Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: dude

It can also be hard for the Union generals depending if you are going by when they received their ranks in the “volunteers” vs. the “regular” army.

Sherman is a good example:
[font="times new roman"]Brig Gen (volunteers) Aug 3, 1861[/font]
[font="times new roman"]Maj Gen (volunteers) May 1st 1862[/font]
Brig Gen (regular army) July 1st 1863 (yes Brig Gen... not a mistake.)

... and consider that in July 1863 he was commanding more than just a brigade.

Rank is irrelevant. In the union army a brigadier general could command anything from a brigade to an army. You have to go by what a general commanded. The union army had both regular army and volunteeer army ranks. They also had brevet(honorary) ranks for both. A union officer could be a regular army captain, a brevet regular army major, a colonel of volunteers, and a brevet brigadier general of volunteers all at the same time. After the war generals reverted to their regular army rank if they stayed in. Custer was a major general of Volunteers in april 1865 but only a regular army 1st lt. When the war ended he was "promoted" from Major General to captain.

The data table is Commanders.txt in the data folder.

ORIGINAL: jsaurman

I'd still like to know why fat old Winfield Scott isn't in there, he certainly was the only guy deserving of three or four stars at the beginning of the war, everyone else was totally unproven. Even though he was old and couldn't lead a field command, he ought to be in the game, just for historical accuracy sake.

Winfield Scott, according to Wikipedia, resigned on Nov. 1, 1861, so we left him out of the game. But then, we added the July scenario at a later point in development, and did not stick him back in. He's always been in the game, though, since I put him in the database of potential USA military governors -- so if you happen to capture, say, Tennessee or Mississippi he might end up in charge.

Do people think he should be added back in to the July scenario? Or since he wasn't a field commander at that point is it okay to keep him out?

out!

Yeah, Winfield Scott was never gonna be a field commander, so out.
 
The only guy you might want to put back "in" on account of the July '61 scenario, I think, would be Robert Patterson, the Pennslyvania militia commander who failed to pin down J. Johnston's Army of the Valley prior to 1st Manassas (and left the army shortly thereafter as a result).

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

Yeah, Winfield Scott was never gonna be a field commander, so out.

The only guy you might want to put back "in" on account of the July '61 scenario, I think, would be Robert Patterson, the Pennslyvania militia commander who failed to pin down J. Johnston's Army of the Valley prior to 1st Manassas (and left the army shortly thereafter as a result).

He retired pretty much because McClellan (of his own insistence) was able to report directly to Lincoln thereby making his postion a bit too untenable. He also came under fire for Patterson's failure as noted above.

I've been experimenting a little with the Commanders.txt file and it's not going to be as simple as just getting the start dates and proper ranks right. The first thing I found that chris0827 already pointed out was that historical ranks don't necessarily coincide with game ranks. When rating or changing the ranks of generals it's better to look at the size of the units they were commanding. For instance at 1st Manassas, McDowell held the rank of BG (1 star) but commanded the entire Union Army. In games terms he would only be able to command a brigade so I made him a 3 star in the July scenario in order for him to actually command the 36k of Union troops in the army.
 
The other thing I found out is that a total rework of dates and ranks are meaningless without a rework of the scenario data. Without the proper number of academies, ranks for the starting generals don't work out right. As an experiment I changed all dates and ranks for the 200 and 50 percent generals. Before adding academies the ranks never worked out properly in any scenario. After adding the proper number of academies the ranks worked fine. In order to get what I considered the proper number of academies, I looked at the starting number of 3 and 2 star generals and figured out how many academies I needed to get them. Then I added those academies to various provinces. I tried to use a common sense approach by adding them to the largest cities but it doesn't really matter where you put them. Hope this info is helpful.

Tevans, we've been discussing options for changing the number of ranks available.  One thing we're considering is a game option that would allow both nations to start with more officers of each rank -- the academies would still be used, but the ranks they allow would either be increased, or else the base number to which they add would be increased.  We're also thinking of allowing players the option of promoting many generals in a turn.

Eric: Sounds good. If I've been overly critical of the game and your efforts, I apologize. I see a lot of potential in this game. If I didn't like it so much I wouldn't be so vocal. I'd just stop playing it. I like the idea of multiple promotions per turn. Maybe something else to try would be to have academy limits apply to incoming generals only and not the generals you start the scenario with. Either way would work. Guess it depends on which is easier to program. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you guys. Thanks for such a great game. I'll help in any way that I can to make it better. 

There is a terrific (though expensive) book, Civil War High Commands, published by Stanford Univ Press, that has chapters called "Grades and Ranks" for both of the armies. The generals are listed alphabetically and also in order of seniority in rank.

I would suggest using the first date at which someone is commissioned brig gen or higher (some went straight to Maj Gen or higher). If you want to scatter them over the years more, you could pick the first date at which each is commission maj gen or higher.

ORIGINAL: General Quarters

There is a terrific (though expensive) book, Civil War High Commands, published by Stanford Univ Press, that has chapters called "Grades and Ranks" for both of the armies. The generals are listed alphabetically and also in order of seniority in rank.

I would suggest using the first date at which someone is commissioned brig gen or higher (some went straight to Maj Gen or higher). If you want to scatter them over the years more, you could pick the first date at which each is commission maj gen or higher.

Except for Grant there is nothing higher than major general in the union army.

The bigger issue in most cases on the Union side was not what rank you were in regards to the size unit you commanded... but whether you out ranked someone else.  It was a major issue for some officers and the War Department to look at date of ranks and who out ranked who because of it when assigning officers to command.  The last few years this became less of an issue but was still there.  Officers of equal ranks (in the volunteers) then had to be compared based on their permanant ranks in the regular army (since very few were actually generals in the regular army until late war.)
 
