Maritime Travel

All units may travel across the seas of Warbarons, but depending on the type of the unit, seafaring may affect the movement and battle skills of a unit in various ways, which are detailed here.



Maritime Movement

Land units

Ordinary land units, like infantry and cavalry must travel to a port, where they can embark on a ship. There are various ship types to choose, some of which may cost a one-time fee per unit. The ship type determines both the maximum strength in naval battles (see below), as well as movement. The ship type determines the move cost on various water terrains and the number of movement points the unit will receive at the beginning of each turn while afloat. Ships may also carry over a maximum of 2 unused movement points from one turn to the next like any other unit.

Ship	cost	max str	move	ocean	water	shore	river	water fall	ford	swamp	city / temple
Djonk	0	15	15	2	1	2	3	∞	4	∞	∞
Galley	10	25	17	4	2	1	2	∞	3	∞	∞
Galleon	20	45	22	1	1	3	4	∞	5	∞	∞
Sea Creature	n/a	n/a	n/a	1	1	1	2	6	2	2	2

Note that units in ships cannot land on any shore - nor move directly into cities, but they must disembark at a port again. Embarkment or disembarkment leaves a unit with at most 2 movement points left. So embarkment or disembarkment effectively ends a unit's turn.
Note that movement points are only reduced after changing between water and land. So a land unit pays 2 move points to move onto a port, and then has at most 2 points left to continue per ship in the same turn.
Likewise, a ship with 9 moves pays 2 to move onto a port, then 6 to move on a hill square, leaving the unit to stand on the hill with 1 movement point left in this turn. If the ship had a dwarf or scout among its crew, the units would have 2 movement points left, since disembarkation limits the leftover movement points to two.
Therefore, embarked land units may still invade cities right away that are one square away from a port (regardless of terrain), and even two squares if the second square contains a road.
However, an embarked unit may move onto a port for a cost of 2 movement points, change ship to another type, and then continue its journey within the same turn with all their remaining movement points (although their maximum move is reduced if the newer ship type has a lower maximum). Moving onto a port just costs 2 points for all units.

Sea creatures

Sea creatures, like Serpents or Krakens travel naturally across the sea, and usually have increased battle skills on water terrains.Sea creatures can also ease the travel for heroes on water terrain.Their movement costs are shown in the table above.

Flying units

Flying units can travel and fight over water without any penalties. However, flying units may rest upon ships: a flying unit that is stacked with a ship pays only the ship's movement cost, if it is lower. For example, a dragon usually pays 2 movement points over open water, but only 1 point if stacked with a unit that embarked in a Galleon, speeding up the dragon considerably over open water.

Heroes

Heroes have a lot of choice to travel the seas:

• They can embark onto boats like ordinary land units. The advantage is that they receive the full movement points of their chosen ship type in subsequent turns. The disadvantage is that their strength is capped as for any other land unit in a boat, and that they can only disembark at another port again. Skills like Leadership remain unaffected in any case.
• Heroes can ride with another boat, flying unit or sea creature. The advantage is that they keep their full personal strength score and that they can move onto any adjacent land tile normally, without loosing their current movement points like units that disembark at a port would do. So they remain much more mobile while riding.
  The disadvantage is that they only receive their normal movement points at the beginning of the turn as usual, and that they are prone to drowning: A hero that looses the mount will drown at the end of your own turn. If the enemy manages to kill the mount of your hero, but not the hero itself, then you have a full turn to provide another mount to the (meanwhile immobile) hero.
  (Note that items placed on sea tiles do not sink, but float on the waves until another hero picks them up again.)
  On the plus side, a riding hero only pays the lowest movement cost of all units within the stack. For example, a hero riding on a Galley only pays 1 movement point when sailing along the shore line.
• Heroes can also use their divine movement ability to move safely across water all by themselves, without using a mount or a boat. They can change between land and sea at any time then.

Mounting a hero on a seaworthy ride can be tricky: both hero and mount must join on the same map tile on their own. So a hero can only meet with a sea creature on city terrain, swamps, fords, ports, etc. However, a hero could use a flying mount to meet with a sea creature at sea, and then change mounts there (no special command is needed for this, just stack/unstack the units accordingly).
Note that a hero is automatically converted into a ship upon moving onto a port, but you can disembark the hero immediately in the ship conversion dialog, if there is another unit or mount available. So whenever you move a hero to a port, make sure to choose consciously whether you want to embark the hero on his or her own boat or whether the hero should hitch a ride along with other units in the stack.

Naval Warfare

The strength of all land units embarked in boats is capped according to the boat type during battles at sea (see table above). This cap is applied last, after adding and subtracting bonuses. For example, a heavy cavalry with 25 strength fights with 15 strength, if embarked in a djonk, regardless of whether the opponent brings along a kraken with -10 fear on water terrain or not.

The boat strength cap matters also for land units which attack enemy units that are parking on a port. Beware, the attackers are then automatically converted to djonks. However, the boat strength cap does not apply if units located on a port attack an adjacent land location, like a coastal city.

Attacking coastal cities from sea can be tricky, although it is governed by the ordinary movement rules: land units in boats cannot move onto a city, so they cannot attack a coastal city directly. They must disembark at a port first in order to move on land again. On the other hand, sea creatures, flying units and heroes riding either of these can attack a coastal city directly from sea. So only cities that are directly adjacent to a port may be attacked by a mixed stack consisting of sea creatures and boats. If the port is separated from the coastal city by one tile or more, the units in boats must attack separately from sea creatures who must attack on their own. Flying units may always join other units attacking coastal cities.