Quick fight order changes fight order for every group

[Goldfish]

If you change fight order with the quick button "Set fight order for this group of units" The fightorder for every group of units changes. Maybe its supposed to do that, in that case the text of the quick button should be changed.

/The Goldfish

[Moonknight]

I was going to post something about this as well, but kept forgetting. It seemed like it used to only change the stack, the way i thought it was supposed to work.

But now it appears to change all stack orders.

[smursh]

I thought it always changed your whole fight order. I always rearange my fight order anyway before ending my turn to set up for defense.

If it only changed single stacks it would give a tactical advantage to gold members since you could set different fight orders for different stacks. Say hv. calv first in the open, but minotaur first in a city.

[SnotlinG]

Yes the whole fightorder is changed (in a smart way depending how you moved your units in the quick fightorder).
Maybe we should clarify the text of the button

[LPhillips]

Moderately long, but it's important

It always changed the global fight order. When it was stated that the fight order for a specific stack should/would be adjustable, I couldn't imagine how this might be tracked (unless it were hero-stacks only, and each hero could have their own fight order).

The strategy (and particularly the related opportunity costs) of reordering your global fight order to conceal heroes or fool opponents would be destroyed by individual stack fight orders. That leaves only separate defensive/offensive fight orders viable, and also much needed in the upcoming real-time games. Almost vitally necessary to the success of the real-time system. Default fight orders for gold members would also be appreciated. We'd just need several account-saved fight orders which we could set, name and then select quickly later in-game.

We won't have time to mess with our fight orders in real-time games. Everyone will need separate defensive and offensive fight orders. This is a potentially excellent membership feature: 1 preset fight order for non-paying members, including defensive and offensive. They can manually alter their fight order in-game, or click their "default" settings to return to their single preset. Silver members should be able to set their own default defensive/offensive fight orders. Gold members should be able to do 2 or 3 sets each of Defensive/Offensive, which they can just change to mix/match their strategies.

Like so
Non-paying member:
Fight order menu is just as now, but with the ability to switch between two screens "Defensive", "Offensive". Same "Default" button to reset as now. You could even display the Defensive and Offensive orders beside each other with an expanded menu where they can set them and compare them easily. Basically nothing changes except splitting the fight order (which as stated before will soon be pretty vital).

Silver menu:
Looks the same as the non-paying member, except that the "Default" settings can be altered in the player's Account Settings. Simple enough for the Client to reference these settings once per turn, or even for them to simply be saved into the game at the start (meaning no change in client-side programming at all to accommodate this). Silver players can adjust their defaults, and then when they start their next game it will save that as their in-game default.

Gold menu:
The options remain to customize the Defensive and Offensive orders with the same controls as now, so no change so there from the others. However, in place of "Default" button, they have up to 3 player-named options. These are set in their account as the silver players' Default is set. So I may have options named "Early and ruins", "Hero hider", and "Heavy Assault" or whatever helps me remember what they are and what they're for. The menu is otherwise unchanged, with the ability to customize the order manually and save.


The only obvious (to me) potential bugs come with the introduction of new units, which may require all account-related fight order settings to be reset for the addition of new units.

[smursh]

I disagree that you won't ever mess with your fight order in a real time game for several reasons.

1- sometimes you will want to change fight order due to terrain. For example if you are attacking in the forest before moving your stack to plains you may want your elves in front of the lt. calv. Then attacking in the plains you would reverse this.

2- if you know your opponent has some flyers/anti-air units you may adjust your stack so your anti-air units are more likely to battle his flyers, or your air units are less likely to engage his anti-air units.

Both these situations are battle specific.

[KGB]

I 100% second everything LPhillips wrote especially silver/gold members getting extra fight orders. Personally I'd love it if I could have 4 fight orders that were hot key (F9-F12) selectable in addition to having the normal fight order that I can change with the stack menu.

Then I also want F1-F8 to be hot key assignable to stacks (as DLR allowed) in the game (select stack, assign hotkey). The reason being so I can instantly hit the hot key and jump to the stack and have it selected. Very important on larger maps when trying to locate all your heroes / best stacks.

KGB

[LPhillips]

Yes, the stack lock-on would be excellent. Even if that's not possible, we should be able to alternate between heroes with the hotkeys.

[SnotlinG]

Thanks for all feedback. We are definitely reading and considering!

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

Glad to hear that you are reading and considering. Here's two other things that will be needed for simultaneous play:

1) A 'Move All' button: Moves all units/stacks that have a movement path set.

Definitely needed on larger maps (100x and up) in mid/late game when you have a hundred plus units to move. This will be a monster time saver each turn allowing players to concentrate on moving the few armies/stacks near the front line where manual movement is needed. I mentioned this one months (a year?) ago but wanted to make sure it wasn't lost.

2) A quick battle review: Shows the units involved and the bonus's on each side with a red X through the units that were killed on both sides so that you see the final result immediately.

No time wasted replaying the actual battle or needing to click a 'start' button replay the battle. You won't be able to afford to watch this in mid/late game when there may be 5-10 battles a turn occurring, many just involving a couple of scout units.

KGB