Stacks

Stacks are game pieces created to group characters, military units and items into a single unit to make moving them around the map easier to manage.

Naming Conventions
Depending on what a stack is made up of, it will be referred to by particular names as described below. All stack types can have items in their possessions.

Party
A stack that has only Characters and/or Items in its possessions is referred to as a Party.

Army
A stack that has Military Units of any sort is referred to as an Army.

Agitator
A stack that is made up of only Agents is referred to as an Agitator. Agitators can move through any barony, including enemy baronies, without fear of attack from other stacks. Agitators can be attacked by Agents and/or other Agitator stacks.

Fleet
A stack that has Ships present is referred to as a Fleet. Fleets have a special set of rules associated with them. more ...

City
A city is a specialty stack that cannot move. A city can hold any number of military units, characters and possessions. Cities can also have additional enhancements that are not available in a traditional stack. These improvements include Guilds, Fortifications and Provincial Improvements. more ...

Actions
Stacks can perform one quest action or one military action each turn. It can perform move actions so long as it has available movement points. Movement can be done before and/or after the stack performs it's action.

Carrying Capacity
Each stack has a separate carrying capacity for each type of possible movement (ground, air, water). If the stack has more weight than it can carry, it cannot move.

Movement
A stack can be moved around the game map so long as it has available movement points. The amount of available movement points is based on the slowest unit in the stack, be it a character, a military unit or an item with carrying capacity.

There are three modes of movement available to a stack: ground, air and water. Each type of item, military unit or character has a movement rate and carrying capacity associated with each type of movement. If an item has no movement rate or carrying capacity for a particular type of movement, it is considered burden.

If a stack is has more burden than it has carrying capacity, it is considered to be overburdened. An overburdened stack cannot fly or sail. Stacks cannot be overburdened for land movement. It is assumed that if a stack has more equipment in it than what can be carried, it will have wagons of some sort to carry the possessions. Stacks that must use these sorts of wagons move at a very slow speed. The speed is dependent on the settings in the module, so refer to the module's compendium for details.

Pathfinding
The Cohorts game engine will do it's best to find the fastest path for a stack to get from point A to point B. How it determines the best path is based on a highly complex set of rules. These are the highlights on those rules. Understanding this will help you understand why the game is suggesting the path it is.

Base Speed
The base speed of the stack is always based on the slowest unit. For example, suppose we have a stack made up of an Elf character and a Dwarf character. The Elf has a base movement speed of 35 while the Dwarf has a base movement speed of 28. Using these two speeds, the base movement rate of the stack will be 28, which is the speed of the slowest unit.

Modifiers
Each unit in the stack may be bringing with a set of movement modifiers. Additionally, there may be spells on the stack that also modify its movement. These modifiers might be for a specific terrain type or they may be a generic modifier that affects movement in general.

Taking the above example further, Elves have a -20% modifier when moving through any Forest province. Dwarves have a +10% movement penalty when moving through a Forest province. The overall modifier for this stack when moving through a Forest province is -20% + 10% = -10%. What this would mean is, if the movement cost of moving through a Forest province is 10, it would actually only cost this stack 9 points because of the movement modifier they're getting in Forest. Had the elf not been present, the stack would have not recieved his -20% modifier, leaving him with just the +10% modifier. This means that rather than costing 10 points to move into the forested province, it would have cost 11 movement points (10% more than usual).

Other modifiers, like spells, affect the stack and all units in it. For example, casting the spell Lesser Charm of Speed on a stack gives the stack a +10% bonus to it's movement rate. In the above stack, the improvement is based on the slowest unit (the dwarf) which results in the stack now having a base speed of 28+10% = 30.8. If the dwarf was removed from the stack, leaving only the Elf, the stack would now have a base speed of 35+10% = 38.5.

Mounted Units
Any unit that is riding a war mount uses the speed and movement type of their mount. In most cases, this is a benefit to the rider. In some cases, it could mean that the rider is actually slower while mounted. Pick an Avian for example. In the module Veil of Entropy, the Avian race has a ground speed of 35 and a flight speed of 25. If a player decided to put his Avian character on a war pony, which has a land movement speed of 30 and no flight movement speed, then this character now walks slower than he could before and he cannot fly. I can't think of a reason for why the player would do that - but if he did, that's what would happen!

