How are companions sorted within the party troops?

[Underuse2307]

So I have a companion that I have equipped with a horse and a lance (and a shield and a mace). He is being sent to the infantry (picture).

I have another companion equipped with a bow and a horse (and a sword). She is being sent to the melee cavalry.


I understand that a workaround would be to make them captains but what if I don't want several cavalries just to accomodate them, but would still like to keep them in my party? Thanks

edit:


i am also getting ranged troops (not companions) being sent to the mounted archers like so:

 

[clock4orange]

yeah, it is a chaos - I have 6 companions, all with bows and horses, and 4 of them are cavalery, one archer and one foot troop witch doesn't make any sens - none of them marked as cav archers, what they are

 

[LyonExodus]

From what I heard from someone else is that they will be sent to the formation that fits their skills the best.
So a companion with 200 riding is going to be assigned to a mounted formation.

I have a theory regarding the why of this strange and definetely unwanted change for companions.

That it is to stop the AI from assigning Cavalry Lords to the infantry formation.
Problem is that this change should just impact Lords and not your companions. So something must have gone wrong during testing.

A thing that definitely has "never happened before"

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

If you put them on a horse with bow and arrow they will at least stay of harms way sometimes even if the game forces them into a group you don't want. As you said, making them captains puts them into a group, but you can only have so many groups. If it was tied to equipment you could use the sliders to fish for them (or change equip) but with it tied to highest skills..... not much to do about it.

 

[Underuse2307]

From what I heard from someone else is that they will be sent to the formation that fits their skills the best.

what skills? this particular companion has a higher riding skill than say athletics skills.. weapon skills can be equally applied to both cavalry and infantry..

 

[clock4orange]

what I see is companios are taged before player recruit them, eg. recruiting poor companion with one handed sword (and nothing else) make him infantry for all game, no matter what equipment you give him later...

 

[Ranger243]

I'm having basically this issue with my regular troops also, have several cavalry that are somehow being assigned to infantry and infantry that are somehow cavalry. Trying to move them around in the formations just results in more chaos. It's one of those things that I really appreciate about the new forced assignment system they implemented. "You wanted that guy with a horse and lance and no ranged weaponry at all to be a cavalryman? Nope. He is an archer."

 

[geala]

Is this new in 1.9.0? Newer ever had such problems, but I'm still at 1.8.1.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

Surely combining the new order of Battle system with the old ability to assign companions and troop types to formations in the party screen would solve all of these issues?

 

[geala]

Oh, please don't mention the pre-battle slider feature, the most ingenious change ever implemented in BL.
I just hate it.

 

[Ranger243]

Is this new in 1.9.0? Newer ever had such problems, but I'm still at 1.8.1.

No, it's not a new feature, just an incredibly clunky implementation of a new feature. I've long given up on a good pre-battle assignment setup from TW, I'm relying on modders to fix the game there, my complaint is that if they were gonna do that stupidity they could at least have it set up so you could pick out what you wanted to go where. I mean, maybe I'm wrong but I feel like an option that maybe says "is mounted" along side the "has polearm, has bow/crossbow ect..." option might be... well..... SUPER USEFUL AND INTELLIGENT. My complaint mostly is during the battle though, if they are gonna make this big complicated and mostly worthless slider assignment system that loves to auto-assign troops to the wrong formation then at least make it so when you transfer units in formations during the battle you can opt to do the same thing so I can at least get a general idea of how many of my cavalry are suddenly thinking that they are infantry, despite being rather well mounted yet.
It is, to me, incredibly frustrating because I am not a fan of the "CHARRRRGEEEEEE" mentality that they have assumed every BL player has, I get into battles and I want my heavy infantry to take the brunt of the hit while my light cavalry circle and go for the HA and my heavy cavalry intercept their heavy cavalry and my light infantry circle for their archers ect..... but instead what I get is.... "CHARRRGGGEEEE". The AI has better control over their troops and formations, at least give me what they have for gods sake.

 

[FireBlazinCandy]

Did we ever get a reason for this change? I don't think anyone likes it. I have my theory as to why. But I'd prefer an answer from @Dejan or another TW employee.

 

[Underuse2307]

Did we ever get a reason for this change? I don't think anyone likes it. I have my theory as to why. But I'd prefer an answer from @Dejan or another TW employee.

personally i like the idea of having companions as captains of my party.. but it is just very badly implemented / not very flexible at all.

we should still be able to assign companions to different formations as we see fit. not to mention that the way troops and companions are auto-arranged doesn't seem to make any sense

 

[Antaeus]

Don't even start me....

Not only do we have this companion weirdness creeping in...

But just watch what that Horse Archer standard bearer does when you tell them to charge... Same to the Foot Archer standard bearer when you order them to advance...

Yeah I wanted my standard bearers to run off alone into the enemy ranks because they're the only one in their formation to not be able to fire their bow because of that whopping great standard. They should really stick to their companion/captain like glue.