Military Groups and the Art of War in Alamaze

[Maximus Dominus]

Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but I am trying to learn. So, let's take this in installments, in the from of Chapters. Don't assume that I know anything, at all. In a nutshell, in the shortest form, explain to me, if you will and if you can, how to prepare for war - but do it in the form of listing specific order numbers, and explaining how to fill them out. Let us start with Patrols.

In order to be successful at playing Alamaze,this includes knowing how to initiate and prosecute military campaigns of war.

CHAPTER ONE - PATROLS

How do I activate a patrol? Is it Order #702? I can assign leaders and wizards to it, right? Even level zero wizards?

Patrols are used for what? Just scouting? Patrols are beneficial, why? Because a patrol military group can move further than a non-patrol military group? And this is useful, in that it lets you cover more ground in a given turn?

[Maximus Dominus]

Even still, despite today's most recent efforts, I can't seem to raise troops nor train troops.

CHAPTER TWO - RAISING AND TRAINING TROOPS

So, it seems a very basic thing, but my orders that pertain to the military, other than being able to move a military group around (as in, to engage in Land Movement to search for population centers), I'm just having no luck on the military end of things of Alamaze. Frustrating isn't even the word for it. It leaves my kingdoms feeling hopeless, helpless, and falling behind.

Separate from this, while I was browsing the forum's old sections (yesterday, I think that it was), am I correct in recalling that I saw that players, at times, attack their own population centers? Is this how veterans of Alamaze play the game? Is attacking yourself how you advance in Alamaze? Say it ain't so, Sal.

[Jon Deaux]

A patrol is any group that has no brigades in it.  You can create one by either eliminating brigades or transferring a wizard or leader or both to an inactive group.

You cannot attack you own PC, however, you can make it neutral then attack it.  The reason is to train brigades without attacking your neighbors.  Another reason is to recruit out your towns faster, concentrating regional census into one or two key PCs, making it easier to maintain control when you are under attack.

You can recruit from your PC 3x, but the PC declares its neutrality after the third, so you just attack it next turn and rinse repeat, accomplishing two things at once, recruiting and training.

You can also build a PC specifically to attack.  For instance, attacking a normal town or city might not be enough to train a large group, so you build a fortress on one of your towns, recruit x3 (or impose additional tax) then attack it.

I wrote a whole article somewhere on the wisdom of not attacking a neighbor until you are sure you can eliminate him.  Attacking your own PCs is the only way to prepare your brigades without alerting the neighbors.  Not exactly a flavorful option, but I have yet to hear better ones.

[Wookie Panz]

Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but I am trying to learn. So, let's take this in installments, in the from of Chapters. Don't assume that I know anything, at all. In a nutshell, in the shortest form, explain to me, if you will and if you can, how to prepare for war - but do it in the form of listing specific order numbers, and explaining how to fill them out. Let us start with Patrols.

In order to be successful at playing Alamaze,this includes knowing how to initiate and prosecute military campaigns of war.

CHAPTER ONE - PATROLS

How do I activate a patrol? Is it Order #702? I can assign leaders and wizards to it, right? Even level zero wizards?

Patrols are used for what? Just scouting? Patrols are beneficial, why? Because a patrol military group can move further than a non-patrol military group? And this is useful, in that it lets you cover more ground in a given turn?

I'll take a crack at this Max but hey, don't forget this is a freeby and I don't claim it's all inclusive or entirely accurate.

1.  What is a patrol?  Any group without troops is a patrol.  It can be a single wizard or military leader of any level or as many as 3 of each, wizards and military figures, which I will call officers for lack of a better word.

2.  How do you make a patrol?  At start or turn zero every player has three groups with troops and leaders in them.  Also from 1-3 inactive groups depending on the kingdom you are playing.  The usual way to get a patrol is to transfer someone into an inactive group, order 699.  Or you could transfer all of the troops into an inactive group and then the group they came from becomes a patrol because it is now a group without troops.
   There are other options and they involve the turn sequence.  In my opinion the turn processing sequence is the life's blood of Alamaze.  Understand it and impossible becomes possible and the difficult becomes easy.  Master it and someone might name a town or game module after you like Maelstrom and Dusi Harbor.

