ou can raise an army of legions consisting of three types of soldier:

Legionaries: Slow because of their strong armor and heavy weapons, these men make the best hand-to-hand fighters.

Auxiliary cavalry: With little armor, lightswords, and no stirrups (which have not been invented yet), these soldiers are highly mobile, if somewhat more vulnerable and less deadly. Use them to shock and weaken enemy formations, and perhaps take on hostile missile troops. Avoid enemy heavy infantry!

Auxiliary Infantry: With light armor and poor hand-to-hand combat skills, these troops rely on their speed and ability to strike from a distance. Their main use is throwing pila (deadly Roman javelins) at enemy lines, inflicting casualties and reducing morale before they meet Roman lines.

There are only two orders you need to command your legions: Move to somewhere, or change formation.

To order any legion to move, click on its standard. Your mouse pointer becomes a dagger. Click again on the destination you would like the legion to move to. Their standard jumps to that location, and the troops start marching there. Right-click directly on the legion to issue formation orders. You can also issue more strategic-level orders to your troops through your Military Advisor (see page160).

All Roman soldiers are trained in line and column formations, and you may also order your men to “mop up” any enemy, which can be useful towards the end of a battle when there are just a few enemy stragglers left, scattered around.

Lines and columns can be either “close” or “open,” which describes how compact the formation is. A close formation is much stronger, but covers less ground. An open formation disperses the same number of men over a larger area, reducing their strength somewhat.

Attacks on the flanks (sides), or especially the rear of a unit are much more deadly than head-on attacks, as you would expect. Wide lines of troops have considerable value, as it is harder for an enemy to move around their flanks.

Legionaries

Legionaries – the Roman heavy infantry – who graduate from the military academy, learn to use a narrower, deeper “square” formation, four men deep by four wide. This is stronger than the shallower formations, although it obviously spans less width. Its real advantage comes when the legion is under missile attack. The legion automatically assumes the Roman “tortoise” formation. The men face all sides and hold their shields out, edge to edge, making them almost invulnerable to missiles.

Roman soldiers are highly disciplined. They maintain their formation and stand their ground as long as their morale remains high. If morale falls too low, a unit will scatter away from the front line. If its morale falls even further, the soldiers try to return to their fort, and will refuse to leave it until their morale recovers. Better-trained soldiers can keep their morale up longer, and nothing raises it quite like victory on the battlefield.

Strong discipline and formations are the historical key to the success of Rome's legions. Units in formation keep their standards taut and unmoving. As their morale falls and their formations weaken, their standard begins to flutter.

Our stronger enemies will try to break holes in our legions' lines, often using mounted charges to expose new flanks and our weaker rear. Beware larger animals and chariots: the sight of one bearing down at high speed is quite a shock to a soldier's morale, let me tell you! Only the strongest-willed stand their ground to resist such a charge.