How to get rid of poor 3 star generals

[Offworlder]

As the Union I am constantly stuck with poor 3 star generals at the top. Banks, Halleck, Butler, McDowell, Fremont and others seem to stay at the top of the pile throughout the war. Even Grant, Sherman and Lyon after a lot of victories can't seem to get better seniority than the former.

Is there a way or a strategy by which I can push good generals up the pecking order and reduce the costs of appointing them as army generals?

[Aurelin]

1: Have the good ones commanding stacks in a winning battle, the bad ones in a losing one.

2: Pay the cost in NM and VP to promote them over the heads of the bad ones.

3: Send the bad ones into battle with a militia unit and hope they get killed.

[kcole4001]

I usually use 'em until I have enough VP to supercede them.

I don't form a second army until later in 1862 anyway.
The recruiting generals I always place in big cities to get extra manpower mustered.
They never see any combat at all.

McLellan is a pain, but you have no real choice until you can afford the VP loss to promote Grant.

In my latest game, I just waited until I could give the command to Grant.
My only operational army was in Virginia until Grant got his team together to head for Nashville, etc.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[kcole4001]

Even the bad ones can improve their stats with several successful battles, if you plan carefully & don't take too heavy losses.
The main problem is that they're hardly ever active.
Leaving them in control of recruitment offices seems to be the most useful purpose.

[jeff b]

#3 is not gamey either. There were several instances on both sides where high-ranking but somewhat inept Generals were reassigned to never-never land. General Pope to the Indian frontiers is just one example.

Pope was not as inept as is sometimes assumed on this board. You should really read Cozzen's bio on the man (or Taaffe's book on Commanding the AoP). He was shuttled off to deal with the Sioux but it had more to do with expediency than ineptitude. Lincoln realized that Pope was ill served by the officers of the AoP, but it was what it was. The AoP would not fight for Pope, and Lincoln needed the army to fight. Thus Pope was sacrificed.

Much of the more egregious things that came out of Pope were pretty much statements straight from Stanton.

Being stuck with duds was something the administration was stuck with for a long time. Butler and Banks demonstated many times that they were unfit for field command, but until after the 1864 election, Lincoln could not afford o releive them. The best he could do was shuttle them off to other theaters. Oddly enough, it was conceded even by those that hated him that New Orleans was never run so well as when Butler ran the city. He may have been a bad general but he was a great occupier.

[pthomas]

i just give mclellan a "ghost" army to get him out of the way......actually its not just a "ghost" army as i build it up slowly over time for use later on

[Coffee Sergeant]

#3 is not gamey either. There were several instances on both sides where high-ranking but somewhat inept Generals were reassigned to never-never land. General Pope to the Indian frontiers is just one example.

I think he is talking about sending them with a single militia unit against a large Rebel formation, which is totally unrealistic. Lincoln may have sent Pope west, but he wouldn't have ordered him to charge into the Army of the Tennessee with a single militia unit in the hope he got killed.

Of course if it worked, you would lose the Army HQ unit, and have to wait for another, which makes it a bad option anyway (you might as well just wait for the next Army HQ and have a dummy Army HQ doing nothing). Or you would have to choose not to form the army in the first place(not an option for McDowell, though) until the right leaders show up, which is risky.

Personally I think there should be a NM hit when a high seniority/high politic leader dies.

[kcole4001]

If one is going to try this, it would be wise to do it before assigning a command (IE: army HQ) to this general.
If he's not in command of anything but a militia unit, then there shouldn't be much of a problem if he 'goes west'.

[D_K]

form a small army then send it to missisipi/new orleans area (a sea invasion), if they die....they die!!!!

[DirkX]

once again: if you play vs the AI and at least "try" to simulate the ACW , use those generals as they were used in history.
you lll get a glimpse of how things happened as Lincoln.

if you want to win at all cost, sure , use that gamey and cheap tactics to send those generals into death, but then you can also play lego star wars.

[kcole4001]

Most of the bad generals still have useful special abilities, so throwing them away is a huge waste of resources, particularly the 'recruiting officer' trait!

