First Age | Manual | 21.2 The concept of legions and command-set thereof.

21.2 The concept of legions and command-set thereof.

SECTION I: OVERVIEW OF LEGIONS, CREATING AND MAKING UNIQUE A LEGION

The concept of a 'legion' is a convenient way of referring to groups of
soldiers/workers collected under the banner of a city, guild or
individual. Legions have an ideal size (denoted by its type), a
constituent personell (e.g. cityfolk or guild specialist) and, most
importantly, a wide range of trained abilities and equipment for use of
those sworn under its banner. The main command LEGION is used for all
manner of things relating to these groups and it is only when you wish
to employ specialist skills, set about marching/moving locations or step
onto the battlefield/begin melee that you will need to explore beyond
the list below. Almost your entire military/fieldworker personell
preparations/training/arranging into suitable structure is covered here.

Those of you commanding pacifist legions should note that although there
may be a warlike tendency to the terminology/wordings used below and
in the responses to your commands, this is only a temporary matter while
the functionality is fresh. Ultimately the pacifist fieldworker will
have his/her own texts and mannerisms, more applicable to the non-violent
path chosen by this battle-spurning brand of legion; for now, bear with
the present text, bring any reference changes you would like to see to the
attention of the Gods and instead concentrate on the many aspects of the
system accessible to the pacifist with clear conscience and consider the
widespread ramifications their contribution may bring to bear on the
ebb and flow of the continent's geopolitical landscape.

Syntax: LEGION LIST MINE/GUILD/CITY.
Provides you with a list of legions created under your banner, or that
of your city or guild. Open to all fighters, duellists and pacifists
alike.

Syntax: LEGION WHERE MINE/CITY/GUILD.
Allows you to list out all legions of appropriate loyalty/constituent
specialists together with information on their size-type, their present
captain, their current state-of-affairs and, if possible, the location
of the standard bearer in the land. Thus, unlike LEGION LIST, it is
possible to use LEGION WHERE to manage a spread of legions across the
largescale battlefield of the land in addition to those in barracks
undergoing training/exercises.

Syntax: LEGION INFO <legion>.
To gain more detailed information about the specified legion, its type,
size and location of those individuals attached to its banner. Most
importantly, however, it gives you details of specific training ongoing,
equipment, rations, morale, and its specialist skills. Available to all:
fighters, duellists and pacifists alike.

Syntax: LEGION NEW <new legion name> <city or guild>.
To create a new legion name and set it under a certain banner - be that
city or guild. New legions always begin with the size of 'party' and
must accumulate a certain number of individuals before it can move onto
the first of the significant sizes, the 'company'. Your name should be
something original. It cannot clash with an existing city, village,
area, guild or Avalonian's name.

Syntax: LEGION TITLE <legion> <title>.
Legions have a single word name, which you refer to when interacting
with them - in the field, in barracks, etc - and a title, generally
referring to their greater purpose. Examples of titles might be:
Guardians of the Night, Defenders of the Faith, Narl's Mercenary Scouts.

Syntax: LEGION RENAME <legion> <new legion name>.
Renames an existing legion (providing it lies under your banner) with a
new, ideally more significant short-name. You cannot name a legion after
a guild, a city, an area or village, or one of your fellow Avalonians.

Syntax: LEGION HISTORY <legion> or LEGION JOURNAL <legion>.
Allows you to review the documented history or journal of a specific
legion. Those with high rank and/or deep connections to the legion will
be able to view its complete journal, including all records of past
engagements, expansions and contractions, specialist skills gained and
lost, etc. LEGION JOURNAL therefore is the more comprehensive info.
Others, if the legion is sufficiently open and you possess the status,
may review the scribed history: the LEGION HISTORY option. Scribed
history is penned by the legionnaires themselves and tend to focus
instead on a narrative of the legion's past, present and future.

Syntax: LEGION NARRATE <legion> <comment>.
Using the NARRATE command an individual with sufficient rank or
closeness to the specified legion may begin a continuous entry sequence
somewhat akin to writing a letter or bulletin board message. This is
used for writing longer entries into the legion histories. These
histories are penned in secrecy and will be added only to the private
annals of the legion's ongoing records. It is not to be confused with
the semi-public LEGION HISTORY or LEGION INSCRIBE book of record. NOTE:
presently this date stamps but does not allow pages of entry. It will do
so as soon as warfare is continentwide returned to us.

