3.6.2.3 Initial location of troops

Determining battlefield terrain

When two armies meet in open battle, the terrain on which they fight will be important.

The referee decides on the broad range of terrain available and then the two commanders make opposing dice rolls using their Tactics (including Strategy in battle specialism) + IQ to see which army reached the battle site first.

There is a bonus of +3 to the dice roll to a commander who already knows the terrain, and a further bonus of +5 to the dice roll to a commander whose army has been waiting for the opposing army.

The winner of the dice roll decides the what the terrain is of the battle site.

Rather than a detailed battlefield map, Age of Magic uses an abstract system for showing which units are where during a battle. The battlefield is defined into eight areas, as follows:

The winner of the dice roll gets to determine the terrain for each of the eight areas, within the limits specified by the referee.

For example, the referee says that a fight is taking place in hilly but open terrain. The commander of Army 1 wins the deployment dice roll and decides to deploy his army along the top of a hill with his opponents down in open terrain below. The terrain is therefore determined to be as follows:

In certain circumstances, terrain may be deemed to block retreat paths. For example, if a battle is taking place by the side of a lake, the lake could block the retreat of units on that flank (as happened when Hannibal engaged the Romans at Lake Trasemene).

Deploying units onto the battlefield

Having determined the battlefield terrain, each commander now deploys his/her units onto his/her portion of the battlefield. It is a good idea to ensure that units are deployed in each of the four areas that an army initially controls on the battlefield.

Deployment of units is normally done in secret and then revealed simultaneously. However, sometimes one commander will be able to see the other's deployment and then adjust his/her own deployment in response. To see whether this happens, both commanders make an opposing dice roll using their Tactics (including battlefield strategy specialism) + IQ. If one beats the other by five points or more, he/she will be able to adjust the deployment. He/she is able to change the position of one unit per five points by which he/she wins the dice roll.

There is a bonus of +3 on the dice roll if one army outscouts the other. An army is deemed to outscout the other if either:

• it is lying in wait in ambush for the other army (its commander must have won the determining terrain dice roll as well or the waiting benefits are effectively lost); or
• it has more than twice as many cavalry (number of troops not number of units) as the other army; or
• magical enchantments have enabled its commander to get an accurate picture of the other army's deployment.

For example, the armies of Darius and Alexander are about to fight. Darius has seven units - four are infantry with spears, one is cataphract cavalry, one is light cavalry and one comprises his baggage train and camp followers. Alexander has eight units - three are pike phalanxes, three are archers, one is heavy cavalry and one comprises his baggage train and camp followers. The terrain is open throughout. Darius' army outscouts Alexander's since Darius has more than twice as much cavalry as Alexander.

Both commanders independently decide on their initial deployment.

Both commanders now make their battlefield strategy dice rolls. Darius has a Tactics score of 3 with a specialism in battlefield strategy of 1, and an IQ of +0; he gets a +3 bonus for outscouting Alexander. He rolls 2D+1 and gets a 4, and a 3, making a dice roll result of 8. Alexander has a talent for Tactics (+2), a Tactics score of 7 with a specialism in battlefield strategy of 3 and an IQ of +2. He rolls 4D+2 and gets a 3, 2, 4 and 3, making a dice roll result of 14. Since this is six points higher than Darius' result, Alexander can decide to move one of his units' initial deployment. He decides that his heavy cavalry would be better deployed engaging on Darius' relatively weak left flank and so switches them across to his own right flank.

The adjusted initial deployment is therefore: