Wed Sep 14, 2016 8:12 am
You can only load your faction's stacks onto your faction's transports. It's a game engine restriction.
To embark a stack onto transports, ensure first that the stack will fit on the transports. The tool-tips of the tabs of the transport's stack and the embarking land units stack will show transport capacity and the weight of the embarking stack respectively. The embarking stack may not be larger of course.
Then simply Drag-n-Drop™ the embarking stack's tab onto the transport's tab, and voila, they have been plotted to embark. You can then plot the transport's move; no need to wait for the next turn to see the land units on the transports. In fact, any time land units on transports find themselves in a friendly harbor at the end of a turn, they will automatically debark into inside the city of the harbor. This includes if the stack did not move.
Once the combined transports and land units stack has its movement plotted, you can use the Distant Unload SO button to pick a region, into which the land units will debark. This region will be highlighted in dark blue. Once the combined stack becomes adjacent to the Distant Unload target region, the land units will commence to debark, regardless of what is in that region. This can save time, but not without a drawback. See below.
If you want to confirm the target region's content, before starting to debark, simply end the combined stack's movement in a water region adjacent to the target region. On the next turn your combined stack should have some information in the adjacent target region. You can now select the land units in the combined stack (<Ctrl><Right-Click> to select multiple units) and imply Drag-n-Drop™ the selected units into the target region; this is actually better, if combat will occur upon debarking your land units in the target region. See below.
There are a couple of caveats:
- Any Corps status is lost when a Corps stack is embarked. However, if you take an Army Command along with the Corps, you can select the Corps Leader and all of his subordinate units and plot their debarkation. Once you have done this they are a separate stack, with the Army Command stack still on the transports. This allow you to now select the "Corps" stack and reinstate Corps Command. Now the Corps stack will debark as a Corps.
- You can only debark one stack from one combined stack per turn. So if you want to invade two different regions at the same time, or need to debark two different stacks (eg two Corps stacks), you will have to transport these in separate stacks.
- Debarking into combat with the Distant Unload SO button has a combat disadvantage compared to debarking with the Drag-n-Drop™ method. This may be because of the lack of detection in the target region, but I don't know for sure.
--
Tip: You can always scout coastal regions with naval units in advance of plotting a move. Brigs are good for this, or any naval units with a high detection value.
