Should formations be edited? (opinions?)

[Mangudai]

This is sort of a modding related question. It's not a question of how, its a question of should something be done. I welcome everyone's opinion.

In BI the less disciplined cavalry have a very loose open formation, for example Sea Raider Cav, Hunnic Archers, etc I think their spacing is 3m on the sides 6m front to back. On huge unit sizes these units are very unwieldy and virtually useless in cities. Also there is enough space between units already that using the loose formation button is totally unnecessary.

A simple mod in export_desc_units could tighten up their formation. I'm tempted to just do it.... But, the units were designed that way on purpose to reflect their undisciplined nature. On the one hand tightening their formation would make them better and easier for me to use. On the other hand there is a part of my brain that says I shouldn't change units to make them easier to use, I should adjust my playing to accomodate inferior units. What do you guys think?

BTW: I already modded my game so that all the crappy horde units have square formation. I hated being unable to draw a single line of arbitrary length and depth.

[Bwian]

My view on modding would be:

1) Backup
2) Try it
3) If it feels good and you enjoy the resut more than stock keep it!
4) If it unbalances the game too much, change it back

Many things can be tweaked to personal taste in a game like this, and the end result should never be designed with someone else in mind... your mod idea may not be 'historic' or you may be undoing something CA did on purpose to reflect historic factors, but you paid for the game, and that gives you the right to make a few alterations

[Red Harvest]

The problem with some of the loose and undisciplined formations is that they are very hard to use and/or take up too much space. It is really a handicap for pila and javelins--since it can greatly increase their reaction time. (I found in 1.2 testing that a disciplined unit always got off its pila faster than undisciplined unit--the less disciplined individuals out of formation increased the firing sequence time.

Horde is a bit of a mess. I've been wanting to convert it into an oblong formation instead of big round blob. This isn't easy, as it appears that the horde is just an expanding radius until all men are placed. It is too bad we can't give it an ellipse form instead, so that instead of using a fixed radius it would use a function based distance from center for placement.

[Duke John]

Red Harvest
See this tutorial for more information about how the engine makes the horde formation and how you can edit it. Note that the formation always faces the same direction relative to the map. So if you make an arrow it will always point towards the same direction.

[Red Harvest]

Duke John,

Which tutorial? I didn't realize the horde formation was unidirectional. I had only expermient with a hollow doughnut, and that was some months ago.

[Duke John]

The one I was supposed to add in my reply

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=50464

[Red Harvest]

The one I was supposed to add in my reply

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=50464

Thanks, I tried hunting for it a bit, but missed it.

About the formation...does the "front" change when you move the unit, or does it always retain the same compass heading on the battlefield? If so, then oblong wouldn't work even if I could make it so, because if the army did a 90 degree turn the unit would then be stuck 90 degrees out of phase.

[The_Mark]

Correct. It's really a shame, as a wedge made with the horde formation works very neatly. Another thing to take into account is that routing units use the horde formation as well; when testing a harde-wedge I got routers in disciplined wedges that always pointed north...