johandenver
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Is it impossible to remove units from brigades?

Fri Sep 28, 2007 3:20 pm

Hi!

I've only played the demo so far, ordered the full game a few days ago.
So I might not be aware of things implemented in the patches.

Am I correct in my understanding that you can't move anything out of your brigades?
I would like to organize my armies with proper artillery brigades instead of one battery scattered here and there among the brigades.
If this is the case then why is it made that way?
In reality, artillery could be brigaded together as well as cavalry
so why not in the game?

/Johan

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KillCalvalry
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 3:48 pm

Johan, welcome aboard!

It is impossible to unpack brigades; the elements must stay there. You also cannot move outside units into a brigade with two exceptions: a) you can merge a general in there, and b) 2 Militia units can brigade together, though once you do that you can't take them apart.

Fear not though with all that artillery; form DIVISIONS. Divisions can hold up to 18 elements, so they are great for combining lots of small units to one cohesive group. A good composition is 4 artillery elements, 1 Sharpshooter, 1 Cavalry, maybe 1 Marine, and the rest infantry.

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Rafiki
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 4:27 pm

KillCalvalry wrote:It is impossible to unpack brigades; the elements must stay there. You also cannot move outside units into a brigade with two exceptions: a) you can merge a general in there, and b) 2 Militia units can brigade together, though once you do that you can't take them apart.

c) When a brigade is short one or more elements, you can merge in units to complete the brigade, i.e. back to its original composition. So if a brigade is missing one cavalry element, you can merge in a single-element cavalry unit.
KillCalvalry wrote:Fear not though with all that artillery; form DIVISIONS. Divisions can hold up to 18 elements, so they are great for combining lots of small units to one cohesive group. A good composition is 4 artillery elements, 1 Sharpshooter, 1 Cavalry, maybe 1 Marine, and the rest infantry.

1 marine per stack is sufficient; the pontoneer ability is a stack ability :)
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johandenver
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 5:18 pm

Thanks for the info guys, also thanks for the welcome :hat:
Although I'm a bit disheartened by the fact that you basically can never reorganize your armies.
Which is a thing that happened regulary and that I'm sure I'll be wanting to do further into a game.
I don't really understand why it's designed like this but I guess I'll have to accept it :p leure:
Is it programming limitations or do the designers of the game, or for that matter the most players of the game, want it this way?

I'd much rather have full control over army organization.
From which regiment goes in which brigade to who commands the corps and the army. But perhaps other people don't.

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Henry D.
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 6:07 pm

Welcomme, johan! :)

You would really prefer to be able to build single regiments to form and reform them into brigades, even through a whole 114-Turns campaign? :eek: I must confess, I'm already annoyed that one is forced to build militia and cavalry this way, I think that's a major hassle. :nuts:

However, give the game a chance, although You can't have it entirely the way You would prefer, the variety of "basic" brigades that can be build is large. Build only small brigades with 2-3 regts each to assemble Your divisions with and leave the larger brigade types be. With patience (and maybe a certain masochistic streak) You might even resort to building large numbers of militia, with time they will upgrade themselves into regular infantry without further costs.

And always keep in mind, the "basic" combat unit in the game is not the brigade, but the division, and, within the limits of the brigades used, it can be formed and reformed at will.

Regards, Henry
Henry D, also known as "Stauffenberg" @ Strategycon Interactive and formerly (un)known as "whatasillyname" @ Paradox Forums

"Rackers, wollt Ihr ewig leben?" (Rascals, Do You want to live forever?) - Frederick the Great, cursing at his fleeing Grenadiers at the battle of Kunersdorf

"Nee, Fritze, aber für fuffzehn Pfennije is' heute jenuch!" (No, Freddy, but for 15p let's call it a day!) - Retort of one passing Grenadier to the above :sourcil:

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Fri Sep 28, 2007 6:37 pm

Indeed, you have quite a lot of control and freedom in organizing things to your liking. You just need to regard the brigades as building blocks and divisions/corps/armies as the targets for your organization
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:01 pm

It's not the "building" part I'm talking about.
I have no problem with that, there are plenty of options available for what to build. It's the ability to change my organizations as I go along in the game I'm after.

One example is that I might have one corps that lacks artillery and
one that has too much of it.
It would be very neat to just group a few batteries from the first corps together in a brigade and transfer it to a division in the second corps.
The only option now would be to transfer the whole division from one corps to another, and thereby perhaps leaving the first corps lacking in infantry.

I agree, there are so many options available to organize your armies
and that is perhaps why I still don't really understand *why* it's designed this way?
You can change so many other things in the game.
The game is surely "moddable" so why this limitation?

Also, I will definately give this game a chance.
It's one of the best games around in it's genre.
But should that stop me from wanting it better?

