Argh! Hoplites turning sideways!

[Midnight]

I just played a battle, my Greeks vs Romans. I joined up a group of 2 Militia Hoplite units with a group of about 8 Militia Hoplite and 2 Hoplite reinforcements. I then told the nice, neat, orderly, gap-free line to advance. The line advanced, but as it did so it tried to turn 90 degrees, and all the units broke formation. The Romans charged, I suffered a horrible loss, as I couldn't get the line back in time. All I did was select the group, and click on the ground in front of them - a simple enough 'move directly forwards' command.

Other than "don't move hoplites once they're in formation; let the enemy come to you", does anyone have any idea why this happens? It's happened several times before, although with the sword-factions (Romans, barbs) I've previously played, it hasn't been an issue. It also never happened in MTW, and it's very annoying.

Am I doing something obviously, stupidly wrong? I'm running the latest patch, if that helps.

[Zenicetus]

Try selecting all the units in your line, then hold down Alt and rightclick on the destination. That should retain the formation when they move.

It's a little tricky, because you have to guess where the exact center of the line is, and then click ahead of that center, otherwise they might not move exactly where you want. But it's better than nothing. You can also use the "'," and "." keys to rotate the line (with all units selected) to a different facing, if you need to.

[Midnight]

Ah - I didn't know about any of those. Thanks!

[Grumfoss]

Also another little tip is to press the spacebar, which will highlight on the battlefield to final positions of your troops. It makes it easy to see if your troops are moving to the correct positions. I use this a lot as I had the same problem when trying to advance in formation.

[Braden]

I've also noted that different Phalanx units walk at different speeds so watch for that - i.e. you have some Militia Hoplites and some Armoured Hoplites the Militia walk faster than the Armoured (logically) which means you get a broken line mid-trip. So, make sure you move lines in small "hops".

[Zenicetus]

Good tips about the spacebar preview and the different speeds. When I have a general unit behind the front line for morale, I have to put him a little further back than I normall would, and use the short hop movement. Otherwise his cavalry unit will walk into, and through, the slower infantry.

This is one thing I hope CA can fix in MTW2 (and hopefully the new RTW/Alexander mini-expansion). It shouldn't be that hard to progam all units to march at the speed of the slowest unit, when given a group selection-and-march order like this.

BTW, another reason to use short hops instead of long march orders with Alt-rightclick, is that terrain differences can cause different movement speeds on different parts of the line. That's especially true with a large, spread-out army. That confused the heck out of me, until I noticed what was happening. Some of the terrain differences are subtle, and not that easy to spot.

[orangat]

There are lots of times the yellow arrow points don't show up when I press spacebar. Its not a big problem but its strange and annoying.

[Watchman]

I know if you give a group (as in, under a number) units movement orders during pause the yellow-arrow "preview" won't show before you come out of pause. Kinda annoying, but not a big deal.

[Avicenna]

If that doesn't work pausing and moving each unit might... but that gets repetetive and boring, and the units might break formation.

[Watchman]

I just unpause for a second and then order the rest of the units to their proper positions relative to the group/s. As mentioned, it's a hassle but nothing too serious.

Incidentally, I practically never order multiple selected units to go anywhere by just clicking (the alt-click is another thing entirely); it's a great way to mess things up. Normally I use the drag-and-drop method. Works way better.

[Grumfoss]

I don't know whether it was just me, but I think the viewpoint is also related to the final position of your troops.
Last night I was advancing a line of ERE heavies towards some rebels. I was looking at the screen with my troops moving from right to left and the rebels sitting on the left. when I clicked on the space between the two lines I noticed that my troops were changing formation. The pause was pressed and the space bar held down. I saw that my troops were going to line up 90 degrees out.(EEEK) Has anybody else seen the same thing?

I now use the drag and drop method as it makes things so much easier..

[Braden]

Yes, I have noticed that if you just R-Click the troops will re-align relative to your view point when you did the R-Click. If you Alt-R-Click, they will always retain their starting facing.

I personally prefer grouping units together and drag-dropping the "Group". I can then angle the whole group as I please before "dropping", I don't have to drag the formation out again either. Although, because groups piviot at a point on the left hand side of the formation its often difficult to get them just right.

[Grumfoss]

Braden
I too like putting my units into groups and then dragging and dropping, however when I try to do it with archers they always appear in long lines and will not allow me to change their depth. The only way I've found of changing their formation is to de-group them and then drag and drop. Hmmm