Movement

Introduction: Veteran CAZ pilots know a great deal about how to move on the field of battle -- the top speed and the tricks of the trade, how to turn and how best to close ground to your opponent. However, moving 500 meters across a field of battle is entirely different from moving entire armies across a theatre of war -- a much simpler, but slower, operation (on the whole). Despite this simplicity, it is important that we define exactly how not only individual Zoids but also whole divisions move across Zi. The purpose of this section is to explain the rules for movement of troops, NPCs, and even normal factional player characters across extreme distances.

Base to Base: Base to base transport is the easiest, simplist form of transport possible. Rather than marching, your troops are loaded onto a priority train (usually) and are conveyed there without having to march. Base-to-Base transport time is variable, but it's usually no quicker than 6 hours and no more than 60. Base to Base transport only works for two bases on the same continent -- you have to specially get a ship or aircraft to convey your troops if you plan to move across water. Furthermore, your enemy can disrupt your infrastructure. If you can't draw a path over land between two bases without moving through disputed or enemy territory, you can't use base to base transport. If you're just going from one base to the next, the world GM (me) will tell you how long it will take.

Top Speed: The first problem I have to tackle when explaining movement is the myth of the top speed. On CAZ, it's taken forgranted that because you can move at your top speed, you always should, and our battles are full of people charging around the field at super-highway speeds. I ask you to consider the following: You have a car and your are on your way to work -- work's about a mile away in this case. Your car can move at 120 MPH (190 KPH). Do you? Does it take you only a half-minute to bridge the gap between your residence and your job? Almost certainly not. Even if you could move at the top highway speed -- 65 MPH (105 KPH), should you? Would you actually get to your job in just one minute? Probably not. It would likely take you several minutes, at least. In your case, this is because of traffic, and because of speed limits, and because you can't travel as the crow flies. Even though exactly same restrictions don't apply to the military, you have a similar problem. You're marching a huge distance, probably much larger than just one mile, and you've generated your own traffic on narrow roads, slowed by poor terrain... there are thousands of conditions that could slow your massive columns of troops. The fact of the matter is that even though top speed factors into marching speed -- it just isn't. As matter of fact, the marching speed of a group of soldiers or terrestrial Zoids will rarely reach even half of an individual's top speed.

The Weakest Link: The next important thing to remember as your divisions march across Zi is this: you're only as good as your weakest link. This is as true in marching as it is in battle: divisions march as groups, not as individuals, and the entire unit marches only as quickly as the slowest thing in it. This means that a division magically composed entirely of Blade Ligers (a bad idea, for the record) would go several times faster than the same division with just one Cannon Tortoise -- because as long as that Cannon Tortoise is part of the division, it doesn't get left behind. Now, in many divisions, if you don't provide enough Zoids to transport your troops, you will limited by human marching speed (you will almost definitely never drop below human marching speed), which I will discuss below. However, it's most important to remember that one simple rule -- you only move as fast as your slowest element -- the weakest link in the chain.

Ideal Marching Speed: So, now that we now know that we move at an extremely low speed, much slower than our typical top speed. This speed is determined by the slowest Zoid (or in many cases, people) in our unit. But what speed is this? Well, I'll define the case for the so-called "vanilla" condition first -- average, open plains. On flat and level ground with no particular obstacles in a terrain, an army marches at 1/4 the top speed of its slowest Zoid and marches for 8 hours in a single day. So, imagine for a moment that your division of Blade Ligers that we mentioned above was moving across a pure open flatland. Those Ligers are moving at around 76 kph (or about 47 mph) -- slow enough that they're not straining themselves, but still quite quickly. After all, there's no shame in moving at freeway speeds if there's nothing to really avoid. This is also true for roads, plateaus, and other ideal conditions (note that this is only for terrestrial Zoids). In this ideal setting, the Blade Ligers could travel just over 600 kilometers in a single day. Now, if we throw in our friend the Cannon Tortoise, this speed plummets to 25 kph (or about 16 mph) -- about a third of the speed. Cannon Tortoises may be slow, but artillery is necessary. That means that the Division with the lowly turtle only moves about 200 kilometers per day. Now, normally your infantry can hitch a ride on or in a zoid, but with a single person marching, the entire unit may slow to 5 kph (yeah, marching long distances is a real bummer). A bunch of people marching at normal speed may only travel 40 kilometers a day. This is why it's important to make sure you have adequate vehicles -- even if only Cannon Tortoises -- to transport your people.

