Hotkey reconfiguration

[Raider_Rob]

Hi all. My first topic here I think. I have been playing MTW for something more than a week now and I have some serious issues with the standard configuration of the hotkeys on MTW. So I reconfigured mine http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

The major issue is that the camera rotation is at the numpad which is too hard to reach with your lefthand and takes too much time as I wanna keep my righthand on the mouse almost all of the time unless using one of the Ctrl+commands. So I moved the camera rotation to the leftside of my desktop. However this means that I had to move some of the formation keys etcetera also. So this is what it looks like so far:

FORWARD W
BACKWARD S
PAN LEFT A
PAN RIGHT D
TURN LEFT Q
TURN RIGHT E

HALT ` (GRAVE)
RALLY R
GROUP G
CLOSE FORMATION C
LOOSE FORMATION Z
WEDGE FORMATION X
ENGAGE AT WILL N
HOLD FORMATION F
SKIRMISH V
HOLD POSITION H
FIRE AT WILL B

This way you have all important hotkeys nicely put together on the leftside of your desktop. If you are used to the old ones you probably will need some time to get used to them but it will play much better in the end. I don't have to relearn as I hardly ever used the old setup.
Maybe a lot of people already have done this but I couldn't find anything on the subject.

Some of these keys have remained the same. All the ones not listed also. Does anyone have a better setup?

PS: I think I have a doublepost accidentally. I tried to TAB some stuff to get it tidy but than it just posted my post without me wanting to post it. Could any moderator pls be so kind to get rid of it as I can't find the edit key.

[Gregoshi]

Rob, you are the first I've run into to bring up such a topic. Reconfiguring the hot keys makes sense but I've always been casual enough about my game play not to be concerned with efficiency.

What is the difference between turn and pan? Also, how long did it take you learn the new key configuration?

[Raider_Rob]

With Pan it is like stepping sidewards. You keep looking straightforward but are moving right or left.

With Turn you stay at the same position but from looking straightforward you than go to looking at your left or right.

I always make a list of all my hotkeys and print those out if I am playing a new game. This gives me a quick reference and helps me learn them faster. Depending on how much I play I learn but I'd say you could learn these ones in 10-20 battles. It aren't that many as they are only battle controls. With games like Empire Earth or Age of Kings there are many more. Some keys you will never learn as you never use them.

This is mainly aimed at those people not wanting to pause in single player and people in multiplayer as you just can't keep pausing all the time than. It makes you faster which if you know the basics of what counters what, formations and terrain will make you a better player. It is quite simple, if two equally smart players play the fastest one will win. It is better to be able to make 3 decisions instead of 2 in the same timeframe. This gives you better control of your units and on what is going on on the battlefield.

This is still a work in progress though. I based my camera movement keys on the way they work in shooters like Medal of Honour which makes it feel natural and easy to learn from me. Someone else might like an entirely different setup and I might change them also if I feel I can do better.

On a sidenote I didn't include any nr 2 keys and I removed the fast keys as I just use 1 standard with the camera speed almost to the maximum in the game options screen. I just wanna go as fast as possible http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

If you removed my doublepost ty Gregoshi and I hope this answers most questions people could have. If someone still has something I will be happy to answer.