🚀 go-pugleaf

I hope real-time strategy fits this group.

I bought a copy of Spellforce Platinum (from the early 2000's) from 
gamestop a few months ago, and started playing it recently. I got as far 
as the Leafhade campaign before I started getting nearly-wiped-out in 
mass combat, so resorted to a walkthrough at 
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/561649-spellforce-the-order-of-dawn/faqs/30125

That helped a lot with troop composition, but I still took more losses 
than seemed reasonable. Clerics would attack enemies instead of hanging 
back and healing. Marksmen would move in closer than tanks (initially 
recruits, later armsmen) and get hurt or killed. Clerics would take 
forever to get off their butts and heal anybody.

Trying to keep order in the ranks seems to be proving impossible. The 
best I can do is select the whole mob, select the picture of the group 
of tanks, move them forward a little bit, select the marksmen, move them 
behind the tanks, select the clerics, move them behind the marksmen, and 
have the whole thing fall apart when the army engages in combat.

I'm not ready to give up yet, but I have two questions:

Immediate: is there something missing in the way I'm trying to manage my 
army?

Longer term: are there more recent RTS where your army isn't outright 
stupid?