Random & hidden leaderskills

[unmerged(1973)]

Originally posted by Timothy Ortiz
I didn't know that. I know a lot about Grant, Lee, and Jackson. Not so much about McClellan

There is a brief McClellan biography here:

http://www.civilwarhome.com/macbio.htm

The fact is that the Union army had to appoint a lot of young and unexperienced Generals in 1861. The US army back then had no system of mandatory retirement policy. A officer kept his command as long as he wanted. For example (and this is the worst but not only example) Colonel John Walbach commanded the 4th Artillery regiment when he died in 1857. He was then 93 years old and had served in the army since 1799.

Most of the generals and colonels in 1861 had been in their commands since before the mexican war and some of them (like Winfield Scott) had even held high commands in the war of 1812. They were far to old to take to the field during the civil war (well, Old John Wool did do good service).

The lack of a retirement policy meant that a newly comissioned pre civil-war officer could look forward to 8 years service before reaching 1st Lieutenant and another 10 years to become captain. It would then probably take him 20 years before promotion to major and perhaps finally after 60 years of service becoming a colonel.

The result was a lot of grey haired junior officers and that most of the talented officers (like the future stars of the civil war) resigned from the army in the late 1840's or in the 1850's too seek brighter futures in civil life...

When war broke out, these people who had never commanded more than a company, rejoined the army and had to command regiments, divisions and armies. No wonder that both the union and rebel armies made a lot of mistakes during 1861 and 1862...

 

[unmerged(15764)]

what about in a fantasy style scenario we could randomize everything could lead to some interesting gameplay EH?

 

[unmerged(1973)]

Originally posted by Ape
Well an idea is to take a look at the old goodie "No Greater Glory", and how they circumvented hindsight. First there was an option of historical values and randomized, and then all generals were ranked, and the highest ranking/influence had to have the largest army, or his homestate would get pissed, the second highest had to have the second largest army and so on. Made hindsight almost worhless..... and if the hidden values would be used in conjunction with a ranking system...... and then we might get McClellan in command of the Army of Potomac.....

Agree. The No Greater Glory system was also very good. Those who are interested in old games can download it here

No greater glory

It's 12 years old, so it should be possible to do something similar today

 

[Tel]

I would love to see randomized, hidden leader values as well.

I believe the actual rating would have to be revealed over time, rather than simply going by whether or not they have won a lot of battles. As Frodon said, a real commander in chief wouldn't have enough information to say this general has a rating of 7. But he would be able to get reports from battles to get an idea of how that general performed. With no tactical battle system we don't really get to see that.
Sure we could tell if a general lost a battle where he had a 2:1 numerical advantage, but we wouldn't really know if that was due to poor generalship. Unless you watch the battle the whole time you can't see exactly what factors influenced the outcome. Using the HOI battle system, there might be bad weather in the province that affected the outcome more than the general's skills for example.

I agree the No Greater Glory system was good, but I'm not sure the ranking/influence part of the system would work too well with a real time game. I don't want to lose a couple of battles because I was busy trying to figure out if there would be a big dissent hit from assigning Grant to command my second largest army. Not to mention trying to remember which of my armies is the second largest.

 

[Lord Martin]

I´ve thought a bit about radom leader values. When I played EUII I knew exactly when I would get my leaders and how good they where. I could plan my wars after them. E.g I know that Sweden gets great leaders in the begining of the 17th centuary and I know that that´s a good time to fight in EVERY game (If I´m not really have screw things up).
I therefore think that radomized values would be a really intresting and fun part.

Ok Peopel will say that this is totaly ahistorical. But you can´t (at leaste I can´t) play this type of game without beeing ahistorical.

 

[unmerged(12603)]

Considering johan said hes writing this from scratch i feel that this would be able to implement, I like the idea but i feel you should have some control over it. (maybe be able to Train your generals to be better but still have the randomness that they might be a panicker in battle)

 

[unmerged(1973)]

Originally posted by HoMIciDaL_PuPPy
Considering johan said hes writing this from scratch i feel that this would be able to implement

Well, let's hope Johan & co stumble over this thread and at least consider to make random/hidden leaders an option.

 

[Tim O]

Also, more about loyalty values. Fighting Joe Wheeler who resigned from the U.S. army to join the Confederate cause was promoted to Lieutenant General by 1865. In 1864 near the end of the war, General Robert E. Lee said that Wheeler, aged 28 years, was one of the best Confederate cavalry leaders. But thenhe was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served in the Congress in 1881-1882,1883, and 1885-1900, he worked for reconciliation between the North and the South.
And then In the Spanish-American War General Wheeler served as the major general of volunteers and defeated the Spanish at Las Guasimas on June 24. He was a counterpart at the battle of San Juan Hill on July 1. General Wheeler also helped in the attack of Santiago de Cuba. In 1899-1900 he commanded a brigade in the Philippine-American War. In September, 1900 Wheeler retired as a brigadier general in the regular army. What should be this man's loyalty value?

 

[Ape]

Originally posted by Timothy Ortiz
General Wheeler served as the major general of volunteers and defeated the Spanish at Las Guasimas on June 24. He was a counterpart at the battle of San Juan Hill on July 1. General Wheeler also helped in the attack of Santiago de Cuba. In 1899-1900 he commanded a brigade in the Philippine-American War. In September, 1900 Wheeler retired as a brigadier general in the regular army. What should be this man's loyalty value?

Loooooow since IIRC in once of them battles in the Spanish-American war he said something along the lines "We have them Yankees on the run!"

 

[Tim O]

Well, he did say that. But he also worked greartly for north/south reconciliation and lead the Union to success in battle. It's not like he ever switched sides during battle or disobyed any orders given to him.

 

[unmerged(2238)]

Someone brought up how random leader values without hidden values don't solve the problem of picking the best general all the time. And that is true. But let's not overlook that random leader values DO solve the problem of "When do I fight" issues; that is to say, in EU, I would just sit around and wait because I knew, for example, that Napoleon is coming up for me and I could go on a conquering spree, which leads to VERY ahistorical planned conquest periods. Randomized leader values would solve THAT tendency.

On the other point, I like the idea of hidden values sort of, but the problem, as we've seen with HOI, is that it can be very,very frustrating. Did you know or EVER notice ANYTHING about the "loyalty" of your generals? I never did. Supposedly it does something. But there's so little detail about it that it just ends up being another frustrating thing in HOI that I didn't care or understand. That's partly documentation, but it's also a question of player control.

 

[unmerged(1973)]

Originally posted by Ape
Loooooow since IIRC in once of them battles in the Spanish-American war he said something along the lines "We have them Yankees on the run!"

He wasn't the only ex-rebel general to fight in the Spanish-american war. Robert E Lees nephew Fitzhugh Lee who was a major general in JEB Stuarts cavalry commanded a US Corps against the spanish.

He died in 1904 and was buried in his U.S. Army uniform, which caused one ex-Confederate who attended his funeral to say "What'll Stonewall Jackson think when Fitz turns up in heaven wearing that!"

 

[unmerged(5178)]

No Greater Glory type prestige system would be the best option in my mind. Have generals acquire prestige at peacetime regardless of their skills, and then lose it in wartime through sub-optimal performance.

Penalize using low prestige good generals to command large formations, if higher prestige generals are available. The penalty could be lower loyalty or dissent.