A few questions - I apoligize if the answers have already been given or are contained within the book.

#1 - Can a hero move during the quest phase if he already sits upon an activated space?

#2 - If a player loses all of his own forces but allied neutrals survive and are forced to retreat, does he decide where they retreat to, or do they retreat as neutrals with the player to his left deciding where the retreat goes (with them being destroyed if there is no place to retreat, rather than returning to their master)?

#3 - If a defender loses all his units in a stronghold space, but the stronghold alone wins the strength test, is the attacker still forced to retreat?

#4 - I've read about having more than 8 units in one place at a time (for a battle). Is this possible and how does it work exactly? Your extra units retreat at the end of combat or are they destroyed?

Thanks.

Hello Koroviev, here are my answers, as good as I know them:

#1 - Yes, as far as I know, activation only counts for "units", not heroes. Heroes disregard activation completely.

#2 - The units would at this point still be considered allied, and would be able to retreat to a friendly area, thus staying allied. If there was no friendly area to retreat to (maybe the attacker attacker with all units in the area), they would have to retreat to an empty area and would revert back to neutral units. (I'm not entirely sure what would happen if the attacker was using a Mobilize with supremacy bonus and wanted to move a unit of his own with them after that. When do they revert to neutral? As soon as they were standing there or at the end of the attacker's turn?). I don't think it would be possible to have no friendly AND no empty areas around an area you just attacked, but in case this happens, the units would be destroyed.

#3 - Yes, the attacker is still forced to retreat and the defender wins the day! This is even true if the defender did not have any units in the area to begin with (say, an attacker attacks a stonghold with only 2 units).

#4 - With a mobilize (or conquer), you activate an area. You then move any number of units you want from one or more(!) surrounding areas to attack. This is the only time you can stack more than 8 units in an area. If you would happen to win the battle and you would still have more than 8 units, excess units (your choice which ones) would have the option to retreat to a friendly area (or, if those are not available, but only then, a neutral area).

I hope this helps!

Zab

Zab's answers are all correct as far as I know.

To clarify a bit on #2, the neutrals revert to neutral status after the battle ends. With Mobilize, that means after the first activation, before the second. That also means you wouldn't be able to "save" the neutrals by moving new units into the hex they now occupy - they would have to be diplomacized or fought and you can't start a second battle, so I think you wouldn't even be able to attempt diplomacy.

Zab is also correct that there would have to be at least one friendly/empty area adjacent to the battle, otherwise your units wouldn't have had a path to get in there in the first place!

Further clarification on the subject of retreats: you can only retreat to ONE hex when withdrawing from battle, and you MUST retreat to a friendly hex over an empty one, if you have the choice. If there are too many friendlies already in the hex you retreat to, this might mean you end up needing to destroy units once they get there. This rule may seem odd, but I think it's because territory control is a large aspect of the game. They don't want to give you the ability to gain control of an otherwise empty hex (let alone more than one) by retreating unless there are no other options.

Steve-O said:

You can certainly use Diplomacy on your second Mobilize action even if the first action was a battle. The red result is that you retreat OR start a battle. Thus, if your first activation was a battle, and in your second one you use Diplomacy and get a "red" result, you obviously can't start another battle - thus, you are forced to retreat. The "grey" result is also not a battle - it just causes the neutrals to retreat.

IE, not all retreating is part of a battle; as long as you aren't starting a second battle, you are good to go, and I think the "retreat" option for the red result is there to allow diplomacy attempts to fail without having to start a battle.

(Along the same note, if your FIRST move is Diplomacy and you get a "red" result, you can still choose to retreat instead of fighting; your second activation then COULD be a battle, because the first one was not a battle).

Correction on Zabulus #4: You can never retreat into neutral area, there should be "empty area" instead. Only time when you can retreat into neutral area (are that contains neutral units) is when retreating with neutral units not allied to any player (eg. when you make decisions "for them" in other players turns).

Rasiel said:

I think that was more of just a mis-type than an error; by "neutral area" I think he meant an empty one (ie, neutral to all players because nobody controls it). But your clarification is indeed important - you cannot retreat your units to an area containing unallied neutrals.

Indeed, that is what I meant. I agree that your wording is better, though.