This would be a great feature.....

[hammelman]

I dont know if its been brought up, and i think this would specifically effect RT, but i dont know how it could be implemented in turn-based.

Frequently a problem i come across is that when i want a squad to go to a crest in a hill i will move them to that area and the front several guys will see my target, but part of the rest of the squad will not line up correctly, and be ineffective as they cannot see over the crest of said hill. In many games i play where you have command of units, i.e. Total War Series, you can hold down the mouse button with the unit selected, and then pivot the unit to a position that you see fit, so that they are lined up how you want them, instead of all over the place.

Is there a way this could be implemented? It would make playing the game a ton more fun, as you would have infinitely more control of how the squad deploys, instead of hoping for the best, and then losing a few guys as you are correcting.

I know people have brought up the question of deploying into formations, but this isnt really that, but kind of in the same vein. I'm more looking for a line command, with a pivot interface to correct.

[JOGR]

I second that. I also use this feature in TW a lot. This + a hold/open fire command would be helpful to avoid unnecessary casualties. Example: men opening fire and revealing their position with most of the squad still moving to position.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Didn't 1.05 (or 1.04?) bring in the feature that the squad members with no LOF would move forwards/fan out so as to engage the enemy that his buddies are engaging?

Not what you are asking for, but perhaps better, as it's less fiddly. There comes a point where you should not give the human player more balls then he can juggle.

[missinginreality]

EB- I wondered about that as I was reading the posts but I haven't seen eveidence of it, seems that some of the dudes are in a good place for LOS while the others just hang out without contact instead of getting into a good position. I would've thought that even if just one guy made contact the others would group closer to him.

Reciprically, if my unit is moving and comes into fire sometimes the rest just keep on with their movement order rather than take neccessary ocver before exposing themselves. Will playtest this a bit today after I've done some work.

[JOGR]

Originally posted by Elmar Bijlsma:

Didn't 1.05 (or 1.04?) bring in the feature that the squad members with no LOF would move forwards/fan out so as to engage the enemy that his buddies are engaging?

Not what you are asking for, but perhaps better, as it's less fiddly. There comes a point where you should not give the human player more balls then he can juggle.

Hmm.. now when you mention it. I might have noticed this. At least on buildings they move to firing positions nicely

[hammelman]

In buildings, they do what they are supposed to, but i have yet to see it on terrain other than a building. Half the guys will engage and the other half will constantly point their weapons and then pull them back, point their weapons and pull them back, but never actually engage. Frustrating to say the least.

[SlapHappy]

I know that using the arc-fire command works well on top of buildings, but I'm unsure about regular terrain.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

A particulairly easy scenario to see this in action for terrain is the opening mission of the campaign. Have part of a squad peek over the berm and engage a target. Their squad mates further back should move up the berm and join in.

[the Fighting Seabee]

I love the way it is done in company of heroes. You click the destination and drag in the direction you want to face. The little dots even show how the guys will line up behind cover. This would be cool but I don't see it happening with this game any time soon. They have given us the "face" button, which is probably as close as we're going to get.

[Paper Tiger]

From the 'Are formations implementable" thread... Steve's final word on the subject.

"Formations require extra UI and extra micromanagement. Same for having user defined SOPs. I know you guys think that they would reduce micromanagement, but you have to trust me on this... they will increase it.

Adding Formations and SOPs without TacAI ability to change them based on the situation is a very, very bad idea. So if the TacAI is going to be smart enough to change from one to the other, why then should the player have to do it? It's only going to muck things up."

That probably applies to this idea too. Smarter TacAI is the way BFC are going, not more micromanagement.

[magomar]

Formations work fine in Theater of War, don't they?

So why something similar wouldn't work in CMx2 ?

Probably a smarter Tac-AI would do the trick for some situations and some basic formations (line, column), but a human user would probably use some other formations that shouldn't be decided by the Tac-AI, like "dispersed" or "tight" formations, vee or echelon formations.

Anyway I do not think this is a priority, IMO there are other things that would have a much greater impact on the playability and enjoyment of this game.

[Paper Tiger]

That's probably because the scale of TOW is different where each individual soldier is modelled. Therefore, it would make sense to have the ability to 'team up' these individual soldiers.