---
title: Who You Command
description: Faction leaders, vassals, province turns, and direct control.
---

Eagle commands are issued through provinces, but who chooses a province's action depends on its ruling hero. The key distinction is between **faction leaders**, whom the player commands directly, and **vassals**, who govern automatically.

## Leadership roles

| Role | Directly commanded? | Main purpose |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Faction head | Yes | Defines the faction and provides its original leadership |
| Other faction leader | Yes | Gives the player another directly controlled leader and a successor |
| Vassal | No | Rules a province according to standing orders and local needs |
| Unaffiliated hero | No | May be recruited, divined, apprehended, or otherwise interacted with |

The faction head is also a faction leader. **Swear Kinship** can promote a loyal faction hero into an additional faction leader. A faction leader who rules a province lets the player choose that province's normal command directly.

## Province turns

Most strategic actions belong to the province currently acting. During **Player Commands**, provinces led by faction leaders present their available commands to the player. A normal command such as Train, Improve, March, or Rest spends that province's turn.

The hero selected for a command is its actor, but selecting a different hero does not create another province turn. Several heroes may be eligible to perform the same province action; the player chooses which hero pays vigor and receives the associated experience.

Some commands explicitly do not take the turn. For example, **Issue Orders** changes standing instructions without consuming the acting province's normal action. The command reference labels these exceptions.

## Vassal-led provinces

A vassal-led province acts during **Vassal Commands**, before the main Player Commands phase. The vassal chooses an action using:

- the province's standing order: Entrust, Develop, Mobilize, or Expand;
- the faction's focus province;
- urgent local needs such as defense, riots, fatigue, low support, or beasts; and
- the commands actually available in the province.

Standing orders guide a vassal; they do not guarantee one exact command. A vassal may address a crisis before following a long-term development or expansion preference.

## Multiple leaders and provinces

Gaining more faction leaders does not give one province several normal actions. It expands direct control:

- A leader can directly rule a province instead of leaving it to a vassal.
- Leaders in different provinces can make those provinces player-controlled.
- Leaders provide succession if the faction head dies.

Heroes who are present but do not rule the province can still be selected for eligible commands. Province leadership determines who chooses the action, not which local hero must perform it.

## A simple example

Suppose your faction controls three provinces:

1. Your faction head rules the capital. You choose its action during Player Commands.
2. A second faction leader rules the frontier. You choose that province's action too.
3. A vassal rules a farming province with Develop orders. The vassal chooses its own action during Vassal Commands.

The result is two direct player decisions and one automatic vassal decision, assuming no riot, diplomacy offer, battle decision, or other special phase adds another required choice.

## Special decisions

Attack decisions, defense decisions, diplomacy responses, prisoner handling, riots, and battle aftermath are conditional decisions rather than extra normal province turns. They appear only when the current game state requires them and can pause the shared phase until every required faction responds.

See [Eagle Round Flow](/concepts/eagle-round-flow/) for phase timing and [Eagle Commands](/commands/) for which actions consume a turn.
