Adjusting depth of Unit

[Severus]

One of the options you have in the battle mode is to adjust the depth of men of your unit. You can make the men lineup short side to side and long front to back, or vice versa using the "-" and "+" hotkeys. I'm wondering how to properly use this function to my advantage. It seems like it could be handy, I just dont have any experience with it. I was thinking when defending a city gate lining up the men in the condensed set up would be a good idea, and when fighting against an enemy that outnumbers you lining up the men in the thinner set up could help keep your lines from being enveloped in a flanking manuever. Can anyone can relate their experience or advice?

[WhiskeyGhost]

thicker works best for holding lines longer, thinner works best when you need to kill things faster. Most of the time you'll only want to really stretch your ranks thinly, if your up against archer/crossbow fire (a thin line works even better then a loose formation at times), or to help cover a larger area more easily (like with pikes near your archer units). For the most part, you'll want a middle way anyways, since if its thin you get attacked by more then one unit or being charged by cavalry, and with thick lines you end up having yourself getting flanked or easily hit by ranged weapons fire (i've lost upwards of 60 men to a single trebuchet round because my unit was too tight).

[pevergreen]

A deep unit absorbs a charge better, a thin unit will generally engage more people in combat.

[Severus]

Im pretty new to medieval II but I've noticed in battle that only the men in front seem to be getting involved in the actual hand to hand. Couldn't thinning out the lines help bring more men into actual combat then otherwise would be?

[FactionHeir]

Yes and no. A thin line is prone to getting holes punched in it so the enemy can essentially split your unit into two. Similarly, you have less to fall back on if your engaged thinly spread unit is attack from flank or rear.

Generally you want to aim for 2-4 ranks for missile units, 3-5 for melee infantry, 4-6 for spears, 3 for cavalry. This is for small unit sizes.

If you are defending a city, sometimes its better to block an entire street (i.e you already lost the gate) with 2-3 regiments side to side, so they are only 4 men wide and the rest deep.

[Old Geezer]

I did tests in MTW with cavalry charges and when the cavalry line is spread out wide to only 2 deep the unit always had more kills because of the charge effect was greater and the wrap-around effect from what I could observe. It seems to be the same in M2TW, but I have not run any trials.

In a narrow area defense it is best to have very deep units to keep from getting pushed back. Pikemen are the very best because of their high mass value. If you charge any type of cavalry into the back of your men while trying to charge through to the enemy it will add extra mass to counteract the enemy's push on you. Its a good way to keep from being pushed out of formation when holding a bridge or gatehouse.