HITS/GCM Game Basics

Uncle Billy wrote:My reason for suggesting a reserve division, controlled by the corps commander, is to point out a way for the corps to have one without tying a human division commander to that role. My experience is that everyone wants to jump into the fight immediately. They don't like being spectators for the first half hour of a battle. It also gives the corps commander something to look forward to doing in the latter stages of the battle when the lines are fully fixed and very little maneuvering is left to be done. I am envisioning a corps of two human divisions and an AI/corps commander division.

kg little mac wrote:We (the Confederates) sure could have used a reserve division last battle. It appears Robinson had his own reserve division.

Mr. Digby wrote:Let's not go there please gentlemen. GCM discussion can take place on the GCM forum. Please can we keep on topic? Many thanks everyone.

R E Lee wrote:

WJPalmer wrote:
It would, of course, be possible now to have a "reserve" division in each army, in the sense that a corps commander, otherwise operating as a pure leader without direct troop control, actually brings his own division and parks it in reserve somewhere until the Army CinC orders its commitment. Is this something the army c.o.'s would like to see?

My first thought was, well, this makes our independent corps leader just like any other player bringing a division. However, to get around that there might be special restrictions on the use of the reserve division by the corps leader. For instance, it could never be TC'd, all orders given only by written courier, its size could be manually adjusted at game creation to be smaller than the smallest player-controlled division, etc. -- in other words, as an emergency reserve it would bring signficant limitations and disadvantages compared to regular player-controlled divisions -- all of which would weigh in an army CinC's decision to commit it.

I've thought about this - and I think really it is up the Corps commander to decide if he "commits" his "reserve" division. Certainly, the CinC may advise that one or more Corps hold back some reserves or commit them, but ultimately, the decision is down to the Corps commander.

I think the rules about TCing an AI division should be the same as you have for brigades - you may only TC *any* commander if you are sufficiently close to do so. If a Corps commander decided to commit his "personal"/"reserve" division, then he could do this either by

1) Sending the AI division commander orders.
2) Riding up to the AI division commander and TCing.
3) as for (1), but could then ride up to one of the brigades and TC this, within the rules you have described.

All this has lead me to another thought. If Corps commanders would generally be bringing their own AI division, then perhaps so too could the Army commander? Again, it could be used as a reserve force, and used in any way the CinC saw fit. It should probably be down to the CinC in question to decide, as should Corps commanders bringing their own divisions be down to those Corps commanders.

Here's a question, let's say Soldier, Palmer and Lee, Mitra and Spoom are playing a HG3 game, and each bring their GCM division, is the following possible:

Army (Lee)
-Corps (Palmer)
--Division (Palmer) (AI unless TC'd within the stated rules)
--Division (Soldier) (human)
--Division (Lee) (AI unless TC'd within the stated rules)
-Corps (Mitra)
--Division (Mitra) (AI unless TC'd within the stated rules)
--Division (Spoom) (human)
?

I think that's possible. In which case, we could potentially be looking at some seriously awesome action this weekend, or on another occasion! Again, the "Chaos" of limited controll would almost be magnified!

I think I need to check on my GCM division!