INTRODUCTION Whether you wish to vanquish the evil Marquis de la Montalban, cleanse the Caribbean of the cancerous Spanish, or become the most notorious pirate of all time, you will need to capture a city or two. This guide will outline the various factors, strategies, and benefits involved with land battles.

INITIATING A LAND BATTLE Land battles can be initiated in any of these scenarios; 1. The player walks into a city. 2. The player sails into a city whose faction has a bounty on their head. 3. Entering Montalban's hideout. Land battles cannot be initiated with towns, pirate havens, indian villages, and jesuit missions. Additionally, you cannot engage in a land battle with a city that has significantly more soldiers than you have pirates. Finally, if the city has less than 100 soldiers, you will instead engage the captain of the guard in a swordfight instead of the land battle.

ENEMY STRENGTH The strength of the enemy is entirely based on the number of soldiers that the city has. The exact number is shown when initiating a land battle, and is unique to every city. The size of the gun battery in front of the city can also give a rough estimate as follows; No battery: 40-100 soldiers Single battery: 120-200 soldiers Double battery: 200-350(?) soldiers Triple battery: 350(?)-600(?) soldiers Quadruple battery: 600+(?) soldiers This value can be modified in a number of ways; 1. Lowered by pillaging the city 2. Lowered by having pirates raid the city 3. Raised by having a "Transporting Troops" or "Transporting Immigrants"(?) ship enter the city

BASICS Land battles are a turn-based strategy event which shares many gameplay features with the Sid Meier's Civilization series of games. The player controls several units with different strengths and weaknesses, with the goal of taking out all of the enemy AI's units, or reaching the city gates with any of your units. Once you initiate a land battle, you are brought to a new screen displaying the uninhabited land that surrounds the city. You are given three starting locations for your units. Usually, there is one on the left, centre, and right side of the field.

TILES Each land battle field is composed of X randomly selected tiles. The order of these tiles is different every battle, but there will always be a path to the city's gates. There are three types of tiles; normal, rocky, and forest. - Normal tiles have no special attributes. - Rocky tiles cannot be moved to by any friendly or enemy unit. - Forest tiles have a number of unique attributes depending on the unit that is attacking or standing in the tile, and these will be outlined in the UNITS section.

CONTROLS Land battles involve three menus which can be accessed by holding down SHIFT, holding down CTRL, or holding down neither. - The default menu allows you to move the selected unit to an adjacent tile, or attack from long range if the unit can see an enemy and has muskets as a weapon. - The SHIFT menu allows you to select the next unit (this can also be done by left-clicking the desired unit), skipping the selected unit's turn. zooming in on the field, toggling a grid overlay on the field, centring the camera on the selected unit, changing a musket unit's target if more than one is availalbe, and retreat from the battle. - The CTRL menu allows you to change the direction that the selected unit is facing. (see the TACTICS section for more details)

ENDING A LAND BATTLE A land battle can be ended in one of four ways; 1. All enemy units are defeated (win) 2. One of your units reaches the city gates tile (win) 3. All of your units are defeated (loss) 4. The "retreat" button is pressed (loss)

GAMEPLAY Once you have initiated the land battle and have chosen your start location, the battle is played similarly to a turn-based strategy game. Each side will take turns moving their units and attacking each other, with the player going first, until one of the end conditions is met. Each unit has a certain amount of health represented by the number of people in the unit and the condition of the flag flying above it. Once the unit's health gets too low, it will be defeated and leave the field. Each friendly unit can move up to two tiles in normal terrain, or one tile in forest terrain. No friendly or enemy units can move onto rocky terrain tiles. Each unit has up to two attack styles; melee and ranged. Melee units can only attack by walking into a tile that is occupied by an enemy unit. Ranged units can use melee attacks and have the option of attacking from long range. Melee attacks will always end in either one of the sides defeating the other, or both sides defeating each other at the same time. Ranged attacks remove a percentage of the target's total health, and the unit will retreat if their total health drops too low. Ranged attacks can only be executed on targets that are close enough (~4 tiles) to the ranged unit. Ranged units are not able to shoot through multiple forest tiles.

