Does anyone know how to change the formation of troops?

[Average ппо майстер]

hello i have recently started playing age of empire 3 and I watched some other freinds of mine play and i am intrested in how they could choose the formation. i can't ask my freind as he lives in a other country now.

[CelticCrusader]

You need to change a few things in options , click help and tools- options- UI options. Once there you want to enable show game time, show player scores, show improvement queue, show advanced formations and show advanced improvement information. Having these enabled will help you out during the game. To use advanced formations once they are enabled, click on your units and the formations will show in the bottom right.

[CelticCrusader]

I great time to switch formation for example is putting musketeers into melee mode to kill off cav as they do more damage in melee that ranged. Also using cover mode on your units will enable them to take less damage.

[Average ппо майстер]

Thanks man I apreciate it

[lozacenz]

Not that formations actually Matter in this game, really. Skirmish works great... right up until you get enough guys in a group that they don't fit in the box a group goes in in formation while in skirmish mode and thus overlap dramatically. Likewise, musketeers do better against cavalry in melee mode, sure... it won't in any way change the outcome beyond plus or minus one or two dead horsemen as your entire group of infantry's wiped out with large numbers of cavalry remaining to rampage through whatever's behind your army.

Cover mode for melee infantry's as likely to make things worse as better, it makes you move slower, which means you get hit for longer without hitting Back. which usually results in cannon fire which would otherwise miss wiping you out, or light infantry shooting you to death, or, well, Anything, if your opponant is using any sort of combined arms at all.

cavalry's trample mode is a hilarious trap. its something you activate for a guy stuck in the middle of a bunch of pikemen who's going to die anyway out of spite.

limbering and unlimbering is, of course, useful... 'cept the unit AI will always be as annoying as possible about it. (under attack with a mortar? don't limber, hand push to run away! (which, for the mortar, means litterally "pick it up like normal but walk more slowly" ...) unless told to limber, in which case just stand there and get stabbed instead.

I love Age of Empires III, don't get me wrong, but the whole formation system is ... disapointing at best.

[Eaglemut]

Formations could certainly be more useful, but I think you're being a bit overly negative about them. It's true you generally need quite a high level of combat awareness to make use of them.

For example musks in melee against cav can be really strong if the enemy player either doesn't notice or somehow gets trapped. However, you need to be careful and quickly put them back into normal mode if the cav starts kiting and running away.

Cover mode can work pretty good as well. If you just put some pikes in cover mode in front of your skirmishers - the pikes will tank shots with reduced damage, while your skirms are unharmed and free to shoot, or you're at least forcing the enemy to micro around this. As another example, you can also put individual pikes in cover mode as they are targeted by a Town Center, making the TC waste more shots.

Trample is very situational, but can be effective against very low HP units. I use it somewhat often to very effectively finish off a group of minutemen on their last hitpoint.

[Eaglemut]

Here's a great extensive analysis on how trample mode actually works and why it's usually bad, except for finishing minutemen: http://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7037