Request - Horde formation

This is a very simple request.

In the original AoE II manual there was a ‘Horde’ formation - i.e. no formation at all, like in AoE I.

Could this please be added? I assume it would be simple to patch in, and actually I’d much prefer it for cavalry in particular.

Thanks.

14 Likes

Second to this. I really would like to have this formation for certain scenarios. This would improve the gameplay a lot.

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Yeah good call. Especially with what seems to be inferior pathing in DE, and the stupidity of rams.

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The game will benefit itself from having a “no formation” option, to allow units to move freely without speed limitations. When having horse units and monks in the same group, for example, horses will slow down to match monks speed; this wouldn’t happen if there was a no formation option.

I wonder why this functionality wasn’t available at launch :slightly_frowning_face:

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No formation would be best when fleeing. Some times when I tell my troops to fall back they make stupid long column which means some of them will actually walk near enemy and get hit and shot.

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Been brought up a number of times.

It would help in so many ways… Attacking and chasing fleeing units would also highly benefit… As well as manoeuvring general

Unfortunately this junk applies to chasers as well.:unamused: How they stack up so that only 1 of them will hit the fleeing enemy and stop moving, blocking all the other chasers.

But WORST OF ALL is how it affects rams… O M G

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I guess this is a very easy thing to do, so I don’t understand why developers didn’t add the feature already. No formations is literally a feature from the PREQUEL, that’s missing in this game.

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Affecting the SEQUEL even more, where all units literally start crawling if even only one artillery unit is not in limber mode.

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Yeah this will be really good an useful, they should make it available in the game

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No formation is how groups of villagers move. And it’s extremely annoying :joy:

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I concur. It is usually annoying when units have this behavior by default, but being able to activate or deactivate it would be perfect, since it is even more annoying for the fastest units in the game to move at the speed of a monk, in any of the (currently) available formations.

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The game uses army speed logic from Heroes of Might and Magic. If you have even 1 zombie in your army, it doesn’t matter how many Black Dragons and Titans you have. Nobody is carrying the zombie and everyone has to move slowly and be demoralized.

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Agreed it’s much worse. But when i brought it up its literally part of the balance in aoe3 due to the snare mechanic.

In aoe2 there’s no reason apart from laziness from the devs, along with foundation and res scouting among other issues

But it only makes sense that a unit group which moves together moves at the speed of the slowest unit.

I think adding a button “Break formation” wouldn’t hurt though. It should be fairly simple to do too.

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Think about the real world context. A break in formation usually follows a rout (panicked running away from the battle). Maybe the button should have a detrimental effect like the Town Bell :grin: Your troops will break formation and move freely but they can’t attack for 30 seconds.

Real world logic doesn’t really apply that well to this game though. Units are not even fighting by using formations.

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Just spitballing here. Here’s more, all units should flee from Flaming Camels.

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No, not at all. Actually, no real army EVER moved as a solid block. You have screening units, an infantry column, and a huge supply treck inculding siege following. And ofc the cavalry will not wait for the siege treck when there are urgent tasks. They will ride ahead.
That beeing said, using RL as a balance suggestion for game is usually a terrible idea.

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But in this case, it’s not a balance suggestion. It actually qualifies as a QoL suggestion. You can already select individual unit types by double clicking them and moving them separately.
What I’m talking about is the RL or historical context for the suggested feature. Most things in this game are rooted in something real or historical.
It wasn’t a very serious suggestion from my part though :grin:

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Not really, no. Most things in this game are rooted in a common perception of what is supposed to be historical.

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