Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-27130828-20161013025830

With the new troop melee system, battles now perform incredibly. However, directing units into battle could use some tweaking. My suggestions are for ways to put units into formation, directing archer's  to shoot long range volleys, and directing orc bombadiers. If these things are implemented, battles will become amazingly realistic. These implementations would also allow precise battle plans.

Troop Formation 

Troops in the game run around in a hodgepodge pack. My proposal is to make a system to form troops into either rectangular or line formations using a command flag. The command flag can be assigned to squadrons similar to the sword of command and horns of command. The command flag could be made with 3 sticks (s) and 2 wools (w) in the pattern

x s w

 x s w

 x s x

 The player would right click the flag pulling up a gui with a toggle. The toggle will switch between rectangular and line formations.

 Rectangular Formation- When the flag is toggled to rectangular formation there will be 3 slides underneath the toggle. The slides will be for width spacing, depth spacing, and troop width. The width spacing slide determines how much space is in between the troops. This should range between 0 (no blocks in between) to 10 blocks. This would allow for ground troops and mounted troops. The depth spacing slide will do the same thing just with the depth spacing. The final slide is troop width. This slide will determine how many troops wide the rectangle is. If it is set to 5 units wide and there are 21 units, the units will form a rectangle 5 units wide and 4 units deep with a lone unit on the 5th row.

 Line Formation- The line formation will be useful for archers. While this effect could be done with the rectangular formation, this would require the player to know the exact number of units. There would be one slide for width spacing. The units would simply form a long line.

 Once the player has the settings correct, the player will exit the gui. Then the player will make all of the units in a 32 block radius (the exact radius can be changed after testing) will go to form the desired formation. If the player left clicks again, the units will disband into their normal rabble. The units will stay in their formation until they are attacked, where they will go into their normal fighting patterns. These formations will be useful on flat ground and roads. Units could have a tolerance error for their formation. If they move outside this tolerance error they would revert to the rabble mode. This would discourage the use of formations in mountanous and hilly country, where formations would not have been possible in real life. When the player gets too far ahead and the units teleport, the units will work to reform their formation.

 Wishlist- I'm not sure if this is possible or how hard it would be to code but an awesome feature would be to have the units with the longest reach up front. What I mean is that if units have pikes or spears, these units would automatically be go to the front of the rectangular formation. This is how a real life army would have formed, with pikes in the front.

 Long distance Archer Commands

<p style="font-weight:normal;margin:12pt0in;"> Currently archers must go within 10 or 15 blocks to attack the enemy. I propose a longe range option. Using the command flag combined with an arrow on a crafting bench will create an archer flag. This flag can be assigned to squadrons like swords and horns of command. These flags will target certain blocks when the flag is right clicked towards an area. The range will should be from 48 to 64 blocks. The units will begin firing towards that area, without moving towards. They will continue firing until they are attacked or the player left clicks the archer command flag. The purpose of this command is to allow for a long range volley not accuracy. This would be a good feature for softening up the enemy before charging or to have archers on castle walls firing at the enemy.

<p style="font-weight:normal;margin:12pt0in;"> Orc Bombardier Directives

<p style="font-weight:normal;margin:12pt0in;"> This proposal is much like the Archer commands. The flag would be made by combining a command flag with gunpowder on a crafting table. The flag could be assigned to squadrons. When the flag is right clicked at an area of blocks the orc bombardier would go there and drop his bomb. This would be an incredibly useful sieging tool. The range should be from 48 to 64 blocks. To stop the unit the player would left click the flag. <ac_metadata title="Troop Formation and Greater troop control"> </ac_metadata>