RoN Control Confusion

[Oppressor]

After getting my ass soundly kicked by super C&C skills this past Wednesday, I asked my conqueror how he did it.

He indicated that he set factories on infinite production and set their rally points to generals that he left at the battlefront so he had automatic reinforcements at all times.

Sounds great.

So I tried the same thing after I got home. Some observations:

1. If I set a factory on infinite production, it eventually stops of its own accord (does it do this automatically when I no longer have resources to continue production (sort of defeats that infinity symbol if so)?)

2. The rally point on the generals seems to go away of its own accord after a while as well because I eventually noticed the reinforcements have stopped coming and when I scroll back to the factory, there are a bunch of new idle units there.

3. If I set a university on infinite production, will it fill itself up and stop, or will it just keep making scholars?

4. Even though the factory can rally units to another unit. They do not follow the rally unit around automatically after they're produced.

Am I missing anything here?

[Sharpe]

1. If I set a factory on infinite production, it eventually stops of its own accord (does it do this automatically when I no longer have resources to continue production (sort of defeats that infinity symbol if so)?)

2. The rally point on the generals seems to go away of its own accord after a while as well because I eventually noticed the reinforcements have stopped coming and when I scroll back to the factory, there are a bunch of new idle units there.

3. If I set a university on infinite production, will it fill itself up and stop, or will it just keep making scholars?

4. Even though the factory can rally units to another unit. They do not follow the rally unit around automatically after they're produced.

Am I missing anything here?

1 - yes they will stop once they run out of resources so you do have recheck occasionally and switch production back on. Although this requires some micro-managment its far easier (and more resource efficient) than manually building all units. Also, part of my strategy is to have enough economy to keep building continuously - I usually dont need more than 1 or 2 of each unit producer b/c I rely on constant production rather big surges.

2 - I forgot one step in my description - you need to assign the general to a Control Group - then the reinforcements will automatically join that General's control group and by using that group you can give the general, the troops and all the reinforcments orders

3 - it will produce scholars until full, then stop, as long as gold is available. If gold runs out prior to full staffing, then productions stops.

4 - you have to select the control group and give them orders - ie if you send the whole control group to attack a certain spot they will all go there -- AND all reinforcements will automatically go there too - sometimes this part of the automation fails and you have to re-issue orders

A couple of other wrinkles:

If you use infinite queue as the Chinese for peasants or as any power with Artificial Intelligence, you will instantly produce as many units as you can until tapped on resources (this is a good way to bankrupt yourself and screw yourself up so be cautious).

If the target unit dies, then your infinite stream of reinforcements gets all messed up - they will either stand around by the unit-producer or they will go to the map spot that the control group was last ordered to prior to the death of the target unit. The easy solution to this is to not overextend your attacks and keep your generals alive. If you have a smart enemy who is selectively targeting your generals, you will need to make new generals and re-assign your queues every so often.

Also, you can put units in more than one control group. For example I routinely put a mixture of infantry, artillery and supply into a group, then also have the artillery in their own group. I give the larger group a general attack order to near the target, then I use the smaller artillery group to pick off individual buildings.

Also, I go into preferences before the game starts and set my default unit-producers to Defensive stance -that means they will default to defensive, which means much less aimless running around and milling about of your units. If you want to manage tight formations, defensive is the way to go.

Sharpe