War & Peace

Combat in An Age of Man will take place on the interior maps, fought in real time and allowing the player to employ maneuver tactics, where enemies can have their morale fall to flanking maneuvers or ambushes and their cohesion break to win the battle rather than outright slaughter.

The player will have the option of fighting the battle personally or allowing the AI to conclude it by simulation; all AI only battles will be simulated. Depending on whether or not the country has learned of standing army, the battle may begin with only local forces(garrison if it was learned or local militia), or if the local population isn’t happy with current rule, they may choose to side with the enemy instead and hand over control of the pixel. If the battle does take place without a standing army, the local forces will fight alone with reinforcements slowly joining from nearby forces (levies risen or neighboring local militias).

If control of enemy pixel is taken, the occupier must maintain forces in the hex or it will immediately fall back to control of the enemy, unless the local population is unhappy with the current rule and joined the attacker forcing occupiers to diminish their fighting force or lose their occupation.

Battle itself is made up of squads drawn from the population. Fighting ability is changed depending on technology (standing armies or levy forces, drilling), equipment (technological development, quality of resources), morale (discipline/bravery, leader, numbers, happiness, propaganda, defending home), and ethnicity (people don’t fight as well against their own.) The squads can be moved around the battle map to engage enemy squads, gaining and losing morale by killing and being killed, flanking or being flanked, overwhelming or being overwhelmed (both in numbers and technologically), breaking and routing if too many factors rise against them.

The battles will be presented from the top down hovering over the field and while individual units will be shown they will not be super graphically intense. You will not be able to zoom all the way in, however, you will be able to control them and control their, tactics and attacks allowing you to control how the battle turns out.