MTW Unit Stacks

On the campaign map, military units are shown as stack pieces, each stack representing one of more units. Units within a single stack will have a common general, and are considered grouped when it comes to movement.

Types of Unit Stacks

• Army stacks - These stacks are the most common on the campaign map. They can contain up to 16 units or 960 men. The unit leader with the most command stars is considered the stack general.

• Faction Leader stacks - The faction leader stack is similar to a normal army stack in function, but it is the stack in which the faction leader and his bodyguard unit resides. The Faction Leader stack piece is different from other army stacks, it is represented by a mounted figure instead of a footman. In the faction leader stack, the Faction Leader is always considered the general, regardless of the command star ranking of other unit leaders in the stack. This makes the faction leader stack a good place to keep disloyal generals, as only the stack general can rebel.

• Garrison stacks - A garrison stack is part of the fortification icon for the province, if the province does not have the lowest level fortification (i.e. Fort in the grand campaign), there will be no garrison for the province. Each fortification can hold a certain amount of troops, up to 960 for the Fortress. Control of the province for any given year belongs to the faction that owns the garrison. Naturally, the garrison is fixed and cannot move, so units within the garrison must be moved out into a new or existing army stack within the province first before they can be moved. If there is space, new units recruited in a province will be appear in the garrison stack, if not enough space exists they will be in a new army stack within the province.

• Crusade/Jihad stacks - These stacks are the results of activating Crusade or Jihad markers. They can hold over 32 units, but have limited mobility as they must move towards their target province. Units within these stacks do not cost the owning faction upkeep.

• Ship stacks - Ships can be stacked together. The stack will only be able to move as fast as it's slowest ship, and will be restricted by the ship with the smallest range. Protection/attack/speed effects in combat?

Stack General

Only the stack general can subjected to vices and virtues, assassinations, inquisitions, bribery, and other actions. When managing unit leaders, sometimes it will be necessary to remove units from stacks to perform actions on lesser generals.

The loyalty of the stack general is very important. A powerful stack commanded by a low loyalty general is an invitation to civil war. The entire stack will obey the decision of the stack general to rebel or be bribed.

Interactions between Stack Pieces

On the campaign map, any interaction between map pieces can only occur if they reside in the same region at the same time. Units can be moved between stacks, stacks can be broken up into smaller stacks.

Combat Map Determination

The map used when an attacking force moves into a province is determined by the border information in the startpos files. When multiple stacks are moved through multiple borders for a single attack, the border map used is dependent which stack has the highest command star general?