Formations¶

Principles of Formations in AoE2¶

Dave Pottinger’s Articles: 1 2

Grouped units have the same speed

The speed of a formation is determined by its slowest unit. This will help the formation to stay together.

Grouped units take the same path

If there is an obstruction in the units path, the group will stay together to avoid being attacked when separated.

Grouped units arrive at the same time

When a group is formed, the faster units should decrease their speed for slower units to catch up.

Structure¶

When talking about formations, one has to differentiate between

The selection of the player
The ‘actual’ formation
The subformations of a formation

Players can select any units they own and add them to their selection. Therefore, a selection can consist of varying unit types and allows mixing of buildings, military units, villagers and others. Not all of these units are capable of forming a formation. Buildings are excluded from formations because they can’t move and so are unpacked trebuchets. Villagers, trade carts and fishing ships will not be part of any formation. If they are moved, they don’t abide Pottinger’s rules and will move to the target at their normal speed while each of them takes their own path. Hence, when villagers are part of a selection of military units, the military units will form a formation and then move to the target while the villagers will independently move there.

A formation always consists of 4 subformations (which can be empty). What unit type belongs to what subformation is hard coded into the game. A quick overview is shown below. The ^-symbol shows the front of the formation.

...................
...^^^^^^^.........
1..Cavalry.........
2..Infantry (melee)
3..Ranged..........
4..Siege/Support...
...................

Every military unit in the game is sorted into one of these subformations depending on their GroupID (in some cases their LineID). Bear in mind, that the descriptions next to the subformations in the above figure are not fully accurate. For example, cavalry archers are part of the “Ranged”-subformation instead of the “Cavalry”-subformation. To avoid confusion specific subformations will from now on be referenced by their index (e.g. subformation[1] equals “Cavalry”-subformation) The figure below shows to which subformation a GroupID belongs.

...................
...^^^^^^^.........
1..Cavalry......... 912, 947
2..Infantry (melee) 906
3..Ranged.......... 900, 923, 936, 944, 955
4..Siege/Support... 902, 913, 918, 919, 920, 935, 943, 951, 959, Saboteur (UnitID: 706)
...................
5..Else............ 904, 921, 958, 961 (not part of any formation)

As you can see, the only exception to sorting by GroupID is the saboteur. Ships are also sorted into a formation by their LineID (see the section about Ship Formations).

Formations have a formation type which determines how the units are generally ordered (see Formation Types). The subformations inherit their formation type from the parent formation.

Ship Formations¶

Ships use the same formation system and are sorted into a subformation by similar rules. Instead of using GroupID, LineID determines which subformation is chosen (probably because all battle ships have the same GroupID 922). The figure below shows the subformations to which each class of ships is passed.

WARNING: These are LineIDs not GroupIDs
...................
...^^^^^^^.........
1..Cavalry......... -294
2..Infantry (melee) -293
3..Ranged.......... -283, -284, -292
4..Support......... -285
...................
5..Else............ Admiral Yun Shi (UnitID: 844)

Because the same formation system is used for land and sea units it is possible to mix them inside a formation. This behavior can be observed when one selects ships and land units and then sends them into shallow water.

Subformations¶

Subformations are the parts of the formation where the ordering of units into lines takes place. How units are ordered depends on a variety of factors and is also determined by other subformations in the parent formation.

Individual Subformation¶

For a start one has to look at the behavior of an individual subformation. Let’s assume we have a single subformation consisting of ranged units (subformation[3]).

............
...^^^^^^...
...RRRRRR...
...RRRRRR...
............

The number of lines (or row_count) in this subformation is always determined by the number of its units. Unit width and different unit types have no influence here. The row_count can be calculated by an algorithm (see here). After the value has been calculated the units will be sorted into the lines starting from the top left.

............
...^^^^^^...
..>RRRRRR...
...RRRRRR...
............

