting the siege | The attacker's white flag. No plunder; the army regroups first, then goes back the way it came. |
| Regrouping | The time an army that gave up a siege, or whose occupation ended, spends breaking contact and forming a column. The army screen shows it as Regrouping; when it ends, the journey home begins. |
| Occupation | An army staying in a city after a won occupation campaign. Temporary military control: the city does not change hands, and its owner stays the same player. |
| Under occupation | A city still belonging to its owner while another player's army holds it. |
| Occupier | The player holding the city. The only one who can end the occupation by order. |
| Occupying | The state of the army holding a city. It cannot be given another task from the army screen; it leaves the city only on a sortie from the base. |
| Surrendered troops | The survivors of a garrison whose city surrendered. They belong to their owner and are in the city, but cannot be used while the occupation lasts. They are not dead, not routed, and not the occupier's. |
| End Occupation | The order the occupier gives. The occupation ends, the surrendered troops are released, and the occupying army regroups and sets out. |
| Uprising | The owner of an occupied city ordering the city's free troops to rise against the occupying force. Neither side has a wall. |
| Relief | An army sent from outside to an occupied city to throw the occupying force out. When it arrives somebody inside opens the gate: nobody uses the wall, and the city's free troops rise together with the relief. |
| Upkeep | The Gold an army costs every hour. How much depends on where the army is. |
| Campaign upkeep | The rate, higher than at home, paid by a force on military duty outside its city. The same on the road, at a siege, while regrouping and on the way back. |
| Occupation upkeep | The highest rate, paid by a force holding an enemy city. The only standing cost of an occupation. |
The figures come from the game's own content. Balance updates can move some numbers; the rules themselves are as written here.