3.  More on sequence - so we covered 699, transfer to inactive group.  Now look at 700 and 701 which is transfer troops and figures into an active group BEFORE MOVEMENT.  If you already used the 699 to move troops into inactive group 4 then group 4 is no longer inactive so now you could use 700 or 701 to do more transfers.  If you still have inactive groups available (Tyrant has 6 groups)  you can activate more groups.  Now you can move, 720 or the wizard speed spell or teleporting by wizard or artifact.  After movement you can combine groups, order 740, which makes an inactive group available.  Now the post movement transfer orders for troops, 741, and figures, 743 become available.  Then you get another chance to combine groups with 744.
Remember groups have to be in the same location to transfer to each other but if you have an inactive group it is always available at any location.

4.  Cost of patrols -  Transfers and combine units are free orders and they do not count against the order limit. Movement is free in terms of gold but does count as an order.

5.  Why a patrol instead of a group with troops?  They move better.  They get 25 movement points instead of 20 and if you have the riders trait or flight its a lot more, up to 32 points.  They cover ground quickly.  Patrols can be sneaky too.  A wizard can cast 843 invisible patrol and another can do 836, teleport patrol and you have an invisible patrol that can go anywhere.  With an elite ship patrols can move on water and not be intercepted.

6.   A common error that occurs is you will be told that a leader, and it's usually a wizard, is not available for transfer or has already been given a previous order.  If your wizard cast a spell other than raise gold or food before the transfer order he is not available. 

If anyone has something to add or finds an errors in this please feel free to chime in.

[Maximus Dominus]

Chapter Three - Hiring At Barracks

In one of my games of Alamaze, I tried to Hire a Centurion at a Barracks, today.

The game says that I have to wait until Turn #10. Why is this?

Also, why are the names of military leaders limited to from a minimum of 4 characters and a maximum of 12 characters, but hiring other character types at taverns allows a minimum of 4 characters, but a maximum of 20 characters?

What precludes changing these hard limits in the programming of the game?

[Maximus Dominus]

2.  How do you make a patrol?  At start or turn zero every player has three groups with troops and leaders in them.  Also from 1-3 inactive groups depending on the kingdom you are playing.  The usual way to get a patrol is to transfer someone into an inactive group, order 699.  Or you could transfer all of the troops into an inactive group and then the group they came from becomes a patrol because it is now a group without troops.

I have tried about a half dozen times to transfer a wizard into an inactive military group using Order #699 - Transfer Inactive (Pre Move), to no avail. Errors, errors, and more errors.

[RELLGAR]

2.  How do you make a patrol?  At start or turn zero every player has three groups with troops and leaders in them.  Also from 1-3 inactive groups depending on the kingdom you are playing.  The usual way to get a patrol is to transfer someone into an inactive group, order 699.  Or you could transfer all of the troops into an inactive group and then the group they came from becomes a patrol because it is now a group without troops.

I have tried about a half dozen times to transfer a wizard into an inactive military group using Order #699 - Transfer Inactive (Pre Move), to no avail. Errors, errors, and more errors.

What are you selecting? Adept, P1, P2, P3?
Make sure your selecting a wizard that's actually in that original  group.

[Maximus Dominus]

What are you selecting? Adept, P1, P2, P3?
Make sure your selecting a wizard that's actually in that original  group.

A Level 0, so I guess that's an Adept. He is at the pop center that my military group is at. I'm trying to use him to activate my 4th Brigade as a patrol.

I looked under my Regional Intelligence Report, just now, and it doesn't list any of my wizards in any of the groups.

Am I using the wrong order number?

[Maximus Dominus]

I have tried issuing #699, #701, and #702 orders, to add a wizard to my inactive group, all to no avail.

[Jon Deaux]

I have tried issuing #699, #701, and #702 orders, to add a wizard to my inactive group, all to no avail.

The order is issued from the group donating the figures, not the inactive group.