The stances define the behavior of your units when enemies come close and they have no current order (i.e. your units are standing idle, but enemies are close nearby).
aggressive stance: They will attack the enemy units and pursue them all over the map, until the enemy unit is dead. This is the default stance when you have just installed the game. Its disadvantage is that your units are likely to become scattered, and the enemy can lure your units into traps, such as the fire of his defensive buildings. defensive stance: Like aggressive stance, but your units will not stray too far from their original position. If the enemy runs further away, they will give up the chase and return to it. Best default stance for your new units, IMHO. passive stance: They will not move a single step and will attack the enemy only if they can do so without moving. You are safe from being lured into traps, but your units will not help each other even if their adjacent neighbor is attacked. This is sometimes a good stance for your ranged units. Setting villagers to passive stance will cause them to ignore attacks (not flee) when they are busy, e.g. when you are building your first dock, and the enemy scout tries to harass you.You can set your default stance in the game options (before you log on to ESO). A default stance of defensive or passive will sometimes cause your ox caravans to become idle when you auto-queue them in your market. This does not happen when you manually queue them up though.
You can always alter the stance of units that you have already produced by selecting them and pressing
Alt+A ("Aggressive") for aggressive stance
Alt+S ("Stand and hold") for passive stance
Alt+D ("Defensive") for defensive stanceAnd do not mourn about the missing manual. It is not really that good, and no replacement for internet information if you desire to become any good in this game. And you payed less for the game after all.
Darkness is a state of mind
Valor is the contempt of Death and Pain. (Tacitus)
Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back. (Piet Hein)
[This message has been edited by DeathAndPain (edited 12-21-2005 @ 03:22 AM).]