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Sacer

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Aug 6, 2014
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What about having divisions acquire skills based how, when and where they fought? This basically already exists for division commanders but what about having it for divisions instead of this, or in addition to it? As an example, if a division fights well in a desert environment for a long time, it might acquire the skill "desert rats". If another division moves with great speed through enemy territory and covers vast distances, it might acquire the skill "ghost division".

I feel a system as such would add an interesting new dynamic to the game that makes divisions more personalized and unique.
 
Not plausible. If a general is a man who accumulates commanding experience, a division is a collection of men, who get killed, wounded, transferred into other units... 6 month time, and the division only has 10-20% original cadre, that acquired the skills - casualties amongst the infantry are greatest.
 
Not plausible. If a general is a man who accumulates commanding experience, a division is a collection of men, who get killed, wounded, transferred into other units... 6 month time, and the division only has 10-20% original cadre, that acquired the skills - casualties amongst the infantry are greatest.

Wow. Everything in a division can be reduced to its commander. That is an extremely commander-centric view to say the least.

I don't think a lot of people would agree with you here. Particularly those, like myself, who have actually served in the military. Every division has its own culture, institutions, symbols and history that sticks with it even when men die, notwithstanding who is commanding it.
 
I don't think a lot of people would agree with you here. Particularly those, like myself, who have actually served in the military. Every division has its own culture, institutions, symbols and history that sticks with it even when men die, notwithstanding who is commanding it.
I have served with my current unit for 4 years. With an average strength of 120 people in the company, I have seen over 300 come and go. And we are not in a high-intensity conflict, like WW2 was, and we are not a front-line unit. When personnel changeover is great, group skills are not retained - too few are left to retain them.
 
I have served with my current unit for 4 years. With an average strength of 120 people in the company, I have seen over 300 come and go. And we are not in a high-intensity conflict, like WW2 was, and we are not a front-line unit. When personnel changeover is great, group skills are not retained - too few are left to retain them.

Alright. So let me ask you the following two questions. When men left your unit, did everything stay the same? And when you had a new commander, did everything change?

A military unit, just like organisations in general (countries, NGOs, corporations etc), is a social organisation. That means certain things stay the same even thought the people within the organisation change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture
 
Alright. So let me ask you the following two questions. When men left your unit, did everything stay the same? And when you had a new commander, did everything change?
With each new commander, the company changed. With each new 1SG, it changed a little. With each new Platoon Sergeant, that platoon changed. 3 commanders, 4 1SG, 7 Platoon Sergeants changed while I was part of it. Lower levels of leadership had someone new in one of them almost monthly, with about 1/2 coming from outside the company, others promoted from the ranks.
 
With each new commander, the company changed. With each new 1SG, it changed a little. With each new Platoon Sergeant, that platoon changed. 3 commanders, 4 1SG, 7 Platoon Sergeants changed while I was part of it. Lower levels of leadership had someone new in one of them almost monthly, with about 1/2 coming from outside the company, others promoted from the ranks.

I'm sure many things stayed the same when those changes occurred.

All I am saying is that there is organisational culture in a division. And partly, this system is already implemented in HOI with experience and MP. A division doesn't loose all its experience when it looses most of its men, neither does a paratrooper unit transform into something else if it is reinforced after loosing 95% of the men.

I advocate additional layer of skills in addition to MP and XP.
 
With each new commander, the company changed. With each new 1SG, it changed a little. With each new Platoon Sergeant, that platoon changed. 3 commanders, 4 1SG, 7 Platoon Sergeants changed while I was part of it. Lower levels of leadership had someone new in one of them almost monthly, with about 1/2 coming from outside the company, others promoted from the ranks.

This is just a question - it's not meant to be loaded in any way - but is your unit more effective at certain operations that it has had more practice with now, regardless of leader? If so, then it could be an argument for a unit acquiring capabilities.
 
This is just a question - it's not meant to be loaded in any way - but is your unit more effective at certain operations that it has had more practice with now, regardless of leader? If so, then it could be an argument for a unit acquiring capabilities.
Not really. When we came back from a deployment, we lost 50% of our manpower, who were transferred or got out, and got replacements with less than a year of service. Half of our acquired skills, honed by practice, went out the window. We had to retrain the soldiers, but over the long run - our capabilities look like a sinusoid chart - they go up, experienced personnel gets replaced with fresh people, it goes down. We train them up, then more older hands get replaced, and readiness goes down.
We are not a combat company - we have a LOT of obligations besides just training most of the time. Think about the supply truck companies, that haul cargo to and from the front line. We are like that.
 
