Turning an army

[Ciaran]

Hi, it's me again, the Newbie from Hell.

More often than not, when I line up a defensive army in MTW/VI, the enemy will try to engage it from another direction than I anticipated. Is it possible to turn the facing of the entire army without breaking the formation?

I've tried with Ctrl-a and then Alt+RMB, but then each unit will turn around its own axis. What I want is for everybody to turn around a common axis, e.g. with the general in the center.

Vork

It took me a while, but I came to the solution. You have to group your army, simply add hitting "G" between CTRL-A and Alt-RMB, and there you are, your whole army rotaes as one. However, it´s a bit unpredictable precisely where it will rotate around, so if your setup is somewhat asysmmetrical, you´ll end up having it moving into places where you don´t want them. The same goes for moving a grouped army, basically, it´s the same as rotating, the units keep their formation, but it´s a bit unpredictable where the whole thing will go, as the engine calculates a center for the whole army which is used as a reference point for the positioning of the individual units.

Another side effect is, of course, that any groups you had defined previously will be overwritten, so if you had your spears neatly lined up, you´ll have to do that again after you ungroup your whole army.