Protective formation?

[Sergius Lucius]

What is a damn protective formation? I noticed sometimes my troops (Romans) deployed with it, sometimes not, like a city siege battles... So whats a different between normal and protective formation? I tryed both, can't find any difference, it looks cohort will allways take the same volume after attack, little bit more stretched then protective formation but toughter then normal... Is it something that gives you bonus against cavalry? What should I use?

[messenger]

Protective formation spreads your people out so missile fire doesn't do so much damage.

[DARTH VADER]

In DarthMod protective formation is different according to unit type.
Heavy units combine while light stretch.

In DM 8 AI romans will use this very effectively since it will be in mix mode per formation role and will swap according to circumstances

[jw1089]

so darth, you're saying that the ai will actually know how to switch modes at all? i have never seen the ai do that

[Lord Cunami]

ok let me tell you this
I had a battle vs Parthians, I was seleucids.
My army was mostly phalanx pikemen, peltast, some archers and eastern mercenaries. Only two units of cav. The parthians had an even amount of cav and inf. Their cav being Horse archers. This what they did to me. Their HA completely encircled me and kept shooting from all sides while their inf was waiting. After I realized that I needed to make the first move it was already late. My inf was shot to pieces. I lost the battle embarassingly.
So I suppose you will see the ai do things not seen before.