Syntax: LEGION NOTE <legion> <private note>.

or      LEGION INSCRIBE <legion> <semi-public inscription>.

One would use the NOTE command to add a private, legionnaires only note
to the ongoing permanent recorded history of the specified legion or the
INSCRIBE option for those with rather broader 'right of access' to pen a
semi-public inscripion. Note, along with any entry in the closed-history
of the legion, will only be viewable by those of high enough rank or
close long-term connections with said legion (e.g. its creator or its
captain). Inscriptions are always viewable by those of broadly high
enough rank/stature and are often displayed publicly if the legion's
records are ever inspected or placed out openly for all to see.

SECTION II: CLASSIFYING YOUR LEGION BY SIZE-TYPE AND DETERMINING LEADERSHIP

Syntax: LEGION SIZES.
Reviews the various legion sizes and the number of individuals required
to maintain a legion with the advantages of certain size statuses: from
party and company as the smallest, to corps and army as the largest.

Syntax: LEGION DISBAND <legion>.
Disbands an existing legion (providing it lies under your banner),
removing its name, title and very existence from the land. The legion
must not have any individuals sworn to its standard. You will lose all
specialist-skills attached to a legion banner when it disbands, although
if you have successfully deployed the trained individuals elsewhere you
will not be concerned by this since the disbanding will occur with no
training to lose.

Syntax: LEGION EXPAND <legion>.
Assuming you have sufficient numbers sworn loyal to the specified legion
you may order its expansion, thereby commanding it to assume a more
efficient hierarchy appropriate to its size. Consider the distinction
between hundreds of ill-organised folk in a crowd contrasted with the
same hundreds structured into a well-defined structure. It becomes more
potent, faster to execute commands, more effective in every way. See
LEGION SIZES for information on the structures available to you and
remember that a legion must have attained a sufficient number to reform
into the superior-size hierarchy.

Syntax: LEGION CONTRACT <legion>.
As the numbers sworn loyal to the specified legion fall below certain
thresholds you will need to contract the structure accordingly. See
LEGION SIZES for info on the specific numbers for the various
hierarchies most appropriate. Ensuring the correct hierarchy structure
for your legion size maximises its efficiency, impacts positively on
each and every one of its actions (both potency and pace of operation).
Contraction requires the legion to be sitting at the low number boundary
of its current structure.

Syntax: LEGION LIEUTENANT <legion> <new lieutenant>/<guild or city>.
Designates an individual as lieutenant of the specified legion. This can
be done by the legion's overall commander/creator (or others, depending
on ASSIGNed hierarchy paradigm as described below) or by its existing
lieutenant (passing the baton of leadership). If you specify a guild or
city to take over lieutenantship you leave the post open for suitably
qualified folks to assume control whenever appropriate. Lieutenant rank
is suitable for legions of size company or party; those of greater
numbers must be under the command of individuals of superior rank.
Lieutenants may only command larger groups if the group has grown from
smaller size under his/her stewardship - and thus remains singularly
loyal. Lieutenants have access to the commandset as documented in HELP
COMMANDER.

Syntax: LEGION ASSIGN <legion> <hierarchy paradigm>.
The hierarchy paradigm simply refers to the structure expected by the
legion into which it will settle for the purposes of taking commands.
Thus one may have a regiment solely loyal to its founder and scornful of
orders from any other, whatever their rank; or an open-minded company
happy to receive orders from any not definitively a declared enemy. See
HELP DISPATCHES for the comprehensive order scripts available for
dispatches, effectiveness and suitability to be dictated by a
combination of your personal stature and the legion's assigned hierarchy
paradigm as listed below:
"military" fits neatly into a guild or city military structure, with commanders appropriate to the legion size and denomination.
"fieldworkers" is structured, for conveience and efficiency, along military lines but without the oft necessity of combat readiness/experience to command.
"independent" turns aside from formal military structures or traditional authority figures, trusting instead legion founder and inner circle only.
"personal" allows the group to be part of a structure but determines it to place personal allegience (such as to its founder) above all and disallow many more fundamental orders save from its founder.
"open" declares the group open to commands from all non-enemies.
"authority" establishes the importance of authority figures (e.g. Prince, High Constable, Guildmaster) giving equal measure of command to such figures as founders or designated commander.
"mercenary" allows for a full military structure and command hierarchy but without fixed loyalty and thus, depending on circumstances, said loyalty can become fluid - self-preserving - more robust than blind adherence to orders.

