Officer

If you do not look at things on a large scale it will be difficult for you to master strategy.

— Miyamoto Musashi, Book of the Five Rings

Officer: Vital statistics
Unit type	Command unit
Built/trained at	Fort
Damage and weapon type	No weapon
Armour	Laughable
Production cost	Pop cost: 1 Resource cost: 80 ; 80 Ramp cost: 20 ; 20
Range	No range; can't attack Good LOS
Unit move and creation speed	Unit movement speed: rather fast Creation speed: slow
Unit HP	Fair
Technological requirements	Library Castle Age Military Level 3 (Heraldry and Chivalry) Castle Strategy Level 1 (Tactics)
Factions available	All

Without coordination or management, kings will lose their crowns, and the people their heads. Thus, Officers form a vital part of your army. However, Officers are rather hard to come by - they are only obtainable if you have researched a sufficient level of technologies, those technologies being tactics and fortifications. Officers are trained at castles, and will be recruitable from the Castle Age onward once you have researched Fortification and Tactics.

Although costly, slow and unable to attack, Officers can provide crucial support for your troops. Firstly, they are capable of boosting the defence of friendly units within their radius. Next, they are also capable of using four abilities to enhance your tactical position.

Entrench

Once completed, units within the Officer's radius will enjoy a threefold increase in their defensive power. If light infantry are entrenched on patches of rocks, this boosts their defence even further.

Forced March

For the duration of this power, units within the Officer's radius will enjoy increased movement speed. The increase is marginal for cavalry, but substantial for infantry and mech units. Forced March can be useful, especially in moving heavy archers, pikemen and siege weapons to close in for the kill.

Decoys

Creates duplicates of units within the radius of the Officer, which will fade over a while, but will appear to other factions with no ability to see hidden units as real units. These units however will expire faster than other units if they encounter attrition.

Ambush

Cloaks all units within the Officer's radius for the duration of this power. This ability can be used to hide spies and agents that have exhausted their stealth ability.

Weak and unarmoured as they are, officers make prime targets for a variety of units. the most obvious choice are missile cavalry. Next are agents - spies can turn them, while units like Fedayeen, Hashishin, Legates and Ninjas are all adept at killing them.

Unit summary

Officers boost nearby units' armour and can also use four special abilities to create diversions and enhance units.

• Command unit, slow, vulnerable to attack and costly, but capable of providing a variety of support functions to your units.
• In addition to boosting unit strength, officers can also use four special abilities to create diversions and enhance units.
• As they are slow and unarmed, Officers make good targets for bribery and assasination, so protect them as much as you can.