Mixing Unit Types¶

If a subformation is formed with units of more than one unit type, AoE2 tries to evenly distribute them. This is achieved by alternating between unit types when sorting them into a line. To determine the unit type, the UnitID value is used.

............
...^^^^^^...
..>ASASSS...
...SSSSSS...
............

In the above example, we have a subformation consisting of 2 archers A and 10 skirmishers S. Beginning from the top left the subformation alternates between archers and skirmishers until there are no more archers left. The other skirmishers fill up the remaining space.

The same rules apply, if more than two unit types are used. We will now have a look at a subformation containing 5 archers A, 3 skirmishers S, 6 longbowman L and 1 throwing axeman T.

..............
...^^^^^^^^...
..>LASTLASL...
...LASLALA....
..............

Which unit type is sorted into the line first depends on the order in which the player selected the unit types (or how they are ordered inside the selection queue). In the first example of this section, the player selected the archers first and added the skirmishers to his selection. The second and above example would be the result of selecting longbowman first, archers second, skirmishers third and throwing axeman last.

Distance Between Units¶

How far units in a subformation stay apart is determined by the width of the widest units and the length of the longest unit. All units inside the subformation will follow this rule, regardless of their own height or length. As an example, one can select a few archers and a scorpion. Scorpions are one of the widest units in subformation[3] and will therefore determine the distance between all of the units. Furthermore, one will notice that all rows of the subformation are affected and not solely the line the scorpion is in.

Influence of other Subformations¶

So far we have only examined the grouping of individual subformation but left out the behavior of the parent formation. The parent formation knows about the variables of each subformation, e.g. row_count and distance_between_units. We will now see, how the parent formation can influence the row_count of other subformations.

Let’s view two subformations, one with swordsman and one with rams, independently.

.............
...SSSSSSS...
...SSSSSSS...
.............

............
...RRRRRR...
............

We would expect that the grouping of units inside the parent formation looks exactly the same, with the two subformation just joined together. However, this is not the case. Instead, the parent formation will look like this:

....................
...SSSSSSSSSSSSSS...
.......RRRRRR.......
....................

The reason for the change of the row_count for subformation[2] is the width of subformation[4]. Rams are about two times as wide as swordsman, hence the subformation they are in will also be much wider than subformation[2] if it is selected individually. To deal with the difference in width, the number of units per row of subformation[2] is extended. In general one can say that the widest subformation in the parent formation influences the row_count of all other subformations.

Formation Types¶

Line Formation¶

This is the standard formation whenever the player makes a selection. Units form lines (see all examples in Subformations) and are arranged with the weaker subformations in the back and the stronger ones in the front.

Staggered Formation¶

Behaves like the Line Formation except that the space between units is doubled for every subformation.

Boxed Formation¶

Units form the outline of a square. The weaker units are in the center while stronger units are placed on the outside. When representing a subformation with its corresponding number, it will look like this:

...............
.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.
.1.2.2.2.2.2.1.
.1.2.3.3.3.2.1.
.1.2.3.4.3.2.1.
.1.2.3.3.3.2.1.
.1.2.2.2.2.2.1.
.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.
...............

In comparison to the other formation types, the ordering of units with the boxed formation type in the subformations seems to be random and does not follow any specific rule. It is assumed that the units are grouped anew every time a movement order is placed.

This formation type is also rarely used in competitive games and presumably disfavored by players.

Flanked Formation¶

This type of formation leaves a big vertical gap between the rows of a line formation and effectively splits it in half. Otherwise it behaves exactly like a Line Formation regarding ordering of units.

Flanked formations play a crucial part in competitive play, when countering the attack of onagers against dense infantry.

Marching formation¶

The marching formation cannot be select by the player but is used by the game when a movement order is placed more than 10 tiles away from the current location of the player’s selection. It behaves like a Line Formation that is turned around by 90 degrees. Because this formation type is much narrower than all other types, units can fit through small gaps in tree lines and walls.

