Olympia PBEM

15.2: Combat attitudes

A unit may have one of four combat attitudes to another unit:

hostile

Attack on sight.

defend

Defend other unit if attacked.

neutral

Do nothing if other unit is attacked.

default

Neutral to units in other factions; Defend units in the same faction unless either one is concealing its lord.

Every character, and player faction entity, keeps three lists of units or other factions which have attitudes declared towards them. A unit is either on the hostile, defend, or neutral list. If a unit does not appear on any of the three lists, it has attitude default.

Example:

player          778                     816
                  hostile 816

units           4205                    6499
                4600                    6530, concealing lord
                                        6599

Player 778 has declared player 816 hostile. One of 816's characters is concealing its lord.

If 4205 or 4600 run into unit 6499, they will attack it on sight. However, since 6530 is hiding its affiliation with 816, it will not be attacked on sight.

If 6499 is attacked and both 6530 and 6599 are present, 6599 will aid in the defense, but 6530 will not, because that might give away its affiliation.

If player 816 wanted 6530 to defend the faction's units anyway, either 816 or 6530 should issue the order `defend 816'. This would override the default attitude of units in the faction to one another.

Attitude toward units is considered before attitude toward the unit's faction. Thus, one may declare a faction hostile, but exclude certain units within the faction by specifically declaring them neutral.

A unit must be the top-most character in its stack to aid in defense. If a unit joins a combat because of defend, it will bring its entire stack along, even if the other members of the stack have not declared a defend attitude.

Defenders only help when units are attacked, not when they initiate attacks. For example, if A has declared `defend B', and B attacks C, A will not help B, even if B loses the battle.

Characters declared defend to units which are guarding a province against pillaging will aid the guards if they are attacked, either explicitly with attack, or implicitly via `pillage 1'.

Units which joined a combat because of a defend declaration are shown with the qualification `ally' in the combat report.