A better and more likely scenario might be that a player takes his flightless human character, that has a movement speed of 32. He puts that human on a Griffon, which has a land movement speed of 50 and a flight movement speed of 35. This means that this human now has a land movement speed of 50 and a flight movement speed of 35.

Movement Point Consumption
The idea of removing a unit from a stack brings up an interesting topic. Suppose a stack is arranged with an Elf and a Dwarf and no other modifiers. The stack moves through two forested provinces which have a total cost to the stack of 18. Now, after moving through the two provinces the dwarf is transferred to another stack, leaving the Elf by himself. When that happens, how many movement points does the Elf have remaining and how many does the Dwarf have remaining? In this particular case, the stack has spent 18 movement points. The slowest unit in the stack was the dwarf, who has a base speed of 28. This means that everybody in the stack has used up 18/28 = 64.3% of their movement. The dwarf would have have 10 points remaining and the Elf would have 12.5 points remaining.

This point also gets a bit more complicated if a character is mounted and after having moved a few provinces decides to dismount and carry on walking. Using the human on a griffon example from above (assuming he's the only character in the stack), the human travels at a ground speed of 50 and a flight speed of 35. Suppose that the stack flies for 4 provinces and uses up 10 of 35 movement points. This character has used up 10/35 = 28.6% of their movement points. If that character dismounts and starts walking (at a speed of 32), the character would have 71.4% of 32 = 22.8 movement points remaining.

Ground Movement
Movement over land is the most typical type of movement a stack can make. Units cannot cross rivers unless there is a bridge present.

Air Movement
Flying is possible, but only if the flying units in the stack have enough flight carrying capacity to carry everything in the stack. Flying movement always uses up the same amount of movement regardless of the terrain the unit is flying over. Units can fly over rivers, but they cannot fly over water. Flying units cannot fly over impassible mountains.

Water Movement
Water movement is possible, but only if the stack has enough ship carrying capacity to carry everything in the stack. Depending on the type of ship, they can travel either by deep sea, sea/lake, or by river. Some ships can traverse all three water types, while some ships can only traverse rivers. On the game map, rivers run between province borders. A sailing stack can move along provinces on either side of the river.

Any province along the water or that has river running adjacent to it is considered coastal. If a province is coastal, ships can travel through it. There are circumstances where this rule does not make a lot of sense, but for the sake of consistency we apply this rule to movement through all coastal provinces.

Cloud Castles
Cloud castles represent a special City Unit that is capable of flight. Cloud Castles can fly/hover over water but they cannot fly over impassible mountains. Cloud Castles have unlimited carrying capacity.

Gates
Gates are special features in some provinces. By crossing through a gate, the stack is magically teleported to another province somewhere on the map or even to a province in an alternate Realm. Gates are uni-directional. Just because a gate can take you from one province to another, it does not mean you can back-track and find your way back to where you started.

Enemy Territory
Moving a stack into a barony that is controlled by an enemy faction is an act of war. If the Barony has defensive forces available, they may immediately attack your stack.

Neutral Territory
Stacks may move into a barony that is controlled by a neutral faction. All "wild" baronies are considered neutral. While in neutral territory, a stack will not defend the barony nor will the barony's capital city offer it safe haven from hostile forces.

Allied Territory
Stacks may move freely through a barony that is controlled by an allied faction. All allied stacks within an allied territory will defend the barony if it is attacked, or if the invading forces are too strong, will retreat to capital city for protection.

Military Actions
Stacks can perform the following military actions as their "action" for the turn.

Conquer City
This orders the stack to try and defeat the defenses of the city. This creates a military combat. If the attacking stack wins, the city and the associated barony fall under the control of the conquering player. If the city being conquered is a territory capital or a kingdom capital, the player takes control of the territory and/or the kingdom. Conquering a territory or kingdom barony does not give all the baronies in the territory or kingdom to the player, but they do get the production payments from the territory or kingdom. It also significantly improves their chances of influencing the other baronies in the territory and/or kingdom.

Raze Improvements
Any time a stack is left alone in a barony that they are at war with, a stack may choose to raze a provincial improvement. To do this, the stack must be in the same province as the improvemets they wish to raze. The effect of this action is to raze all improvements in the province, leaving it barren.

Note: while a stack is in an enemy barony, that barony is considered "under seige". While it's under seige the barony produces no goods during production. This can quickly lead to starvation in the city.