Campaign update 11/6

The Father General would make an outstanding president, I think. After he dismissed all the aides and secretaries and governed exclusively on the Biblical principles of Leviticus...

Sorry, day dreaming over today's election which I fully expect will turn out to be filled with controversy and drama.

As for the campaign...

Several of you have asked for body counts before making decisions. I agree that you should have that data. Historically, such information was quickly aggregated in the aftermath of battle and you will not be deprived. At this time, Mr. Hays needs a few days to work on the spreadsheet, apply the results and return the data to me. From there, I will send you situation reports for the evening of the 27th, (I think that's the correct date) and those reports will contain headcounts.

In the meantime, enjoy your break and enjoy Chancellorsville, which I'll be acquiring shortly. It boats more stable multiplayer -- we'll see.

-Neal

Any thoughts on adding some more division commanders to help lighten the load for overall commanders?
I guess Im willing to take on more troops to help out, maybe even a few guns, anyone else?
Possibly gcm sized? 2 to 3 brigades and some guns, guns being a corp commanders option?

Yea, absolutely neccessary in my opinion.

- Guns should, if possible be put in one seperate Brigade/Division. I think it was intended to be so because I had two Division commanders with two batteries each with the same name. If they were all in one Brig./Div. they could be commanded easier by a single player. If I have to do it, manage more than one infantry brigade and conduct the battle it hampers performance greatly.

- I think each and every player, if it ever comes to that again, should control 2 Brigades to spread the burden.

I would willingly Command more than one Brigade assuming i can make it to the battle (times permitting).

kg_sspoom wrote:Any thoughts on adding some more division commanders to help lighten the load for overall commanders?

Seconded.
It is very stressful if you are the CinC and also are a Super-Brigade Commander at the same time.
Again, I think battles would be even better if there were fewer brigades...

In the last battle I was a Corps commander with no Div commander and Sven was a Div commander without a Corps commander.
Now what happens if we have both Corps and Div commander in a battle? The Corps commander would not be able to control any brigade. This would be fine normally, but a problem if we are too few players. Any ideas?

Perhaps the Corps commander controls the other half of the division if it is divided in two, thus lighting the burden of management. So adding in a second div commander avatar with half the division under his control I believe makes sense to both parties and if the Corps commander doesn't show -- someone else can take over that second div spot.

Yes I agree as well re the need for divisional commanders.

Traditionally in both our and scenario & sandbox games, there has been a race for the door every time discussion turns to who should command the team .

It's more taxing than brigade command, and you do also feel more responsibility for the result. But I think the last battle has taught all of us on both sides that division commanders are essential in a large force. I must have been tough for Sven & Stefan, and they both deserve a big pat on the back. Hopefully this realisation will encourage more of us to volunteer for senior command. With a proper command hierarchy, I think the number of brigades is less of an issue.

It seems to me that there are two ways broad ways we could go with this:

(a) Several small divisions (eg 2 brigades + artillery) reporting direct to the battlefield commander - ie 2 levels of human command

(b) Perhaps a couple of larger divisions (each containing some human-controlled brigades), reporting to the battlefield commander - ie 3 levels of human command

It seems to me that both have pros & cons, and ideally each team could choose whatever command structure suits them best. But can this be done as a practical matter, given the requirements of Hays' spread-sheet etc?

Martin (J)

Let me remind all that the structure of the OOB is limited by its production and Hays' time.

That said, the moving forward, the structure of the OOB is entirely at the discretion of the corps commander. It may be beneficial for the corps commanders to make their structure requests known and I will review them with Hays to see if the request is workable.

-Neal

The Master OOB cannot be altered once it has been created and certainly not after a battle has been fought. At least the campaign tool could not do that in my Roamoak Campaign and the tool hasn't been updated in that respect so I understand. Hays may be able to fudge things to a degree though, but adding in new DCs at this stage isn't practical.

I did say in the beginning that we should have several small divisions, maybe just 2 brigades each.

Creating an army where every player owns a brigade is bound to create problems when every player cannot make every battle.

There's also no strategic need for armies to be split up so we get two huge blobs.

We had a discussion about all this some weeks back but my suggestions were shouted down, with some contempt from some quarters I might add.

It's not about splitting the army but more about making it more manageable for Sven and Stefan just because if he only has to issue orders to a division commander rather than to each individual player. This would result in a less stressful game for the corps commanders let alone the army commanders meaning more enjoyable all round.

Maybe a result of promotion for exploits in battle.

I agree Mark.

We owe a debt to Hays for the work he's already put in, even if he cannot make any changes now. If that is the case, there is surely nothing to stop the team commanders making informal command arrangements before a battle, providing they can find team members willing to take 'division-level' command.

Before New Market, Stefan asked me to coordinate the 3 southerly Reb brigades. That did not last long as I dropped connection after 25 minutes, but I think the idea is sound. It cuts down the number of direct reports for the overall commander, and saves him for worrying about one sector of the battlefield. With a couple of intermediate subordinates, you could extend that further, and leave the big man with a manageable number of human and AI commanders to interact with.

It only works with human controlled brigades or batteries of course, so is not ideal. The overall commander still has to directly manage all the AI units, so it's probably advisable to keep those near him.

I’ve seen folks attempt to manage 8 or 9 direct reports in real life and they really struggle. So dealing with 7 or 8 brigades plus several artillery batteries seems too much, as well as being unhistorical.

Martin (J)

I would be in favour of the battlefield CinC being free from ANY unit command in order to concentrate of overall command and limit distraction from the big picture.

I know that this would be difficult to achieve given that some units might not be accounted for with human representation (if numbers on the night are sub-optimal) but a degree of flexibility in Division command should help.

We all want to nurture our own brigades but I would be in favour of electing Div commanders before the game and having them command their own brigade as well as being in line to the corps commander. Any Div artillery could be commanded by him or given to a capable brigadier (Colonel) in order to free time for command and scouting.

Back in the day, when I commanded my now-infamous "Third Division" It was common practice for me to subordinate one commander to another. Despite the fact all my units were human controlled, it still made sense to do so.

It makes all the more sense now that some of the units are AI controlled.