Army commander should lead battles

[mikael333]

I think the rule could be, that if multiple corps of an army are involved in a battle, the army commander takes control.
That would give us an incentive to make Manstein commander of 11th army and see him conquer Sevastopol. This could depend on the overall number of units which are part of battle. E.g. the army commander takes control only if six or more divisions are committed to a battle.)
(One could consider an analogous rule, if units from multiple armies are involved in a battle. However since this is a divisional level game, it is probably not worth considering.)

[DarkHorse2]

Nah.... I'm still looking to place Rommel back in command of the 7th Panzer Division.

Seriously though, there are aspects of the game that are obscured from the player. One of those includes the impact of leaders (and their stats) on game mechanics.

In WiTE, you could change out leaders and see an immediate impact the Mech/Inf ratings had on the unit CVs. I do not believe that is the same in WiTE2.

Even comparing values between 2 different leaders is difficult to gauge relative differences.

How much better is a '7' vs '5' Are these used against Die(10) rolls Die(20)

To my knowledge, these leadership rolls are not logged anywhere.

Until then, it is really difficult to gauge what value there is in promoting Manstein beyond his current divisional assignment.

[Stamb]

In manual you can find more info about value that leader rating is tested against.
If i recall then for an Axis corps it is /10 then it is doubled every time you go up in the chain, if previous leader fails a check.

If unit is attached directly to an army then it is /12.

To my knowledge, these leadership rolls are not logged anywhere.

Agree with this, that is why i made feature suggestion
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 9&t=380200

[DarkHorse2]

You do not really believe that this is all of the leader checks, do you?

I would wager there are many, many more leader checks being conducted that have yet been documented or revealed.

Which goes back to my point.

[Stamb]

well, i am a simple player
i can only make assumptions that are based on what i see from a game itself and what is written in a game manual

maybe there are additional checks
i do not know

[loki100]

You do not really believe that this is all of the leader checks, do you?

I would wager there are many, many more leader checks being conducted that have yet been documented or revealed.

Which goes back to my point.

the leadership check rules are in the manual.

Nearly every interaction in the game generates a leader check, especially in combat. This is why its hard to generate a useful report, you'd need every decision/consequence listed and the pass/fail (and if pass at what level) recorded.

What is acknowledged as being a good idea is to generate a single value for leadership passes/rolls for a combat. That could be matched to the leadership test system and give a rough idea how far random chance distorted the expected outcomes.

But like a lot of nice ideas for enhancement, it'll be done if/when programming resources can be allocated.

[Feltan]

Well I may be a lone wolf here, but I kind of like the way things are currently done.

As a veteran, I can tell you with a fair amount of conviction that the upper most leaders do have an impact ... but the largest overall impact is the combined effort of dozens/hundreds of smaller unit leaders.

If you have a preponderance of lousy company/battalion/brigade/division commanders, a famous general leading them all isn't going to make a critical positive difference at a moment's notice.

In game, putting an army commander "in charge" of a group attack is misleading in that a multi-command combat is, almost by definition, a total cluster**** to execute in reality.

Regards,
Feltan

[Zovs]

“If you build an army of 100 lions and their leader is a dog, in any fight, the lions will die like a dog. But if you build an army of 100 dogs and their leader is a lion, all dogs will fight as a lion.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte.

[Feltan]

Just a note:

Napoleon was defeated on more than one occasion, and died in exile. Not someone I would try to mine for wisdom.

Regards,
Feltan

[rationabile]

I have to think it is a both/and.

Alexander of Macedon's ability to read the enemy and dispose his forces to match whatever was facing him makes for impressive reading. For that I'm thinking more of his campaign in India than Persia. It wasn't always a case of just throw the phalanx against them. Sometimes light cav, sometimes peltasts. He trusted his sub commanders and they trusted him. But, everyone all the way down knew their jobs too or we would have never heard of him. Try doing anything with a 20 foot long pole. Now try it with 10,000 of your closest friends.

The Romans did very poorly in Spain against Carthage at times, and on a couple of occasions it was a lowly centurion who pulled the bacon out of the fire.

In more modern times, there is Patton taking over II Corps in Africa, firing Ward and generally going around being, well, being Patton.

[rationabile]

Late thought. Going back to the original point, having the cmdr of Army, or AG directing the course of a battle is called micro-managing. Generally, that's a recipe for failure. A good example of what a corps commander actually did in Barbarossa is Guderian in "Panzer Leader." Basically, driving around, finding the front and solving problems and always keeping things moving. Occasionally he and the command staff was the front.

