Purpose of Corps

[SeaWolF K]

I've been playing as the Union and am trying to figure out what purpose Corps serve (except maybe as stand alone units) because they do not seem to enable an army to contain any more divisions which allow higher units to hold more brigades.

Quoting from the manual: An Union Army can have 8 units attached (Corps, Divisions, or directly attached Brigades) with no more than 4 Corps. A Union Corps can have 8 units attached (Divisions or directly attached Brigades) but no more than 4 Divisions. And a Division can have 5 brigades attached (manual states 4)

These limits make sense to a degree to try and force subordinate commands to be created to increase the size of the army

Now this seems to indicate that you can attach four Corps with three divisions each to an Army, but after building several Corps containers to put the AOP into a real organization and not the three armies it starts as (Historical till March 1862 when the Union went to the corps structure by the way), I get the message that "no more division may be attached" when trying to add the third three division corps to the remade AOP. So it appears that there are additional limits applied and you get no benefit from have the historical corps subordinate commands and should just attach 8 divisions directly (and save the resources). Am I missing something?

[Hard Sarge]

Well, I got to speak from the CSA side, as that was my area for testing

I make them to combine my Divs with a good leader in charge

and use my Corps as my moble force

I may end up with 2 Armies, but a number of Corps (only if I get fancy, I normally have 1 Army)

I have not really looked at the ideal numbers or units to add to a Army or a Corps

[SeaWolF K]

Make sense for a stand alone issue (Use them for the Union in the West that way), but to have any chance against the ANV you need large numbers (quantity has a quality all of its own) to have a chance and after having the AOP wings bounce of the ANV piecemeal (Union coordination leave something to be desired) I'm trying to build one unit to attack it.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: SeaWolF K

I've been playing as the Union and am trying to figure out what purpose Corps serve (except maybe as stand alone units) because they do not seem to enable an army to contain any more divisions which allow higher units to hold more brigades.

Quoting from the manual: An Union Army can have 8 units attached (Corps, Divisions, or directly attached Brigades) with no more than 4 Corps. A Union Corps can have 8 units attached (Divisions or directly attached Brigades) but no more than 4 Divisions. And a Division can have 5 brigades attached (manual states 4)

These limits make sense to a degree to try and force subordinate commands to be created to increase the size of the army

Now this seems to indicate that you can attach four Corps with three divisions each to an Army, but after building several Corps containers to put the AOP into a real organization and not the three armies it starts as (Historical till March 1862 when the Union went to the corps structure by the way), I get the message that "no more division may be attached" when trying to add the third three division corps to the remade AOP. So it appears that there are additional limits applied and you get no benefit from have the historical corps subordinate commands and should just attach 8 divisions directly (and save the resources). Am I missing something?

You can mod the number of units per container by changing the AcwPlayers file.

[Hard Sarge]

for the Union, I am getting 2 Corps of 3 Divs into a Army, with enough room left over for another Div to be added

which comes out to about 105 K in troops

[Twotribes]

The point is the manual says we can have 4 Corps in an Army. Why would we assume it meant 4 corps with just 2 divisions each? If the limit for an Army is the number of Division containers there is no point to Corps at all.

I know how to change the limits, I dont understand why I should have to. The clear implication to me ( and it sure sounds like it was the same to others) was that one would use Corps to INCREASE the size of the Army.

Lets think about it a moment... why waste the effort and cost on getting 2 barracks in a city and then pay the cost of building a Corps Container as the Union when you already have 6 Armies. Just build Divisions until you fill your Armies and then if you need more make the some Corps for WEAKER stand alone units. Might as well skip Corps all together and build 3 Barracks and make Armies. ( well except then you need more 4Star Generals and that means a million acadamies.

Ok donr bitching....

Am I to understand the Containers are all controlled by max number of Brigades? As the Union 5 for a Division , I believe 18 for a Corps and I think it was 34 for an Army?

Why do I ask? Because I cant really change the number for containers till I am sure what the number means.

And along that line of questioning, is there a way to change how many Division containers a Corps will hold and How many Corps an Army Container will hold? If I am going to have to make the changes I might as well have that information also.

[histgamer]

Huge corps guys.(napoleonic size not civil war size civil war corps were rarely more than 30,000 men) When i get the game ill mod the corps numbers allowed and rebuild the AOP in its full 7 corps glory (though admitadly small corps)

[Hard Sarge]

not sure

I can add 7 Divs into a Army, or 2 Crops of 3 Divs with a extra Div tossed in, so I do not see a gain in size, maybe in command

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

The point is the manual says we can have 4 Corps in an Army. Why would we assume it meant 4 corps with just 2 divisions each? If the limit for an Army is the number of Division containers there is no point to Corps at all.

I know how to change the limits, I dont understand why I should have to. The clear implication to me ( and it sure sounds like it was the same to others) was that one would use Corps to INCREASE the size of the Army.

