W on Patch II or the Great General debate

[Hard Sarge]

Well, back to the idea

here something you have not seen

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: General Quarters

I agree that it is odd to be able to promote generals at will, which means really on the basis of historical hindsight. But it is hard to provide a historical justification for rules requiring battles or even time in rank. Early on, guys became generals on the basis of some combination of actual military record, reputation, personal presence, ambition, political standing, previous connections, and being in the right place at the right time.

Grant was lucky to have a congressman who could get him appointed general and he ended up in charge of the troops in Cairo which were not yet an army but became one. Halleck was given a major department without having seen a shot fired in the CW. Look at Polk, G.W.Smith, Lovell, Pemberton, Toombs, Fremont, Pope (whose father was a judge before whom Lincoln had practiced), McClellan (both a military record and a lot of connections as RR pres, including Lincoln as one of his attorneys), and so on.

One of main problems of command was that many of these guys had to be dumped or shuffled off into side commands. After a time, battle records played a larger role but not in those early months.

McClellan did have political conections but not with Lincoln and Lincoln was never his lawyer. They never met before the war. Lincoln defended the Illinois Central Railroad in a lawsuit while McClellan was still in the army. Grant had help from a congressman but his later promotions were due to his war record. All but one of the other generals you mentioned had military experience and only two did not graduate from West Point. They were also either already generals when the major fighting began or became a general shortly afterwards. At the time you had to look at the person's record and hope for the best. No american had ever commanded forces of that size before. The relatively small armies at Bull Run were more than twice the size of any force ever commanded by an american. By the end of 1861 and afterwards almost all generals gaining command of a division or higher had seen combat earlier in the war.

[GenGrunt]

Grant was one of the few aggressive commanders in the union army, during his temopary relief of command after Pittsburg Landing Lincoln said "I can't spare this man HE FIGHTS" another time when someone told Lincoln about Grant's drinking Lincoln said to find out what he drinks and send a barrel to all his generals [:)]

[Twotribes]

It is simply amazing, we have gone from argueing that the player should be free to experiment ( usually the southern side is argued to be allowed this, while the North is argued to be restricted) to now argueing that somehow the President of the Country cant promote whom ever he wants because "historically" these particular guys werent promoted until x date.

Another interesting arguement is this " they need battlefield experience" Umm the Union Army had HOW many Divisions and adhoc Armies by November 1861? And had fought how many battles again? I guess there were no Generals to lead these Divisions and Armies and eventually Corps if the arguement is we cant promote till they do something in battle.

You dont want to promote them? DONT. I prefer to have generals running my containers, makes little "historical" sense that the Union ( or CSA) would have 20 plus Divisions and several armies ( or adhoc Armies) yet all their Generals are one stars.

I suggest the system be left JUST as it is. I or you are the Commander in Chief. If you dont like the historical hindsight, make your generals have hidden, random stats.

I find it amazing we are having this discussion after the heated arguements about how the "balanced" scenario was ok because "historically" the south had no chance.

Furthermore if any change IS made it seems it should apply to BOTH sides. Be careful what you wish for. Currently Generals arrive ( as far as I can tell) with the Highest rank they ever had after turn one, depending on what is programmed in the data base.

It is a game , unless you plan to insist only the generals that actually served in x position be promoted to x rank, I suggest it be left to the player to run his war how HE wants to run it.

Using the above arguements, can I now insist that a rule be made that prevents the CSA from transferring units out of Virginia to fight in the West? Can I insist that a rule be made that Generals only be allowed to fight in the theaters they fought in?

Provide us with Historical tools, the right population, the right economic base, the right starting armies, ect ect. What we do from there would be how the game plays out.

I would suggest that if the random generals function provides better generals overall to the North that THAT be changed in some reasonable manner. My suggestion would be that the random abilities be tied to the historical, in other words the range of better or worse STARTS at the historical and then a set max change is possible.

This would allow for the potential for the Southern Generals to be "better" as they were or appeared to be. The really bad generals may get better but only marginally so and the real good generals would be potentially worse than some other general.

Example.... lets say for arguement purposes that a general can have a range of 3 up or down from his historical rateing on random. The randomizer rolls and assigns the new rate ( if the negative or positive goes to high it simply assigns the lowest or highest allowed) Every General has ratings already so even though I am no programmer it seems this system would be feasible?

As to generals and promotions, as I understand it when you demote one he may just resign and be gone from the available pool? And you take a pretty big political hit with the Governor of his home state even if the resigning isnt a planned feature.

[chris0827]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

It is simply amazing, we have gone from argueing that the player should be free to experiment ( usually the southern side is argued to be allowed this, while the North is argued to be restricted) to now argueing that somehow the President of the Country cant promote whom ever he wants because "historically" these particular guys werent promoted until x date.

Another interesting arguement is this " they need battlefield experience" Umm the Union Army had HOW many Divisions and adhoc Armies by November 1861? And had fought how many battles again? I guess there were no Generals to lead these Divisions and Armies and eventually Corps if the arguement is we cant promote till they do something in battle.

