How to Form Infantry Squares?

[WahooSS238]

I've never been able to form infantry squares against a cavalry attack. I select an infantry unit and click the form square button but nothing ever happens. Hundreds of games playing every single country. Never works. What have I been doing wrong?

[Alwyn]

What unit size are you using? If I remember correctly, there's a minumum number needed for an infantry unit to form square and, on the lowest unit size, even a full strength unit doesn't reach this minimum. I'm sorry if this is nothing to do with the problem you're experiencing. Good luck!

[Triggerhippy]

Apart from the above no idea, it takes time though you are not pushing the square button just as the cavalry charge is about to land are you? I haven't timed it but would say it's at least 15 secs to form square.

Also you can deploy in square are you at least able to set your units up in square during deployment?

You have researched the tech?

[WahooSS238]

I have always played unit size SMALL (50 men) to keep things managable. Alwyn, that makes sense, I never knew forming square in the game required a larger unit size. I wonder what else I've been missing?! Next campaign game I shall increase the unit size. Thank you both for your help.

[[LYF]Levi o Lusitano]

Also make sure you have Square Tecnology so you can actually form a square.

[WahooSS238]

Excellent point, Levi. I wonder if I've skipped over that item in the technology tree as well...? I have some experimenting to do. Thank you.

[[LYF]Levi o Lusitano]

Originally posted by WahooSS238:

Excellent point, Levi. I wonder if I've skipped over that item in the technology tree as well...? I have some experimenting to do. Thank you.

Enjoy :D and good luck.

[operating1]

Originally posted by WahooSS238:

I have always played unit size SMALL (50 men) to keep things managable. Alwyn, that makes sense, I never knew forming square in the game required a larger unit size. I wonder what else I've been missing?! Next campaign game I shall increase the unit size. Thank you both for your help.

Even if you start off with a 120 man square in combat, if that square gets reduced to less than 60 it ceases to exist and reverts to a line formation. So if you only increase your squareable units to 60 or 70 men for game play, likely a square will not last long, perhaps a cav charge or 2, depending on the cav unit... If squareing against (native) melee units with a small square will will not last long at all....

[Inardesco]

Theres a min and a max soldier count for the square formation. I dont know minimum, 60 ish can be correct, though always had the idea the number was more in the direction of 40 soldiers. The max soldier count that I've come across is 416 soldiers.
As for keeping things manageable. They still are with larger unit sizes. Fort battles just get buggy the larger the units are.

I've played with 120 Line Infantry sizes but last campaign I have played, infantry were 420 soldiers -450 for austria-, cavalry was 175-180, cannons were 4 guns with 45-60 crew and generals had an 80 strong retinue.

Still manageable on pitch battles due to large sizes for the maps.

Especially when I've read that some Lines during warfare were several miles long!

[operating1]

60 may not be the correct number for units to be able to square, it could be less, but not by much. There's not a hell of a lot of difference between a 40 to 60 count unit in the end, where most squareing units start off at 120 count in vanilla..

[Inardesco]

Line infantry and grenadiers may only form square formation if there are 49 men in the regiment or more. This makes line infantry more likely to be able to use it, due to their larger number of men per regiment: they need to suffer proportionally more losses in order to lose the ability to use it. The cap of 49 men applies regardless of small, medium, large or ultra unit settings, making square formation progressively more difficult to use as unit settings are made smaller and smaller. A line infantry regiment on ultra settings (160 men), for example, needs to lose over two-thirds of its men before losing access to square formation; a line infantry regiment on medium settings (80 men), on the other hand, loses access before losing even half its men. A line infantry infantry regiment on small settings (40 men), on the other hand, lacks the ability to use square formation altogether.

http://totalwar.wikia.com/wiki/Square_Formation

Not sure however, if Napoleon has the same soldier count as Empire.