Forwards, Backwards, Rotate Left, Rotate Right, Increase/Decrease Rank...

**Riekopo** · January 30, 2015, 04:04 AM

Along with many other things pointlessly removed from Rome 2 was the Forwards, Backwards, Rotate Left, Rotate Right, Increase/Decrease File, and Increase/Decrease Rank buttons from the interface in battles. These were in every Total War ever and were important movement commands. Now they are gone from the interface and hidden in hotkeys. Please re-add these buttons.

**Hae_Shin** · January 30, 2015, 05:07 AM

I was surprised seeing no one talked about this issue. I thought it was not a big big shock for other players that CA removed those buttons from user interface. In my opinion they were one of the best improvements in Total War series. I can not get why they pointlessly removed them, I want them back! I like to deply my men in straight lines and don't want to spend hours to move them in formation...

**Zwirbaum** · January 30, 2015, 05:26 AM

Originally Posted by Hae_Shin

I was surprised seeing no one talked about this issue. I thought it was not a big big shock for other players that CA removed those buttons from user interface. In my opinion they were one of the best improvements in Total War series. I can not get why they pointlessly removed them, I want them back! I like to deply my men in straight lines and don't want to spend hours to move them in formation...

They are still in game, just as hotkey. Also if you group units they will march in formation, not to mention drag&drop to move entire formation lol.

**Humble Warrior** · January 30, 2015, 05:30 AM

Not sure why Blackberry is pointing this out again. I said you before can do this. At least I did.

**Aenima** · January 30, 2015, 05:43 AM

Never noticed there was a hot-key command for it before, as such not fussed that it's not going to be in Attila. I've been sorting out my formations for about a decade in TW games by clicking and dragging/moving my units in formation, so I'm not fussed.

**prithupaul** · January 31, 2015, 01:41 AM

This can be done using drag and drop as someone mentioned. If you press ctrl (I think) while doing the drag the drop, it will rotate ur formations.

**Butan** · January 31, 2015, 08:07 AM

As others said its available in Rome 2, right under all your noses! And probably will be in Attila too.

But its true that its hard to find (I think I learnt about it a few months after I learnt about the merge hotkey!) and is not intuitive.
Instead of being available as hotkeys only, it should also be on the command bar like in older TW.

**MagicCuboid** · January 31, 2015, 10:43 PM

Originally Posted by Butan

But its true that its hard to find (I think I learnt about it a few months after I learnt about the merge hotkey!)

LOL Butan you taught me about the merge hotkey TODAY. I had assumed it was gone from the game with the new army structure.

Anyway, I agree OP that the UI in Rome 2 is extremely unfunctional. For me, I was encouraged to memorize all the hotkeys I had neglected since Rome 1 and even a few more. For instance, I've assigned ` to hide the unit stats bar, "O" to hide the radar, and Caps Lock to hide the Unit Cards. Then there's K, which hides all UI including flags and selection circles - a nice feature when merely on the march.

That said, use the arrow keys to move grouped units. For the first time, if you select a row of units and have them move left or right in this fashion, they will "quarter turn and march in those directions, then "quarter turn" back. It's great for maneuvering safely around the battlefield. There's also "J" which literally about faces the unit. Then there's drag and drop which is a Godsend.

So, my point is that although the UI sucks, the actual controls in Rome 2 were better than any previous Total War in my opinion, and Attila is continuing this trend by the added "painting a path" method of movement. The only really glaring thing we continue we lack is a Guard button.

**RGA** · January 31, 2015, 08:57 AM

I find the new drag method of Rome 2 vastly superior to the navigation arrows of earlier games.

**AnonMilwaukean** · February 01, 2015, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by RGA

I find the new drag method of Rome 2 vastly superior to the navigation arrows of earlier games.

This.

The R2 mechanic of basically picking up a unit and dropping it elsewhere while keeping formation and facing is actually really helpful in R2, especially in pre-battle set-up. In older games, pre-battle set-up sometimes took way longer than necessary because I'd realize I got the facing perfectly down but needed to shift the whole unit over a ways because of obstructions or whatever. Which in older games meant having to do a bunch of things rather than just click-drag-drop. Napoleon:TW was the worst offender, as cannons needed to be very carefully placed and even then seemed to not always avoid bouncing a shot on the ground 5 feet in front of them. N:TW was the only game where I actually used the rotate/forward/backward/etc. icons on the UI, all because cannons were so important to face correctly since ammo for cannons was unlimited and line-of-sight in N:TW was exceptionally finicky. And occasionally in naval battle I used the rotate keys to turn ships.

Not that R2 was perfect in this matter compared to older games... sometimes, especially during large battles, I still go to select a unit quickly and accidentally grab it and drop it 30-40 feet to the side or front, causing it to sometimes expose itself to flanking attacks while doing so.

The only thing I miss, actually, in R2 is increase/decrease rank/file, because the click/drag/drop interface, while very good and robust, is hard to use when trying to get an exact number of men spread out wide or spread deep. Usually this is not a huge deal, but sometimes when trying to space a unit in a choke-point I find that I accidentally left a gap on one side (which the AI strangely manages to send units single-file through half-the-time).

All-in-all, R2 actually did pretty well at release for positioning units, and the space saved by eliminating those forward/backward icons on the UI meant they could enlarge the unit cards. Seriously, the unit-cards were a bit too large, but part of it was also that we were all so used to having the positioning icons in the HUD which were suddenly gone and made it seem unit cards were even bigger than they were.

**Butan** · February 01, 2015, 04:43 PM

I also think R2 is very good in manoeuver possibilities. But the poor UI diluted that improvement in some ways.

Originally Posted by AnonMilwaukean

The only thing I miss, actually, in R2 is increase/decrease rank/file, because the click/drag/drop interface, while very good and robust, is hard to use when trying to get an exact number of men spread out wide or spread deep. Usually this is not a huge deal, but sometimes when trying to space a unit in a choke-point I find that I accidentally left a gap on one side (which the AI strangely manages to send units single-file through half-the-time).

You can increase/decrease rank/file in R2.

There is really an hotkey for almost everything possible. I advise everyone that see my post to look in their battle control settings, its all there.