ATTACK/DEFENCE POWER The winner of a melee attack is determined by a number of variables; - Attack power (1-8): This is the attacking unit's base power. Unique to every type of unit, never changes. - Defence power (1-5): This is the defending unit's base power. Unique to every type of unit, never changes. - Morale (0-3): If Unit A was attacked and damaged previously, Unit B gets a bonus equal to the number of times Unit A was attacked. 0 if both units were attacked the same number of times. - Height (0-2): The height difference of the tiles that both units are on. Whoever has the high ground gets a bonus depending on how high it is relative to the other unit's location. 0 if both units are on the same height. - Cover (x1/2): If the unit is standing on a forest tile and is hit by a ranged attack, the attack does half the normal damage. - Forest (x1/3): If the Cavalry unit is fighting on a forest tile, its power is a third of the normal amount. - Flank attack (x2): If the defending unit is facing away from the attacking unit when it is attacked, the attacking unit's power is doubled. - Ambush (x2): If the attacking unit moves into an occupied tile, but could not see the enemy unit there, the enemy's defence power is doubled.

UNIT TYPES There are three different units available to the player, and five different units available to the enemy. The quantity of pirates/soldiers determines the types and quantities of units that are involved in the land battle. Each unit has an attack power, defence power, fighting stylve, and special attributes. These eight units are;

Officers Attack: 5 Defence: 5 Style: Melee Special Attributes: None. Notes: Friendly only. Maximum of 1.

Pirates Attack: 4 Defence: 3 Style: Melee Special Attributes: None. Notes: Friendly only. You will have approximately the same amount of these as buccaneers.

Buccaneers Attack: 1 Defence: 1 Style: Ranged Special Attributes: None. Notes: Friendly only. You will have approximately the same amount of these as pirates.

Infantry Attack: 4 Defence: 2 Style: Ranged Special Attributes: None Notes: Enemy only.

Guards Attack: 4 Defence: 3 Style: Ranged Special Attributes: None Notes: Enemy only.

Cavalry Attack: 8 Defence: 4 Style: Melee Special Attributes: +1 movement in normal terrain, x1/3 power in forest terrain Notes: Enemy only. Only used when the enemy has 100+ more soldiers than you.

Scouts Attack: 4 Defence: 3 Style: Melee Special Attributes: No movement penalty in forest terrain. Notes: Enemy only.

Archers Attack: 2 Defence: 2 Style: Ranged Special Attributes: No movement penalty in forest terrain. Notes: Enemy only.

REWARDS If you are successful in defeating all enemy units or reaching the city's gates, you will be rewarded with a large sum of gold! The amount of gold plundered depends on the current wealth of the city. This is shown on the world map by the number of coins beside a city's name, the city's prefix (Wealthy, Prosperous, Poor), the condition of the city's flag on the overworld, and the music that plays when visiting the city. This value can be modified in a number of ways; 1. Lowered by pillaging the city 2. Lowered by having pirates raid the city. 3. Raised by having indians raid the city. 3. Raised by having a "Transporting Sugarcane", "Transporting New Governor", or "Military Payroll" ship enter the city. Apart from gold, you will also receive favour from any faction that was at war with the city's faction, and lose favour with those at peace with it. If you ransack a city while having ~30-40% more crew than their soldier count, you have the option to change that city's faction. Changing the faction to one that was at war with the old faction is a great way to get promoted quickly.

OTHER NOTES - Marquis de la Montalban will only use scouts and archers to defend his hideout.

STRATEGIES Taking on the larger cities with a 200-300 pirate disadvantage is possible with the right tactics and a bit of luck. Here are some of the tactics I've used to help with this endeavor;

• Retreat and retry if the terrain is bad or if you are losing (hopefully you quick-saved beforehand). This is faster than waiting to get killed off by the enemy.
• Flank as much as possible! If you have significantly more power than the enemy, you will not lose any health and will be able to attack again.
• Try to use pirates and buccaneers as tanks over the officers, as they are weaker and more numerous.
• Be sure to stand in forest tiles as much as possible. This allows your units to endure significantly more ranged attacks. Also, when the enemy has cavalry, it will lose against your pirates and officers.
• Don't forget about the city gates! Often, it is faster to move there instead of hunting down the two or three enemy units that are trying to flank you. The city will still lose the same amount of soldiers and gold. This is also the best way to win when you have a unit disadvantage. move most of your units to one side, and send a pirate + buccaneer around the other side.
• Avoid attacking Pirate raiders and Indian war canoes, as they will reduce the soldier count of a city and make it easier to capture.
• Attack any "Invasion Force", "Transporting troops", and "Transporting immigrants" ships. These will increase the number of soldiers in their destination city.