Brigades

How it works

What a brigade tracks

Every brigade has its own manpower, equipment, readiness, combat experience, and how dug-in it's become from sitting still. Air units ignore the ground front line entirely — they can strike or intercept deep behind enemy lines regardless of where the armies are fighting.

Infantry

Your dependable backbone force.

Armor

Mobile and hard-hitting.

Artillery

Concentrated fire support.

Militia

Cheap to raise — a starting garrison or an emergency levy.

Anti-Air

Slow, but devastating against enemy aircraft.

Fighter

Wins the skies, shreds other aircraft.

Bomber

Hits the ground hard and devastates the provinces it strikes.

How it works

Raising an army

Trained brigades draw manpower from your reserves and consume equipment over their training time before deploying to any province you control with a real supply line back home. You can also train units straight into a national stockpile — paying the full cost upfront — and hold them off-map, ready to drop into any friendly province instantly the moment a front needs reinforcing.

How it works

Getting them where they need to be

Ordinary marches move brigade by brigade across neighboring provinces, at a pace set by the unit type and the terrain — mechanized units outrun infantry, mountains and rivers slow everyone down. For long-distance moves, Strategic Redeployment travels much faster over rail and road, at the cost of arriving temporarily unready to fight — and once you've issued the order, it can't be redirected or cancelled.

How it works

How a battle actually plays out

A battle starts the moment a brigade crosses into hostile territory, fought as a running daily contest of firepower, armor, and dug-in defense. Losses fall on both manpower and equipment, and heavy bombing raids only make it worse for whoever's on the ground. Win, and your queued orders carry on; lose, and the brigade falls back to the nearest province it still controls — a beaten brigade with nowhere left to retreat is simply destroyed.

How it works

Morale and recovery

How much punishment your brigades can absorb before breaking depends on your country's overall Morale — high morale lets them take real losses before retreating, low morale breaks them fast. A battered brigade left to rest on home soil recovers fully within about a month.

How it works

Idle brigades still earn their keep

Keeping the peace

Troops stationed in a province reduce local unrest just by being there.

Holding enemy ground

In wartime, brigades sitting on occupied territory eventually convert that control into real occupation, cutting the defender off from that province's taxes and industry.

In the interface

Giving orders

Select a stack to see it march, right-click a province to send it there, and switch to redeployment mode for a long-range rail move. A march order shows gold while you can still change your mind and turns silver once it's locked in — right-click the brigade's own province to cancel everything that's still redirectable.