Question of Command

[scout1]

You can graphically see the command radius of a given leader. Is there a way to graphically (or otherwise) see what units are under his command and where they are at ? Armies can be spread out. Just wanting a means of seeing where they are off too ....

[Gem35]

armies are shown with their "chess piece" card flashing red along with any corps that are attached to them when selected.

[Bloodybucket28th]

I think the tooltip you get when hovering the cursor over the army will list the corps of that army, also.

[scout1]

Is there a down side being part of an army compared with being independent ? Basically, do all units strive to be part of an army even though they go elsewhere ?

[Gray_Lensman]

Not so much down side not being part of an army as not being part of a Corps, but you can't create a Corps without an army nearby to facilitate it. If your units are not part of a Corps they suffer to varying degrees from command penalties. Units do not strive to be part of any organization per se, it's up to you to organize them and keep them close enough (if Corps) to their respective Armies. Independant groups of units and even divisions not within a Corps will also suffer progressively from command penalties. There is a hot button to aid you in seeing the control radius of the Armie(s), so that you keep the Corps within the control area of its controlling army.
 

[scout1]

Is there a difference between

a) being a Corp assigned to a given Army and
b) just absoerbing the same units directly into the Army ?

ORIGINAL: Gray_Lensman

Not so much down side not being part of an army as not being part of a Corps, but you can't create a Corps without an army nearby to facilitate it. If your units are not part of a Corps they suffer to varying degrees from command penalties. Units do not strive to be part of any organization per se, it's up to you to organize them and keep them close enough (if Corps) to their respective Armies. Independant groups of units and even divisions not within a Corps will also suffer progressively from command penalties. There is a hot button to aid you in seeing the control radius of the Armie(s), so that you keep the Corps within the control area of its controlling army.

[Gem35]

If your sub-units are part of a corps, they receive several combat abilities.
If part of an army outside a corps they do not.
According to the manual v1.0.5:

corps benefit from the Army Commander's strat/off/def, how much is unclear to me.
corps can "march to the sound of the guns" , supporting other corps engaged in combat in adjacent regions.
This will be influenced by the military control in the regions, again how much is unclear.
Some special abilities are granted to the corps by Army commander.

recent patches may have affected this.

[scout1]

So it would sound like the best thing is to have X number of corps assigned to an army rather than a single army unit of the same net size ....

[Gem35]

What I like to do is first look over your forces and decide which would be good to use with your one star generals and form divisions, they can "contain" up to 18 sub-units or elements.
Once you have formed them up, look to join corps.
You can still field single out of chain of command divisions that can pack a punch but they will fight better as part of corps.
Supply wagons are useful for your advancing divisions but remember they cost command points to tag along/merge with but can't be grouped into a division.
So as you see with corps you have more favorable conditions but don't think you need to put every single division in them.
Other support troops like signal and balloons can add 1 command point each to their respective stack.
Plenty of strategy within the strategy of the game in dealing with your troops.

[Bloodybucket28th]

I'm starting to believe that one of the better ways to approach the whole Army/Corps/Division/Independent question is to look at your area of operations, decide what you want to do and then construct the tools to do it.
 
Certainly you want to avoid the big penalties that can happen with stacks beyond the command limits, but the same Army/Corps setup that works in the East might not be as useful in the vaster area of the Western theater of operations, and the offensive setup might differ from the T/O most useful for defense.  It's an interesting game within the game.

[Central Blue]

I have been playing the April 1861 as the Union.

between who can figure out who is promotable to corps and division and then shipping them to the mid-west and the cost of passing over generals I have often found it easy to fight the two and three-stars in the west as super-divisions.

Send super division Grant to Donaldson, Memphis, and Nashville in the winter of 1862 and he'll be a four star by spring and you wont have to worry about the other idiots sensibilities. he can go right to his own army. Thomas can form a super-super division for Kentucky, and I float Sherman down the Mississippi to crush Vicksburg and New Olreans.

It's a little easier to create corps in the east, where by spring 1863, they become quite gaudy affairs packed with sharpshooters, elite troops, artillery.

But I have not pursued the historical Union strategy of invading all of the Rebel ports. Next time around I want to invade Florida on the historical time scale and have Mclellan as the army commander there. And whoever is next in line can go to Galveston, etc.

[von Beanie]

I'm guessing that Central Blue has not played PBEM, because a good CSA opponent will make these operations very difficult, if not impossible. Having good Army commanders with appropriate Corps commanders is as important in the western theatre as the east. Generally, it is even more difficult out there because there are so many horrible high-ranked commanders.

I highly recommend you try a PBEM game, because the AI is only marginally effective compared to a human opponent, and you are getting a mistaken impression of how easy it is to win with less than optimum command structures.