Formation order rework

[Atrik]

This poll aim to define what would be community preference for the order the units have by default in a formation. Thanks in advance for your vote or comment.

This sorting order will affect the following formations : 

• Close Order
• Open Order
• Forced March
• Column Open
• Scatter

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8547

Edited January 12 by Atrik

[Atrik]

Assuming we always prefer ranged units behind melee in the poll above. Below a formation with Cavarly first then Infantry, you can see Ranged Cavalry will still be behind melee Infantry.

For modders you will be able customize formations order using this logic  :

by editing/adding <SortingClasses> in formation templates.
In example above produce the formation in the picture. Where you get Melee Cav THEN Melee Inf THEN Ranged Cav etc...

Edited January 12 by Atrik

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

Below a formation

Assuming you had ten healers, where would they be?

[Atrik]

11 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

Assuming you had ten healers, where would they be?

Unchanged. At the back, as all units that we don't sort. We could define a position for them if you suggest one / want to make a point, but very likely the current is fine right.

Edited January 11 by Atrik

[Gurken Khan]

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

the current is fine

Yeah, I guess. (I hated formations, maybe I should have another look at them.)

[Deicide4u]

Cavalry was always at the fore-front in every major historical battle. So, cavalry first, then infantry.

Champions are tougher, so they maybe should be in front of CS in a formation.

Another logic would be that CS are a good fodder, so we should place CS in front of champions. This is also more historically accurate, as many armies reserved their elite troops for later engagements, when the enemy was exhausted by "fodder".

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, Deicide4u said:

Cavalry was always at the fore-front in every major historical battle.

Weren't they usually to the side(s)?

[Genava55]

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/blogs/gary-brueggemans-the-roman-army-ancient-warfare/the-march-basics

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/blogs/gary-brueggemans-the-roman-army-ancient-warfare/march-the-legion-components

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/blogs/gary-brueggemans-the-roman-army-ancient-warfare/march-noncombatants-and-legion-baggage

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/blogs/gary-brueggemans-the-roman-army-ancient-warfare/march-the-whole-army

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/blogs/gary-brueggemans-the-roman-army-ancient-warfare/the-order-of-march

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/blogs/gary-brueggemans-the-roman-army-ancient-warfare/attacking-the-marching-column

 

[LienRag]

The logic of having cavalry in the back is to allow it to move through the sides.

The problem of having it in the front is that you don't want to send your cavalry first into a spearmen shield wall (which is the dominant historical form).

 

Move formation ("column" in napoleonian warfare) should have cavalry in the front but combat formation ("line") have it in the back.

Except for specific formations, of course.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Combat formations would have cavalry on the sides, as mentioned by @LienRag. Archers in the rear and melee infantry in the front/center. 

[Vantha]

9 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Combat formations would have cavalry on the sides

The current sorting is still only one-dimensional, unfortunately, so only front-to-back, not side-to-side.

 

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 minutes ago, Vantha said:

The current sorting is still only one-dimensional, unfortunately, so only front-to-back, not side-to-side.

 

 

Look at templates/special/formations/battle_line.xml

[Dunedan]

Shouldn't the sorting also depend on the selected formation?

[Vantha]

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Look at templates/special/formations/battle_line.xml

Right, but there they're sorted side-to-side instead of front-to-back, not both.

[Atrik]

2 hours ago, Dunedan said:

Shouldn't the sorting also depend on the selected formation?

Yes it does. This is just "default". Added more details in the opening comments for reference.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, Vantha said:

Right, but there they're sorted side-to-side instead of front-to-back, not both.

Sure, but that's not what you said. lol But anyway, I agree there should be the ability to sort both ways at the same time. 

[ffm2]

I really dislike formation as they are and also think they aren't really a fun or suitable thing for a rts like 0a.d.. I also disliked the video about cohesion at suggestions for 0a.d.. Not just because of the problems in the pathfinder. Formations may make sense in the real world, when armies meet on a open field with the intention to clash and end a dispute by one big fight. In 0 a.d. the units rarely fight on a open field. Units join a fight from the barracks when trained, units flee from a fight. The player positions bolt-shooters where one wants to control the map, if your enemy sees such a prepared position you better flee and make them unpack and try else where. The hunting and fleeing creates chaos, the fun in this game is to micro and position one self to your advantage in this chaos. Often there comes also scenarios where one player has some soldiers that needs to flee (where they have the lower hand) while others need to attack (where you have the upper hand) just a few houses away.

Where I could see formations useful is as a short one time action as some players already use them. Just before one big charge. But then later on, first the melee gets damaged, then the healers would need to go to them. When their numbers dwindle, they need to back up behind the ranged. Or focus on a hero.

I'm just saying I'm highly skeptical, but you do you.

[chrstgtr]

10 hours ago, ffm2 said:

I really dislike formation as they are and also think they aren't really a fun or suitable thing for a rts like 0a.d.. I also disliked the video about cohesion at suggestions for 0a.d.. Not just because of the problems in the pathfinder. Formations may make sense in the real world, when armies meet on a open field with the intention to clash and end a dispute by one big fight. In 0 a.d. the units rarely fight on a open field. Units join a fight from the barracks when trained, units flee from a fight. The player positions bolt-shooters where one wants to control the map, if your enemy sees such a prepared position you better flee and make them unpack and try else where. The hunting and fleeing creates chaos, the fun in this game is to micro and position one self to your advantage in this chaos. Often there comes also scenarios where one player has some soldiers that needs to flee (where they have the lower hand) while others need to attack (where you have the upper hand) just a few houses away.

