Good to know

Similar to the behavior(stances) of military units but focused on civilians. Repair. Gather. Build  

The problem with Praetorians is that it gets chaotic in combat; it's very arcade-like.

RTT's use small squads (4-10 units) instead of massive armies (hundreds in RTS). This makes pathfinding much more manageable, since the AI can calculate individual paths without overhead. The player orders the entire squad; the internal AI assigns roles (leader, flanks) and positions, preventing the player from micromanaging each soldier.     —According the AI. I more or less suspected this.   Explicit formations and position assignment Manual formation selection: Before moving, you choose types like Line (horizontal, ideal for trenches), Wedge (V for flanking), Column (for roads), Cover (compact but spaced), or Assault (adaptable). Each defines relative spaced offsets, distributing units automatically. "Spots" reservations: Upon arrival at the destination, each unit reserves its offset position (with random drift for organic variability), preventing overlaps. Squad leader: Calculates the main path (A* on a grid with clearance-based for variable sizes: infantry 1x1, tanks large). Predicts its future position (~2s ahead). Relative offsets: Other members calculate short/cheap paths (limited A* 50-100 nodes, every 0.5-0.75s) from their current position to an offset of the predicted leader. It compresses organically around obstacles (e.g., skirting rocks without much deviation). Clearance-based: Precomputes distances to obstacles; filters invalid paths by size (e.g., tank won't enter clearance <3), avoiding jams.

This would be very cool to have for the (eventual) campaign. A separate screen where you get to customize your elite troops from a battalion and choose several for a mission. Obviously, the inspiration would be how Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War did these (called squads in that game). We have a primitive version of that with the "Battalion formations" checkbox. The issue with that option (and why it's always ticked off in my game) is that you can't easily micro-manage the troops in a formation. You have some that are heavily wounded and you want to send them into a Temple? Well, you first need to disband the formation, otherwise all of your units are selected by default. In principle, I agree. If we double-down on spam economics where all you have to do is make more units that are at the same time your workers, then there is an advantage to forcing them into battalions. However, if we want to scale back on the spamming, the battalions are useless. So, in essence, it depends on what the main vision for the game is. What meta are we striving to? Also, because we have CS ranks, we'd need to figure out how experience gain affects the battalions. Is it individual, or will units in a battalion share experience and rank up at the same time?