Quote Originally Posted by OlafTheBrave
With original MTW reinforcments are oredered by their order in the stacks with the bottom ones being last. You can order you reinforcments by propperly stacking your troops before the battle. It is a bit of a headace but can be done.
This was a darned sight easier to do in Shogun. When you assembled any stack, the first unit would appear in the bottom right of the menu bar and the most recently added unit in the top left. They then appear on the field in sequence, top row left to right then bottom row left to right - in other words in the reverse of the order you assembled that stack, so you'd normally start with broken units, then cav, then alternating archers and infantry.

In MTW (without VI) this is the technique to use but the game complicates matters by 'tidying' the stacks for you. Whatever sequence you add them, the archers, spears, cav etc all end up clustered together with other units of the same type, most of the time.

Some level of control was still possible with this technique though. For instance, units affected by rain (guns/napthas) need to go in the opening 16, so that they can be sent off right at the start and archers brought in to replace them. When I attack and bring artillery with me, I make sure they are NOT in the opening 16. They're static and too vulnerable in see-saw battles. Besides, they're only along for an upcoming siege.

Note that, with VI, placing artillery in the reinforcements queue guarantees they never appear in the battle at all. In case their presence interrupts the arrival other units, make sure they're on the vary end of the reinforcements sequence.