moving troops on the battlefield

In MTW Alt + right click allowed a bunch of selected units to change position but retain orientation and spacing. Whenever I try this in RTW the groups just pile up into a heap making it necessary to go get each one and click and drag it again into the proper position. I recently read a post in the .com forums suggesting other people have got this to work successfully. Am I missing something?

Is there a way to rotate the facing on your entire army while keeping the unit number designations intact like in MTW?

Finally, a sucky tip for groups before a battle:
As you give each group a number, Also hit Shift+1 to give it a single line orientation. This allows them to be dragged properly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trousermonkey

In MTW Alt + right click allowed a bunch of selected units to change position but retain orientation and spacing. Whenever I try this in RTW the groups just pile up into a heap making it necessary to go get each one and click and drag it again into the proper position. I recently read a post in the .com forums suggesting other people have got this to work successfully. Am I missing something?

Is there a way to rotate the facing on your entire army while keeping the unit number designations intact like in MTW?

Finally, a sucky tip for groups before a battle:
As you give each group a number, Also hit Shift+1 to give it a single line orientation. This allows them to be dragged properly.

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What I do is the following in SINGLE PLAYER when attacking - defending is obviously fairly easy.

1. Deploy my troops how I want them. Playing on huge units the AI usually deploys them for me in the checkerboard formation but it requires some tweaking.

2. Ctrl-A, Group all the units into one big group.

3. Hold down Right click and drag my entire army closer to the enemy army but not too close (usually 2/3rds of the way across), with the appropriate facing.

4. When they get in position pause the game, and group my units accordingly into seperate groups. Then, for the final advance or whatever I am going to do, I usually right click and drag out their formations where I want them to go.

Multiplayer is different (especially the historical battles - which usually involve a frantic grouping period that really effects your entire game). I usually skip steps 1/2/3 in multiplayer and do step 4, moving my skirmishers first, then my cavalry, then my infantry formations. Dragging your formations out is way more time consuming than the MTW system but its the only way.
I hardly ever use the ,. keys, takes way too long.

Rotate unit facing with the keys < for rotate left and > for rotate right. Don't use the shift key in conjunction.