One of the most common questions we get (and greatest sources of confusion is over the issue of units moving between ally locations.

First and foremost, to be clear: units cannot move between ally locations. That is to say, they cannot move between locations without first moving to the battlefield, and then the next term they can move to any ally location.

So, why?

To answer this question, let's consider both the logical reasoning and the strategic reasoning. For a strategy game to be enjoyable, its rules need to be both logical but also create a good strategic experience. (For instance, it might not be fully logical that a unit would fully regain health after every term, but it would make the game far less enjoyable if all units had to stack damage counters.)

Logical Reasoning. The logical reasoning behind why units cannot move between locations is because your locations are not really as close as you think. Yes, in terms of layout on the table, they're right next to each other. But this is only a schematic for the war that is "actually" occurring. In this war, your villages and fortresses are actually quite far apart--in some cases as far apart from each other as enemy villages. Various towns on a given country or province have allegiance to certain sides, and then some have no allegiance (called "neutral" in some games). In Conquest, we avoid the neutrals and just focus on the locations for each side.

Because your locations are so widespread, it is impossible to move from one location to another without traveling through the open and more dangerous spaces in between, which we widely generalize to be the battlefield. (And yes, it's true that logically there should be many "battlefields" then, but this leads to essentially playing the game on a map, which we determined to be a bad thing.)

Strategic Reasoning. The strategic reasoning is simple: While Conquest is hailed by many as an extremely offensive game (you can't do much of anything without being offensive), it's also possible for the game to turn into an endless stall. This often happens when two commanders are maybe a bit more indecisive than they should be. (Not that I'd want to tell you how to play!) But for this reason, we've restricted movement between locations to make it easier to wear down an opponent. Once you move your units into the battlefield, you can determine which locations are the least defended (or those that are most important to your opponent), and assign your troops to make careful assaults on that location, crippling your opponent's resources and moving your toward victory.

Now, imagine if units could simply run around between locations. You'd never be able to get through anything! Every battle would quickly turn into "who has the biggest units" and would tend to drag on. It's like playing a game of chess where positioning means nothing, and simply having more and better pieces is the core. In this model, the entire game degenerates into a battle of trying to get the best kills (i.e., trading weaker units to make stronger kills).

Hopefully you understand why this is such an important feature of the game. While we worked very hard to make Conquest as intuitive as possible (which we have been complimented by many for, thank you!), there are some pieces that take a bit of getting used to. However, we hope that you can rest assured that there are very specific reasons why these rules are structured as they are, and know that all of these concepts (and their alternatives) were heavily tested for several years.

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