A Flying fella can traverse the air itself! This ability is extremely useful, both within combat and out of it.

Flying in combat allows a unit to go wherever they want in a single round. The unit pops up into the sky, being untouchable for a brief period, and then touches down in their preferred square. This always takes the same amount of time, whether they're flying five squares of distance or fifty. This also basically guarantees that a routing fella will leave the battlefield.

In the games before Dominions 5, Flying was even more powerful in combat; since fellas would do their movement and their attacks in a row, without a chance for an interruption, a flying unit would basically always get the first strike. Now the attack order is a lot more random, and whether or not this is realistic doesn't matter too much.

Flying in combat is an action that uses Melee Encumbrance, though the Fatigue only hits the flier once they're done. In Rain or Snow, the Fatigue is doubled. A flier may also pop up off the ground if needed, allowing them to escape the grasp of many Earth spells, without accruing any additional exhaustion. Of course, an unconscious Flying fellow cannot fly, though whether or not this makes them vulnerable to spells like Earthquake is not clear.

Flying units are among the few who can use Charge Attacks, along with Mounted units and Centaurs. As always, only certain weapons can do them, all of them lances. Since Dominions can't (or chooses not to) simulate units pulling back to charge again, only the first hit each battle gets the bonus.

• On another note, fliers dodge the Charge Bonus other units get, unless those units are also flying; they merely take regular damage.

The Charge Bonus damage is calculated differently for fliers than for other units. For land-bound units, the extra damage is their Size plus ¼ of their Combat Speed. Most fliers have average or poor Combat Speed, though, and the extra damage for them is twice their Size; this is gravity doing the job that their speed would do otherwise.

The Charge Bonus damage is capped at ½ the attacker's Strength with a one-handed weapon, or at their full Strength if they're using a two-handed weapon; not that there are any charging weapons that require two hands.

Flying is useless in the following two situations:

• Underwater. Aside from water messing up the wings of some beings, there isn't anything special about a flier's use of the third dimension underwater. Basically, almost anyone who can swim, would swim up after the flying folks.
• In Storms. The winds, clouds, and heavy precipitation of Storms prevents Flying, for all but a particular order of fellows known as the Storm-Immune. The Storm-Immune still have to put up with Rain and such.

A flying unit largely ignores both the terrain of provinces and the conditions of province connections while flying. Their Map Movement scores are also rather large, on average, though only while they can fly. Here are some MM costs to get from place-to-place, per province:

For example, a Flying unit with 20 Map Movement can travel to a friendly province three provinces away, as long as only zero (6 + 6 + 6 = 18) or one (6 + 7 + 7 = 20) of the provinces between them are hostile. Alternatively, they can penetrate two provinces deep into enemy lines (7 + 8 = 15) in a single turn. In caves, the travel is cut to two provinces, and they must both must be friendly (10 + 10 = 20). Of course, if there are many paths to a province, the flier will take whichever path is the easiest.

No, you cannot fly over underwater provinces. Fliers don't cross multiple provinces in a single trip! The closest alternative is Sailing.

A fellow with an Underwater Trait (such as Amphibious) can fly over underwater provinces, since they can rest at the bottom of the ocean if they need to. As for the others, they have no chance.

Can Aquatic beings fly?

Flying units are quite good in Sieges, since walls as a concept are designed against fellas who can't fly. Whatever their Siege Strength is before any trait modifiers, the Flying trait doubles it.

Flying units can get a "birds-eye" view of their home province, which is pretty good for Patrolling. Whatever their Map Movement is, replace it with 30 for the purpose of calculating Patrol Strength. This means that, before traits, fliers have at least 1.5 Patrol Skill.