No Dars for awhile

[robot]

Guys will not be writing any dars for a while. Once again I have started my long campaign over. Once i get back up to somewhere in 1942 I will resume again. The reason i started over was i had no Captains. I had no ranks over 1st Lt except for the Hq Col. I found out that when you buy your force and purchase companys as a group you always get a Capt as company commander. I wanted the ranks so i restarted it and i now have at least 7 Capts to every campign I have started so far. The Germans east and western europe plus the Japs in Asia and the Russians so far have all fought there first and some there second battle so far. Will take some time as right now the eastern Germans have an assault against the Poles and these always take longer for me then the others.

I always bought my core by platoons before but I have changed all this on my new campaign. I bought all my infantry in company formations as well as my tanks. I am hoping some of my Capts will get promoted to Majors. Is this possible or is there a way for me to promote them myself. Really be nice to have some corperals instead of only Sgt. Also maybe some staff sgts as well as Master sgts. Would add some difference instead of the same old ranks. Also where are the two stripe Sgts the tech ones.

[KG Erwin]

Robot, you can manually edit ranks by using SPWaW Edit, which is located in the Chlanda folder. This is how I rename units and change ranks. I make myself a Lt Col, and my vehicle driver/ 2IC a Major. (note: I'm picky about this. A Battalion commander isn't normally a bird colonel. A full Colonel is usually a regimental commander.)

For the way I pick my USMC core, I think there are way too many Lieutenants. I fully believe that ranks should fit the responsibilities, at least at the beginning of the campaign. This is an arguable point, but in the Marines, as I'm given to understand, you earned those promotions.

It isn't hard to do, you just have to be confident in your ability to modify the info and make the program work for you.

Same goes for Campaign Watcher. If you need help, just ask. We can give you step-by-step instructions.

[FlashfyreSP]

The ranks assigned to the formations are based on the Formation Type. With only 3 basic types (Platoon, Company, Battalion HQ), there can only be 3 ranks used. Platoons are always assigned a Lieutenant (2nd LTs for infantry units, 1st LTs for vehicle units), Companies assigned Captains, and the single Battalion HQ is assigned a Colonel.

If there were additional formation types (not counting the Naval formation, which acts like a Platoon), other ranks could be used.

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: FlashfyreSP

The ranks assigned to the formations are based on the Formation Type. With only 3 basic types (Platoon, Company, Battalion HQ), there can only be 3 ranks used. Platoons are always assigned a Lieutenant (2nd LTs for infantry units, 1st LTs for vehicle units), Companies assigned Captains, and the single Battalion HQ is assigned a Colonel.

If there were additional formation types (not counting the Naval formation, which acts like a Platoon), other ranks could be used.

This reveals the tendency for technical arms commanders (artillery and later armor) to gain higher ranks quicker.

I'm not gonna make heavy weather of this, but the tools are there to balance out the ranks in whatever way you may choose.

[sabrejack]

Just to confirm - SPWaW Edit only works on campaigns, right? Not on PBEM?
 
 

[Alby]

ORIGINAL: sabrejack

Just to confirm - SPWaW Edit only works on campaigns, right? Not on PBEM?

It works on scenarios, not "campaigns" per say...it works on the individual scenarios.

[robot]

When I was in the service we had some corperals running 10 man squads. Not all squads had sgts as there commanders. In spwaw all squads have sgts as there leaders. Just wanted to have some majors as well as capts. I also want to be able to promote someone I deem is ready. Does the game ever promote a capt up to major are is that too much too ask.

[KG Erwin]

ORIGINAL: robot

When I was in the service we had some corperals running 10 man squads. Not all squads had sgts as there commanders. In spwaw all squads have sgts as there leaders. Just wanted to have some majors as well as capts. I also want to be able to promote someone I deem is ready. Does the game ever promote a capt up to major are is that too much too ask.

I HAVE seen the occasional promotion, robot, but I don't see any problem with you editing long campaign scenarios to do this yourself. This is the closest we can get to awarding medals. Promotions take quite some time, as I recall. It could be 10-15 battles into the campaign. They are pretty rare, though, unless you have a battalion full of heroes with high kill-counts. [;)]

On the flip side, there are implied "brevet" ranks in the database. A platoon commander gets killed and the senior sergeant gets bumped up in the next battle. AFAIK, this isn't an "official" promotion, even though that Sgt might be called a Lt-3 or whatever.

Help me out here, someone. For the 1st battle following the death of a commander, the next-in-line becomes the "acting commander". After that, the promotion becomes official, UNLESS you use the editor to promote the guy you think SHOULD be the permanent replacement.

As a matter of fact, I've actually used the editor to make commander transfers from one unit to another. This requires a lot of work, but it can be done. However, doing this could be considered a cheat, so I stopped.