unit formation messed up

[DeadlyPhoenix]

so how does this work?

before the battle starts, i'm like several minutes busy deploying my army in the right places.

like this time i went

a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a
SSS---SSS---SSS---SSS---SSS
CC ---M.M---M.M----------M.M--- CC CC
--------G---------C------------

a: archers in loose formation
SSS: one spearunit
M.M: one swordsmen/axe unit
C: cavalry in wedge-formation
CC: cavalry in normal formation
G: General

ok done so far, everything looks fine i press "start battle", how on heavens earth can i move my army forwards with them keeping their formations? Sometimes it works like a charm, other times my whole army goes like

CC-SSS-M.M-SSS-SSS-M.M-SSS-M.M-SSS-CC a-a-a
a-a-a -G- a-a-a - C

Or any other funny line i never told them to form. Why can't they just step forward like i told them to do so ? it's kind of annoying, because before you know it your whole army is in the middle of some unknown re-formation, facing all directions and leaving numerous of vulnerable gaps and flanks for the enemy to just charge in on their ease and smash my men to the other end of the battlefields.

Any tips?
I tried putting them in groups, ungrouping them ,nothing works

[Flogger]

I find grouping the entire formation together after you've set it out will keep the formation.

[Sitalkes]

The only way you can get them to stay in formation is to organise them, then group them all as one group, then move them as a group. This is what is known as creating a custom group. However, don't tell them to run, you have to walk them. Once they start moving, they will change to column of march, then move back into your formation at the point where you told them to go. So tell them to march in formation a short distance, wait until they have reformed back into your formation, then march forward again. If you don't wait for them to stop moving then they will forget their formation and adopt the new one.

It's unlikely that you will have time to do this so sometimes it is better to form them into at least three groups - centre, left, and right for instance - and tell each of those groups to move as groups. That gives you more flexibility. Unless you outnumber your opponent or he has a nice hill to sit on, your opponent is likely to not give you much time to wander about in your lovely formation - expect your formation to be disrupted and form a flexible plan.

[DeadlyPhoenix]

Thanks both of you.

I will retry with the grouping, I usually put my army in formation then walk to some closer distance and let the skirmishers/archers fight it out, then I wait for the enemy to advance - for which this formations is easily suited.
However, I noticed that when grouping your troops make them fight "funny", sometimes they just do a totally other thing than you told them to do so.
I'll retry with the grouping thing and indeed use 3 formations (flanks/center) and see how it goes.

I run in formation to the said distance, from there on I let each unit move individually - giving me the needed flexibility. That, however, doesn't really work out if they all suddenly start to run around in circles to unknown formations, leaving their flanks vulnerable, running into eachother - breaking their formations and leaving gaps for the enemy to run into

[Entropy Judge]

In Rome TW, at least - I haven't tried in M2 - if you use Alt+Rt Click to move instead of just Rt Clicking, units (except Cavalry, who screw up pathfinding occasionally) maintain their relative positions and alignments. They won't necessarily maintain those alignments *while* moving, but they get back in formation when they arrive. Remember that if you hold Spacebar, you can see how your units will be positioned when they arrive.

[peopl]

As Sitalkes already mentioned, create a custom group once you have decided the formation of your units. Once you've done this, when you select the whole group (and only if you have the whole group selected) you can move them all simultaneously and have them maintain the formation they were in when you grouped them. The units will always arrange themselves back into the formation you selected regardless of distance you tell them to travel or whether you order them to walk or run.

Try it out in a custom battle with a couple of units - you don't even need to start the battle, you can test out whether your formations are maintained in the set up stage.

Make a formation with just two units (for simplicity and speed) and group them. Now, normally when you have two or more units selected, you can hold the right click and drag in order to form the units side by side in a uniform formation. However if just the grouped units are selected then if you hold the right click and drag, you'll notice you can't adjust their (the units) positions in relation to each other because they're fixed i.e. they're maintaining the formation you set when you grouped the units.

I had the same query as you in the past. I frequently grouped my units before battles and sometimes they would maintain their formations and sometimes they wouldn't! It was quite frustrating but I worked out why this was occurring by trial and error. Let me know if my post made sense and whether you were able to maintain your carefully constructed formations in battle.

[Remo]

If you select them all (Left click scroll) you can then Alt+Right Click and they will stay in the formation they were chosen in(Also keeping their direction).

Then if you have mapped your "Turn squad" button or whatever it's called, you can actually select your whole army and turn them clockwise or counter clockwise. I believe the button it's first bound to is ",
" for left and "." for right.

Also, head over to my thread and talk strategy, seems like you like to make your own would love to see some more of yours.