army supply order

hi total war fans and empire specifically

I still love playing empire (significantly modded) and e.g. often rely on editing saves to fine tune the diplomatics which the ai messes up.

But one thing I haven´t figured out so far is how I can manage the sequence of supply troops to enter the battle. If I group troops in an army, ETW automatically organizes the order of the troops. I know that they will enter the battle as they are listed in the army overview from left to right, first the upper row, then the lower row. For now I can only send an entering supply troop immediately retreating to have the next one entering which is not ideal.



army composition of 5 troops

cavalry / infantry / artillery / artillery / infantry

the artillery would enter as third and fourth, the latter infantry as fifth




I assume that ETW organizes the composition in regards to some strategic consideration. For example it would rather put cavalry in first place, artillery in the latter places.




Is there any way to organize army composition?





army composition of 5 troops

cavalry / infantry / artillery / artillery / infantry

How could I have e.g. the infantries first and second, then the artillery and the cavalry last ... ??




Would also be helpful for quicker oversight of the army.

You can't properly reorganise an army. It is messed up. The engine wants to organise the army automatically: General/Cav/Arty/Inf, but gets confused and puts units in an almost random 'slot' in your army. By very careful recruitment, I can sometimes get armies to be in some kind of order, but it is always Gen/Cav/Arty/Inf. The engine doesn't differentiate between light, elite and line inf, similarly with arty and cav, the only way to get them in order is by very careful recruiting, but, the engine will still throw units into random slots from time to time.

It is possible to reorganise an army that has units in a random order by clicking the unit you want to move and, with the unit highlighted, recruit a General with the button to the right of the army panel - doing this will shift the unit to the 'correct' slot, so you can always have your armies neat and tidy and in the same order. However, it is expensive, and it also creates a General that you don't need. You can also do this with multiple units highlighted. Remember that you must have the right amount of slots open to create the generals. Also, if you have an army of 10 units, highlight them all and hit the recruit General button, you will recruit 10 Generals and will often find that several of the Generals are 5 and 6 star.