Viewing and controlling troops in battle

[salilsurendran]

Hello Friends,
I have a tough time viewing the battlefield. It takes way too much time to go to a particular area on the battlefield and order the troops to take a particular action, especially when the battle is spread across large areas. I have a tough time with especially dealing with cavalry charges flanking me since they move so fast by the time I realize they have flanked me it is too late to get my troops in position. Also once the battle has begun we can't get any info on the attributes of a particular enemy troop like the way we got when the battle was declared. For eg. I would like to know the melee defense points an enemy platoon has in order to decide whether to engage it in melee or not. I would like to use the pause button but wonder if that would be cheating.

[ceff7711]

Hello Friends,
I have a tough time viewing the battlefield. It takes way too much time to go to a particular area on the battlefield and order the troops to take a particular action, especially when the battle is spread across large areas. I have a tough time with especially dealing with cavalry charges flanking me since they move so fast by the time I realize they have flanked me it is too late to get my troops in position. Also once the battle has begun we can't get any info on the attributes of a particular enemy troop like the way we got when the battle was declared. For eg. I would like to know the melee defense points an enemy platoon has in order to decide whether to engage it in melee or not. I would like to use the pause button but wonder if that would be cheating.

Pause Button Cheating? No WAY!!! Use it. You need to set up your intial formation in a solid manner...not spread out too much. Once you begin the battle you should've set it up so you can make adjustments quickly to avoid the flanking maneuvers applied by the enemy. Keep your artillery near the center and aimed toward the center of their battle deployment area. I do this and once I see their cavalry charging I give them a blast from my cannons. Usually it depletes them to where they either route or their too weak so once they get to my line infantry they get shredded.

[daniu]

I have a tough time viewing the battlefield.

You may want to use the unrestricted camera to get a better overview.

It takes way too much time to go to a particular area on the battlefield and order the troops to take a particular action, especially when the battle is spread across large areas.

You mean the delay between you giving the command and your troops arriving at the target position? Don't give orders to march too far, your units are pretty vulnerable while on the move.
I guess this is something that comes with experience.

I have a tough time with especially dealing with cavalry charges flanking me since they move so fast by the time I realize they have flanked me it is too late to get my troops in position.

Square formation is your friend. Line infantry in squares is almost invulnerable to cavalry; activate square even if the unit is in melee already, it really helps.
Also, you shouldn't let your light infantry stray too far so they are covered by line.

Also once the battle has begun we can't get any info on the attributes of a particular enemy troop like the way we got when the battle was declared. For eg. I would like to know the melee defense points an enemy platoon has in order to decide whether to engage it in melee or not.

That comes with experience too. Generally, melee defense is higher than attack; light infantry has worse melee values than line. Grenadiers and Guard units have very high melee stats.
Get Le FUSIL for an excellent overview.

I would like to use the pause button but wonder if that would be cheating.

It's not "cheating" in single player; I myself never use it because I like to pretend I play against a human, but if it helps you getting used to managing your army, go ahead.

As a general point, I recommend you use unit grouping so you don't have to manage every single unit individually. Unit groups get assigned hotkeys (1-9) so it's easy to access them.
Here's a video of me playing (it's NTW, but pretty much applicable to ETW as well), maybe it helps you a bit.