[1.7.0] Impossible to separate infantry types now into different formations?

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BorgeAU

Recruit
It appears that it is no longer possible to assign unit types into different formations. An effective strategy I used to use was having my shieldless line breakers in a separate group to outflank and envelop infantry once the initial fighting had begun, though now It appears this cannot be done, nor have I found a way to separate groups of units before battle has begun. Is there something missing or is this a bug with the current beta?
 
before the battle you can select what type of units you want in a specific group, so you can select group number 6 for example and select the icon for two handed weapon inf and the game will transfer all your line breakers to that group, you can even select the % of troops of that type you want in that specific group
 
Not being able to assign troops and lords in the party screen is intended but the reasons are different.

Being able to assign troops to different formations would break the saved values and how the percentage sliders/filters work. If you could assign a horse archer to an infantry formation, you couldn't get him out of the infantry formation in current implementation of the OoB. Zeroing the Infantry slider in that formation would still keep the horse archer you put in there. OR we disregard the horse archer assigned there are, move him back to a horse archer formation when the slider value changes. Formations would be a mishmash of troops and it's not possible to represent that with sliders.

If we add all 4 troop type sliders to all of the cards then one of the problems is, "when do we remove the troops assign from party screen?". Player changed the filter, do we remove them? Player set the slider to zero, do we remove them? I'm not even going into AI problems with having 8 different mishmash formations.

Now one way to overcome that can be locking each formation's troop type from the get go and not letting the player change them. Formation I-II is Infantry, Formation III-IV is Ranged, Formation V-VI is Cavalry and Formation VII-VIII is Horse Archer and you can only assign a troop to a formation that is related to their equipment. But we didn't want to restrict the player to these pre selections.

All in all, assigning formations to normal troops in the party screen is conflicting with changes made in OoB that's why it's removed.


Now lords/companions are a different story. Since they're more fluid with their equipment and they're unique, they don't have to conform to the formation types. We can handle them in a different way. This doesn't have to be in the party screen, we can add a separate UI in the formation cards that you could use to put unassigned heroes in that formation as troops. We can save the assigned formation of the hero and not let them be affected from the sliders. I am, personally, not against this and would love to bring it up internally. That's why I asked for a suggestion post, here. If you feel the assignment of heroes to specific formation as troops, not just captains, would be a good addition feel free to leave a comment in that post.
 
I cannot work out how to place my spearmen in Archers Group ??????

Although I like the Pre-battle setup.

.
Choose the combined formation (sword + bow icon).
Hit the "plus" button and choose polearm.
Move the infantry slider and the game will automatically choose your spearmen.
OR
Create a infantry unit and select polearm only. Again the game will select all your spearmen automatically.
 
That's why I asked for a suggestion post, here. If you feel the assignment of heroes to specific formation as troops, not just captains, would be a good addition feel free to leave a comment in that post.

personally, i still don't understand what a 'captain' does or is supposed to do. there is no explenation on the screen or patch notes as to why i would want to add a companion as a captain. what are the advantages or disadvantages of that; or if there are companions better suited for the role (ie tactics i would imagine)

as to if it would it be a "good addition" - well it was available and you removed it.. so its not really an addition you took it away in the first place. i cannot possibly see any positives of restricting us from using our companions on the battlefield as we see fit.
 
personally, i still don't understand what a 'captain' does or is supposed to do. there is no explenation on the screen or patch notes as to why i would want to add a companion as a captain. what are the advantages or disadvantages of that; or if there are companions better suited for the role (ie tactics i would imagine)
Check the perks, there are a lot that give a bonus to the troops when lead by a companion (if he has the perk).

But it would be nice if we can see the active perks in the battle of order overview. I guess there is still some place for improvements but for the first release of this feature it´s really fine.
 
personally, i still don't understand what a 'captain' does or is supposed to do. there is no explenation on the screen or patch notes as to why i would want to add a companion as a captain. what are the advantages or disadvantages of that; or if there are companions better suited for the role (ie tactics i would imagine)
You can hold ALT when you hover over a captain to see their effects on the formation. With that you can compare heroes and see which on is better suited for the role.
But it would be nice if we can see the active perks in the battle of order overview.
This is already implemented.
 
You can hold ALT when you hover over a captain to see their effects on the formation. With that you can compare heroes and see which on is better suited for the role.

fantastic ty
 
You can hold ALT when you hover over a captain to see their effects on the formation. With that you can compare heroes and see which on is better suited for the role.