I think one big thing for me is that I don't play this game like I would play,
let's say "Red Alert" or "Age of Empires".
In those kind of games I just put together forces that work in combat
and just don't build crap that isn't good value for money.
Whereas in this game all brigades, divisions, generals, colonels and regiments means something to me. They all have a history and that's a big part of why I'm interested in these kinds of wargames in the first place.
They're not just building blocks when I play :)

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Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:17 pm

I should probably point out that I really do like this game
and will probably put in quite a few hours of gaming once I get the CD.

I just find it very strange that I can create a brigade with a certain
configuration and then never touch it again.
In the same way that I think I should be able to call my corps, divisions and armies whatever I want. That way people who doesn't care can leave the randomized names alone and people like me can edit things to their own liking.
Perhaps it's because my background is playing games like "Civil War Generals2".

Sorry for ranting, I just want to make my point clear :niark:

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Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:51 pm

johandenver wrote:One example is that I might have one corps that lacks artillery and
one that has too much of it.
It would be very neat to just group a few batteries from the first corps together in a brigade and transfer it to a division in the second corps.
The only option now would be to transfer the whole division from one corps to another, and thereby perhaps leaving the first corps lacking in infantry.

Actually not. Unlike brigades, divisions can be dissolved into their component parts, letting you e.g. take out a group of independent batteries and transfer to the second corps. The process could be more streamlined, in letting you extract components without having to dissolve/reassemble the division, but at least you have the opportunity of doing it.

(If you only have artillery that comes from integrated brigades, that'd be a problem, though, but if it's a situation you imagine might happen you, you could counter it by buying single-element artillery brigades)
Also, I will definately give this game a chance.
It's one of the best games around in it's genre.
But should that stop me from wanting it better?

Nope. And no-one is saying so either. In fact, I think you'll find yourself in good company :)
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KillCalvalry
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:55 pm

johandenver wrote:One example is that I might have one corps that lacks artillery and
one that has too much of it.
It would be very neat to just group a few batteries from the first corps together in a brigade and transfer it to a division in the second corps.
The only option now would be to transfer the whole division from one corps to another, and thereby perhaps leaving the first corps lacking in infantry.


Actually, there is no reason you can't do that, other than the fact that those units will transfer as a group of 4, let's say, rather than one brigade. But functionally, it's the same. You can "unpack" and "repack" divisions at will, so if you want to switch things around, get all the units you want in a hex, unpack the division, and re-constitue it with what you want. There is no penalty to doing this, only if you DISBAND the division, which you don't have to do. This happes constantly.

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Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:40 pm

Ok, good. That would be one way of dealing with the artillery situation I guess. Not ideal, but it does work.

But what about unattached single regiments that are not brigaded?
I can't imagine it would be that hard to make it possible to just group a bunch of these together and call them a brigade, would it?

I'm sorry but I just don't see the point of making the game this way.
It's not as, if my wish was granted, the game would have to sacrifice
a bunch of other things to do it.
People who don't care about it could just keep on playing the way they've done sofar.
It would just add more to the game, so why not?

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Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:41 pm

I think 1 artillery unit is the most that is ever attatched to a brigade. So you should be able to give every division equal artillery if you want to.

I tend not to ever build brigades with attached artillery, for several good reasons. First there is the organization issue you mentioned. Second, the artillery is usually 6 lbrs which are not a good value for the USA. USA has enough war supplies to build the heavy types.

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Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:45 pm

johandenver wrote:Ok, good. That would be one way of dealing with the artillery situation I guess. Not ideal, but it does work.

But what about unattached single regiments that are not brigaded?
I can't imagine it would be that hard to make it possible to just group a bunch of these together and call them a brigade, would it?

I'm sorry but I just don't see the point of making the game this way.
It's not as, if my wish was granted, the game would have to sacrifice
a bunch of other things to do it.
People who don't care about it could just keep on playing the way they've done sofar.
It would just add more to the game, so why not?


If you want to use brigade sized independent commands you can have the units arranged horizontally in a stack.

As far as I know a brigade does not have any command or cohesion bonuses.

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Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:47 pm

johandenver wrote:Perhaps it's because my background is playing games like "Civil War Generals2".


That was a great game!

johandenver
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Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:00 pm

Yes, it sure was a great game.
I spent countless hours with that.

Of course it did have it's limitations as well, primarily graphics though.
Most things were easy to mod but graphics were a real pain, at least for me :niark:

Also, the campaigns sucked big time.
That's one great thing about AACW, the grand scale of it all.

