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