| High Men Engineers | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Race | High Men | |
| Req. Town Buildings | Builders' Hall | |
| Construction Cost |
 40 | |
| Upkeep Cost |
 1 1 | |
| ||
| # of figures |
 6 | |
| Moves |
 1 | |
| Melee Attack per figure |
 1 | |
| Defense per figure |
 1 | |
| Resistance |
 4 | |
| Hit Points per figure |
 1 | |
| ||
 Wall Crusher | ||
High Men Engineers are a type of Normal Unit that can be recruited in High Men Towns containing at least a Builders' Hall. Engineers are a support unit whose primary purpose is the improvement of infrastructure through the construction of Roads. They offer little in the way of combat prowess, although they are capable of demolishing sections of City Walls during siege battles – provided that they can be kept alive while trying to reach those walls.
High Men Engineers have a Construction Cost of 40, and require an Upkeep Cost of 1 and 1 to maintain. Failure to pay these costs will result in the unit being disbanded automatically.
Unit Properties[]
Physical Description[]
High Men Engineers are a group of men (humans) with reddish hair, dressed in brown tunics. Though they are not seen to be carrying any weapons or armor, they are implied to be equipped with short swords for self defense. Like most High Men, High Men Engineers are quite mundane, possessing no great or fantastic qualities, but also no glaring disadvantages.
High Men Engineers are a Multi-Figure unit, containing up to 6 individuals.
Attack Properties[]
High Men Engineers initially possess a very weak Melee Attack, which will only be threatening to low-tier Normal Units. They have an Attack Strength of only 1, which has an average "raw" 
damage output of 0.3 – or rather, there is only a 30% chance for each Engineer to inflict any damage on the opponent, which may then possibly be negated entirely by a Defense Roll. Therefore, High Men Engineers are highly unlikely to get through any armor at all. They do get better with 
Experience though, both in strength and accuracy. At the 
Elite level, the maximum normally attainable, their attacks will actually do 4 times this much – 1.2 points of "raw" damage, on average, per Engineer.
High Men Engineers do possess one quality that might warrant their inclusion in an offensive army. During a siege of an enemy Town with City Walls, they may be able to demolish segments of those walls, allowing other ground troops to push through and engage the defenders without the protection granted by the walls. However, to accomplish this, the High Men Engineers need to get adjacent to a wall segment, and even then, their chance of successfully destroying it is only 50% per attack.
Defensive Properties[]
High Men Engineers wear very little armor, and possess a Defense score of only 1. They can deflect about 0.3 points from Conventional Damage attacks, on average – which is barely anything, and leaves them extremely vulnerable. As with most common foot soldiers, each High Men Engineer also has only 1 Hit Point. In other words, each point of Damage inflicted on this unit will kill off one of its 
figures. Their base Resistance score is also quite terrible – with 4, they will easily fall prey to most Unit Curses and combat maledictions. Luckily though, all three of these statistics improve with Experience.
Other Properties[]
High Men Engineers move at a slow 1, and can only traverse land tiles. The unit has no special movement properties. On the other hand, High Men Engineers are one of only a handful of units in the game capable of building Roads. In addition to improving the movement of troops in general, Roads can also provide a tangible economical benefit by allowing connected Towns to trade between each other, increasing their Gold income.
Roads may only be built on land and, by default, take between 3 to 8 turns per map tile to construct, depending on terrain. However, multiple Engineers working together can reduce this time considerably. To build a Road, the Engineers must first move to the tile where it is intended to start, and be given the "Build" command. The player is then given information about the time it will take to construct the Road, and may also select a destination to build to – clicking the "Ok" button without choosing a destination will prompt the Engineers to build only on the tile they are standing on. Adjacent tiles with Roads on them are connected automatically in any direction, including diagonals.
Overland tiles with Roads on them can be entered by ground units for a movement cost of only 0.5, regardless of the actual terrain. However, 
flying units gain no benefit from regular Roads unless they are moving together with ground forces. Should Roads be built on Myrror, they will automatically become Enchanted Roads instead. These can be moved over by corporeal units – including flying ones – at no movement cost whatsoever, allowing troops to travel great distances in the blink of an eye. Like it is with flying units and regular Roads, 
Non-Corporeal creatures can also make use of the Enchanted Roads, but only as long as they move together with corporeal units.