As I've said somewhere before, a combination of AACW & Take Command 2nd Manassas would be my wet dream :niark:
AACW handles the strategic aspect and TC2M does the battles with input from AACW....would be glorious :)
200 years in the future...but still glorious :niark:

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 12:27 am

johandenver wrote:As I've said somewhere before, a combination of AACW & Take Command 2nd Manassas would be my wet dream :niark:
AACW handles the strategic aspect and TC2M does the battles with input from AACW....would be glorious :)
200 years in the future...but still glorious :niark:


YES !, Exactly my dream also, as I have stated months ago.. although a grand campaign might last at least as many years as the real one :niark:

Big Muddy

Sat Sep 29, 2007 3:09 am

johandenver wrote:Yes, it sure was a great game.
I spent countless hours with that.

Of course it did have it's limitations as well, primarily graphics though.
Most things were easy to mod but graphics were a real pain, at least for me :niark:

Also, the campaigns sucked big time.
That's one great thing about AACW, the grand scale of it all.

As I've said somewhere before, a combination of AACW & Take Command 2nd Manassas would be my wet dream :niark:
AACW handles the strategic aspect and TC2M does the battles with input from AACW....would be glorious :)
200 years in the future...but still glorious :niark:



Both are excellent, but I prefer each as they are. I'm probably in the minority but I would not like to see this.

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 5:12 am

Czrasai wrote:Both are excellent, but I prefer each as they are. I'm probably in the minority but I would not like to see this.

Then we shall be a minority of at least two :)
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Sat Sep 29, 2007 7:47 am

Czrasai wrote:Both are excellent, but I prefer each as they are. I'm probably in the minority but I would not like to see this.


Wouldn't it be cool to fight a battle in more detail?
Not every single one of course. Then the game would take forever :-)
It'd nice with a similar option to that in Forge of Freedom.
Where you get a choice between fastsim and detailed battle.

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 7:55 am

Another thing, why do so many brigades consist of 2-3 regiments?
That was not the case in the actual civil war.
Perhaps it was in Napoleonic wars (I don't really know much about that)
but most brigades in the civil war contained more than 3 regiments.
Some confederate brigades, late in the war, could have 6-7 of them.
This has to be a another design decision that I just don't understand.
It would have been just as easy to make it historically correct.

But I can see that I'm not going to get any clarification on my original question. Or even someone to agree with me :)
To put it harshly everybody seems to think everything is fine the way it is.

I give up my quest of making everybody see things my way :D

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 3:30 pm

I never got tired CWG2 graphics. I got tired of the AI. As far as I'm concerned AACW has one of the best AIs I've ever seen in a wargame.


There was a terrible exploit in the game mechanics of CWG2, that worked even against a human. In CWG2 a unit would automatically surrender if it had nowhere to retreat or it would rout if it had to retreat through a friendly occupied hex. The last time I played CWG2 was a hotseat game against my college roommate. He was a good player, he actually introduced me to the game. We played Gettysburg and I was Johnny Reb, I managed to capture 60,000 Union prisoners by the middle of the second day and we abandoned the game. Ewell's corp was a bloody pulp and he left his lines to drive me back to the northwest. I sent Longstreet's corp straight toward cemetery ridge and surrounded his main force. This plan only worked because I exploited the game mechanics better than he did. On a normal turn I launched few or no infantry combats I just maneuvered. He had overwhelming firepower against my left. He was able to keep pushing me back and routing some units. But, if he attacked with a unit 3 turns in a row its organization (cohesion) would be so low I could force it to surrender. I focused entirely on surrounding groups which meant I was constantly moving laterally across the front lines. In hindsight this was horribly gamey and I wish CWG2 had a provision autofire on units moving in their ZOC.

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 3:35 pm

johandenver wrote:Another thing, why do so many brigades consist of 2-3 regiments?
That was not the case in the actual civil war.
Perhaps it was in Napoleonic wars (I don't really know much about that)
but most brigades in the civil war contained more than 3 regiments.
Some confederate brigades, late in the war, could have 6-7 of them.
This has to be a another design decision that I just don't understand.
It would have been just as easy to make it historically correct.

But I can see that I'm not going to get any clarification on my original question. Or even someone to agree with me :)
To put it harshly everybody seems to think everything is fine the way it is.

I give up my quest of making everybody see things my way :D


I agree it would be more realistic for a brigade to have 3+ infantry regiments. A 2 regiment brigade doesn't seem accurate.

The only reason I don't like the idea of splitting brigades is that it could easily make the game mechanics more complicated and confusing. I think army organization is hard enough currently and should only be changed in the direction of more simplicity.

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 3:56 pm

If you think of "demi-brigades" we get closer to the design.

Often tactics demanded that only a portion of a brigade be sent to the flank or some other area of the battlefield.....

Also, at least early on, integral artillery was somewhat common. The Black Hat Brigade fought at 2nd Manassas and beyond with an attached battery.....

