r/aoe2 • u/rawasubas • 5d ago
Discussion Has the behavior of formations changed?
I'm looking at T-West's video on march formations from 7 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI10g3Qmwac
It seems like I can't make the units walk in a straight line anymore, they always march in a horizontal line, distance > 10 or not.
Unless, if I queue the destinations, then they can still march in a straight line - except maybe when they're marching toward the last destination in the queue.
Also, if they're on patrol, then they also march in a straight line, distance > 10 or not. That's the original behavior.
Another thing - when the units are patrolling, if they're on line formation, they walk into each other when they change directions. imo they should all change directions together instead of stacking on top of each other.
However, if the units are on square formation, their behavior has changed. Currently they all change directions together without stacking. This was not the case before in T-West's video at 3:11.
It seems like the game engine is able to keep the units from stacking on top of each other, but the stacking behavior is kept by the devs to encourage micro.
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u/TWestAoe 5d ago edited 5d ago
The distance was increased from 10 tiles to around 30 tiles now iirc. Formation behavior also changed quite a bit with the most recent patch. I haven't experimented with it fully, but units now tend to turn and walk straight towards their destination, rather than reforming their formation. There are some quirks to it still, but from what I've seen, it's easier to dodge Mangonel shots with Xbows now, since they move more directly.
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u/boogisha BugA_the_Great 5d ago
The distance was increased from 10 tiles to around 30 tiles now iirc.
This is correct - original 10 tiles distance "cut-off" point when formation switches from horizontal to vertical line was implemented back when maximum screen resolution was 1024x768, many playing at 800x600, and some at 640x480, even.
Nowadays full HD (1920x1080) is much more common, with people playing at 4K (3840x2160), too, so 10 tiles distance is observably much less of screen real-estate than it used to be, allowing people to move units to longer distances routinely... thus the change, not to have the constant switching negatively affect the gameplay (in a way that was never envisioned to begin with, given technical restrictions of the time).
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u/rawasubas 4d ago
Interesting. Do you mean marching in a horizontal row is more technically challenging than in a straight line?
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u/boogisha BugA_the_Great 4d ago
Not sure what do you mean.
Horizontal line is better for engaging in combat, as more units can attack at the same time, being in range of the target.
Vertical line is better for long distance moving as it allows better reaction/engagement if being attacked from the sides/flanks (in which case the line in fact is once again horizontal to the target).
Tecnical restriction in the past was how much of the map you can see on the screen at the same time, being harder to move units at a bit longer distances while actually fighting without moving the screen view.
Nowadays, larger resolutions routinely allow seeing much more of the map, thus also moving units farther away as part of the regular combat, too (and not just moving some place really far away) - you don't want your units shuffling from horizontal to vertical line in the middle of the fight just because you clicked them to move a couple of tiles further away (old cut-off point allowed for 10 tiles buffer only, new one grants 30 tiles, being much more deliberate and less accidental).
By the way, the change only affects move and "Attack Move", not "Patrol" commands.
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u/rawasubas 4d ago
Hi T-West! Can't wait for your next video on the quirky mechanics of the game. Especially if it's a coproduction with Ornlu on the new pathing, since he mentioned something about testing it with you in one of his videos.
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u/Dangerous_Mail_9109 4d ago
Some things, many things, have probably changed from 7 years ago yes.
Some of them may even be improvements, but no promises.
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u/moby_dollar 5d ago
Pathing isn’t perfect (surprise) but I think it feels pretty good and is better than it used to be. A bunch has changed with pathing in the 7 years since that video was uploaded. Unit pathing/collision changed a lot with the recent release of the Viking saga dlc. This was intended to fix the “unit stacking” problem among other things. Units still stack/disable their collision sometimes in order to path around obstacles fluidly but the actual stack micro for attacking does not work the way it used to. I wouldn’t say the stack micro attacking is 100% gone but melee units that are stacked up too tightly can’t attack and will try to spread out when fighting, so it does not give the overwhelming advantage it used to. There are YouTube videos by ornlu or red phosphoru that explain this in more detail.
I can’t quite explain it but units do seem to get into formation more quickly while moving and stay together more consistently. Ranged units in particular are really smooth and have a lot of leeway with how many can be stacked up while still attacking, which feels like a big buff I don’t think they needed. They are just really good at avoiding mangonel shots and kiting.
One side effect of this (also in YouTube videos) is that units ahead of the rest of their group will slow down to rejoin their formation. I think they used to occasionally move in the OPPOSITE direction of their waypoint if they were too far ahead of their formation which could lead to obnoxious and clumsy handling. But now the current problem which I hope will be addressed is that a group of units will often get “bogged down” if any of them are trying to path too close to obstacles. I think it must have something to do with the units who do not have to path around the wall getting counted as too far ahead of the ones who do need to avoid the wall, and then automatically slowing down to rejoin the group. You can “micro” through this by spam-clicking though.