newbie with some real simple questions

[The Stranger]

start the game and push tutorial. if you're new that's the only thing you can play.

[Frenchyd]

Thanks, I've played the opening battle with the guy talking me through. I won the battle but I didn't feel I had very good control of my armies. My archers ending up taking a walk a couple of miles away and once I dragged them back into the battle they were exhausted. I just am not getting a good idea how to control the action. My guide tells me to flank my archers and I'm like, how the hell do I do that ?

Sorry, I know most of you figured this stuff out on your own.

[screwtype]

You stop your soldiers from performing any action by hitting the "halt" button on the lower right. It's a raised hand if memory serves correctly. (They have to be selected first though. Left click on a unit to select it).

Alternatively, you can just give them a new command. If a unit is running the wrong way, just LEFT click on the unit (it should wave its banner up and down to show it is selected) and then RIGHT click on where you want it to go.

Edit: One more thing. It may be you couldn't control your units because they were routing. Routing means they are running away from the battle because they are scared. You can't control units when they are routing.

You can tell when a unit is routing because its banner intermittently turns white.

Sometimes a unit will stop routing by itself, in which case it stops running and you can control it again. Other times it will just run off the map and not come back to the battle at all, and you don't get back control.

[The Stranger]

or push backspace, well most people figured how to play RTW while playing MTW

[mfberg]

Your units with ranged attacks (archers, javelins) have a spear or bow icon as your cursor when you select them. Their range is shown by the green arrow below the cursor, red is out of range, green is in range. Flanking is just moving them to the side of your unit.


(unshielded side) enemy (shield side)

your archers - - your spears


Set up a custom battle, 2 units for you (archer, 1 aux infantry as julii), 1 unit for the computer (spearmen) and try it. Add more units as soon as you know how to use these.

In campaign battles if all else fails charge everyone at their general/captain. (this works on most everyone, but causes you massive casualties if they have spears)