SECTION III: TRAINING SPECIALIST SKILLS, EQUIPPING LEGIONS - THE ROAD TO
VICTORY

Syntax: LEGION POTENTIAL <legion>/<city>/<guild>
Depending on your legion type (city or guild specialist) they will have
access to a wide range of abilities useful in the field of battle or
other circumstances about the land. This command allows you to view the
potentialities of the specified legion or, if you specify a guild or
city, the base potential of those denominations of legions (not taking
into account any factors that are specific to an individual legion). All
have access to this command, fighters, pacifists and duellists alike.

Syntax: LEGION TRAIN <legion> <specialist skill> <target potency>
Commands the commencement of a training period for the specified legion.
You will need the correct tools for the training and the legion must be
in safely in-barracks to be unmolested while the training is carried
out. See HELP TRAINING for comprehensive details of the skills a
legion-type can gain; these skills will depend on whether it is a city
or guildspecialist legion. See your LEGION POTENTIAL command above to
see the extent of training possible. It is slightly faster for a legion
to learn less skills concurrently and they enjoy more rest periods in
between the marginally lower number of sessions required to advance
potency in a specific skill. Legions gain potency more slowly as the
higher eschelons of a skill are reached; thus a legion will take more
time to learn the challenging rigours of 70% to 75% in a
specialist-skill than it would the relatively simple lessons required to
move from 5% to 10% in the same.

Legions train one specialist-skill at a time, in real terms, despite
having the capacity to carry out training orders to progress numerous
skills concurrently. They will progress each skill at a similar pace but
focus, at any given instance, on just one. Each percent of potency (and
you will find certain types of guildsmen or cityfolk are delimited by
maximums in this or that specialist-skill) is advanced via successful
completion of a number of sessions; the number of sessions per potency
advance increases as explained earlier. Some skills affect session
requirements (e.g. alacrity reduces sessions required to advance
potency). Do bear in mind that timings here are approximate and where a
legion states a certain number of minutes to completion of a session,
this is a rough figure and can vary by a certain percentage, as can
session numbers required and impact of circumstances/brethren-skills on
the training. Nothing is so exact to be precisely formulaic and the most
successful military minds factor such unpredictabilities into their
tactics and/or scenarios.

Syntax: LEGION FINISH <legion> <specialist skill>.
Declares the training of the specified legion complete, thereby freeing
the legion to be employed at other tasks. Training, while it is going
on, is completely occupying of a legion's attentions. You will need to
finish all of its training sessions to regain quick responsive control
of the legion for future commands.

(Syntax: LEGION TEACH <legion> and LEGION CONCLUDE <legion>.)
The top pair of commands is used for you, the individual specialist
(doubtless a fine example of whichever guild or city in which you ply
your trade) to augment the designated training of a specific legion by
dint of your personal expertise and experience. A top-ranked guildsman
can convey information faster and thus reduce training times and/or
allow the legion to reach higher potency than would otherwise have been
possible.

(Syntax: LEGION BERATE <legion> and LEGION ENCOURAGE <legion>.)
There are two demeanour one may take with a legion and its effectiveness
will depend entirely on the circumstances, environment and recent
history. Berating a legion is generally considered a kick-up-the-rear,
shaking lethargy from lazy pampered bones, waking a group to the urgency
of impending training, deployment or battle. Encouragement, on the other
hand, works less well in comfortable surrounds (it tends to stupify) and
instead has its best impact in hostile, difficult, sometimes tragic
circumstances; the voice of a kindly fellow sufferer or the boom of a
leader undaunted at the head of his or her troop. Although morale
effects are temporary, one should never underestimate their role in
melee, in speedy marching to and from the field, in carrying out orders
unshirking, etc.

