Commands and formations

Troop commands

• Attack

  Orders the selected troops to attack the current target or a designated area.

  When it matters: Set the formation first, then press. Charge units such as Lancer and Scout Rider gain extra value when the order lands with a charge.

• Follow

  Moves the selected troops with you, or with a chosen friendly unit.

  When it matters: Use it to walk cavalry to a flank instead of letting them feed themselves to the frontline.

• Hold

  Keeps the selected troops where they stand, holding both position and facing.

  When it matters: On a defence point, holding Spartans and shields still is worth far more than letting them chase kills.

• Rush

  Sends the selected troops at high speed toward the target: a charge.

  When it matters: This is where lancers and scout riders earn their place, but charging polearms head-on is suicide.

• Aim

  Points ranged units at a direction or area instead of letting them pick targets.

  When it matters: Aim Flaming Archers and Crossbowman at the lane the enemy has to use, rather than letting them waste shots on shields.

Formations

• Circle formation

  Pulls the selected troops into a circular formation.

  When it matters: A Spartan in circle formation is very hard to break. Equally, scattering the enemy formation is the key to beating a Spartan stack.

• Formation refresh

  Re-issues a formation order to reset troops after they have been scattered.

  When it matters: Formations break constantly during a match, and resetting is far cheaper than rebuilding one from scratch.

Choosing an order in one second

Mid-fight decisions happen in a hurry, so it helps to reduce them to a lookup table. If the enemy is not engaging, hold. If they engage and your units are winning, keep holding and let them come. If they engage and are winning, the answer is rarely a frontal attack; it is a rush on whatever is killing you, which is usually their ranged line.

• They are not pushing: Hold. Nothing is gained by walking toward a prepared defence.
• They pushed and lost their front line: Attack, and press before they reform.
• They have archers behind a wall of shields: Rush the flanker at the archers, hold the rest.
• Their cavalry is circling: Aim your ranged units at the approach, not at the shields.
• Your formation broke after a charge: re-issue the formation order before anything else.

Four order mistakes

• Chasing a routed enemy. Attack sends your formation after the survivors and out of the capture zone. If the objective still matters, hold and let them come back to you.
• Rushing without a target. Rush is a charge, not a general advance. Pointing it at the middle of a shield line wastes the only mobility advantage cavalry has.
• Forgetting to Aim. A ranged unit with no direction will happily shoot the thickest armour on the field. Aim at the support units and your damage doubles without any upgrade.
• Leaving the formation broken. After any charge the blob disperses. Re-issue the formation before the next engagement, or your anchor unit stops being an anchor.

How the orders combine

Orders are not five separate buttons so much as two decisions. The first is whether your army moves or stays: Hold and Follow are positional, Attack and Rush are aggressive, and Aim is the odd one out because it only affects units that shoot. The second decision is what you do with your own commander while your troops execute the order, and nearly every beginner mistake in this game is a positioning mistake rather than an order mistake.

The practical combination that shows up in recorded matches is Hold on the frontline, Aim on your ranged units, and Rush reserved for a single flanking unit. Commit the frontline to Attack and you lose the shield cover that made your ranged units safe; commit your ranged units to Follow and they walk into the exact melee range they cannot survive. Keeping the slow, valuable units stationary while one fast unit does all the travelling is the pattern that survives contact with a real opponent.

• Defending: Hold your anchors inside the capture zone, keep ranged units behind them, and do not chase. Attackers run out of time far more often than defenders run out of units.
• Attacking: pick one lane, Aim your ranged units at the defenders' support, and Rush only the flanker. Splitting your army across two lanes gives the defender two winnable fights.
• Losing the formation: re-issue the formation order rather than repositioning by hand. A broken formation is the single biggest reason a Spartan stack stops working mid-fight.