This is already implemented.
Alright, haven´t tried to press "alt", but makes sense.

Can we also maybe get one "reserve" formation, so we can place our companions there so that we can´t keep them safe in the battle?
 
All in all, assigning formations to normal troops in the party screen is conflicting with changes made in OoB that's why it's removed.
Well, after all it is not about keeping group selection in the party screen, but about keeping functionalities it provides. Is there a possibilty to do it by adding more filters to the groups then?


Here are my ideas of two new filters which should bring back functionalities that were lost by removing the old system:

#1: Troop type/hero filter.
Description / functionality
- This filter would be in a form of a list that contains specific troop types and heroes which are valid type for picked group. On this list a player would be able to allow, or disallow putting into the group certain troop types and heroes by selecting them on the list, and using group's sliders after that. There would be a separate lists like this for every unit control group. By default, all troop types and heroes compatible with the type of the parent group, would be allowed on those lists. Changing overall main unit type of the group, like from "infantry" to "cavalry", would reset the list and would kick out invalid troop types from this group. Disallowing troop types also would kick them out from the group, after accepting filter changes by closing the list. Also, it could be useful to add a button for allowing/disallowing all troop types which are located on the list.

Example / user story - The player starts some easy battle and wants to create a new group with only imperial recruits and some heroes to level them up faster.
The player picks group 8 and creates there a new melee infantry group, then clicks on the "troop type list" located in this group. After that, the list extends itself, and shows every unit type and hero under player's command which counts as melee infantry.
The player has in his/her party Imperial Legionaries, Imperial Recruits, Imperial Cataphracts, two brothers and a sister with only melee weapons equipped, and few companions with bows. All heroes in the party are on foot, no horses equipped for them.
In that scenario, opened "troop type list" for group 8 shows only legionaries, recruits and all three main hero's siblings - two brothers and one sister. All of these listed troops and heroes are marked as "allowed". At this point, moving any sliders from melee infantry groups can put these troops and heroes into group 8. As we know, the player doesn't want Legionaries in this group, so he/she finds legionaries on the list and clicks on them to disallow them in this group. The player also clicks on the main hero's sister in the list, because she doesn't have good armor yet and might easily die in a fight. Legionaries and main hero's sister are now marked as "disallowed" and cannot be put into this group. After that, the player closes the list which makes this filter's changes to be applied to the unit group.
Now, the player adds only wanted units into group 8 by simply moving its slider to the farthest right position. He/she could also have done that by moving to the farthest left slider of group 1, in which all infantry melee units were put at the start of the battle.

#2: Hero party/other parties filter.
Description / functionality
- This filter would be useful in battles in which the player can command troops from the other parties, like being the leader of an army for example. It would allow the player to separate his/her troops and heroes from the troops of the other parties. This filter could have three or two states picked separately for each group: "allow only troops from own party", "allow any troops", and optional "allow only troops from the other parties". "Allow any troops" would be the starting, default state.

Example / user story - A player is leading an army and wants to minimize loses in a big battle. The idea he/she has is to take the first, hardest hit in the battle with his/her own infantry units, because high Medicine skill gets them mostly unconscious instead of getting them killed. Other lords' Medicine skill is significantly lower which makes their units more vulnerable.
The player wants to make an infantry group responsible for tanking most of the damage by putting all his/her Imperial Legionaries into group 8. The problem is, the other lords in the army also have Legionaries in their parties. Luckly, there is a filter for this. The player sets it to "Allow only troops from own party" for group 8, and doesn't change it for the other groups leaving their filters on the default state "Allow all troops".
Just like in the earlier example, moving the slider of the group is all the player needs to do after setting the right filter.



I think this would be a better solution than just adding one group for heroes and calling it a day, but maybe I am wrong. I am open to other ideas. I also think that proposed by others addition of one group for heroes still would be better than leaving new Order of Battle system at the current state.
 
I can´t assign my other horse archers to formation V, I tried to lower the formation III and IV but not matter what I do, my other 5 horse archers won´t be assigned to formation V.