[DarkHorse2]

the leadership check rules are in the manual.

sigh, wish you hadn't said this...

Page 174

---

Retreated units may lose one morale point, which will
be increased to a loss of two morale points if the leader
Morale check fails.

What is the check here? Morale < Die(?)

Each logistics phase there is chance that a unit can lose
a morale point due to fatigue. The higher the fatigue
and the lower the morale of the unit, the greater the
chance that the unit must make a leader morale check
to avoid a morale loss.

What is the check here? Morale < Die(?)

Page 211

---

Note that air leader admin and air values will affect the
commitment of air planes to a particular mission and this
may well lead to considerable variation in the number of
planes assigned

What are the checks here? Admin < Die(?) Air < Die(?)

Page 216

---

The leader air rating is checked and may increase the
chances of more planes actually participating in a given
mission

What is the check here? Air < Die(?)

Page 226

---

Fortification build rates for building
fortifications greater than 3 can be divided by 2 if a leader
admin check fails.

Admin < Die(?)

Page 256

---

... reductions as a result
of being attacked the previous turn, vehicle shortages,
fatigue, and leader admin and initiative checks.

Admin < Die(?) Initiative < Die(?)

Check for leader initiative. If all leaders in the chain of
command fail the initiative check, then multiply MPs
remaining by 80 percent, rounding down;

What does "fail the initiative check" mean?

Page 270

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radically different from the modified CV shown at the end
of the battle, not only due to combat losses, but due to the
many random factors and leader rating checks that occur
to determine the modified combat value.

Precisely, what leader checks are made?

---

Let's look at Combat Sequence

§ Initiate battle (see section 22.3 regarding use of
movement mode (F1) to attack)
§ Determine the defence modifiers from terrain and
fortification level (23.5)
§ Commit support units (23.6)
§ Calculate Combat Values (CV) and estimate the odds
ratio to determine if reserve commitment might take
place (23.7.1)
§ Commit reserve units (Defender first, then Attacker)
(23.7)
§ Calculate initial CV’s and odds ratio
§ Conduct battle
§ Air Mission sub-phase (18.1.3 and 18.1.7)
§ Attacker interdiction in the defender’s hex will cause
damage/disruption to the defending units while
defender interdiction in the attacker’s hex(es) will cause
damage/disruption to the attacker. Each unit in combat
is impacted by the enemy interdiction in their hex.
§ Both players’ Air Groups committed for ground support
§ Both players’ Air Groups committed for air intercept of
enemy Ground Support
§ Air to Air combat
§ Ground to Air (AA) and Air to Ground combat
§ Ground Combat sub-phase with elements being
selected by range in a series of rounds
§ Calculate final CV and odds ratio
§ Determine Winner and Loser (23.11)
§ If the Defender lost, determine retreat result (23.12).
This could be a retreat, rout and displacement move
(23.13), shatter, or surrender and involve retreat
attrition (23.12)
§ If the Attacker lost, determine retreat attrition on the
attacking units (they are considered to be retreating
back from the defender’s hex).
§ Determine reduction in MP’s for defending units for
next turn (22.1.3).
§ Determine any Combat Delay movement costs to be
added to the hex. (22.2.7)

What leadership roles are made? Bet there is a bunch!

(this could go on and on...)

Is there a place that defines how these leadership role checks are determined? What is the probability or die used?

You see, this is fairly important in being able to determine just how much of an impact do leader's ratings impact the game.

For example, if it is Rating < Die(100), then bumping a Rating point improves chances roughly by 1% (hardly worth it)

But if it is Rating < Die(10), now this is a different situation entirely. Bumping a Rating point could improve a successful check by 10% and maybe AP points well spent.

[loki100]

Hi Hanny

They are all /100 (ie %) with the chance to pass keying off leader values, status in the command change and range to the target event.

The manual even gives you worked examples showing how all this slots together.

Pretty much everything in the game has a random leader check. Move a hex, check for fatigue or damage. It influences virtually the entire game, which is why if you rerun a given action/logistics turn you never get the same results. The shorter list is what doesn't have a leadership check associated with it.

[Feltan]

Interesting. I am actually fine not knowing all the die rolls and details.

I think you want an idea of how the game mechanics work. You need to understand the fundamentals.

However, this is a simulation of combat ... IRL you never know all variables. Suffice to say that "good commanders" are better than poor ones; driving soldiers too hard makes them fatigued; and movement and combat does indeed cause a variable amount of disorganization with unit cohesion. How these basic tenets are implemented is art as much as it is science.

And you can't always define art. Sometimes it is best not to try ... just enjoy the end product.

Regards,
Feltan