Sorry but that's not even remotely true. There's a big difference between controls you find comfortable and controls others find uncomfortable. I feel safe saying you're in the minority here.
It's all pure preference. For me don't use the middle mouse button at all (except scrolling). Might take a look to let people rebind the middle mouse click. I'm just wondering what you want it to change to and how you gonna move around if you don't use wasd or arrows.
@bak2skewl, download 'X-Mouse Button Control' and job done. It is free. Some mice have an easy to use middle mouse button, on other mice it's a pain. Using X-Mouse Button Control you can configure a different mouse button to take the role of the middle one. I personally use it to bind the two side buttons to SHIFT and CTRL, which saves me a lot of awkward keyboard stretching. I think I'm right in saying that the WASD option mentioned in this thread does not require any mods, it's available in the native game (correct me if I'm wrong here). I personally have no issues using the middle mouse button on the CM Storm Xornet (although its left mouse button is very prone to ignoring me). Have you considered trying a different mouse?
Yes and No: WASD is mapped to Free Camera Move. Q&E are set to zoom levels. However A, S & D are double bound to unit commands (Attack, Stop, Alt Fire), so there might be some conflicts based on your selection. Still, it does cover the bulk of all camera movement operations. Also, what about the Free Camera Toggle? Is it anything like holding the middle mouse button? And as Geers pointed out, people who are unable/unwilling to use the middle mous button/mouse wheel are the exception, not the rule. Having a buggy middle mouse button is what I would consider a serious defect for any mouse. Much less a gaming mouse. Using the "middle mouse hold" event to change mouse input interpretion is pretty much the most default and intuitive thing for any 3D strategy game. And PA is a 3D strategy game. Not even a game series wich so much experience as Total War allows you to remap the Mouse Buttons. Only FPS game usually allow rebinding on the mouse input level.
This might be something I need to set-up and test myself this evening. Having finally gotten fed up with the Xornet's RNG based left mouse button, I went on a search for a new mouse and finally plumped for a Tecknet M002 wireless. That rocked up this morning but the middle mouse button is way too stiff so I'm going to try to follow my own advice. I've had a quick butcher's at the X-Mouse manual and what I'll probably do is use a hotkey to temporarily switch to a layer which re-binds the left mouse button to the middle mouse button. As long as there is no conflict with PA's own hotkey set-up then all should be well. I might even force-bind one of the side buttons to be the middle mouse button when PA is running, I'll have to see what works out best. I'll update this thread after I've given that a go this evening.
The Tecknet is a pretty good mouse baring the middle mouse button, which is a nightmare; completely impossible to use in-game. X Mouse Button Control doesn't work quite how I'd thought from a quick glance at its manual (you can't bind keys to mouse buttons, just the other way 'round), but it does allow you to (for example), bind a side mouse button to the middle one. That worked pretty well, but I like to use the side buttons for SHIFT and CTRL, so instead I downloaded AutoHotKey; a scriptable utility (freeware, GPL) which does allow you to bind keys to mouse buttons. I decided to bind the ALT key to the middle mouse button using a very simple script: LAlt::MButton i.e. you then just hold down ALT and move the mouse to pan the camera. Took a little bit of getting used to but after a couple of games I was using it just as easily as the middle mouse button before. I might change the binding to the Windows key and use the ALT key for something else. The search for the perfect mouse continues...
Use putting the cursor at the edge of the screen to move camera? WASD? Arrow keys? Zooming in/out? Rebind mouse buttons in mouse software? (Razer has software that can do this, I assume Logitech would too.) Mod PA slightly to reassing the buttons? Buy a new mouse that doesn't have an uncomfortable middle click? Quite a few options there...
So, I want to reiterate the OP's feelings. I TOTALLY AGREE, pressing a button that MOVES makes the game COMPLETELY unplayable. Having to MOD a game with such basic camera movement controls not rebindable is TOTALLY unacceptable. Its RIDICULOUS. I found this post looking for the EXACT same fix that he was.
