Keeping formations with slowest unit speed

A little trick on how to use the "follow-slowest-unit" button in combination with formations

The problem

If you are having people with injured legs or overcumbered inventories, you will have slower members not being able to keep up with the squad leader / rest of the squad, which leads to this problem:


The formation is breaking apart, people will lag behind and will eventually get in danger of fighting alone

I assume you are already familiar with how to create formations by telling squad members to follow one leader.

The fix

Instead of switching to walk or jog speed, or assigning the slowest to be the leader, this can be fixed by setting the leaders speed to the speed of the slowest unit in the squad.

Check the speeds of the slowest units hanging back and select the one with the slowest run speed value.

In this case its 16 mph in comparison with the leader who has 21 mph.

Then select both the slowest and leader unit and set those two with the "slowest-run-mode" icon
(red / black pawn symbol)
(Everybody else can stay in full run mode)

This will already help to get the slowest back into formation.

However there is still one AI bug that can be annoying. For some reason the slowest unit will be then the only one not staying into formation and instead trying to catch up to the leader, as can be seen here: (Kole)



In order to fix that select the slowest unit again and set him to walk at the fastest speed.


This will get him into his intended formation position, instead of catching up to the leader. The leader will keep the speed of the slowest unit of 16mph (Kole). From this point on selecting the leader alone and giving a new move order will keep that speed and the formation will stay together:


(Ignore the pack bull and dog as the bull is following someone from the rear end of the formation and the dog is following the bull)

Furthermore the leader's speed will automatically increase as soon as the slowest units becomes faster i.e. leg injuries heal, or strengh gains which lead to less penalties from being over encumbered.

The leader will be the only one having the red/black pawn walk mode active

More general faster approach

In order to speed up the process you can also skip the first step of looking for the individual slowest unit and simply select everyone.
Set them to all to this mode



Then select everyone, EXCEPT the leader and set them to full sprinting again. This way the leader will adjust its speed to the slowest in the squad automatically and everybody will stay in formation, while you control the squad by ordering the leader around.

Be aware though, that this will slow down the whole squad in case anyone gets slowed down, i.e. if somebody is entering water, the whole squad will become as slow as the swimmer.

[c0pa79]

I just overload me leaders inventory to match the slowest, that way he also trains strength

[Cataphractal]

Yeah I usually just adjust my leader's speed. He's got 90 athl so hes usually at like a jog but ever since i added crabs he has to be at a walk. oh well.

[Jerry The Terrorist]

I typically tell my leader where I want them and then use (ctrl + ~) to select all and just change the speed to the red/black icon. If it's only 3 guys or so I just leave that selected, select all and tell them where to go.

Your method is great if you want to keep formation easily however.

[Donald J Treason]

Thanks for this. I'm new to the game and had no idea what that speed option was for.

[Shionia]

I've been playing this game on and off for years, turns out i've been using that button all wrong, thank you so much! Goes to show there is always more to learn. :)

[Not Sure]

i've got a lot of hours in Kenshi and I didn't know how to use this button. Thanks very much, this will help me a lot!

[Eddy63]

The leader keeps this mode all the time active (after the pairing of slowest and the leader), while everybody else gets the max speed in order to keep up and in order to prevent the AI bug as seen with Kole, where he was catching up too close to the leader leaving his formation. When the "followers" are set to max speed the AI fixes itself and gets back into formation for some reason. You could also have this mode on on the whole group without a leader, (havn't tested) but I prefer to only having to command one person, while everybody else follows that person.

[Carryonnaire]

That makes me wonder. If you want to keep formation, why are you not using this mode all the time and instead set maximum speed?

[mrmistophelees]

I didn't know that, and this will be a big help. Thanks! Your manner of writing the guide is very clear and organized.

[Eddy63]

Thanks for your feedback