You dont want to promote them? DONT. I prefer to have generals running my containers, makes little "historical" sense that the Union ( or CSA) would have 20 plus Divisions and several armies ( or adhoc Armies) yet all their Generals are one stars.

I suggest the system be left JUST as it is. I or you are the Commander in Chief. If you dont like the historical hindsight, make your generals have hidden, random stats.

I find it amazing we are having this discussion after the heated arguements about how the "balanced" scenario was ok because "historically" the south had no chance.

Furthermore if any change IS made it seems it should apply to BOTH sides. Be careful what you wish for. Currently Generals arrive ( as far as I can tell) with the Highest rank they ever had after turn one, depending on what is programmed in the data base.

It is a game , unless you plan to insist only the generals that actually served in x position be promoted to x rank, I suggest it be left to the player to run his war how HE wants to run it.

Using the above arguements, can I now insist that a rule be made that prevents the CSA from transferring units out of Virginia to fight in the West? Can I insist that a rule be made that Generals only be allowed to fight in the theaters they fought in?

Provide us with Historical tools, the right population, the right economic base, the right starting armies, ect ect. What we do from there would be how the game plays out.

I would suggest that if the random generals function provides better generals overall to the North that THAT be changed in some reasonable manner. My suggestion would be that the random abilities be tied to the historical, in other words the range of better or worse STARTS at the historical and then a set max change is possible.

This would allow for the potential for the Southern Generals to be "better" as they were or appeared to be. The really bad generals may get better but only marginally so and the real good generals would be potentially worse than some other general.

Example.... lets say for arguement purposes that a general can have a range of 3 up or down from his historical rateing on random. The randomizer rolls and assigns the new rate ( if the negative or positive goes to high it simply assigns the lowest or highest allowed) Every General has ratings already so even though I am no programmer it seems this system would be feasible?

As to generals and promotions, as I understand it when you demote one he may just resign and be gone from the available pool? And you take a pretty big political hit with the Governor of his home state even if the resigning isnt a planned feature.

There would be many generals at a rank rank than 1 star at the start of the game. My suggestion about promotions would obviously not include them as they do not need to be promoted. Name some generals who received a division command or higher after 1861 who didn't see combat earlier in the war. You may be able to find a few but it won't be many. You ask for the historic tools but Grant facing off against Lee in 1861 doesn't seem very historic to me. The generals promoted in 1861 got their position from their reputations and politic pull. In later years they got promoted based on their record in the war. Generals worked their way up. Colonel didn't jump from regimental command to Army command.

[Hard Sarge]

Hey Guys, you know you can start a post about Generals and dates and who or who shouldn't be allowed to be promoted in another post

the ideas was to try and show some of the new things or how old things are working with the patch

(points of view are interesting, and some good info being presented, but it is not about what is going on with the new patches we are working on)

[Andy Mac]

Will the patch tweak the number of 2 star Generals allowed per academy ?

I always have enough 4 stars for my Armys and 3 Stars for my Corps but I am ALWAYS short of 2 stars I never seem to get enough for my Divisons

(I tend to try and play with each Division having 3 regular Bdes of Inf or Cav so I tend to have more Divs than normal which might be my issue)

p.s. any chance of getting Div flags set so that if I change the flag of the container all units in the container have that flag on the battlefield its a real pain selecting 5 or 6 units a time and finding the right flag.

Thanks

Andy

[Hard Sarge]

Hi Andy

let me go check on the numbers, there were changes made

for the flags

you know you can Crl click on a number of units and then pick a flag you want, then click on F to give all those highlighted units a flag ?

also, once a flag is picked, you can then pick each unit in turn and click F to give that unit a flag ???

[Hard Sarge]

from the at start, I have 2 Adc, and I am allowed 3 4 stars, 6 3 stars and 9 2 stars

(but I think the numbers are still being worked on, so may not be the final set)

[Hard Sarge]

some shots of how to change flags, easy (?)

okay, cntl click on the units you want (make sure to pick a Inf type unit last)

[Hard Sarge]

there I have picked 5 Bdes and the Div

in the lower left you see the info also

no click on the flag to bring up the other flags you can use

(remember, Divs and Corps and Armies have different flags then the plain troops)

(so depending, you can pick something for all of them from the same list, so you can give a Bde Flag to a Army this way, also a General, just make sure the unit you want to pick from is the last one picked)

now you got a flag type picked, hit the F key and the flag will go to all the units you have picked

you will have to click someplace to see it take effect

[Hard Sarge]

you can also, once you have picked a flag, just highlight another unit and then click F, and it will also change over

you can also use the Ctnl click to move numbers around the map

say you got a stack of Generals in one place, and you want to move half of them somewhere else, ctnl click on the ones you want to move, click on the RR and move them, all will go together (works with troops too)

[General Quarters]

ORIGINAL: chris0827

ORIGINAL: General Quarters

I agree that it is odd to be able to promote generals at will, which means really on the basis of historical hindsight. But it is hard to provide a historical justification for rules requiring battles or even time in rank. Early on, guys became generals on the basis of some combination of actual military record, reputation, personal presence, ambition, political standing, previous connections, and being in the right place at the right time.

