Auto promote question (USSR purge related)

[unmerged(103313)]

Does auto promote stop firing once you've run out of major generals? I think it has but I'm not sure. Making lots of cannon fodder helped get Konev and Zhukov (both lived through the purge!) up to field marshal, but at some point the expansion seemed to stop.

It got me to think of not going through with the purge. Would keeping all those leaders be worth it after auto-promote goes through? 170 leaders really seems like a lot to lose, and many of them are good. Losing Alksnis, Berzin, and Tukhachevsky is also very nasty.

 

[KevinG]

Does auto promote stop firing once you've run out of major generals? I think it has but I'm not sure. Making lots of cannon fodder helped get Konev and Zhukov (both lived through the purge!) up to field marshal, but at some point the expansion seemed to stop.

It got me to think of not going through with the purge. Would keeping all those leaders be worth it after auto-promote goes through? 170 leaders really seems like a lot to lose, and many of them are good. Losing Alksnis, Berzin, and Tukhachevsky is also very nasty.

Auto-promote works by promoting your leaders until you have a certain ratio of mj generals, lt generals, generals, and FMs compared to the size of your army. If you got all your mj generals promoted then auto-promote would most likely stop working because your general/FM to troop ratio is too high. One thing you can do to get all your good mj generals promoted to lt generals is promote crappy lt generals until your mj generals get autopromoted, however doing this ensures you won't have any autopromotions to generals or FMs, but I think it's worth it for most countries.

 

[unmerged(103313)]

Manual promotions really aren't necessary in most cases. Lt. Generals commanding 3 divisions aren't so sprawling as to be a pain to manage the way Majors are.

Does the USSR suddenly get a fresh new crop of generals by '41? If not, I'm going to try playing the kinder, gentler USSR with no purge. Besides higher quality, I think in the long run they might actually be able to command a greater quantity more effectively...

The additional dissent is just a few months extra, and -2 hawk isn't a train wreck, and staying full standing army for a little while longer could end up saving quite a bit of IC as a result of gearing.

 

[blue emu]

Does the USSR suddenly get a fresh new crop of generals by '41?

Every year, at least until 46 or so. I would not take the -2 Hawk unless forced to... the +21% build costs plus the multiple hits to upgrade cost (lost Hawk bonus and delayed Standing Army discount) will cost you FAR more ICs than your extra gearing will save.

 

[unmerged(103313)]

Indeed, the USSR does get plenty of generals later on, many more than I thought, because I would normally ignore the skill 1 idiots. Ok, now looking at things, it looks like the USSR does get enough generals to run things, even with a 50% militia mix; it would only potentially have problems by the mid 50's after taking China, in which case it has already won.

I probably expanded the army too much early on instead of making factories. Alksnis really seems to be the main reason not to purge at this point, and he doesn't matter much against an AI that doesn't understand air war at all. Maybe in multiplayer it would be a bigger factor.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

It's 1945 in my current SOV game and I still have plenty of low skilled major generals that I can use. Not to mention lots of Lt Gen commanding 2 1943 militia on a beach.

Just accept the purges which gets rid of lots of old low skilled Generals and FM. After fighting battles and building up your army with hundreds [400+] of infantry and/or militia, you get lots of autopromotions like Major Gen Tolbukhin becoming a skill 6 Offensive FM. In my current game, it's 1945 and I have some spare skill 4 or higher Generals in my pool for whom I don't have any infantry to command [very hard game]. Unless you are giving every named commander just 1 division to command, I can't see how you could run out of leaders with autopromotion.

And as Blue Emu mentions, losing 2 Hawk moves IS a very bad thing.

As for gearing with fully drafted army: it's not worth it. As you move towards full standing army, you get more organization, cheaper and quicker upgrades, and eventually experience for your newly built divisions. Even with full standing army, you still get gearing for the first 6 in a long series, and the difference between 6 in a serial run [at 75%] and 10 in a serial run [55%] is not as signficant compared with those other three factors. The difference in organization alone is enormous: a 20% range from full drafted to full standing army.