While it would be nice to have flexibility to reorganize at brigade level, by the time we reach the "historical" part of the war where brigades were adding regiments (a political effect by the way: Governors wanted to recruit new Regiments, not replacements. More patronage possibilities!!), we're pretty much into Divisions, where how a brigade is organized doesn't matter...

I'd hate to see such a fine game get "buggier" by adding complexity. Soon will be unsupportable..... It's a GAME, not a Military Training Simulation....

That's my two cents.....

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 5:06 pm

lodilefty wrote:If you think of "demi-brigades" we get closer to the design.

Often tactics demanded that only a portion of a brigade be sent to the flank or some other area of the battlefield.....

Also, at least early on, integral artillery was somewhat common. The Black Hat Brigade fought at 2nd Manassas and beyond with an attached battery.....

While it would be nice to have flexibility to reorganize at brigade level, by the time we reach the "historical" part of the war where brigades were adding regiments (a political effect by the way: Governors wanted to recruit new Regiments, not replacements. More patronage possibilities!!), we're pretty much into Divisions, where how a brigade is organized doesn't matter...

I'd hate to see such a fine game get "buggier" by adding complexity. Soon will be unsupportable..... It's a GAME, not a Military Training Simulation....

That's my two cents.....


What's the point at having demi-brigades in such a large scale strategic wargame? Makes sense for table-top wargaming, but not at this scale.

Historically, brigades were fairly uniform, attempting to reach 3000 men, but built upon 4 regiments (some were smaller, others larger, but the majority were 4 regiments). Rarely could a brigade field its full component, with strengths rising to about 1500-2000 on average (around 50% expected).

I believe that the small numbers of regiments reflect the present state where units remain at 100% strength. A brigade of 2000 (with 2x 1000 man regiments) actually is the average strength, while those of larger (upwards of 6000 men) are not really 'realistic' in numbers of men, but are in numbers of reigments.

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 8:06 pm

McNaughton;
Thanks for that info, now I understand the reason for having such small brigades.
Having 5 regiments in a brigade at full theoretical strength would mean brigades of 5000 men and that would be extremly unrealistic.
5000 is fine for divisions but not for most brigades.
But when thinking about it this way, why even bother with what's in the brigades?
The game could just say "Infantry Brigade" or "Infantry Brigade with artillery support". It doesn't really matter anyway, cause the names and strengths of the individual regiments are random and incorrect (referering to the fact that regiments always are at full strength and more - over 1000 men, which no regiments were in combat).

I do not want a military training simulator, if anything they would leave out all the cosmetics and just focus on gameplay issues. Even more so than regular developers who do have to spend time on both things.

The thing is that differrent people want focus on different things in games and a really good way to satisfy a lot of people is by making many things adaptable/moddable/changable.
Of course, the game would have to be written this way to begin with.
It's probably close to impossible to do it once you've finished your product
(without rewriting the whole thing...)
If army names, for instance, could be changed then it would satisfy me as well as all the others who doesn't care and just leave the names as they are. I find it strange that no one seems to agree with me on this.
Take Command 2nd Manassas is a dream in this regard.
You can mod virtually anything if you really want to.

There are probably lots of people who couldn't care less wether you're able to reorganize brigades or not. At the same time there are probably those who don't even buy the game for these kinds of reasons.
Many people never touch games without multiplayer and people like me couldn't care less if multiplayer is in or not. I never use it.

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Rafiki
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Sat Sep 29, 2007 8:13 pm

johandenver wrote:If army names, for instance, could be changed then it would satisfy me as well as all the others who doesn't care and just leave the names as they are. I find it strange that no one seems to agree with me on this.

I almost agree with you :)

To elaborate:
- I like the way Army names work in the game; you get the name from a list that depends on where the army is formed. E.g. if you form an army close to the Potomac, you get the Army of the Potomac (unless it already exists)

- I would like to be able to rename stacks, and not have the names automatically change whenever the stack is modified. This would e.g. let me have the explanatory "Baltimore Garrison" rather than the obscure "63. Union detachment"

And completely off-topic; hadn't noticed you are a fellow Scandinavian till now; tjänare Skåning! :)
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Sat Sep 29, 2007 8:23 pm

I kind of agree with you too :)
The army naming thing works well many times.
It's a great feature when creating your own non-historical armies.
But I read somewhere on this forum that one guy had replaced Lee as commander of the AONV and the army got renamed to something like "Whoever was the new commander's Command".
Then it would be good to just be able to rename the army yourself.
I would personally start a new game if that would happen to me.
It might sound silly but that would ruin the feeling of the game for me.

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Sat Sep 29, 2007 8:44 pm

Tjänare på dig själv Norrman! :niark:

That smiley feels right for the both of us vikings :D

I actually made some scandinavian-flavoured scenarios for "Age of rifles" many years ago. I made "Slaget vid Lund" and some other before I got tired
of the lack of information available about those old battles.

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