I'd liked to see a General Staff function in V 2.
Some of the 'great' generals from the Vicky era, like Helmuth Von Molkte, did not had their greatest moments on a battlefield, but behind a desk planning and sending orders to their field generals.
It could function something like this
You could add ,say, up to 5 generals to the Staff. Some may be colonial orientated, giving a bonus to ORG for troops stationed in colonies or reducing maintenance cost. Others maybe national defense orientated giving bonuses to troops stationed at home or improving their ability to reduce revolt risk for POPs.
Is this idea reasonable or will it change the military mechanics too much?
This is a great idea, any customization of how your country is managed is welcome! I'd like to expand this "executive board" idea even to the government, something like appointing executives that give certain bonuses in their field. It's seen in many Paradox Games, and I always thought this was a great aspect of those games. In Hoi, obviously, you had the ministers. In Crusader Kings you had the court officials. In Rome you had the magistrates... Why not in Vicky? because if you removed the magistrates from rome, you'd still have individuals as generals, which would essentially be just like vicky, in terms of a level of individuality in certain aspects of a globally-oriented game. The same goes for HoI, if you removed the minister option, you'd still have individuals as generals, just like Vicky.
Performance-wise the individuals would be presented by the game automatically... in a monarchy you could name such individuals at your leisure, in a democracy they would appoint themselves according to election results, in a const. monarchy you could be given a limited choice of individuals and then appoint them as the HoS... many many excellent options would be gained by this