the preset battle group formations

[coffeemm8]

https://shogun2-encyclopedia.com/how_to_play/050a_enc_manual_battle_conflict_formations_land.html

are they worth following at all? such as in terms of the formations themselves and their composition?

[BastardSword]

No, they make no sense.

In general you want to mostly copy what the AI does or at least counter them, which means a single line of bows up front, a single line of melee infantry behind them, cavalry roaming around where they are needed, and the general staying out of trouble.

You don't really want to have multiple horizontal lines of units at the start of battle, if one unit gets too far ahead of the others it will get swarmed and wiped out by the enemy and all of your troops will lose morale by watching their friends die. Having units move up together in one big horizontal means nobody can get swarmed and you can move units left or right to quell hot spots.

Later on in the battle then it doesn't matter if some units start charging forward, but at that point everyone will be out of formation so formations won't matter. Once you are winning then feel free to have your units individually chase down enemy bows or generals or whatever to finish off the battle.

[YaFilthy]

i dont think they are that good most put the troops in weird positions but they are a good starting point. I like using a couple of them from time to time some work better for archers if you utilize the wooden blockades. You can also split your stack up into missile/melee and run 2 different formations there fair for defense battles that your not chasing. Its one of my complaints about shogun 2. they should be custom save formations. They dont work that well for AI battles because of all the handicaps you wouldnt see pvp. But you can try them for "perceived difficult" or "roleplay" battle. Overall, i think they are worthwhile you just have to figure out how to take advantage of them.