Organizing units question....

[Jones76]

Ok, I spent the last few days reading the wiki and forums here, then last night when through the tutorial twice. Second time around I thought I had a grasp as how to organzie my units, but Im stumped when I started the Bullrun scenerio.

I click on the Army of the Potomac and it's not showing any corps or divisions, only brigades. First I tried to merge a couple smaller brigades together but could not do it. I clicked on the 2 star general T. Holmes the ctrl-click some brigades to try and create a divsion, but can't.

Any ideas as to what Im doing wrong? Thanks.

[Coregonas]

You can not form a division if:

a) the general is also brigaded --- i.e. as Holmes in your game

b) the general is not activated (you can read it)

c) the general is locked (also other locked units block this, but you can get it out of the stack)

so either un-brigade first Holmes (the minus sign) then create division

... it is best to give divisions to 1 star generals... let the 2* create corps

[Coregonas]

To create division.. you must then pick the general, and create the "form division" button--- the one with a camp / tent

Also...remember to get the last patch 1.09 because in older versions the create division system is totally different.

[Jones76]

What would prevent me from merging two brigades together?

[Primasprit]

Hi Jones76!

To create a division you need to select the general and press the button on the special orders panel to enable divisional command for him. This is only possible if the general is active. After that select the general and the units you like to add to the division and press the 'Create Division' button.

Cheers
Norbert

Edit: Hu... too late.

[Coregonas]

In the game you can not merge brigades.

You must add brigades into a division... else they are simply in the same stack.

Well there are some rare cases--- when 2 units- (including brigades) are half-destroyed you can merge them and transform into a single brigade. You can not undo this.. only loading the turn again.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[beefcake]

The screenshot you included is for July '61. According to the thread URL below, divisions can't be created until late 1861.

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=7695&highlight=create+divisions

[Doomwalker]

Hey Jones, for the picture supplied here is the way to form a division with Holmes. First thing you have to do with him is detach his brigade. If you click on the tent looking bar which I have placed an arrow to on this picture. You will get a munu that should have a - button on it. Click that to seperate Holmes Bde. This should, if he is active, highlight a button to form the Division. Click that, then Ctrl + click the brigades you want in the division, hit the + button and you should have the start of a division. You will be able to have up to 18 elements in this formation.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Jones76]

Looks like we all pounced at once here to answer the poor fella. Hope he doesn't suffer "information overload"

Hehe, well what Im suffering most from is my obsessive need to have my corps/div/brigades all neatly organized at a certain strength/level.

I guess what I want to do is to say have.....

1 brigade = 4 inf reg / 1 cav reg / 1 art reg

1 division = 3-4 brigades(or whatever they should be)

1 Corps = 3-4 Divisions(or whatever they should be)

1 Army = 3-4 Corps(or whatever they should be)

Im a long time player of HOI and spend a lot of time organizing units in a certain way.

[Doomwalker]

Man when I started writing that there was no replies to this thread, daaannnnggggg.

As far as neatly organizing your military, forget about it. I tried that too when I started playing, but have since given up. Now I just try to get what I feel is an effective fighting force and hammer the opponent.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Jones76]

You can't get too neat because the brigades are of all different makeups. Some are individual elements. Some are already combinations, of other elements. So the closest you can get is to try to make the number of types of elements match somewhat. In some respects, I wish we could buy individual elements, but there is a limitation on the different units selectable in the "Reinforcement" screen, so that it is hard to work with large numbers of single element brigades.

So if you have a brigade with say 3 elements of inf and 1 elements of art, you cannot add/deduct/merge other elements?

I guess what to do in that event, is to organize on the Divisional level.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Jones76]

Organizing on the divisional level is much more easily accomplished since you have a total of 18 elements allowed within the Division.

Ok, with that brings the question of how many (roughly) elements made up a Civil War era division. Meaning, if an element/regiment = 1,000 men.....would (10) regiments per division be a good idea to shoot for?

I know I may seem very anal about this, but is one of the things that makes games like this fun for me. Getting everything all neat and organized so to have it utterly destroyed in one battle.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Jones76]

but in game you are allowed 18 elements in a division (including the Leader).

Is there a limit to how many elements can be in a Corps?....Army?

I have yet to play the full campaign(my mouth is watering just thinking about it) but what I invision is having say 1 Army guard Tennessee. Then from that, have 1 corps from that army in each region along the border with say 3-4 divisions in each corps.

With this I can more easily know what I have where rather than just a bunch of units scattered around such a huge area.

Granted, what I "envision" and what may actually happen may be two totally different things, so pardon my ignorance.

[Doomwalker]

Ok, I am reading over the histories and OOB's of some of the battle from the Civil WAR, and find that history and game will not mesh together well in reguards as to what is in a division. For instance Wilcox's Division of Longstreet's corp contained about 5500 men at 2nd Bull Run. The division was composed of 13 regiments plus arty. Now in game that would make his division 13,000+ strong, this is almost as high as Longstreet's total for his Corp which was 19,624. You will never be able to fully mimmic a historical unit with the 1,000 man regiments in game. If I remember correctly, I believe I heard somewhere in the past that the average size for a regiment mid war was 300.

[Doomwalker]

Corps are not element restricted, they just need enough CP to handle what units you put in there. The CP total for corps varies also, I believe this is based off of the commander of the armies startegic rating.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Jones76]

Some interesting links concerning the above:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/getttour/armorg.htm and

http://www.geocities.com/mo21infantry/organize.html

Thanks!

The largest single organization of an army was a corps (pronounced "core"). The Union Army at Gettysburg had seven infantry corps and a cavalry corps, each commanded by a major general. The Confederate Army had three infantry corps, each commanded by a lieutenant general. Typically, a Confederate corps was much larger than a Union corps.

A corps included three infantry divisions and an artillery brigade in the Union army or an artillery battalion in the Confederate Army.

The infantry division was commanded by a major or a brigadier general and composed of two to four infantry brigades.

The brigade, commanded by a brigadier general, was composed of four to six regiments, and was the primary organization used by commanders in battle.

Very good info.