A question about hoplites.

**Valbruch** · July 20, 2008, 05:03 AM

Today I was playing as Greek cities and a strange thing happened to me. I was in battle against Macedonians and my army had 10 Hoplites units.
Sometimes during the battle, I noticed that when I gave all my hoplites an order to move (simple right click), they organized into one long solid block of spears. There were no gaps between units as there are when you use right click and drag positioning. I didn't have my units grouped btw., I only selected them all. After a while I had to reorganise my army, so I positioned my hoplites with right click and drag order. This resulted in gaps between units appearing again. But after giving them a move order, they formed one large phalanx again.
I haven't been able to repeat this in any battle afterwards.
Now I know that this 'all hoplites in one long row' feature is present in some mods - I remember it from RTR when I had it few years ago. But I never saw it in vanilla before.

So my question is:
Does anyone know how to do this in battles ? I always loved when all my hoplites were just a single long wall of spears in RTR. Or was it only some strange game behavior that is not intended ? :hmmm:

**Selifator** · July 20, 2008, 05:47 AM

I have never heard of this before in vanilla, or have experienced it. Did you have mods installed before this happened? Maybe that changed some data.

**Valbruch** · July 20, 2008, 06:04 AM

Nope, no mods. All the mods I had for R:TW were on the old computer.

btw, I forgot to mention that I have RTW with BI and Alexander.

**Prince_of_Macedon** · July 20, 2008, 06:35 AM

Are you saying they formed into a line from a different formation? Or are you saying you marched in a perfectly straight line? Not sure what you mean.

In an case, I'll move this to Battle Planning.

**Valbruch** · July 20, 2008, 06:49 AM

They formed into a line from different formation.
Before the move order, each unit stood a bit apart from other units. But after the order, they not only marched forth, but also came closer together so they technically formed a single phalanx and you couldn't tell where one unit ends and next one starts.
I should have saved a screenshot. But I was too surprised.

**Prince_of_Macedon** · July 20, 2008, 07:01 AM

I've seen something similar happen where I moved my entire army (using the ALT+Right Click Command), and for some reason, the unit depth would increase for each unit for no apparent reason. I would then have to fix them before the enemy made contact.

**Valbruch** · July 20, 2008, 09:36 AM

Well, it happened again. Only this time I was playing Alexander.
I took some screenshots this time to demonstrate.
First one is right after giving a move order. The second one after it.
Seems to be quite random so I guess its probably bug or something like that. :hmmm:

**Yojimbo** · July 20, 2008, 10:18 AM

Thats odd I've never seen that either :S

**Legio** · July 21, 2008, 08:51 AM

Did you move your mouse while holding the right-click button?
Because if you did you could have changed unit depth without knowing it.

**Valbruch** · July 21, 2008, 01:06 PM

No. I tried it several times. I doubt I could accidentaly hold the right mouse button every time.

Anyway, unit depth itself is not the main thing that intrigued me. The fact that there were no gaps between units is.

**Legio** · July 22, 2008, 03:03 PM

Yeah, if you decrease unit depth they touch if they are close enough, the units get wider and touch.

**Valbruch** · July 22, 2008, 04:19 PM

I was finally able to recreate it today.
It takes two steps to do it. First you actually increase the unit depth, so theunit would have more lines (first screenshot). Then you give your units a move order forward and they form a solid block. (second screenshot). All of this is done with game paused.
It doesn't seem to be intentional so I guess it is just a case when game gets a bit confused. I noticed that if you increase the depth only slightly the units still stand far from each other. If you, however, increase the depth more the units will overlap.

**htismaqe** · July 22, 2008, 04:42 PM

This is off topic, but I had to give you kudos for your signature. That flick never got the notice it deserved here in the US.

**Valbruch** · July 22, 2008, 04:49 PM

Yeah. It's a great series. It isn't well known in my country either, but once you see some episodes, it's a love for the rest of your life

**Lord Thesaurian** · December 25, 2008, 08:12 PM

i suspect thats bcause you dont have your units grouped. Also, units start a battle syncronized. when u separate them and move them individually, they will not maintain a line when u try 2 regroup them and have them act in a line.