This would mean that there are certain degrees of training to make a unit fit for battle but the 'XP' gained is irrelevant as the personel disperses automatically.
Now we have one corundrum: During WWII German soldiers fought for a most indefinite time at the front thus 'gaining XP'. Even if wounded, they came back to other units who were still fighting. The German 'Auftragsarmee'-concept enabled the NCO's to work without officers and experienced privates could lead a small group like a NCO. The veterancy of said units was not lost but feared by their opponents. Same is true for american soldiers because even when they were through with duty - how to come back? Not everything was going according to plans. Gamewise, how to cope with that? Enable Germans to gain XP and other countries not?

I would suggest another approach:
There is a training level that influences the battleworthyness of the unit. This level can be increased (quickly) by gaining combat XP. The unit could gain general certain skills because the knowledge picked up is told the new recruits by the vets and NCO's.
The latter are very important to uphold unit traditions and knowledge as they are usually the most experienced (combat terms) or call it battle-hardened soldiers and those, who stay the longest in their unit. Also they are responsible for the training of the men. One could say, they are the heart of the unit.
The officers change quite quickly as they advance through the ranks and get other commands. They are skilled soldiers but only a very small group to make an impact.

Another kind of XP gained should go into research as the analysis of combat gives raise to new tactics and approaches.

Put together:
Units can be of level
recruit (just raised, penalties)
green (training finished, unit unbled, small penalties)
regular (extended training or small battle XP, unit works as intended)
veterans (not reachable by training, small boni)
elite (not reachable by training, greater boni)
XP may decay to fall back to training standards.

Units can gain small feats like 'jungle rats', 'trench fighters' and keep them. Maybe it is harder to get new ones.

Battle XP influences tech development.
 
Units do not change becouse men do, Romans had many veteran legions, often made of new recruits just like in modern days. And time period was not 5 months, it could have been 50 years.
 
Interesting Idea. Rome 2 played with this notion though they had a very generous time span of 400 years to play with. Their new stand alone game Atilla Total War will make it a bit easier to manage just how to select what type of upgrades you want your created military unit to have as Rome 2 just gave you all boxes with no visual map to show just what leads where. So, I can see this as a bit of flavor added in as HOI 3 you could in a way customize a specific division based on which general you had. Now there has to be some balance as I don't think we want to spend a half hour or more just playing spreadsheet hero trying to assign bonus's manually to units as in HOI 3 did with selecting divisional commanders.

What would be great is if this was something done automatically say if a particular unit is motorized they get better at being that unit while in operation. If they go into harsh environments, they get experience specifically in fighting in winter conditions as they know how to operate than a completely brand new motorized unit that just got sent to the front. Much like the OP suggestion for "Desert Rats" though in a more universal setting it would be some form of Desert Warfare experience.
 
Units do not change becouse men do, Romans had many veteran legions, often made of new recruits just like in modern days. And time period was not 5 months, it could have been 50 years.
Do you know this, because you were there? A unit cannot be veteran and be made up of new recruits. Simple impossibility.
Sorry.

Easy Company?
A unit will gain experience, true, not arguing that. But how the hell will a unit know how to fight in a certain condition that much better, if only 20% of its members ever fought in those conditions?
Experience will take care of that in game terms - no need to introduce "perks".
 
A unit will gain experience, true, not arguing that. But how the hell will a unit know how to fight in a certain condition that much better, if only 20% of its members ever fought in those conditions?
Experience will take care of that in game terms - no need to introduce "perks".

Because some types of experience becomes institutionalized.
 
Because some types of experience becomes institutionalized.

