Pride of Nations Commander in Chief

[Scipionminos]

Hello,

As I was playing EAW ULT mod with Austria I started another game in PON with Austria as well.

But whereas in AEW putting a general as a CIC is rather easy (push the right button) I found myself wondering about the way to do it in PON.

I read the manual again, but besides info on how many number of stars a general must have or his seniority, one per theatre etc.. I did not find a mean to actually do it !

Could someone please tell me how practically speaking how do I raise a general 3*** to become a CIC, because I do not see any special order to do so.

I tried to look in the forum but most of the answers are related to EAW or Civil wars 2.

Thanks in advance.

[loki100]

ah, you've stumbled on the great hidden secret of PoN

Ok, you don't as such promote people to the role. What happens is the most senior 3*** general in a given theatre takes on the role of CinC. So if you have a total numpty then move them somewhere out of the way. This person can have their own stack or not - doesn't matter.

Now the problem is the definition of a theatre. You need to select the theatre map mode and you'll see how these are arranged. Each theatre can have a CinC. Sometimes this means that as armies cross a boundary they swap senior commander so it can be messy to keep track. Depends, for example, the Franco-German border is a theatre in its own right, but when I played Italy in my wars with Austria the natural battle line was split into two theatres with constant changes.

Finally how do you spot who's in charge. You have to check the seniority of all eligible 3*** generals.

so its a bit clunky, and in truth something I just have come to accept that I have less control over than in other AGEOD games where the army-corps relationship is more strictly enforced than in Pride of Nations.

[ifailmore]

WOW what why is that not in ACW and or EAW that feature is nice much like theater command in HOI3

[loki100]

I think because they opted for a hybrid command system in PoN. They usually have a simple model - stack has a number of command points, fill it up with units, each stack fights on its own (Wars in America/AJE etc) - with this reflecting poor communications or long distances or the complex model - CinC-Army-Corps-Brigades/Divisions (so Rise of Prussia/ACW/RuS/EAW etc) - to reflect better communications and/or smaller distances.

PoN is a mix, for the stack its the simple system but has the CinC-stack relationship. I think it was done for ease of the AI and less programming demand, probably also a compromise to reflect the extent that armies varied so much in the time period. It works fine, you have stacks that can co-ordinate and so on, but the consequence is that the concept of the CinC is a bit hard to grasp at first (or in my case until I had been playing a [real] year or so).

[Scipionminos]

Hello Loki100,

Thanks for the fast reply.

I was hoping you would have tell me something like just push that special option ;((

After reading you I realized that is exactly as the manual says: 1 Theatre, one CIC made of 3 or 4*** with senior authority.

The fact is that now I am even more confused because if this true (which it is) How do I know that this Gen is actually the CiC for that theatre, is it written somewhere?

What I mean is that when you start the game (with Austria) one of the stack is names "Generalstab" does that mean that this is him (because he has 3***, etc...) ?

As Austria is spread over different theatre, does that mean that in a different theatre the most senior 3*** stack would be called as well "generalstab" or is it just a name.

The rules of CIC in PON should be the relevant ones regardless of the name of the stacK...

Finally, in the F2 screen all armies are refered as independant army, so it means that there is a way to have "dependant armies" ? what is it and how can I do it ?

As I was playing RUS, I notice that the CIC system is much more clear especially regarding the Army corps composing "THE THEATRE ARMY ". The portrait of the CiC commander is at the right of the screen with diamond as corps armies on the side.

Can we have corps armies related to a CiC commander in PON ?

How in PON the relationship between Army corps / CiC works. In RUS the corps army benefits from the traits of the CiC commander ?

It's a bit long, but I wish I could understand it once and for all.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help.

[loki100]

Hi

it is confusing ... but I think for good reasons.

The only way to tell is to inspect every 3/4 general in a theatre. The CinC is then the one with the highest seniority (ie the lowest seniority number) of that bunch. So its a bit of a pain to be honest if you have a large army with multiple stacks and so on. The at start army names are just flavour rather than of any real meaning.

The PoN army-corps relationship is pretty simple. All commanded stacks in a region may mutually support, so it is not like in RuS with the possibility that 2 corps in the same province may be part of different armies (as an aside I once set a very nasty trap in Rise of Prussia using this gambit - my opponent only reckoned that one army would react, not two). So all stacks gain from the CinC and all can march to the sound of the guns etc (if they pass the tests). Any traits that can be passed out (eg strategic score) are passed to all commanded stacks in the region (ie not to stacks that have no named commander).

You're right about Austria, its one of the states where this concept of CinC/per theatre can be really complicated to manage.

I think the reason they used this model is that over a game of PoN if there was a real advantage to manipulating the normal OOB structure then it would either take a lot of coding to make sure the AI did it sensibly (ie just what PoN needs is more inter-turn processing demands) or there would be a massive advantage for a player over the AI. So this means there is no need to worry too much about the command hierachy.

What I do, is if I have a complete idiot as my #1 three or four star general is to send them to a quiet theatre. You tend to be short of named commanders so its hard not to give them any command but you can usually put them somewhere harmless. If not then in PoN there are very few commanders who actually make things worse, so even the bigger idiots may help a little with the command chain.

To be honest, after a while I just gave up worrying and simply tried to get my best commanders and units where I really needed them and just let the CinC mechanic take care of itself.

[Scipionminos]

Thank you Loki,

I guess I will start forming armies the best I can with what I have for now and see what comes next.

By the way, I think I recall that you could rename the stack, am I correct ? if so how you do it ?

Thks

[loki100]

don't trust me on this but shift-click on the title and a box should come up and you can type in a new name, if its not shift-click its right-shift-click, or something ... I did once know

[Scipionminos]

Alright got it, thanks again Loki

[seathom]

I believe it's Alt + click on the tab to erase and enter a new name for unit.

[czert2]

lets hope they will implement in future patch (or pon2) some coc viever or clear distinction to selecter general (4 stars displayed instead of only 3, diferent border colors on him...etc).

[Scipionminos]

I believe it's Alt + click on the tab to erase and enter a new name for unit.

Thanks I will try it.