Syntax: LEGION PROGRESS <legion>.
Reviews the current training schedule of your specified legion, details
of the specialist skills being learned and, most usefully, the extent of
its progress towards the stated goals. Any can issue this command, be
they pacifist, duellist or figher status. You will be informed how many
sessions (if any) remain before the next advance of potency percentage
in all those specialist-skills being trained and, in summary, which
skill (if any) is presently the group's focus alongside an approximation
of how long before the session is complete. Legions work through each
specialist-skill they are told to train up, one by one, in no particular
order until they have completed a session for each one. Once all have
had a session the cycle begins again, progress duly updated.

Syntax: LEGION PROGRESS <legion> <specialist-skill>.
Those with sufficient rank over the specified legion can go a step
further than the broad summary gained by the LEGION PROGESS use above.
If you specify a skill by name, e.g. LEGION PROGESS GUARDIANS4 ALACRITY
you will be given far more detailed information its specific purpose,
usages and the extent to which your legion's potency affords you access
to new commands/abilities. Many specialist-skills are background and
simply affect legion performance without the need for commands to be
dispatched but others do require special orders - particularly the more
esoteric, higher-end specialities. LEGION PROGRESS is, therefore,
somewhat akin to an amalgamation of doing a HELP and AB on one of your
character's personal skills: gains a broad but skill-specific info
document and ability by ability list dependant on potency level
attained. See HELP TRAINING for a specialist-skills list and do not
ignore LEGION POTENTIAL when determining training and judging
progression - it is very easy to set a legion training beyond its
maximum capacity in a certain skill; doing so wastes the advanced (and
therefore more time-consuming) lessons on a group incapable of reaping
any practical benefit.

Syntax: LEGION EQUIP <legion> <equipment>.
Bestows an item of equipment on the specified legion. There are various
reasons for loading up a legion with items of inventory. Firsly many of
the specialist skills require equipment to carry out or enjoy improved
effectiveness when used with a specific item (legions automatically
attempt to employ their inventories to best possible result unless
otherwise instructed). Secondly powerful legions may be used to
transport valuables across the land more safely than a troop of
vulnerable individuals, particularly large-size commodities that would
be otherwise too cumbersome for easy maneuver. Thirdly, legions benefit
in other ways from certain important components whose use is not covered
by a specialist skill: food, shelter/bedding, healing herbs or potions,
etc.

Syntax: LEGION UNEQUIP <legion> <equipment>.
Removes an item of equipment from the specified legion. Use this with
care as you risk removing from a dutiful legion an item pivotal to it
carrying out its orders or utilising its specialist skills to their
maximum effect (e.g. take all the quivers from a legion skilled at
archery and you will find your archers suddenly little or no use on the
battlefield). Morale is also adversely affected if important items (such
as food, bedding, et al) are taken back once given over. There are,
however, many situations where relieving a legion of its equipment is
the best course of action: while they are in barracks and others in the
field have greater need, for instance, or, more ambivalently, when one
legion is deemed to be on the verge of utter defeat and risks losing
valuable artifacts that might make the difference between another
group's survival or route. One may doom the first legion to certain
vanquish but if, in doing so, the second has twice the chance of
prevailing; who can argue the military logical? Such decisions are not
for the faint-hearted and it is well-worth experimenting with balances
of apposite equipment versus overequipping, overencumbering or
overpampering (all of which sap morale) and fighting spirit.

SECTION IV: ASSEMBLING AND DEPLOYING INDIVIDUALS IN AND OUT OF LEGIONS

Syntax: LEGION ASSEMBLE <legion> FILL/<number> [<guild name/city name>].
Syntax: PV <legion> FILL/<number> as a shortcut for the above.
Commands freshly enlisted untrained individuals into the specified privates-only
legion. This assumes there exists in the locale both a source of
privates and a group in existence under the legion's banner. If you have
no-one under the legion's banner in the land it must be begun, on just
the first occasion, by specifying a guild or city-name as per syntax
above. This way the privates are taken from the correct guildsfolk or
citizens. Note: you may use the FILL directive on pre-existing legions
to bring in the maximum possible privates to swell its numbers to the
edge of the next size-type up; ready for possible expansion.