True. What is learned is passed from the NCOs and veteran soldiers who were very interested in that the new guys did not screw things up. Thus building up a kind of unit 'traditions' that might get lost over the next peacetime periods. But in war those tricks were kept in mind and any army worth their salt rotates out NCOs fresh from the front to teach this kind of stuff to the new recruits and some administrative staff will get them into military canon over time meaning that a helpful way of acting developed by a single unit will pass this knowledge first among their own numbers, then to units where personel is transferred and finally to the general staff who observe those developments on the big screen. And then it will finally passed into the training of units. I mean we do not march up against each other in lines of 3 and shoot anymore? Also we do not dig trench systems anymore. I would rather see a way of training units to a special role like ordering a division of infantry but with jungle equipment and expertise (unlocks after jungle expertise 'researched' or unlocked with fuhrer mana or stuff) and this would increase training i.e. build time for the unit and makes production more expensive in turns.
 
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And it all is encompassed in the unit statistic called EXPERIENCE. As old experienced guys leave the unit, experience decreases, because new guys never fought in that environment, only learned it. WHY is there a need for a "perk"?
 
I think you guys are heavily underestimating the changeover of personnel when you talk about a unit having "institutional" experience separate to that of the officer and enlisted who comprise it (and who are killed, wounded or transferred in large numbers). Experience should be built up by combat (and/or whatever mission the unit is supposed to carry out) but eroded by casualties. One of the most obvious examples of how hugely a unit can change over the course of the war to my mind is from WW1. The 16th (Irish) and 10th (Irish) Divisions were as the name suggests, primarily recruited in Ireland at the start of the war. Both saw significant combat on the Western Front and at Gallipoli and in the Middle East. By the end of the war, the 16th had only a single "Irish" battalion remaining, the remainder being English, Scottish and Welsh. The 10th Division ended the war primarily manned by battalions of the Indian Army. Assigning either division any characteristic derived from the exploits of either division earlier in the war wouldn't be sustainable - the men who carried out those exploits were dead, missing, wounded or redeployed elsewhere.

Towards the end of WW2, on the German side in particular, units were thrown together from whatever units and leaders could be found. Giving them an impressive sounding title, or assigning them to a prestigious unit didn't suddenly make old men and young boys become super soldiers. Soldiers and NCOs were dying far too often to absorb, let alone share, unit lessons across a division. The sort of "lessons learned" recap, where a unit integrates experience gained into its training across an entire division or brigade is not done at the side of a road in occupied territory. It happens at the end of wars, or when the unit is taken out of the line for months or years at a time. This sort of time out simply wasn't available on the Soviet, German and after 1942 British/US sides.
 
And it all is encompassed in the unit statistic called EXPERIENCE. As old experienced guys leave the unit, experience decreases, because new guys never fought in that environment, only learned it. WHY is there a need for a "perk"?

I think you guys are heavily underestimating the changeover of personnel when you talk about a unit having "institutional" experience separate to that of the officer and enlisted who comprise it (and who are killed, wounded or transferred in large numbers). Experience should be built up by combat (and/or whatever mission the unit is supposed to carry out) but eroded by casualties. One of the most obvious examples of how hugely a unit can change over the course of the war to my mind is from WW1. The 16th (Irish) and 10th (Irish) Divisions were as the name suggests, primarily recruited in Ireland at the start of the war. Both saw significant combat on the Western Front and at Gallipoli and in the Middle East. By the end of the war, the 16th had only a single "Irish" battalion remaining, the remainder being English, Scottish and Welsh. The 10th Division ended the war primarily manned by battalions of the Indian Army. Assigning either division any characteristic derived from the exploits of either division earlier in the war wouldn't be sustainable - the men who carried out those exploits were dead, missing, wounded or redeployed elsewhere.

Towards the end of WW2, on the German side in particular, units were thrown together from whatever units and leaders could be found. Giving them an impressive sounding title, or assigning them to a prestigious unit didn't suddenly make old men and young boys become super soldiers. Soldiers and NCOs were dying far too often to absorb, let alone share, unit lessons across a division. The sort of "lessons learned" recap, where a unit integrates experience gained into its training across an entire division or brigade is not done at the side of a road in occupied territory. It happens at the end of wars, or when the unit is taken out of the line for months or years at a time. This sort of time out simply wasn't available on the Soviet, German and after 1942 British/US sides.

So let's compromise then. Have a system where divisions can acquire skills, but make them loose the skills if they loose a large number of personnel within a short period of time - just like experience.
 
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