Positioning and Summons in Flowers and Deities

Autobattlers lie. They say the units will figure it out. In Flowers and Deities they will figure out the nearest legal target and then die on it. Steam reviewers like the columns and still wish the AI were smarter about spawners and mobile enemies. A Chinese-language thread spelled out the same pain with summonable wither beetles: center drop means a brawl, behind-the-front drop means a skill that still charges the first rank, and only a crowded accident reaches the archers.

This page is the formation class. Pair it with How Blood Works because summons often drink puddles, and with How to Play for Favor math.

Columns, ranks, and Reach

You deploy in ranks. The front rank should be the units whose job is to be touched. The second rank should be Reach: spears, some polearms, anything whose Next Fest rework now treats weapon length as attack range. The back rank is bows, slings, priests, and the rituals you will click later.

If you put clubs in rank two they will walk forward to be useful and open a hole. If you put javelins in rank one they will throw once and then get eaten, which is sometimes a plan and usually a misclick. The demo preview that placed javelins on the enemy front was a warning, not a recommendation.

Cavalry and charge units want a lane, not a hug. Give them a gap or a flank spawn. Next Fest notes said retinue units now prefer to appear on the front’s flanks rather than behind it. Use that. A charge that starts inside your own wall is friendly fire with extra steps.

Shieldbearers exist to stand in front of people who cannot dodge. Their ranged resist went up in a spring demo patch. Put them where arrows actually land, not in a decorative second row.

Summon tiles are load-bearing

When you cast a summon, the click is a spawn point. It is also a straw. Blood-heavy rituals sip from nearby stains. A dry back tile can make the cast slower and then send the creature toward the only fight it can see: the front.

Practical rules:

• If the goal is a backline cut, click as close to the enemy casters as the center line and puddles allow.
• If the goal is a wall refresh, click on your stained front, not on a pretty empty patch.
• If the unit has a skill that only fires from a rank, test it once in Custom Battle or a trivial node before you trust it on a brutal struggle.
• Do not stack three summons on one tile and hope they overflow into the mages. Overflow is luck, not a build.

Moon Priests and their summons received AI polish in a demo patch; Rain Priests now prefer to buff the front. Read the tooltip. A priest that wants to stand behind a wall will waste a cast if you drop them in a duel.

Target lock and mobile enemies

Reviewers noted that units lock a target and keep walking. Spawners and sliding enemies punish that. Your answer is not a pep talk. Your answer is a second stack whose job is the new target: a cheap darter on the spawner, a stun club on the slider, a summon on the tile the mobile unit just vacated.

Jaguar demons and other charge elites will ignore your plan and arrive in the backline anyway. Keep a cheap body or a dodge aura for that moment. The recorded Tribal Survivor run survived a jaguar column because blade wielders had enough dodge and a heal ready, not because the AI politely stayed in lane.

Formation recipes that do not require a spreadsheet

Dodge tribe: two expensive front stacks, one stun or charge, one poison backline, one faith spell. Do not add a second backline until the front can wear armor.

Noble servants: shields and slings in a true two-rank shape. The Destitute Noblewoman’s “lesser” units are a formation, not a joke. If you replace them all with captured elites, you may lose the cheap Favor fillers that make series three possible.

Magic finishers: hide priests behind anything with Reach. Their job is to live until the blood is deep. If they walk forward, you deployed them too early or on a tile that invited a charge.

Undead captures: expect Slave traits and Desecrated Weapon rules from 1.0. They can hold a rank the living cannot, but they want different ornaments. Do not mix them into a dodge line unless the blessing says so.

When a series is lost, change one rank, not the whole religion. Then check the Units Tier List only if the same hole appears twice. Campaign-scale holes belong on How to Beat the Campaign.