The LEGION command is used for interacting with city military and banners. See HELP UNDEAD and HELP HUORNS for info on undead and living tree legions. These are not covered here. This help-file is comprehensive but if you want a cribsheet, see HELP COMMANDING and commit it to memory. It covers all the essentials.
The word 'legion' in Avalon refers to groups of enlisted men/soldiers assembled under a unique banner. Legions come in eight types: party, company, battalion, regiment, brigade, division, corps and army. Each type covers an increasingly large number of legionnaires. Legions engage in warfare. Legions can claim territory, occupy towns and villages, conquer enemy cities, lay siege and construct largescale projects. Legions are the mainstay of the warfare metagame, one of the five metas of the Avalon gamesystem.
Syntax: LIST <guild/city>.
Provides you with a list of legions created under your banner, or that of your city or guild. Open to all fighters, duellists and pacifists alike.
Syntax: WHERE <city/guild>.
Shows you the whereabouts of all legions of a certain loyalty - city or guild - across the land.
Syntax: LEGION INFO <legion> (or IF <legion> for short), LEGION SKILLS/ACT/ALL <legion>.
Core legion command to give you detailed info on a specific legion including its whereabouts, deployments, formation, approach, engagements, battle-lines, etc. NOTE: you can also do LEGION INV/SKILLS/ACT/ALL <legion> to see a legion's inventory, its trained skills, its current deployments and all of the above in a single page.
Syntax: LEGION NEW <new legion name> <city or guild> <banner title>.
This is the main command to create new banners (to be subsequently filled with assembled enlistables or legionnaires from other banners). You need to pick a legion name that doesn't clash with any pre-existing banner or reserved word. You must state the city or guild for banner loyalty and give the banner a title - or motto - to define its identity thereafter.
Syntax: LEGION RENAME <legion> <new legion name>.
Renames an existing legion with a new non-clashing name.
Syntax: LEGION TITLE <legion> <title>.
Updates the legion's banner title (or motto) to some new defining phrase.
Syntax: LEGION GLORY <legion name>.
Some legions achieve great feats of bravery and/or become involved in historical events - and these banners you may wish to ensure remain permanent, so their narratives and journals remain ever in tact for future generations. The LEGION GLORY affirmation, bestowed on a legion, ensures its banner cannot be disbanded, renamed or merged away.
Syntax: LEGION DISPATCHES <legion name>.
Use this command to review the outstanding dispatches and command orders currently passing through a legion; the actions a legion is performing or soon to perform - both commanded by individuals or written to be carried out via dispatches (see HELP DISPATCHES).
Syntax: LEGION JOURNAL <legion>.
Shows you the documented history of the specified legion: its past encounters, active deployments, travels and travails.
Syntax: LEGION NOTE <legion> <comment>.
Places the <comment> in the journal of the specified legion.
Syntax: LEGION DISBAND <legion>.
Disbands an existing legion (providing it lies under your banner), removing its name, title and very existence from the land. The legion must be empty to be disbanded.
Syntax: LEGION SIZES.
Shows you the various legion size types (from party to army) and how many men is needed for each. You can use LEGION EXPAND/CONTRACT <legion> to try to force it into a new size type. The various types have pros and cons, documented elsewhere.
Syntax: LEGION COMMANDER <legion> <new leadr>/<guild or city>.
Designates the specified player as the new leader-commander of the legion, whose orders will ba taken as priority and whose privileges of command shall be absolute except where restricted by the legion's LEADERSHIP structure.
Syntax: LEGION LEADERSHIP <legion> <leadership structure>.
Sets the command structure for the specifie legion. This defines who can and cannot issue commands/dispatches to those assembled under that legion's banner.
City Legions: ALLIED AUTHORITY, CADETS, MILITARY, CAPTAINS, COLONEL AND ABOVE, HIGH COMMAND ONLY, PRAETORIAN GUARD and open.
Guild Legions: ALLIES, APPRENTICES, COMMANDERS, OFFICER ALLIES, MEMBERS, FELLOWS, MASTERS GUARD ONLY and OPEN.
Other Legions: ALLIES, KIN, STANDARD, OFFICERS, NOBLE, HIGH COMMAND/RANK, PERSONAL, OPEN.
Syntax: LEGION ASSEMBLE <legion> FILL/<number> [<guild name/city name>].
Commands freshly enlisted untrained individuals into the specified privates-only legion. This assumes there exists in the locale both a source of privates and a group in existence under the legion's banner. If you have no-one under the legion's banner in the land it must be begun, on just the first occasion, by specifying a guild or city-name as per syntax above. This way the privates are taken from the correct guildsfolk or citizens. Note: you may use the FILL directive on pre-existing legions to bring in the maximum possible privates to swell its numbers to the edge of the next size-type up; ready for possible expansion.
Syntax: LEGION DEPLOY <master legion> <destination legion> <number>.
Deploys individuals from the master legion (which must be larger than a 'party' in size) into the destination legion. The <number> of men will move across to the other legion, updating its skills, attributes and training to reflect the new arrivals. Inventory is retained in the master legion.
Syntax: LEGION DISMISS <legion> <number> [<locale direction/CENTRE>].
This dismisses the specified number of men from the legion banner, optionally to a specific point in the location. The legion retains inventory and attributes and the dismissed men will need to be re-assembled under another banner should you wish to use them in subsequent warfare.
Syntax: LEGION SPLIT <master legion> <destination empty legion banner>.
Use this command to split a legion, using the master legion's banner and sending half its men into the destination banner. All expertise and training and attributes are inherited by the newly filled banner. WARNING: splitting legions can sometimes lose occasional men, especially when attempted on an active battlefield.
Syntax: LEGION MERGE <master legion> <secondary legion>.
Merges two legions: the master legion inherits all the men and inventory of the secondary legion. Training and attributes for the newly merged legion are an aggregate of the two, weighted by the relative numbers being merged.
It is never possible to have a mixed single legion of guild specialists and city soldiers/fieldworkers, nor can you shortcut training or the invaluable boost of real engagement experience - but you can try to tread a line between having a single crack regiment with enormous skills and experience (and an army of uneducated ill-equipped novices) and spreading the regiment's relatively small numbers in and around your entire military/society to gain the most possible training, for the maximum number of people, in the shortest time. Every military's conundrum.
See also HELP DISPATCHES, HELP TRAINING from HELP 22 and HELP ENLISTING from HELP 21.
