Out of all the things I'd like to see .........

[lcm1977]

I love this game but there is one thing that keeps bothering me over and over so thought I'd mention it.  Maybe I'm missing a known fact or something.  What it is is that you can't position your squad the way you think they should position themselves.  Like when I have them sneak up to a ridge you can't make them spread out all along the ridge top.  I know there's a way this could be done because I've seen it in other games like like Shogun where you get an option of formations to choose from.  

 

Any thoughts on this or advice to deal with this pesky problem of mine.  

[Banex]

Easily,split the squad up or split teams off ie.assault team,anti tank,scouts etc,to make them fit behind cover or whatever.

[mjkerner]

Lee, in one of the patches after CW, a bug crept in where three-section squad would not line up along walls and other linear obstacles...the right- or left-hand section would be either 1action square ahead of or behind the rest. It was fixed in a subsequent patch. But as Banex says, splitting squads allows you to align pretty well along irregular contours, etc.

[A Canadian Cat]

Yeah, this is out side of your control - mostly.  It is a game design decision and an ability to specify some level of formation has been asked for and I personally hope some day but who knows.  But there are a few things you can do to influence what happens.  Starting with splitting your squad into teams as @Banex suggested.  That will allow you to put each team into an action square that is along the top.  Next use the Face command (on the Combat Menu, standard short cut is G) and point it to where the enemy is.  Now for a ridge line this works best if the action square is only just at the top of the ridge but the bulk of it is below.  That way with the face command they will move to a place where they are looking that way and that will put them pretty much on the ridge top.

 

That is all the control you get but with some experience you can get pretty good at using it.  One thing you can do is practice in real time where your guys will move about and take up positions as you watch.  That way you can see the results of the various choices you made pretty quickly.

[womble]

The Face command works fairly well for what Ian's describing, even if you haven't (or can't, in the case of Italians) split your squads into teams. When you select the destination waypoint, and hit Face, you should see a "highlighted" action spot (square) adjacent to the AS where the waypoint is. That's the location that the "second team" will end up in. Mousing around the waypoint, the Face command will rotate, and the location the second team will arrive at will change. You sometimes have to point your troops Face's in surprising directions though! It also doesn't work with Assault because the teams end up in the same AS, and it's sometimes very difficult to see the "highlight" on some terrain types.

For split-off teams, you can use a Target Arc, too, if you want to include an element of fire discipline. It probably works for squads, but you don't get the visual indication of where the second team will settle, so it's not so useful as Face for controlling where the unit sits on oblique/complicated linear features.

[lcm1977]

Very nice.  Thanks all.