Basic Strategy[]
The primary role of High Men Engineers is to build Roads. Connecting strategic locations allows armies to move more readily between them, improving response time to enemy threats, as well as enabling newly recruited troops to reach the front lines faster. At the same time, Roads also provide Towns with the opportunity to trade amongst each other, increasing the amount of Gold they can generate each turn. The more Towns that are interconnected, the higher the income of each one becomes.
Because of this, High Men Engineers are typically worth recruiting as soon as their maintenance becomes manageable. This is especially true given that Roads can take quite some time to construct, and the larger the empire, the longer it will take to fully cover it. At the same time however, building Roads whereever possible is not necessarily a good idea, particularly on the frontiers. Enemies may be able to make use of the Road network in the same way that its builders can, allowing them to overrun the empire if ample defenses are not yet in place to stop them.
To train High Men Engineers, a Town only requires a Builders' Hall. This is usually among the first Town Buildings constructed in a settlement – if not the very first one –, as it unlocks a number of other structures – including the Granary, which can play a vital role in the growth of new Cities. Thus, High Men Engineers tend to be readily available in High Men empires. They are also one of the few units that can be created without any military buildings, and can therefore be trained without interrupting regular army recruitment.
Unfortunately, High Men Engineers are not exactly an ideal combat unit, and generally perform poorly in battle. Even the considerably cheaper High Men Spearmen have better attributes. While the 
Wall Crusher ability may seem promising, given the low survivability of the High Men Engineers, and the fact that they need to reach the City Walls to attempt to demolish them, it is seldom useful in practice.
However, Engineers do have a trait that is not mentioned anywhere in the game documentation: computer players do not consider them to be military units. That is, Engineers can enter the territory of other Wizards without any diplomatic repercussions. Although Settlers also possess this quality, they are more expensive than High Men Engineers, and are even more defenseless in combat.
At the very least, High Men Engineers have a decent figure count, which means that through Experience and other enhancement effects, they can potentially be empowered enough that being attacked does not always result in losing them. Should this be the case, High Men Engineers can serve as scouts, or possibly even guard strategic locations where the presence of military units might otherwise escalate into unwanted wars.
Ability Overview[]
Construction[]
- This unit can build Roads on land tiles.
- To use this ability, the unit needs to be on a valid tile, be selected, and have Movement Allowance remaining. If all requirements are met, the "Build" command becomes active in the unit window at the bottom right of the screen. Triggering it also allows a destination to optionally be chosen.
- Building a Road on a map tile takes 3 to 8 game turns depending on terrain, and can be sped up by employing multiple units with this ability, in which case the time required is divided by the number of such units, rounding down.
Wall Crusher[]
- When besieging a Town, this unit can target map tiles with intact City Wall segments as if there were enemy units on those tiles.
- Any attack made by this unit against a tile – or an enemy on a tile – with an intact wall segment has a 50% chance of destroying the wall segment on that tile for the remainder of combat. If an enemy is also hit, then the chance is rolled only after resolving the attack against that enemy.
Experience Table[]
The following table illustrates how High Men Engineers improve with Experience. Any properties that are not listed here are not affected by Experience in any way.
| Level Icon | Level Name | EP | Melee | To Hit | Defense | Resist | Hits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Recruit | 0 - 19
|
1
|
 30%
|
1
|
4
|
1
|
|
Regular | 20 - 59
|
2
|
30%
|
1
|
5
|
1
|
|
Veteran | 60 - 119
|
2
|
30%
|
2
|
6
|
1
|
|
Elite | 120
|
3
|
40%
|
2
|
7
|
2
|
|
Ultra-Elite | 120 *
|
3
|
50%
|
3
|
8
|
2
|
|
Champion | 120 **
|
4
|
60%
|
3
|
9
|
3
|
* To achieve this level, either the Warlord Retort or the 
Crusade spell must be in play.
** To achieve this level, both Warlord and Crusade must be in play simultaneously.
Average Damage Output[]
The table below details the average amount of "raw" damage that each Figure in a High Men Engineers unit will deliver based on 
Experience Level. It can be used in comparison to the target's Defense rating to approximate the chance of hurting that target.
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">Acquisition[]
High Men Engineers may be recruited in any High Men Town with a Builders' Hall already present. The Construction Cost of this unit is 40. High Men Engineers may also appear as Mercenaries, provided that the player has a presence on Arcanus. In this case, they cost between 80 to 120 to hire per unit, based on their Experience – or half that much for Charismatic Wizards.