Any UI hints and tips re managing armies?

[Solaristics]

I've now got a few large armies roaming the map and I'm finding the task of splitting them up for specific missions time consuming so I wonder if there is something I'm missing about this. Can all the unitis in the "stacks" (not sure what they are called - the groupings of units by type in the army interface for a given army) be selected at the same time or at least more that one at a time? Also, is there any way to split an army in half without having to select half the units in it manually? I have some armies that have 50-100 units in them now (not sure of the number but 600+ combat power) and some stacks that have 25+ units in them and the selection process feels a bit clunky.

As a suggestion, I'd like to see x5 and x10 stacking for both the army units and population.

[USGrant1962]

I agree that splitting/organizing armies is a little too fiddly and could use some streamlining.

But I have to say you are inflicting the problem on yourself. No way you should have stacks of 50-100 units. Beyond maybe 30 it adds nothing to your combat capability, devours all the supply in a region, and costs tons of resources.

[Solaristics]

I agree that splitting/organizing armies is a little too fiddly and could use some streamlining.

But I have to say you are inflicting the problem on yourself. No way you should have stacks of 50-100 units. Beyond maybe 30 it adds nothing to your combat capability, devours all the supply in a region, and costs tons of resources.

Thanks. At the beginning of the game I was being careful with suppy and resource management but at around turn 100 as Athens I now have vast supplies of resources (and only a modest sized empire ... trying to ride the legacy/decadence curve) and not had any supply problems except with the navy so I've reduce those stacks.

One of the reasons for the big stacks is that they are multi-mission: siege, forest, hill/clear, experienced for key battles, inexperienced to gain experience in less important battles. I peel off the relevant mission stack from the main force as I move through the enemy territory. Another reason though is that I'm not sure what the frontages are: I think forests are 6 but I'm not sure what the maximum frontage is (clear terrain) so I've just got overkill stacks to avoid being flanked (and also to replace casualties immediately in a follow up battle to avoid being flanked then too).

[Soar]

The number of units required to fill out the combat width is 28 for plains and steppes and 32 for deserts (half support units, and 4 cavalry for plains, 6 for steppes, 8 for deserts). You can check the terrain width by hovering over the leftmost icon in the top bar of the region window (although it doesn't show the split between infantry and cavalry). Though in practice you want to have some extra units in reserve too to replace damaged units if expecting opposition of similar strength.

[Solaristics]

Thanks very much for the info. So does that mean deserts, for example, would have 8 infantry melee units in the front rank flanked by 4 cavalry on each wing of the front rank and a rear rank of 16 support units? Also is the ratio of infantry melee:cavalry:support 1:1:2 for all terrain or are their exceptions?

[Gray Fox]

You have the desert setup correct, but this is not a general ratio. Rough terrain has a frontage, which you should always check prior to a battle, of 8 or less. What I do is make a stack with 8 of my best infantry types and 8 of my best ranged units with 4 heavy cavalry types for the flanks. That's good enough for rough terrain. For open terrain, I just merge two of these stacks together. Good luck!

[poesel71]

You may have missed that you can select a complete army column by right clicking. So unless you want to split a column in half rearranging armies is actually quite fast.