Formations are they really useful?

[Knightmaster]

Okay Ive been playing mount and blade since 751 and I am experienced with the game mechanics, so I know how to use commands that are vital during a battle, but when I use a formation, I fail to see the difference of having a formation or not, does it actually help you to win a battle?

Please tell why formations are or aren't useful.

 

[killer-blead]

For me putting the soldiers in a specific formation doesn't make any difference. the archers will just stop and fire at people when you say charge and infantry tend to stick together (as well as cavalry) so there isn't a significant difference in my eyes.

 

[Steele Xia]

In my opinion, the most often things I do with the formations are:

Putting the archers in a straight line and hold position. This way the archers won't wander off on their own and suicide in the melee fight. Putting them together at least give them a greater chance of surviving.

Charging the cavalry in a straight line. Since enemy infantry often form a big line, I often like to do the same with my knights, (and tell them to stick together a few times) so that their initial charge would be much more deadly, rather than charging in a big mob, with most of the cavalry at the back doing nothing. But then again I use it only when my cavalries are at a big advantage in numbers. Therefore usually the first charge kills off at least half of the enemy infantry.

 

[Sparkyninja]

I believe they would, which is better:

You have 30 huscarls facing 30 Rhodock sergeants, they have held position at the top of a hill while your men are beginning to move towards them, do you: 1. Just let them charge which would spread them out before they got there, allowing the sergeants to have the advantage of group mass against the spread-out huscarls or,
2. Tell them to hold position near the sergeants and stand closer. When this is done tell them to advance 10 steps until they are close to the sergeants. Tell them to charge and they engage the enemy as a GROUP and win the battle since the huscarls' Superior fighting skills would be maximized by the fact their fighting as a unit and not as individuals.

 

[Zilberfrid]

I use formations, with Rhodoks or anything other than khergit or all swadian knights, it makes all the difference.

 

[dubaiboy]

formations are extremely helpful i usually use this tactics and it  depends on terrain my most basic thing which is good i make my infantry stand closer and i make my archer 20 steps behind them and i tell my to od fire it a waste of ammo if they are far away and i mke the cavalry folow me for a flank i usualy go on a hill because when going down you move faster and when you hit the enemy they get hit hard and on the floor for enough time to kill them (if your lucky they are unconscious after you hit them with your horse) if you have a couched lance it better and the result maybe 2 are dead from my army and the enemy lost

 

[Dudro]

I accidentally voted no, but yes, they can definitely mean the difference between victory and defeat.

 

[Kinsume]

Ive played mods with formations but I never use them. Typically the swarm and surround tactic works quite well.

 

[Ruanur]

Native commands:

Absolutely yes! I always take up the high ground and have my men hold position. This ensures archers get maximum firing time and melee are as close to eachother as possible so as to gang up on enemies. I'll often have my cavalry charge in from the side. Usually walk away with no losses.

The "formations" mod kit:

No. The scripts holding the units together is too cludgy, men spend more time attempting to stay in perfect formation that doing anything useful. If one man is obstructed by a stump or rock the whole formation stops and re-arranges itself. Great if my archers are shooting at them though!

 

[Lord Bryggan]

Formations make a world of difference, unless your army is completely composed of Swadian Knights (as mine was when I was a useless noob).  My favourite Vaegir tactic is to park my guys in a valley (so I don't have to worry about forgetting to tell my archers to fire at will- which is a bad thing to do) in this sort of composition:

                  I I I I I I I I
CCCCC
                                          AAAAA

The enemy AI usually heads for the centre, and once they get nearish, I circle behind them with my cavalry.  This usually breaks them up a bit, and quite often will draw their cavalry away from my foot troops.  Once the main body of their army is engaged with my infantry, I swing my archers up behind them where they can shoot into the unshielded backs of the infantry to devastating effect.  The cavalry is kept busy following me as we mop up any straggling archers etc.  Once the first wave is pretty much crushed, I put my guys back into formation and await the 2nd wave.  The third wave I let everyone charge- you gotta let loose sometimes.

The only problem is getting a balanced number of each class.  I wish there was a mod you could choose who shows up for the battle, plus the reinforcement waves.  It sucks when you get fourteen infantry, six archers and two cavalry.

 

[Sporky]

The only time I put soldiers in formations are when I'm playing one of the mods where there are firearms. I just hold my position and fire away until my enemy dies.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Formations aren't as useful when a person has 1/4 damage on allies and outnumber the enemy, but when faced with a balance force outnumbered and classed by the enemy in terms of quality of the troops. Forming up your infantry is going to be vital. Putting infantry close together is the only viable way to preserve your numbers in most situations. Training up a Swadian sergeant or a Huscarl isn't a very easy task, grouping them together minimalizes the chance that they will die.

 

[Pablomagno]

Its always better to have some kind of tactic like flanking or something like that cuz if you dont while facing uperior numbers you are going to get owned.

But the formations script hummm it has an horrible bug that makes your troop's go stumbling backwards even if you tell them to charge. Well that was what happend to me in TPW mod.

 

[RSwordsman]

The regular AI is pretty funky, so naturally the formations aren't of much use.

I noticed the vote was understood more as "basic tactics" than formations, and obviously yeah that's useful. But the NE commands like "wedge" etc. might as well be left alone.

 

[minorus]

Quite useful. Voted yes.

I think the formation settings will get better along with the versions. I hope that happen

 

[Amagic]

The only use for formations i have found (so far) is using them to make your M&B videos look cooler.

 

[Uberfellow]

What M&B has doesn't really count as formations. Stand closer is just... standing closer. It's common sense that survivability would increase if the group is tighter (in a melee on melee situation that is). If you had phalanxes, shield walls, whatever, then we'd see.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

The ranks that are formed with the formation script though, are very useful, especially for pikes.