Questions on groups and recruiting new leaders.

[VonWulfen]

Hello all.
I have just finished the tutorials and about to jump into my first game.
In the last tutorial, it talked about using special orders to create a group and then combine them. It went on to talk about the benefits of this combined group.
Should I do this with all my forces?
Leaders/Commanders, I may have missed something in the tutorials and am unsure how to recruit new commanders.
I notice that some elements of a stack, artillery, for instance, have no leader. They, therefore, suffer a penalty. How to recruit a commander in order to avoid the penalty?

[OldSarge]

I usually group my main forces under a '*' or '**' leader and then combine the groups under a '***' leader. If you look in the manual on page 87, 12.9.2, you'll see that it is usually wise to keep your '***'' leader ungrouped.

There are a number of good reasons for leaving units ungrouped. For example, a single cavalry unit can be used to scout for enemy movement or screen your own movement. I often leave artillery and supply wagons ungrouped. You will always want to have an escort for your wagons as they move along to get resupplied.

Artillery can be grouped as well. If you go into the tutorial again, you can take the lone artillery unit and combine it with Essex's stack.

Leaders can not be recruited, historical leaders are scripted to appear in their historical time frame. Although I haven't seen it in ECW the AGE engine is setup to automatically generate '*' leaders under certain circumstances, usually after a battle. I've seen it happen in other AGEOD titles..

[VonWulfen]

Many thanks for the info.