Syntax: LEGION DISMISS <legion> <number> [<locale direction/CENTRE>].
Ejects privates from the specified legion thereby increasing remaining
legionnaires' equipment, rations and speed of operations (as is always
the case with a smaller group). You will, however, risk losing some of
your trained talent since in dismissing anyone from a regimented,
orderly environment to off-duty status takes its toll on their
abilities. Thus you will lose a portion of the legion's specialist skill
prowess, despte those you retain gaining, on average, as individuals. If
you were to go so far as to dismiss each and every last member of the
legion you will effecively be disbanding it as an active presence,
returning all its equipment to the decommissioned group. Be warned,
though: doing this also abandons all the specialist skills accumulated
over the legion's active lifespan.

Syntax: LEGION SPLIT <master legion> <destination empty legion banner>.
Use this command should you wish to reduce the size of an individual
legion while retaining all the expertise and experience/training picked
up by those sworn to follow its banner. You begin with your large first
legion and then find a second legion banner, preferably newly created or
two or less individiuals within. The splitting will then halve the size
of the master legion, shifting the oath of fealty for the other half to
serve under the new banner. Although both legions will be of equal size
and thus, in theory, weaker in any weight of numbers clash, they will
share without loss the specialist skills, training and battlefield
experience garnered during the unmolested existence of the original.
Note, however, that splitting legions is not always a settling
experience and there are sometimes occasional individuals who get lost
in the process; fortunately these tend to be the ones with the least
specialist skills.

Syntax: LEGION MERGE <master legion> <secondary legion>.
This command is a simple one. Providing you are addressing two legions
of the same guild or city and neither are constituted entirely of
unskilled privates (those without having ANY specialist skill knowledge)
you can issue the order for them to merge. You will need to have
authority sufficient for this command over both legions but, if
successful, quickly rearranges the previously smaller legions into a
larger single legion, merging (where possible) the skill prowess and
exchanging (as much as can be conveyed) the advantages of past
experiences/morale. Merging a less skilled legion into a more skilled
master will result, as you would doubtles have surmised, in a larger
resultant legion with skills proportionally lower as a result of the
merge. Note, however, that merging itself is not an experience all
remain unaffected by and there is a net loss (albeit only minor if the
merge circumstances are carefully set-up) of specialist skill
percentiles across the newly enlarged group.

Syntax: LEGION DEPLOY <master legion> <destination legion> <number>.
Deploys individuals from the master legion (which must be larger than
a 'party' in size) to shift allegience to the new banner of the destination
legion. The <number> specified will attempt to move across, swelling the
numbers of the destination and altering its average specialist-skill
potencies accordingly. Keep in mind it is unwise to water down hard won
specialist-skills of higher rank with poorly trained neophytes else you
will find the distractions cause an overall lose of skill and thus precious
training time.

Do bear in mind, however, that there are optimum sizes for legions -
regiment/brigade by default - optimums affected by leader prowess,
history, circumstances, terrain, legion recent engagements, etc. Take
all of the archers from even an enormous group on the front-line (and
engaged in combat) and you run the risk of ensuring its defeat, despite
its numbers and otherwise high specialist skills; simply as a consequent
of poor timing and removing crucial individuals from a situation of
great need into one of less. Such choices often make or break a military
campaign. It is not for naught that an individual's military history is
so respectfully perused, their successes lauded, their failures lamented
and feared...

It is never possible to have a mixed single legion of guild specialists
and city soldiers/fieldworkers, nor can you shortcut training or the
invaluable boost of real engagement experience - but you can try to
tread a line between having a single crack regiment with enormous skills
and experience (and an army of uneducated ill-equipped novices) and
spreading the regiment's relatively small numbers in and around your
entire military/society to gain the most possible training, for the
maximum number of people, in the shortest time. Every military's
conundrum.

See next HELP COMMANDER and HELP VANGUARD to discover more about taking
command of a legion directly, and the all-important HELP DISPATCH to begin
to delve into the world of mission/goal order dispatches, the foundation
of largescale military command.