Grant was lucky to have a congressman who could get him appointed general and he ended up in charge of the troops in Cairo which were not yet an army but became one. Halleck was given a major department without having seen a shot fired in the CW. Look at Polk, G.W.Smith, Lovell, Pemberton, Toombs, Fremont, Pope (whose father was a judge before whom Lincoln had practiced), McClellan (both a military record and a lot of connections as RR pres, including Lincoln as one of his attorneys), and so on.

McClellan did have political conections but not with Lincoln and Lincoln was never his lawyer. They never met before the war. Lincoln defended the Illinois Central Railroad in a lawsuit while McClellan was still in the army. Grant had help from a congressman but his later promotions were due to his war record. All but one of the other generals you mentioned had military experience and only two did not graduate from West Point. They were also either already generals when the major fighting began or became a general shortly afterwards. At the time you had to look at the person's record and hope for the best. No american had ever commanded forces of that size before. The relatively small armies at Bull Run were more than twice the size of any force ever commanded by an american. By the end of 1861 and afterwards almost all generals gaining command of a division or higher had seen combat earlier in the war.

Thanks for the correction, Chris. Historians often mention Lincoln's having done work for the Illinois Central, leaving me with a mistaken impression about a connection with McClellan. But my point about McClellan's having pre-war political connections is certainly correct. The following is one example among many (Sears' bio of Mac): "... Buchanan sought authorization for ten new regiments [to go fight the Mormons]. McClellan hurried to Washington to try for a colonelcy and the command of one of them. Early in 1858 he told Samuel Barlow that he had marshaled the support of such prominent senators as Jefferson Davis, Stephen A. Douglas, and John J. Crittenden, and of Vice President John C. Breckinridge; he also expected congressional support from his home state of Pennsylvania."

I did not say that these guys had zero military experience. But lots of people had some military experience, but who got the jobs was not based solely on an evaluation of their military records. These other factors played a role. I trust you don't claim they did not.

[Drex]

Thanks for the flag change info Sarge. I was wondering how to do that. I need to read the manual a couple more times.

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Drex

Thanks for the flag change info Sarge. I was wondering how to do that. I need to read the manual a couple more times.

No hassle, it is a good trick once you get used to it

LOL, we were half way though Alpha when I finally noticed it

for me though, it really does make the game alot more fun, watching all the different flags running around on the battle field and on the overall map

my last test run, I had a nice set up, each Army had a master Flag, and then each container in that Army was taken from the same master, so say the AOW had the White flag with red icon, all the units with it, had the white flag with red icons, and then the AOP had the Blue flag with red Icons and so on

it really did give them a little bit of there own ness to them

[Hard Sarge]

oh just in case, we got a new verison coming up, so I changed the name of the post some, so the debate on Generals could keep on, so go ahead and post away, it was interesting and I was learning some things

[chris0827]

Since you changed the thread title I'll add another comment about generals.

As I've said before i think generals should need combat experience in order to be promoted. I'd also like to see generals be allowed to command continers that are larger than their current rank at a cost in abilities. For example a 1 star leader could command a division but he would lose 1 point on each of his stats and would not be able to teach abilities to his division. After seeing combat the general could be promoted to 2 stars and command the division with no penalties. This would model the difficulties both side had early in the war handling large numbers of troops. Does anyone think the newly promoted general Grant would have commanded the Union armies as well as he did after seeing action as a division, corps, and army leader.  I don't think congress would've gone along with a promotion like that either. Congress had to approve promotions to general on both sides and they sometimes rejected officers.

Does this conversation sound right?

Lincoln : Colonel Grant, I called you here to tell you that I have sent your name to congress for promotion.

Grant : Thank you Mister President. I won't let you down. Would it be possible for my regiment to come with me to my new brigade?

Lincoln : What brigade? You'll be commanding the Army of the Potomac.

Grant : What?

Doesn't work for me.

[Hard Sarge]

That is why I changed it, you guys were haveing a good debate and info flowing though, I didn't want it getting lost

if we could, I would like to see a General have to go though some combat before being allowed to be promotted, maybe earning points with each battle (errr, that would totally change the system, oh well)

[Gil R.]

I should say that for this coming patch we've made most/all of the changes to the system for generals that we can (without delaying the patch even further), but we are definitely entertaining ideas for changes to how generals function for future patches.

Personally, I like very much the idea of battle experience being important for promotion, and feel that it would solve some key problems (e.g., the ability to put Grant in charge of your army right away, if playing with the historical start dates option toggled on), but it is unlikely that we could do this in the next few days.

[chris0827]

I don't think anyone wants you to delay the upcoming patch. We're just throwing out ideas for future consideration.