Supporting units are lending their strength to another unit. In exchange for not moving itself the unit makes another unit's move stronger by one. A unit may support any attack into a province to which it could move itself. In the situation pictured the fleet in the English Channel is supporting the army in Burgundy's move into Belgium. The army in Burgundy is now moving with a strength of two, and the German army in Belgium with a strength of one is bested (more about what happens to it later). Looking at the written orders one can see that the support order contains a full copy of the attack order it is supporting.

Note that the fleet in the English Channel is not adjacent to Burgundy at all, but is (and must be) able to legally move to Belgium. A fleet cannot support a move into an inland province, and an army cannot support a move into an ocean province.

What makes support orders particularly interesting is that one player's units can support another's. Turkey may extract a promise of support from Russia, but he or she won't know if Russia actually went through with the support until the orders have been revealed. What's more, Russia may have instead used the knowledge necessary to order that support to plan a more devestating attack against Turkey.

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Copyright (c)2002 Ry4an Brase