Battalions (I know.. frequent suggestion)

[Orion]

However, I believe I've come up with the best possible way of doing it. This is how it would work -

Introducing...

Orion's Handy Guide to Battalions!

I. Assembling A Battalion
-- A. Assigning Units to a Battalion
----- 1. First, press the P button to open the Party Menu.
----- Once inside the Party Menu, click the name of the
----- unit you wish to add to the Battalion.
----- 2. Then, click the Battalion button, then the
----- letter of the Battalion you wish to have that unit in
----- (A, B, C, or D.)
-- B. Assigning a Commander to a Battalion
----- 1. In order to Assign a Commander to a Battalion,
----- click the unit you wish to have be a commander.
----- 2. Then, click the Commander button.
----- 3. Finaly, click the letter of the Battalion you wish to
----- have that unit be commander of (A, B, C, or D.)
II. Issuing Orders To A Battalion
-- A. The Basics of Orders
----- 1. The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are the default
----- buttons for issuing orders. Just pressing one of these
----- buttons issues orders to all of your units on the field.
----- 2. The number 1 issues the "Hold Position" command.
----- The number 2 issues the "Follow Me" command. The
----- number 3 issues the "Charge" command. The number
----- 4 issues the "Mount Horses" command. The number
----- 5 issues the "Dismount Horses" command.
-- B. Giving Orders to a Particular Battalion
----- 1. Pressing the letter O will bring up the Order Menu.
----- The Order Menu is the only way to issue orders to just
----- a single Battalion.
----- 2. Open the Order Menu, then press the coresponding
----- letter (A, B, C, or D) of the Battalion you wish to issue
----- the order.
----- 3. After selecting the Battalion to which you
----- wish to issue the order, select the order you want to
----- to issue by pressing the coresponding number (1, 2, 3
----- 4, or 5)
III. How Orders Are Taken Out
-- A. The Important of Commanders
----- 1. Commanders are the units that all units in the battalion
----- listen to. Without a commander, a battalion is useless.
----- 2. Commanders are the ones who recieve the orders, and
----- all units in that battalion do as they do. The higher rank the
----- commander is, the better the results will be of the order
----- that was issued.
-- B. How It Works
----- 1. For example, let us say that you issued the "Hold Position"
----- order to Battalion A. First, the Commander of Battalion A
----- would move to the position you appointed.
----- 2. Upon seeing the commander moving, all of the other units
----- would follow suit, or copy what he is doing. Therefore, all
----- of the units in that Battalion do what the commander does.

Self-explanatory.

 

[Sir Prince]

I like it, maybe it could also make the order menu better, more like COD's multiplayer menu for stuff like that.

 

[Ingolifs]

My current wish would be to have complex troop commanding abilities. I've said this before, I'll say it again, because I think its important. Something along the lines of you press Enter on the keypad, it brings up a list of all the troops in your army, like:

1. Borcha (84%)
2. Swadian Crossbowmen (6)
3. Swadian Men-At-Arms (4)
4. Swadian Knights (2)
5. Swadian Militia (12)

Then you press 1 through 5, on the keypad, and it'd 'select' that unit. Then another list comes up, something like:

1. Hold position!
2. Charge!
3. Retreat!
4. Follow me!
5. Switch to melee!
6. Switch to blunt weapons!
7. Switch to ranged!
8. Dismount!
9. Mount!

Stuff like that. Would be awesome.

My contribution to orders and formations:
A flank command. Basically tells the fighters to split up into two groups, and tells each group to attack at 90 degrees to the direction the enemy army is moving. The direction the army is moving could be the sum of all the enemy soldier movement vectors, i.e. the average direction.

Also a get into formation command. This arranges everyone into a wall one or two people deep. This wall arcs based on how scattered the enemy army is. At the start of a battle, where the enemy spawn in a big cluster far away, this line would be almost straight. If you're surrounded by enemies, this wall will form a circle.

Secondly, people want a way of ordering around different groups of troops. I suggest in the party screen you should be able to tag the individual troop types with a number from 1 to 5. You can tag as many groups with the same number as you want, and a group can belong to more than one number. This offers great flexibility for giving out orders to your units.

Pressing the number that corresponds to the group, (maybe with the keypad numbers) you then see some floating text on screen telling you of which group you are about to send the order to. Perhaps there could also be a list of the possible orders, along with the number you have to press in order to carry out those orders.

Let's say you press numpad 1. You see this float up on screen.

Group1: vaegir peasant(8 ), vaegir footman(3), vaegir veteran(9), Borcha.
1. Hold position
2. follow me
3. Charge
4. mount
5. dismount
6. flank
7. get into formation
8. cancel

Or if you don't use the numbers (like me), the corresponding letters that you configured show up.

If you press one of the order keys without pressing a group number, the order is simply sent out to everyone.

Sound good?

EDIT: wow, looking through old posts, someone else came up with almost exactly the same idea.

I think these two ideas are pretty much the same as yours.