Hi all - came back and gave Alpha 13 a spin - had fun with the new Children of Rayya and lots of new things since I last played. Posted this on steam community forum then decided I better come over here and discuss it:
I decided to try the new unstable Alpha 14 - was doing ok but some things have moved around in the Fight & Defend menu. You used to be able to click an X to cancel a fight or defend order banner you placed somewhere … but that is now gone or I don’t know where cancel has been moved for the three new buttons (Move To, Attack and Defend)…
I had two footmen positioned at guard stance on a “Defend” banner I placed outside my fences when I thought a monster was incoming. Then… I could not cancel it. I could not find any way to remove the Defend banner … where is cancel?
When they started to get hungry I didn’t know what to do so I re-assigned them back to Workers and that did get rid of the defend banner since they were no longer in a party anymore. Then I re-assigned them back to footmen and they were able to again patrol and fight as normal.
This doesn’t happen with the “Fight here” banner because once they’ve fought whatever was in that position, it vanishes and they return home. It’s only the Defend here banner that I can’t seem to figure out with the new UI - am I missing it somehow?
Hey @Vexed, welcome back! @sdee did confirm in her Stream Thursday night that there is currently no method to cancel the “Hold Position” (Defend) banner directly. To cancel it, issue a move or attack order (could be right on top of the Hold Position banner) and it will be cleared as there can only be one banner at a time.
Thanks for sharing that this is not clear, hopefully a clearer solution can be developed!
Ah thanks for such a quick reply - you guys are always great here - I’ve missed the game (took a couple months off playing it to wait for new things).
Yes I’d have to agree it’s not very clear on how those new banners function. I didn’t even think to try issuing one of the other banners and since I had just played Alpha 13 the day before quite a lot, I knew there was a cancel or red X button before so I was confused! I did try to move the defend banner somewhere else and it actually created two of them, at which point one footman went to one and one stayed on the other so I’m not sure if that was a glitch or intended behavior.
Now that I know how to get rid of it by issuing a move or fight banner, I’ll try again - thank you!
Hmm…that is likely a glitch, shouldn’t ever be more than one banner per party…
…however, at the moment individual footman can be controlled separately from parties (for example to make one retreat if he/she is injured) so it is possible you selected a single footman (not the party) and created the second banner.
I can’t remember now if I had a footman selected when I did it but all I know is I clicked the defend banner button again (thinking maybe it would give some sort of option to cancel or remove the one I had placed) and it allowed me to place another one a few feet away from the first in all my random clicking.
It’s just not intuitive how the new buttons work. I’m really glad they are developing new ways to command footmen and it’s definitely improving over when I last played months ago - they respond much better now to orders and I like the way groups work. I’d prefer the red X cancel buttons back though.
Yes I’ve gotten better at this now - but these new banners seem to be confusing my footmen. I had 4 of 5 in a group last night stuck in a ring-around-the-rosy pattern last night unable to go to where I told them to attack. The one lone footman who wasn’t stuck wasn’t able to handle the attackers himself.
Did you possibly give the footman an individual command? At the moment it is possible to command individual footman separately from the party, and individual commands are higher priority than party ones.
We should add a cancel button. This is just way too confusing.
There’s definitely a bug going around where the parties can get into a bad state and then subsequent footmen added to the parties get confused. Fixed on my machine, coming to a release near you soon!
@Vexed, it’s good to see you back! I know it’s been a super long time since our discussion about trappers, but did you ever notice that the pelt trader store? You now no longer have to kill the critters to get pelts
Hey thanks for remembering me! Yes it has been quite a long time! I came back and played again awhile back but didn’t post anything during that time as I was super busy and only had a little chance to try the game out again. I’ve really dusted it off this time and kicked the tires to test out everything!
The problem with the trappers was mostly my little boy’s huge blinky eyes getting upset because he didn’t like how the trapper turned the cute critters into “Hearthling Happy Meals” as he called the little square jerky meals - haha! I learned to not really focus on the trapper when he was around and watching. Yes thanks for pointing out the pelt trader! The only thing I still need to focus on trapper skill for is to get to shepherd so again, we just don’t talk about that phase when I’m playing. He’s fine with us doing the “goblin bonker” on bad guys but man, don’t touch those cute foxes, raccoon, bunny etc etc!
Anyways - glad to hear back on the party bug and that there’s a fix for the weird behaviors they are doing - looking forward to that as the new A14 is pretty stressful with non-stop daily attacks after a certain point in the game so you need your footmen parties to work properly!
Yes thanks for pointing out the pelt trader! The only thing I still need to focus on trapper skill for is to get to shepherd so again, we just don’t talk about that phase when I’m playing. 
He’s fine with us doing the “goblin bonker” on bad guys but man, don’t touch those cute foxes, raccoon, bunny etc etc!