Multi-army unit mixing in battle

[Beirut]

(How's that for a title?)

So there I was, about to beat the crap out of a few thousand Egyptians with my half-their-strength armies. I invaded with two armies, each of about a thousand men; half longbows and half pikemen in each army.

But when I get into battle, the bloody game gives me 13 bloody units of archers and only three bloody units of pikemen It made up its own bloody mixture of troops from what I had total in-country, not choosing the larger (or either) of the two bloody armies I brought in.

Obviously the Egyptian cavalry charged, took heavy casualties from my million archers, but penetrated (ouch) my three measly units of pikemen and pounded the bloody daylights out of my bloody longbowmen.

What the bloody hell is up with this?? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-furious3.gif

[katank]

have you tried the unit swap button if you have 1.1 in the top right corner
also, have you used the prebattle reinforcements screen to select first wave if in VI?

[RZST]

wait, didnt you see the army setup screen before you entered the battle? usually you choose what units you want in the battle.

[Beirut]

In all honesty, there's a lot about this game I don't know, but I'm not a complete newb. (I think.)

I move two armies into the next country then end turn. The AI choses to scrap it out during its turn and I'm faced with the decision of handling it myself, letting the computer solve it or calling it off. I chose to fight it out with me in control and I'm thrown into battle with what the bloody machine has decided. The leftover troops are reinforcements. far as I can see, I have no choice. What am I missing here?

By the by, I'm playing M:TW 1.1 without VI.

Thanks for the replies. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[katank]

like I said, there's a buton in the top right part of the screen shoing a red arrow that wraps around and a soldier on the icon.

select a unit and hit that button and you should see it cycle through all possible units from the reinforcement pool.

Once you are happy with this, move onto the next and then do this again until you have the troop mix you like.

This is really clumsy and a bad system for any thing more than two stacks or so.

For a far more intuitive interface, get VI. In VI, the prebattle screen, you can drag and drop unit icons to and from your reinforcements pool and is a lot less tedious than cycling through with that button.

Always replace with that button as the AI tends to like missile units, esp. artillery for the first wave no matter what which could lead to fiascos like your case.

Once you get this done, you should be able to stop http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-furious3.gif and more http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif .

Now onto more AI slaughtering http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Beirut]

Gracias jefe. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

I'll give it a try.

[mercian billman]

Also if you don't like the computer mixing up your armies, click off the tidy up units and armies box at the top left of the strategic map.

[Beirut]

Katank,

It worked It worked

Thanks. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif To all.

[katank]

that's good. No problem

now the AI really stands no chance.

well balanced army of longbows and pikers vs. their peasant rabble? the AI's gotta go http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

what's the kill ratio like? savor the wonderful destruction

the swapping button is still pain when you have like 4 stacks and want to fight the horde.

VI is great and you should consider upgrading just to get nice prebattle screen and the new units.

just my two cents.

BTW, horde 2.0 is fun.