Put that guy in a large city, he'll give you more manpower, something both sides desperately need.

[Pocus]

you can also play lego star wars.

a fine game by the way.

[DirkX]

a fine game by the way.

of course

[Offworlder]

If one leaves a three star general in charge of a division or corps, would he still gain seniority more than those generals who are idle, yet at the head of an army?

[jeff b]

I think one of the problems in the game is that Generals are not penalized enough for not doing well. How many opportunities did McClellan, Pope, Buell, Rosecrans, Hooker, even Thomas actually have. Not many. Most of them were out on their ear the moment they faltered. If Thomas had not actually been in the middle of a Battle, Logan had orders in his pocket to releive him. Little Mac basically got 2 campaigns. Burn 1, Hooker 1, Buell 1, Rosy 2, Pope 1. The only generals that got multiple cracks at command were Banks and Butler, and for the most part they were shuttled off to commands that in this game equate to Corp commands.

A look at the Corp commanders during the war would see an equal churn. The Army of the Potomac went through Corp Commanders at an almost equal rate as Army commanders. Every campaign saw 2-3 new men at the Corp commander spot.

I would like to see success rewarded more, and failure penalized more. That would have the game reflect (at least for the Union) the actual record more closely.

[Offworlder]

True enough. Each time a Union (army) general lost a big battle, he got fired. Yet its very hard to do so in the game. Failure isn't very much penalised at all.

[DirkX]

of course they are penalized:
just BECAUSE of their poor performances in history, the generals got their combat stats, that is imo per se a penalization, pre-game tho if you want to say it like this.
and no one stops you from promoting Rosecrans over Freemont.

otherwise all generals should start with same combat stats and develop with victories/losses.

[jeff b]

Combat stats is not the same thing as being FIRED. A generals combat stats have very little to do with the ability to promote / demote him. Seniority is the only stat that really counts.

If you wish to examine Rosecrans, he held a series of posts, and small army like commands before being promoted to command of the Army of the Cumberland. He basically started the war as a Division Commander under McClellan in West VA. He then held (in game terms) an independent Corp command at Iuka and Corinth where he defeated Van Dorn. Based on those actions and Thomas refusing the command, he replaced Buell as the AoC Army commander.

In game terms, after each victory his seniority went up, being promoted from 1 to 2 to 3 star. Buell's lackluster performance at Perryville caused his seniority to suffer, allowing his replacement by Rosecrans without penalty. Rosecrans retained the command of the Army until after his defeat at Chickamauga where his seniority plummeted so much that he could be replace with NO political cost.

The cost to Union morale was an outcome of his defeat, not his relief.
Major defeats should cause a general's seniority to fall considerably where relief is not so onerous. Basically, if a battle costs a moral point a general should be liable to losing his job.

[kcole4001]

As a side note, is there any disadvantage to giving these weak leaders their army commands, but not assigning any units to said armies?

That way there's no national penalty when giving a better leader a new army command, since the bad ones already have a command, it's just that the command will be inactive (which, ironically it would be anyway with their poor activation stat).

The cost of the HQ's wasting away in the rear is the only downside I can think of right away.

[Le Ricain]

As a side note, is there any disadvantage to giving these weak leaders their army commands, but not assigning any units to said armies?

That way there's no national penalty when giving a better leader a new army command, since the bad ones already have a command, it's just that the command will be inactive (which, ironically it would be anyway with their poor activation stat).

The cost of the HQ's wasting away in the rear is the only downside I can think of right away.

There is no disadvantage in forming an army, but not assigning any units apart from the loss of a HQ. Likewise there is no disadvantage in removing an army general from his stack, moving him somewhere else and reassigning his corps to another army.

[jeff b]

The question is, do you want to game the system? I would rather have the system fixed. I don't imagine the algorithm for adjusting seniority could be that difficult to adjust.

[kcole4001]

I think the system works fine.
A result is desired, so certain limitations or consequences are built in.
It's just another way around actually trying to use a poor commander for combat duties.