Grant points out quite a few of these instances in him memoirs...  There was a good passage from him about one of his early attacks and that Sherman was nearby with troops but since Sherman outranked him he couldn't be put under Grant.  To his credit Sherman didn't care and offered his support if Grant needed it (which it turns out he didn't... but without my books handy I can't recall for sure which attack but it was fairly early.)
 
It would be very difficult to model the actual workings of the ranks in the Union army in regards to things like size of unit to command.  It would be more interesting (IMO) to allow the officers to command any size unit but have a hidden trait that determine how compentent they are with larger units. (ie... what's the largest sized unit they could command without a problem to their ratings.)  But also put an exception that you can't have higher ranked officers under this commander (so sure put that one star in charge of an army... but don't expect a 2 star to serve under him).
 
Use the academies to determine the maximun number of officers that can appear and allow multiple promotions per turn  (I'm finding it annoying that I can't promote a guy to two star because the game is telling me I need to promote someone to three star first.)  You could aslo put limits on the number of 3 or 4 stars based on the number or Armies (perhaps corps??) one has and a side should never have more than one 5 star.
 
 

ORIGINAL: chris0827

Except for Grant there is nothing higher than major general in the union army.

Ok, but who are you "playing as?" The commander in chief - so if you feel like promoting someone above MG then I think you can.

But as dude points out the solution to alll this is remove the restrictions on the commands and we have ourselves no issue. Maybe if pips had been used initially we would not be having this discussion...

Correct about northern ranks. I added "MG or higher" so my comments would be relevant to southern generals as well.

Another way to formulate my suggestion is that they be dated from their first appointment as a general of any rank. Or, if you want to draw it out over time more, from their first appointment as a general of any rank higher than BG.

ORIGINAL: dude

The bigger issue in most cases on the Union side was not what rank you were in regards to the size unit you commanded... but whether you out ranked someone else.  It was a major issue for some officers and the War Department to look at date of ranks and who out ranked who because of it when assigning officers to command. 

This is exactly right. This was an ever-present issue and, to get around it, often forced decisions -- manipulations really -- that would not otherwise have been made. This game would gain a lot of realism on the command side if generals were listed by seniority in service and there were a possibility of resignation or inactive status and lowering of governor's support whenever a less senior general was put in command over one of them.

ORIGINAL: General Quarters

ORIGINAL: dude

The bigger issue in most cases on the Union side was not what rank you were in regards to the size unit you commanded... but whether you out ranked someone else.  It was a major issue for some officers and the War Department to look at date of ranks and who out ranked who because of it when assigning officers to command. 

This is exactly right. This was an ever-present issue and, to get around it, often forced decisions -- manipulations really -- that would not otherwise have been made. This game would gain a lot of realism on the command side if generals were listed by seniority in service and there were a possibility of resignation or inactive status and lowering of governor's support whenever a less senior general was put in command over one of them.

I like the idea of a possible resignation by a general if forced to serve under someone of a lesser rank (it did happen.) The only tricky part is... is this a fixed number for all gererals or would it vary? Sherman for example had no problem serving under a lesser ranked general. Others would have no part of it. It would sure add some extra uncertanty to the game while still being fairly historically accurate.

ORIGINAL: dude

................................

(I'm finding it annoying that I can't promote a guy to two star because the game is telling me I need to promote someone to three star first.) You could aslo put limits on the number of 3 or 4 stars based on the number or Armies (perhaps corps??) one has and a side should never have more than one 5 star.

Agree. There are a lot of times I want a two star general but can't have one because I have not promoted someone to three or four stars yet.

Other than that I like the way the system is set up - the more stars the more Xs you can command.

Does anyone have a list of what ranks and positions the generals in this game held in 1860?  It would be interesting to see who was in the army, and just a major, or captain, and who was a civilian.
 
JIM

ORIGINAL: Gil R.
Winfield Scott, according to Wikipedia, resigned on Nov. 1, 1861, so we left him out of the game. But then, we added the July scenario at a later point in development, and did not stick him back in. He's always been in the game, though, since I put him in the database of potential USA military governors -- so if you happen to capture, say, Tennessee or Mississippi he might end up in charge.

Do people think he should be added back in to the July scenario? Or since he wasn't a field commander at that point is it okay to keep him out?

Scott wasn't capable of "taking the field", so leaving him out makes sense. But Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and such were all "1-stars" in 1861. (Sherman commanded a Brigade at Bull Run). The South has acres of good "1-stars" available for promotion in the 1861 scenarios (they have folks who probably never get promoted with ratings that would make them "4-stars" for the North). Where are the decent Union Leaders?

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Gil R.
Winfield Scott, according to Wikipedia, resigned on Nov. 1, 1861, so we left him out of the game. But then, we added the July scenario at a later point in development, and did not stick him back in. He's always been in the game, though, since I put him in the database of potential USA military governors -- so if you happen to capture, say, Tennessee or Mississippi he might end up in charge.

Do people think he should be added back in to the July scenario? Or since he wasn't a field commander at that point is it okay to keep him out?

Scott wasn't capable of "taking the field", so leaving him out makes sense. But Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and such were all "1-stars" in 1861. (Sherman commanded a Brigade at Bull Run). The South has acres of good "1-stars" available for promotion in the 1861 scenarios (they have folks who probably never get promoted with ratings that would make them "4-stars" for the North). Where are the decent Union Leaders?

Actually I'm not so sure about Sheridan... I just happened to read part of Sherman's memoir last night and recall something about him trying to get Capt. Sheridan promoted to brig. general and it was turned down. I don't think he actually became a general until the next year (I'll have to check my books tonight.)

(...just checked wikipedia and it puts a date of July 1st 1862 for Brig. Gen.)