Combat Unit

A combat unit refers to a unit that holds actual manpower and equipment and can take and inflict casualties. They are always grouped under an HQ unit of some sorts. Depending on the unit type they might be able to detach a number of men for specific purposes. Infantry brigades, cavalry brigades and artillery battalions (called batteries) are the three available types of combat units during a campaign, although historical battles can have smaller scale combat units such as regiments.

## Unit Stats & Equipment

All combat units have a collection of stats, attributes and other values that dictate part of their performance.

### Morale

#### 1st Battle Morale

*See the Greenhorns page for more information.*

### Fatigue

After morale fatigue is one of the most important unit attributes.

### Cohesion

Cohesion reflects the ability of a unit to act as a single unit rather than a group of individual soldiers. It is less important than the other unit attributes due its relatively few applications, though there are moments when its importance abruptly spikes. Generally speaking, units under fire, units on the move and units passing through each other all lose cohesion. Cohesion recovers at a decent speed, taking ~30 minutes to recover from scratch. Training influences the rate at which cohesion is lost, with better drilled troops being better at maintaining it.

In combat cohesion affects the number of casualties taken, and also plays an important role in charges, with charged units that have lower cohesion than their opponent taking a heavy morale penalty. Cohesion in charges matters less if morale is determined or better. It is important to remember that units which move through each other suffer a hefty -60% hit to their cohesion, almost always triggering the cohesion alert. This means retreating or advancing through friendly units poses additional risks.

### Training

Training, also called drill, is a moderately important unit attribute, although in some situations its relevance is a lot higher than usual. The training level of a unit mainly affects cohesion loss, greenhorn morale caps and the severity of high momentary casualties. It also plays an important role on the campaign map and in how fit for battle units will be when going from the campaign to a battle.

## Unit types

### Infantry Unit

Infantry brigades have a maximum size of 3000 men, to which they will always grow, but can also be recruited with an initial size of 2250 or 1500 men.

### Cavalry Unit

Cavalry brigades have a maximum size of 2500 men, to which they will always grow, but can also be recruited with an initial size of 1875 or 1250 men.

### Artillery Unit

Artillery battalions have a maximum size of 240 men and 16 guns, to which they will always grown, but can also be recruited with an initial size of 180 men and 12 guns or 120 men and 8 guns.

## Detachments

Detachments are small contingents of soldiers that can be split from a combat unit to fulfil a particular role during a battle. They still count as part of their parent unit for the the purpose of casualties and can be merged into their parent unit at any time, and automatically do so when routed.

### Skirmishers

A small group of ~200 infantry is detached from its parent unit to act as a skirmishing line. These skirmisher can either be linked to a unit's position or used independently. Skirmishers gain a bonus to their accuracy and take less casualties

### Scouts

A small group of ~150 cavalry is detached from its parent uni to act as scouts. These scouts are locked to a vanguard position relative to their parent unit and receive bonuses to their line of sight and spotting.

### Battery detachment

A small group of ~60 infantry is detached from its parent unit to man up to 4 guns that were left unmanned by an artillery unit, either due to casualties or routing.

## Unit Uniforms

The player can select a units uniform style and colours when manually recruiting a unit. Mass recruited units will use the default uniform and colours for their nation and unit type. It is currently **not** possible to change uniform style or colours after the initial recruitment.

*See the Uniforms page for more information.*

## Notes

* *The devs have post recruitment uniform customisation on the after release road map.*