Unbenannt.jpg
 
@Ananda_The_Destroyer

I think if the remaining HA are in let's say 3, change that formation to HA at the top, use 5 to drag them into it.
My understanding is (again, I need to practice more) that to move for example HA from a mixed formation to a HA formation, that mixed formation has to be changed to HA. In other words, I believe to separate a certain unit from a mix, both formations have to be set to that unit you wanna separate.
I am re-downloading beta 1.7.0 again because I think I am getting more info from the posts since I went back to 1.6.5.
So I am going to experiment in custom battles shortly.
The other thing I believe caused me some frustration and the whole thing not working is I used game saves from 1.6.4 which used the old system and then the new system got confused and lumped HA, Archers together and I could not separate them!
 
I think if the remaining HA are in let's say 3, change that formation to HA at the top, use 5 to drag them into it.
My understanding is (again, I need to practice more) that to move for example HA from a mixed formation to a HA formation, that mixed formation has to be changed to HA. In other words, I believe to separate a certain unit from a mix, both formations have to be set to that unit you wanna separate.
I am re-downloading beta 1.7.0 again because I think I am getting more info from the posts since I went back to 1.6.5.
So I am going to experiment in custom battles shortly.
The other thing I believe caused me some frustration and the whole thing not working is I used game saves from 1.6.4 which used the old system and then the new system got confused and lumped HA, Archers together and I could not separate them!
Yes, that did the trick (had to worked with mixed groups before I could assign them to HA only), thanks. It little bit unintuitiv but it works so.
 
@MRay

Some more testing:

So I used a brand new 1.7.0 download. I used Custom battles.
I started with 300 men. I selected 2 types or units: Imp Vet Infantry (shields/swords) and Menavliaton (no shield/spears).
It looks like the custom battle AI will give assort them 50/50: 150 Vet Inf and 150 Menavl. It's all good.
Initially the leader was in Formation II, I moved him to Formation III, I can have my two Inf formations next to each other.
One was going to be Vet Inf (shields) the other Menavl (spears). The 2 formations have to be set to Melee Inf as indicated in the top filter. You can not move men between 2 different types of formations!
Then you select the second filters. One unit with pole-arms (spears=Menavl), the other shields (Vet Inf): it worked like a charm!

As you can see, I have 2 units of 150 men each with Spearmen separate from Shield bearing infantry. I can use the Menavl (spears) to counter Cavalry for instance and use the Vet Inf in shield wall position to protect themselves from missiles.

Banner-L-100.png



So, now to the part that did not work well for me:

I used 300 men, a mix of Trained Inf, Vet Inf and Menavliaton. AI divided them into 100 each.
My plan was to separate the 100 Spears from the 200 shields (mix of Trained and Vet Inf). Unfortunately this time it did not work.Followed the exact same process I used for 2 types of Inf, but this time it just did not work.
#1 show the initial mix of infantry with the 3 types of units, #2 shows the new formation with 2 types of units that I just could not separate!

Banner-L-101.png



I then tried to use 3 formations, locking one, unlocking 2, different combinations of locking/unlocking, Spears/Shields...etc, but it just did not work.
One thing that happened when I was using 3 different formations to try and separate Spears from Shields, the units on the grounds started displaying erratically.
#1 shows how they were aligned initially, but when you use the sliders, they either bunch up or take on oblique/sideway formation on the ground as shown in #2.

Banner-L-102.png


My "unscientific" conclusion is that the OoB works great if you are using only 2 units in a formation (spears/shields) and you want to separate them.
Using more than 2 units for example 2 shield units and 1 spear unit, then the system might now work.


My experiments lead mostly to crashing the game :grin:
For anyone interested, you can mix different types of units in one group using slider lock, but the game will most likely crash.

Were you using Custom Battles?
In my testing, you can not mix and match Inf with Cav for instance, the filters will not allow you to change from Cav to Inf and vice versa. And the sliders will not work unless there is another formation that matches the one you are trying to slide.

My game crashed when I used game saves with units mixed and matched with previous system and ended up having archers with horse archers and infantry and when I tried to separate them, the game crashed every time.
 
Were you using Custom Battles?
In my testing, you can not mix and match Inf with Cav for instance, the filters will not allow you to change from Cav to Inf and vice versa. And the sliders will not work unless there is another formation that matches the one you are trying to slide.
Yes, I was able to mix cavalry and infantry in Custom Battle. I have used for this an additional group.

Edit: Here's a video showing it. Game might crash when you try to do this, especially when you move the group while doing it.
 
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