Question re Holding your battle line as you advance in battle

[Nippy]

Hi folks,
Don't know if this is answered anywhere hoping you guys can help. In shogun 2 when you deployed your army in the setup phase and then press start battle when you selected all your units there was a forward button on the ui that advanced all units in a cohesive manner and u maintained the battle line

In Rome 2 when you do the same there is no forward button on ui instead you have to either
1. select all your army and point to where you want them to go but the lose battle line cohesion and units start advancing in all different vectors and spread out
2. Select each unit seperately to advance again pain in the ass which still form gaps in the battle line
As they spread out
So am i missing something here another dumb design decision? Or am i dumb for not figuring out ui

[ExtremeBoyheat]

Put them into a control group, they keep their formation.

[Shiina]

Or select all your units you lined up and push the up arrow key, same goes if you want them to strafe left/right or go back. Use the arrow keys

[TomR199]

Lock into groups to hold positions

[NiceGuyAdy]

You can now use the arrow buttons to move your units. UP-moves the selected units forward. DOWN-moves the selected units backwards and LEFT and RIGHT move in them directions. Also holding the Control buttons while pressing the Arrow keys increase and decrease the line (though for me it's bugged) and also rotates. hope that helps.

[Logos]

You can also press (and hold) left mouse button over one of the selected units until the cursor changes into something like cross. Now you can move those selected units in formation (remember to hold the button). by pressing the CTRL you can additionaly rotate the formation.

[Nippy]

Ok cool thanks guys will try the lock formations and arrow forward key the lock formation button i found a bit messy but didn't know about the forward/back keys
Good stuff!

[vonDuus]

And if you ctrl-rightclick you can attack the enemy while holding formation. This is good, because it allows roman infantry to throw their pila as they approach the enemy.

Only downside to this method is that the soldiers walk very slowly, I believe the order is called something like "slow attack".