Fight Order Alternatives?

[Chazar]

I am looking for ideas to improve the feature of the customizable fight order, i.e. the order in which unit types are lined up in each battle.

I hated the customizable fight order back in WarlordsII days, and I still hate it now: it is very powerful and can save many units in many a battle, but it is boring and tedious to adjust the fight order for each and every battle - especially by drag & dropping each unit. However, not doing it might loose you the game versus a human opponent, so I always feel compelled to do it.

Here are some of my suggestions to reduce the problem:

• Allow fight orders to be saved with the player's profile, so that I can quickly switch between 4-6 saved fight orders instead of drag&dropping several units each time.
• Changes to the fight order only become effective in the next turn. This limits fight order changes to one per turn. This is probably the easiest fix to implement, but I think it would be unpopular. I dislike it myself.
• Allow the definition of conditional fight orders, i.e. if a player specifically wants it, he can make a fight order for specific terrain types, defending or attacking. This would be similar to saving/loading fight orders. If a battle happens, the game would look through the player's fight orders if one with matching terrain is found and use the player's default fight order otherwise.
• Instead of a strict fight order, each unit has a rank probability assigned by the player. The actual order for a battle is then determined by these probabilities (which may or may not be affected by terrain).

[LichKing]

Fight order is very important and all those limitations/changes would harm the game, imho, since it is used not only to attack, but also to conceal units. I'll be always change the fight order many times to make sure the enemy sees what I want him to see. The only thing that could be done to simplify it would be 2 alternative fight orders:

1. A defensive fight order (default, what you and the enemy see)
2. An offensive fight order (is automatically activated when units attack, then it shifts automatically to the default order)

About your list:

1. you would lose even more time (at least I)
2. terrible
3. too complicated (but could be useful)

But I doubt it would be worth doing it, it could be even more confusing, because you had to change more orders instead of 1. For example, if you know the enemy stack has flyers on the front lines, you put elves before. It's something you decide in that circumstance. Same for terrains etc. Sometimes you want some units to attack first even on unfavorable terrain. Too many fight orders would be confusing.

4. I don't like random things

[KGB]

What I'd like is the ability to just change fight order for the stack I have selected (ideally with a keyboard command rather than the menu drop down).

99% of the time I am changing order it's for my selected stack before I attack. Having the entire universe of units pop up is a pain as Chazar has noted. It would be much nicer (and easier) if the list of units displayed was simply the list of what was in my selected stack (so if it contained only 5 types of units it would only need to display 5 units in the fight order pop-up making changing of order very simple).

Then the menu drop down can be for changing the entire universe of units which I normally only need to do once for defense and then tinker with it when I want to hide heroes (which is only occasionally and always at the end of a turn anyway).

KGB

[LichKing]

Yes if the order in which you choose units in the stack would represent the fight order, it would be ideal.

Like:

'group units' button -> order units according to the fight order
select units manually in a stack -> use that fight order

[strach]

I think that there should be possibility of changing FO just for the one battle simply by moving units in the slots. If you want an Elemental to be on the frontline you just drag its icon to the 8 slot. That should affect only the next battle. Simultanously there would be fight order in actual shape. So for a battle adjustments you use the window with the unit slots, and for general purpose you use traditional FO

[Moonknight]

I think that there should be possibility of changing FO just for the one battle simply by moving units in the slots. If you want an Elemental to be on the frontline you just drag its icon to the 8 slot. That should affect only the next battle. Simultanously there would be fight order in actual shape. So for a battle adjustments you use the window with the unit slots, and for general purpose you use traditional FO

That would be handy!

[LPhillips]

Reordering a stack before attacking would be amazing. I have been thinking about the "multiple saved orders to choose from" idea for months, as I thought it would be nice to have defensive/offensive orders to select between. However, it wasn't practical enough to suggest. Being able to order units manually before attacking is absolutely ideal, as the only universal fight order you'd ever need is the defensive one (which is occasionally changed at the end of each turn, as KGB noted).

There is the possibility of major difficulties for the player:
1) It must be possible to confirm it. Maybe only pop it up when the player commands an attack, before rolling the battle or displaying enemy units. So perhaps just a popup with icons that can be rearranged, and a button that says "Go!" (maybe even a "Cancel", which would account for those times when we have an error that forces an unintended battle).
2) The order, if not done as listed in 1), must not be lost due to out-of-sync errors or browser reloads. This seems like a very real and likely obstacle.