Lets think about it a moment... why waste the effort and cost on getting 2 barracks in a city and then pay the cost of building a Corps Container as the Union when you already have 6 Armies. Just build Divisions until you fill your Armies and then if you need more make the some Corps for WEAKER stand alone units. Might as well skip Corps all together and build 3 Barracks and make Armies. ( well except then you need more 4Star Generals and that means a million acadamies.

Ok donr bitching....

Am I to understand the Containers are all controlled by max number of Brigades? As the Union 5 for a Division , I believe 18 for a Corps and I think it was 34 for an Army?

Why do I ask? Because I cant really change the number for containers till I am sure what the number means.

And along that line of questioning, is there a way to change how many Division containers a Corps will hold and How many Corps an Army Container will hold? If I am going to have to make the changes I might as well have that information also.

You can change the number of brigades that each container holds. I'm changing a union division to only 4 brigades and confederates to 5. Divisions and corps are too big in this game. Confederate divisions were usually larger than Union divisions but still rarely had more than 10k troops. I also am changing the union corps to hold 12 brigades and the confederate to hold 15. This will allow them both to hold 3 full size divisions. Armies I changed to hold 60 brigades for the Union and 45 for the confederate. You could never match the strength of the army of the Potomac the way it was originally set. A bit large if units are full strength but most shouldn't be. It didn't make any sense they way it was set originally. The max strength for confederate armies was higher than Union. There was only one major battle in the war where the confederate army outnumbered the union army. Lowered the max confederate brigade strength to 3k too. It made no sense to have it higher than the union and I may lower both sides even more. Brigades were never 3k men past 1861 and usually a lot less. Of course I haven't tested any of this yet. I'm still working on general arrival times.

[Steely Glint]

ORIGINAL: SeaWolF K
(Union coordination leave something to be desired)

Not enough.

[histgamer]

Chris if your looking total number of men, it is possible to have the union army have 100,000 men and the CSA 75,000 men with their respective corps. If you have smaller corps so that in many cases Union corps were the size of an oversized rebel division its possible to remake the 7 corps army that fought at gettysburg. Though i understand it may be very hard to rebuild the 1862 Peninsula campaign army of 120,000 men.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: flanyboy

Chris if your looking total number of men, it is possible to have the union army have 100,000 men and the CSA 75,000 men with their respective corps. If you have smaller corps so that in many cases Union corps were the size of an oversized rebel division its possible to remake the 7 corps army that fought at gettysburg. Though i understand it may be very hard to rebuild the 1862 Peninsula campaign army of 120,000 men.

Not sure where you got those numbers. In the unmodded game the max union army size is 105k and max confederate is 168k. I'd like to know where this idea of large rebel divisions came from. A.P Hill's division early in the war had as many as 17k but not for long. The rebel divisions at gettysburg averaged 7k.

[histgamer]

Some Union corps were around 10,000 men around the time of gettysburg.

The Union army at gettysburg was less than 105,000.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: flanyboy

Some Union corps were around 10,000 men around the time of gettysburg.

The Union army at gettysburg was less than 105,000.

The enlistments of nearly 20k men had expired in the weeks before Gettysburg and they lost more than 17k at Chancellorsville. The only time the AotP was weaker was after Grant's first month in command when they lost more than 50k.

I said in an earlier post that the average confederate division was larger. In this game the confederates can pack 24k troops into a division. That's crazy. They can put 72k into a corps. That's crazier.

[histgamer]

I agree thats closer to a napoleonic type Corps where Soult had a 40,000 man corps and such.

[Sheytan]

Hi,

I have formed combined arms corps that contain 3 divisions 4inf/1artx2 div, and one div with 4inf/1cav plus...siege artillery(Union). A corps container is great to have short of a army container. FURTHER...a army container can "train" the corps containers to modifiy thier attributes. If however a army container can in thoery contain 8 units( I have no tested this to see if 8 corps containers will fit) that makes sense to me, why shouldnt it hold 8 corps containers? If you can build 8 corps containers though lol thats amazing.

Sheytan

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: SeaWolF K

I've been playing as the Union and am trying to figure out what purpose Corps serve

One benefit of Corps is it allows those 3 star Generals to affect more than just the few brigades in a single division. The Army or Corp commander gives routed units in their formation an extra chance at rallying.

Since only 4 star generals can command an Army, 3 stars are wasted in just a single division, so they need a Corps to enhance their command to its full potential.

Also it adds an additional command staff to formations so you should see more supply wagons if an army has 2-3 corps instead of just a bunch of divisions.

Overall Corps add a lot to an Armies efficiency, but in more subtle ways than simple troop numbers.

One final note to those talking about adjusting divisions down from 5 brigades to 4. Remember artillery units count as a brigade slot, so that fifth slot is there to allow a division of 4 brigades to have room for some artillery.

Jim

[SeaWolF K]

Ok, but my fundamental question is: Is there supposed to be an eight division limit to Union Armies as well as a four Corps restriction?

[histgamer]

Would seam unrealistic to me but i cant answer that question.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: SeaWolF K

Ok, but my fundamental question is: Is there supposed to be an eight division limit to Union Armies as well as a four Corps restriction?

I believe it's 8 containers with a maximum of 35 brigades.