Commanders

[William the Silent]

Historically the quality of leaders influenced the quality/effectiveness of units under their command.
Is there tools in TOAW to simulate this?

I noticed Bob Cross using shock penalties for leader loss (through events trigger?) in the Battle of Leipzig.
How does that work?
There is not much information on the effects of possible events.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: William the Silent

Historically the quality of leaders influenced the quality/effectiveness of units under their command.
Is there tools in TOAW to simulate this?

There are no leaders yet.

[Hellen_slith]

As you noted, the only way that such can be simulated (that I know of) is via event triggers, and even then it is not anywhere near what you might envision.

TOAWIV is limited as far as that aspect of game play is concerned. Your HQs are your HQs ... if they are eliminated, it has deleterious effects, but nowhere is an HQ tied to "leadership" or "morale" from an egotist aspect.

In TOAWIV, you are either STAVKA or OKH (e.g.) and there is no in-between. You don't have "leaders" in the sense of other more tactical games. And that's ok.....

because it is OPERATIONAL game. Not Strategic, not Tactical ... OPERATIONAL.

[Lobster]

The game is always changing. I wouldn't rule anything out.

[sPzAbt653]

When designing a scenario, Leaders are treated as anything else - determine the historical effect [or desired effect] and then model it using any number of TOAW's tools. In your example you want to model quality/effectiveness and this can be done with Proficiency Settings, which are available at the Unit, Formation and Force level.

[William the Silent]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

When designing a scenario, Leaders are treated as anything else - determine the historical effect [or desired effect] and then model it using any number of TOAW's tools. In your example you want to model quality/effectiveness and this can be done with Proficiency Settings, which are available at the Unit, Formation and Force level.

That's what I'm going to use probably: change the Proficiency of the formation towards the quality of their leader.
For supreme leader loss I would use a shock penalty through an event trigger.

Through history (Supreme) Leader loss could actually have helped armies. [:)]

I remember that scene from Band of Brothers where they warn that British Tank battalion Commander that a Tiger is waiting for them in ambush and he totally ignores the warning, because HE can't see it. Crazy.

[sPzAbt653]

Yes indeed. Remember that for Operation Goodwood, Gen Dempsey met with his corps commanders and instructed them to break thru and keep going! Then Montgomery held a secret meeting of the corps commanders without Dempsey and instructed them to not get too ambitious and to consolidate after breaking thru.

Proficiency Settings low enough will get you Montgomery results, where Formations tend to stop after a little action.

[rhinobones]

ORIGINAL: William the Silent
Historically the quality of leaders influenced the quality/effectiveness of units under their command.
Is there tools in TOAW to simulate this?

Think the previous posts have pretty well said that a “commander” as you described is not possible in TOAW. I think that is true. However, there may be some ways of using creative thinking and some imagination which might be able to create ersatz Commanding General units. I propose something along the following lines:

1) In the CounterUnits.png file find an infantry unit which is not used in your scenario and re-paint it as a generic “General”. If you want to paint specific general portraits, then you’ll obviously need to find multiple unused icons. Of course, this all means that you’re building a custom set of CounterUnits files for your scenario.

2) In the equipment.eqp file build a new “commander” unit based on the existing “Command Group” unit. Be creative with the attributes given to the commander. All commanders need to have the “command” box checked, but attributes such as armor, recon, helicopter movement and police can be selected by the designer.
As an example, I once built a Wizard using an artillery icon and gave the Wizard an ability to damage enemies at a far distance.

3) Build a commander unit with one commander. Maybe add some staff, but not much more. The unit needs to be fragile and need to be organic with a stack of protective units. This begins with the formation the general is commanding.

4) The effect the commander has on its force is the most difficult to model. This has been fully documented in the previous postings. To model the impact of a commander I might use the following:

4.1) If the commander survives longer than X turns, supply increases, theater recon increases, movement bias improves, transport increases, replacements increase and some other things.

4.2) If the commander dies then pestilence increases, refugees increase, supply decreases, theater recon decreases and others.

4.3) There could be cases where there are several commanders per side. Events would need to be specific to the actions of the individual commanders.

This is obviously not a full-fledged solution, but for those who want to explore the TOAW possibilities this is offered as a start.

Regards, RhinoBones

[William the Silent]

Thanks for all the input.

I thought about this: I create commanders that add to the offense/defense value of units. If a leader dies the off/def strength of the unit drops.

So 1 leader would have the strength of, let's say, 10-20% of the unit they are in, dependent on the quality of the leader.
If a unit has a strength of let's say 1000 men 1 leader should have the strength of 100 or 200 men then.
If he dies there will be a drop in strength.

Can also create leaders as units of 1 man and move them around to strengthen/boost units.

Didn't they say Napoleon's presence is powerful as 10.000 men