Where I could see formations useful is as a short one time action as some players already use them. Just before one big charge. But then later on, first the melee gets damaged, then the healers would need to go to them. When their numbers dwindle, they need to back up behind the ranged. Or focus on a hero.

I'm just saying I'm highly skeptical, but you do you.

This. Fights necessarily involve attrition. 

There's a place for formations, especially at the start of fights. But fights shouldn't be determined by on player clicking their fighting units into formation and the other player being slow to hit H before their units try to chase enemy that ran to the back of a formation. 

As a related note, I don't think units going into formation should be able to run. There should be a cost associated with having a disorganized army and calling them into formation. Right now, going into formation is mostly a gimmick to get kills similar to how dancing heroes used to occur.  

----------------

I think the voting options are overly limited. I would want melee in front and range in back, regardless of whether those units are cav, inf, champ, and/or CS. 

Edited January 13 by chrstgtr

[Atrik]

10 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

I would want melee in front and range in back, regardless of whether those units are cav, inf, champ, and/or CS.

Which is exactly what this patch enables, as said, illustrated, and explained the workings in the opening comments.

[Thalatta]

I totally agree that formations should exist and be improved, but they would be more useful if units were more solid. Many times I get many units at the exact same place, which looks really bad, as do blobs fighting blobs. It unnecessarily cheapens the game and destroys immersion.

Regarding formation order... Can't these be an option for the player? What if one could press ctrl+formation to turn the formation panel into an arrangement panel, showing the possibilities you have mentioned, for the clicked formation. One could alternate between arrangements for the chosen formation, and if done with ctrl it would turn the arrangement panel into the formation panel again.

For example, to have hoplites and javelineers form in close order, first javelineers at the front, then behind, one should press ctrl + close order to form in some default arrangement and open the arrangement panel, and then if needed one chooses ranged infantry on the first row. When wanted, one chooses them on the second row, and they switch places with the hoplites. If done with ctrl, the panel would also switch back to the formation one (the default arrangement shown now being the last one selected).

Unit symbols have to be clearer, I’d make hollow squares for infantry, triangles for cavalry, rhombuses for elephants, and circles for the rest (support), with a dot in the middle if ranged (Edit: actually, filled instead of dot could be better, and melee/ranged symbology could be switched, depending what's more intuitive). Different colors would help. I’d also rework “stances” (the ones below formations) a bit, units take too long to return to their positions.


Edit: ugh, only now I noticed that you also want to deal with Heroes, Champions and Citizen-Soldiers... the problem is that they could be any kind of unit mentioned before. Combinations are needed. Well, shift+formation and shift+arrangement could open a... "priority" (or whatever) panel for this, with their ordering being indicated by other icons, like star, cross and dot, respectively. Ctrl+priority could return to formation panel, and shift+priority to arrangement panel.

Edited February 1 by Thalatta

[Atrik]

3 hours ago, Thalatta said:

but they would be more useful if units were more solid. Many times I get many units at the exact same place, which looks really bad, as do blobs fighting blobs. It unnecessarily cheapens the game and destroys immersion.

I think there was a feature called "Attack as formation" in early alphas, there is still cadavers of it in the code. I'm not entirely sure but I'm guessing it was meant to do what you are imagining here : the formation keep a certain shape, even while attacking. Well I guess wasn't to successful. I think blobbing is a necessary evil in most cases. However some formation abilities like charge (picture cavalry wedge formation charging) and brace (picture infantry forming a spear/shield wall) would be nice to have at some point, and those would introduce behavior that could delay/reduce blobbing. We are kind of far from this at the moment thoughts. First we'll have to introduce support for managing battalions.

 

3 hours ago, Thalatta said:

Regarding formation order... Can't these be an option for the player? What if one could press ctrl+formation to turn the formation panel into an arrangement panel, showing the possibilities you have mentioned, for the clicked formation.

Although it would be a good nice-to-have, it seems unlikely to be accepted to have such additional panel in the game, it's a bit complex relative to what you have for the rest of the very minimalist gui of 0AD.

[Thalatta]

34 minutes ago, Atrik said:

the formation keep a certain shape, even while attacking. Well I guess wasn't to successful. I think blobbing is a necessary evil in most cases

Well, nothing has to guarantee that a formation will be kept in the heat of battle, it’s just mostly for initial positioning. "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face". How much a formation would be kept could depend on unit experience for example. Also, I was thinking about formation-inclined civilisations like the Romans, for others like Gauls I'd remove lots of strict compact formations. And maybe in some cases some could be added after some research, if historically relevant. All this would enhance the differences between civilisations and the tactics that have to be used for each.
 

34 minutes ago, Atrik said:

Although it would be a good nice-to-have, it seems unlikely to be accepted to have such additional panel in the game, it's a bit complex relative to what you have for the rest of the very minimalist gui of 0AD.

But one wouldn't even know they are there unless using modifiers while choosing formation, it would be totally optional. Edit: and the panel wouldn't change size, what it's shown just switches between either formations, arrangements or priorities.

Edited February 1 by Thalatta

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 01/02/2026 at 8:43 AM, Thalatta said:

for others like Gauls I'd remove lots of strict compact formations

This would be ahistorical. 

[Thalatta]

12 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

This would be ahistorical. 

Ah yes, it seems they did use tight formations, I mixed that up with what I read about the Iceni.