This basically sounds like an endorsement for no formations at all, and everyone lined up in rearguard and back. Surely the combat system isn't /that/ bad.
See my previous comment:
So far as I can really tell, there are only two valid battle settings now:
* If you have infantry superiority, then swarm them as fast as you can. (Infantry charge/infantry wall)
* If you have archer superiority, then start your infantry farther back to give your archers time to pound the enemy before your infantry engages. (Archer opening)
So, yeah, I am kind of endorsing a limited set of formations. But there are two formations in that set, not just one.
I would assume that the issue is at least partly because all the formations were created with the old battle system in mind. As such, they make use of the overcrowding and overkill mechanics that simply don't apply anymore. (Well, OK, overkill might still apply, but probably at orders of magnitude less than it used to happen.) You can't do things like toss a sacrificial 20-man infantry unit out front to stop the 2,000 enemy infantry dead in their tracks for four rounds, while simultaneously spoiling the 300-horse cavalry charge.
The new battle system avoids these ridiculously illogical behaviors. That's great. It prevents lots of immersion-breaking, mechanics-exploiting behaviors. (Especially in relation to fortification sieges, where single-unit suicide dives became the norm.) But it seems to also have greatly reduced the need for, and effect of, formations. People with lots of infantry will want to get as much of that infantry in play as quickly as possible. i.e.: Infantry in front. People with lots of archers will want to keep the infantry out of combat for as long as possible, so the archers can get off as many rounds of fire as possible: Archers middle, infantry back.
If you want to custom create more battle formations you think might work, then please do so. But I would imagine that any complex formation would almost certainly be very special-purpose, and probably not suitable for general use. But the preset formations are intended to be general-use. The highly abstracted, 2D combat system kind of limits what you can do with formations. You're really only picking how far forward or back your troops start. That's not really a "formation", it's just controlling how far you are from the enemy when the firing starts.
Now that I think about it, that part of the battle system really doesn't make much sense, either. It almost seems as if the battles should always start with the enemy X rows away, where X is
no less than the longest-ranged archer unit on the field. Your range 4 archer units are not going to
not fire at an enemy 4 ranks away just because they're told to line up
in the middle, and the enemy infantry is setting up formation
in the front. I mean, are they just going to sit there and watch the enemy get into formation, and not start shooting until they're ready to be shot at?
