Line formation - infantry

[Maulet]

I am playing with spain.
But i have a problem in detailed combat:

I can not form the line with the infantry. I only can form square or column, but not line.
I have only 10% or 20% to form a line.

Why ???? It's necessary any upgrade? the problem is the moral?

Thanks!

[Hard Sarge]

yes, you have poor troops, they need some exp, battles and upgrades will help

also you can increase the troop training time, from the Ecc page

for the troops you do have, try to form into line while still away from the enemy, it may not be any easier, but it will not diorganize you

[Anthropoid]

Fight defensively and make use of buildings and forts where column formation is just as good if not better than line.

Add the organized promotion asap

[Mike Parker]

And if you really feel you need line.. you will just have to suck it up and put em in line ASAP and deal with the atrocious movement.  There are a couple of really nice techs to get for using your inf in line... additional movement points and one that lowers the cost to change facing while in line.  Sorry that I cannot remember the names but with those two techs you can put your Inf in line and still move them about fairly well.
 

[ShaiHulud]

Maulet- There is another option, which I think of as re-organization of the Army.

When you start a new game with countries like Spain or Turkey, your armies are in poor shape. To correct their initial deficiencies, first, go to the 'Economy' section. Reduce Military readiness as low as possible. Next, reduce recruitment to the maximum age of 41. Raise recruitment level to 2. Increase training to 16 months. This should bring your replacements to 4.50 experience.

Since you reduced readiness, your divisions will soon fall to 50% strength. After you have a good number trained, raise readiness back to 100%. As the new, better trained troops flow into your divisions, the overall experience will rise.

You can do this several times until your troops are at, or near, 4.50 and, with a fair general, they will be able to perform maneuvers more easily.

[Maulet]

ORIGINAL: ShaiHulud

Maulet- There is another option, which I think of as re-organization of the Army.

When you start a new game with countries like Spain or Turkey, your armies are in poor shape. To correct their initial deficiencies, first, go to the 'Economy' section. Reduce Military readiness as low as possible. Next, reduce recruitment to the maximum age of 41. Raise recruitment level to 2. Increase training to 16 months. This should bring your replacements to 4.50 experience.

Since you reduced readiness, your divisions will soon fall to 50% strength. After you have a good number trained, raise readiness back to 100%. As the new, better trained troops flow into your divisions, the overall experience will rise.

You can do this several times until your troops are at, or near, 4.50 and, with a fair general, they will be able to perform maneuvers more easily.

yes, another good option!!

I will try this option tonight.

[Joram]

Well, be warned that it can take an awfully long time to get your troops back to strength.  This is a somewhat drastic option to take in my opinion! 

[morganbj]

I agree with Joram.  If you are at war, or at risk of being at war any time soon, with a neighbor who can really hurt you, I wouldn't try this.
 
But, if you do want to try it, make sure you have plenty of trained draftees in your pool and that as many of your units as possible are either in a city or with a depot.  Rotate them in and out if you have to.
 
It also seems to me that if you set your readiness to 50, your militia will also shrink and then consume some of the better replacements when you up it again.  I don't know off hand if that will cause them to gain morale, or if they're stuck at 1.7; I've just never payed any attention to what happens when militia units are fleshed out with replacements.  If they do go up some, that may be a waste of good troops, since militia are usually just garrisons for your cities.  But, I guess if you want better milita units this may be a way to get them, if their morale does indeed go up like other units.
 
A lot to consider before doing this.  But, give it a try and tell us what happens.
 

[ShaiHulud]

ORIGINAL: bjmorgan

I agree with Joram.  If you are at war, or at risk of being at war any time soon, with a neighbor who can really hurt you, I wouldn't try this.

But, if you do want to try it, make sure you have plenty of trained draftees in your pool and that as many of your units as possible are either in a city or with a depot.  Rotate them in and out if you have to.

It also seems to me that if you set your readiness to 50, your militia will also shrink and then consume some of the better replacements when you up it again.  I don't know off hand if that will cause them to gain morale, or if they're stuck at 1.7; I've just never payed any attention to what happens when militia units are fleshed out with replacements.  If they do go up some, that may be a waste of good troops, since militia are usually just garrisons for your cities.  But, I guess if you want better milita units this may be a way to get them, if their morale does indeed go up like other units.

A lot to consider before doing this.  But, give it a try and tell us what happens.

BJ- Just put your militia on 'forage' and they don't absorb any new recruits. AFAIK, militia are stuck, forever, at 1.70 morale.

Playing as Spain and Turkey, you can, pretty much, decline to make war for long enough to re-train your armies. Until you make yourself a target, by winning and garnering glory points, you're pretty much ignored, especially as Spain. Anyone that wants to jump immediately into battle should go with France, Russia, Austria, where they've got ready tools to work with.

[Maulet]

Well my first decissions have been:

1-reduce max draft age to 41.

2-upgrade the draft size to 2.

3-upgrade months training to 14.

But I haven't reduce the readiness

And my moral goes from 3,5  to 4,05.  The result:





At the  moment I haven't any upgrade to apply (you can see 0 points).

[ShaiHulud]

By utilizing the 'Forage' designation for individual units, or armies, you can direct your replacements to the specific units/army that you want to beef up immediately. After you go with this approach you can reduce the draft size to one (thereby costing less) and let the other units catch up after you've upgraded your active force.

I'm curious about why you stopped at 14 months training? Cash flow, yes? Reducing readiness will, also, reduce your cash outflow. Consider that to get each extra .1 morale on a new unit you'd have to build another barracks level.

[Maulet]

ORIGINAL: ShaiHulud

By utilizing the 'Forage' designation for individual units, or armies, you can direct your replacements to the specific units/army that you want to beef up immediately. After you go with this approach you can reduce the draft size to one (thereby costing less) and let the other units catch up after you've upgraded your active force.

I'm curious about why you stopped at 14 months training? Cash flow, yes? Reducing readiness will, also, reduce your cash outflow. Consider that to get each extra .1 morale on a new unit you'd have to build another barracks level.

I have stopped at 14 months to try with this number. In the future I will try with 16.

Pass from 14 to 16 doesn't reduce my treasury, only reduce the total draft trained, but increase the moral to 4,5.