Limits in AoE2¶

Units will not sorted into the formation if they are too far away (10 tiles) from an already established formation. They will behave as if they were in subformation[5] and therefore don’t follow Pottinger’s rules. While this seems strange at first, it ensures that the point where the units join the group is not to far apart from the majority of units and that the formation gets moving towards its goal faster (instead of having to decrease its speed for a slow unit that is far away).
Formations will split on occasions where the obstruction is small (such as a single tree or a building). This was probably implemented to avoid formations to get stuck at a single choke point, e.g. a breach in the wall, when there are other optional paths nearby.
Units within the same formation don’t collide with each other when the formation is established. It is assumed that the pathfinding algorithm of AoE2 was not capable enough to handle the complexity of the formation system.
Units do not know how far they have to travel and are following a rough path that is recalculated if they encounter an obstruction. Therefore units will sometimes transition from marching to combat formations far too early.

Algorithmic solutions¶

The proposed algorithms have a run time of O(n), where n is the number of units. Therefore, implementing them shouldn’t affect performance that much, even for large formations over 40 units. player_selection is a set of units that the player selected and that is passed to the algorithm.

Sort units into subformations (Pseudocode)¶

INPUT:
- Set of units: player_selection
- Formation type: formation_type

Initilization:

# subformations for military units
subformation[1] = new subformation();
subformation[2] = new subformation();
subformation[3] = new subformation();
subformation[4] = new subformation();

# dummy subformation for every unit that will
# not form formations
subformation[5] = new subformation();

Algorithm:

for unit u in player_selection do {
    switch(u.GROUP_ID) {
        case 912:
        case 947: subformation[1].add(u);
            break();
        case 906: subformation[2].add(u);
            break();
        case 900:
        case 923:
        case 936:
        case 944:
        case 955: subformation[3].add(u);
            break();
        case 902:
        case 913:
        case 918:
        case 919:
        case 920:
        case 935:
        case 943:
        case 951:
        case 959: subformation[4].add(u);
            break();
        case 922:
        switch(u.LINE_ID) {
            case -294: subformation[1].add(u);
                break();
            case -293: subformation[2].add(u);
                break();
            case -283:
            case -284:
            case -292: subformation[3].add(u);
                break();
            case -285:
            case 706: subformation[4].add(u);
                break();
            default: subformation[5].add(u);
                break();
        }
        default: subformation[5].add(u);
            break();
    }
}

subformation[1].order_units(formation_type)
subformation[2].order_units(formation_type)
subformation[3].order_units(formation_type)
subformation[4].order_units(formation_type)
subformation[5].order_units(formation_type)

Add units into a subformation (Pseudocode)¶

INPUT:
- A unit: unit

Initilization:

# Create a list of stacks. Each stack will
# contain units of the same GroupID
List unit_stacks = new List<Stack>();

# Create a list of GroupIDs that contains
# the IDs of units that are already in the
# subformation
List ids = new List();

unit_count = 0;

Algorithm:

if ids.contains(unit.GROUP_ID) then {
    index = ids.indexOf(units.GROUP_ID);
    unit_stacks.get(index).push(unit);
    ++unit_count;
}
else {
    Stack unit_stack = new Stack();
    unit_stack.push(unit);
    ids.add(unit.GROUP_ID);
    unit_stacks.add(unit_stack);
    ++unit_count;
}

Order units inside subformation (Pseudocode)¶

INPUT:
- List of Stacks: unit_stacks
- Formation type: formation_type

Initilization:

# Contains the units in correct order beginning from
# the top left (see section about Mixing Units).
List unit_line = new List();

Algorithm:

# Creates a single ordered line
while !unit_stacks.isEmpty() do {
    for Stack s in unit_stacks do {
        unit_line.add(s.top());
        if s.isEmpty() then {
            unit_stacks.remove(s);
        }
    }
}

# Now calculate the position of each unit
# depending on formation_type and their position
# inside the unit_line list. This can represented
# by a relative offset from the front of the formation,
# which then has to be calculated to a global coordinate.