Non-Ideal Marching Speed: Well, it turns out that life sucks under most circumstances, and that you aren't always marching across a flat, open plain. Things tend to get in your way. When these things aren't the enemy (in which case you have a battle, which tends to halt your progress completely), they're less interesting and more mundane obstacles such as rivers, swamps, hills, mountains, muddy ground, rain, snow, fog, and anything else the terrain can throw at you. While I won't go so far as to make a chart, difficult terrain can severely inhibit your troops' progress across Zi -- maybe as drastically as halving movement speed. In extreme cases -- such as your army having to scale a mountain -- progress can come to an even slower crawl. Because of this, you never quite arrive as fast as you'd like.

Double-Time and Triple-Time: Well, those lazy men of yours are only marching at 5 kph! Can't they march any faster, dammit? Well, as it so happens, they can. You can order your units to march Double-Time, which means that they'll march twice as fast for the day. That's pretty handy -- you can those people to double their speed just by ordering them! Double-Time is great if you need to get your units in a limited timeframe, or just give your opponents less time to react. However, there's a catch -- it tires out your troops. As a rule of thumb (but not strictly) your units can march at double-time a number of days equal to their skill level before becoming fatigued (and I don't mean just tired by fatigued -- I mean bone-weary). Triple-Time works in that it triples your troops' speed -- but in this case, they can only march a number of hours equal to their skill level (again, a rule of thumb and not a law) before becoming fatigued. Generally, fatigued units cannot march at double-time or triple-time. Now, generally, double-time and triple-time only apply to people and not Zoids, because Zoids don't get tired. You don't order them to go faster because going quickly over a long distance may damage the Zoid unduly -- puts stress on the joints and all that. Triple-Time is alot like running a marathon, and it's stressful enough for humans -- but your Zoids are probably moving faster than that at normal marching speed, and they only go as fast as the slow, running humans. Often, if you have a division with no marching people, you don't need your Zoids to go that fast anyway. If you do, you can order Zoids to Double-Time and Triple-Time it over to their destination -- but the results may be different from just fatigue, and the Zoids may even take a kind of damage equivalent.

A Longer Day: A different way to get your troops to move faster is to extend the marching day, but this also tires them out quickly. In this case, it obviously depends on how much you extend the day, but note that having a unit march through the night will almost always result in fatigued troops. (The exception may be special forces, trained for continuous marching and fighting.) Also, note that the terrain factors into how quickly fatigue accumulates. Marching across open plains is easier than marching through a desert or through sleet and snow. Furthermore, fatigue can be dispelled by a series of short days or a few days of no marching and no fighting -- or even better yet, R&R (rest and relaxation).

Aircraft and Ships: Objection! We haven't covered all the types of Zoids yet. What about the marching speed of aircraft and ships? Well, they obviously don't march (duh). Aircraft first. Most fixed wing aircraft on CAZ are capable of supercruise (their cruising speed should be higher than the speed of sound) which means that they move so quickly that it's barely useful to mark their speeds. They hit their target (even if it's thousands of kilometers away) in an hour or two at the outside and then leave -- so quickly that it's possible I won't even have time to notice your order to move before it actually happens. You could estimate the cruising speed very roughly at half the top speed -- and let's ignore wind conditions momentarily, but most of the time aircraft will move too quickly for you to honestly care about the time it will take them to get there. Ships will cruise at nearly their top speed in ideal conditions (say, 75%), and probably the conditions of the ocean will affect their movement more than anything else. That's alot simpler than the troops on the ground, isn't it?

Transports: One caveat -- you know those transport things? Ever wonder why you bought one? Sure, the larger ones seem to be able to repair things, but why would even want any of the smaller three when you're a faction? After all, you can just stash your Zoids at a military base -- you're not some hobo independent pilot who needs a transport just get by. Well, it turns out that there's a major advantage to using transports to transport things. (Who would have thunk it?) The transports can move at full speed while "marching" -- which means that even your column of swift Blade Ligers will go faster if they're all stowed inside a humble Gustav -- because the Gustav can move at full speed. Why does the Gustav (and the other transports) get special treatment? Because it (or they) is specifically designed to haul Zoids over long distances. Also, it pretty much eliminates wear and tear on the Zoids. On more note -- if you don't have enough transport compartments to move all of your Zoids, you can just the pick up the slowest ones -- meaning that if your column of Blade Ligers with one Cannon Tortoise also had a Gustav, it would cease to be a problem. Also, even though soldiers can ride on or in Zoids, it turns out that the inside of a transport is a much better and safer place for them... but that's another story.