Unit Formation

I was looking through one of the guides before I was actually able to message and in the Unit guide to STW and MTW it showed pictures of units attacking in a certain way and moving in a certain way and what not.
I know that isnt very helpful so let me try to explain a little better.
For the most part, when I am attacked or do attack an enemy, the enemy rarely marches up to my wall of spearmen (in general) and attack... and even if that do, my spearmen wall will not collapse around them and not all of the guys in the first 3 lines will attack the enemy, even if it seems that he is stretched along the line.
Another example would be doing a swordsman charge. In one pic it showed the swordsman wrapping around the enemy spearmen and collapsing on them from the sides. maybe Im just missing it but I dont think Ive seen my guys take on a crescent shape and maneuver themselves to take full advantage of the enemy. In most cases during the initial charge they will fall into rows of however many and when they collapse on the line only one or two lines will move forward while the rest wait until those ahead of them die to move ahead... this is what I mean by my mean holding formation.
The best example that I can think of is when I had group of spearmen charge a peasant group and my spearmen made a front row of 5 men and then the other 95 men in that group just continued making a very LARGE column. It got to the point of when they finally reached the peasants only 15 of the 100 men actually seemed to be fighting/supporting.
ay yi yi

The is the difference between Hold Formation and Engage at Will

At the top center of the screen are 3 buttons. Each unit is set to one of the 3 settings Skirmish, Hold Formation, Engage at Will

Skirmish only applies to ranged units. Ranged units set to skirmish will attempt to move away when threatened.

Units set to Hold Formation will do just that, meaning that if the unit barely comes in contact with anthoer unit only a few men will fight. This setting is useful for spears and gives a bonus, IIRC. This setting also means that units tire more slowly, since not all of the men are fighting.

All of the men in a unit set to Engage at Will try to fight. If the unit is stretched out long enough they will do the wrap around thing you describe. The setting is useful for swords. Some folks also use this setting for spears on anti-cav duty. I keep my spears set to Hold Form.

ichi

alright I'll give that a try thanks

@ichi, hold gives +2 defense but -2 attack

ichi is right, of course.
as per Froggy's guide (do read that, it's excellent),
it makes most sense to keep spears and pikes on hold formation, because of the significant bonus they get.
besides, you want spears/pikes to hold your line.

swords don't get any formation bonus (ok, they get +1 attack I think, but that's really irrelevant), so it's probably worth it to have all of them fight and kill the enemy than to have a bunch of swordsmen with a +1 bonus that are standing idle, using their swords to pick their noses.
this is whenever you're using swords to attack, rather than hold the line (which is most of the time, at least in SP).

however, polearms don't get the formation bonus that spears and pikes do, and as Froggy again brilliantly illustrated, they cause a lot more damage when they spread within the enemy's ranks. There's no gain in keeping them in formation, you want them to cause damage and for as many of them to get into the carnage as possible. So don't keep them in hold formation.

i hope this makes some sense.

alright yea that makes sense
thanks everyone

Quote:

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Blodrast @ June 13 2004,23:50)]swords don't get any formation bonus (ok, they get +1 attack I think, but that's really irrelevant), so it's probably worth it to have all of them fight and kill the enemy than to have a bunch of swordsmen with a +1 bonus that are standing idle, using their swords to pick their noses.

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Swords don't get a bonus for standing in formation, other than the generic +2 defence, -2 attack (for hold formation). Since the point of swordsman is to kill, you can ignore hold-formation.
The +1 attack you are referring to is probably the bonus sword units get when fighting spears (and pikes?).

Otherwise, you are perfectly right. Engage at will for troops who need to kill, hold formation for troops who need to survive.

you're right, Ludens.
I forgot to mention the +1 attack was only vs spears/pikes, but that was what I meant ;)
anyway, you probably put it a bit more clearly than I did.
so, yeah, it's like you said.

however, hold shouldn't always be ignored.

I tried barney mill with 16 byz inf armies before and I used a few of them in hold hold which made them practically spears so that other units can flank.