Problems with Detachment Army assignments

[Chris Ferrous]

I've just started another Grand Campaign and immediately I have had a problem with the apparently random assignment of detachments to the incorrect Army.

I must admit that I've never found the 'Manage Forces' screen particularly user-friendly but on this occasion the problem seems unsolvable and it also affects the mandatory attacks of the French 1st Army.

The situation is as follows:-

Having spent about half an hour going through the War Plans, Diplomacy and Events subroutines I came to the Military section of the game. Mandatory attacks were demanded of the French 1st and 2nd Armies and with 1st Army occupying three sectors (Briey, St Mihiel, and Val de Mosselle) opposite Metz it seemed logical to launch all three stacks at that city. I intended leaving 1 Corps behind in each starting location just in case I actually got into Metz thereby preventing a German incursion into those areas. Unfortunately, when I pulled my chosen Corps from each stack none were assigned to 1st Army! One was labelled as an Independent Detachment but the other 2 were given to 3rd Army a couple of regions away (!?).

This sort of thing does happen sometimes, and it's annoying, but sometimes it can be rectified by going into the forces management screen and sometimes it can't and I give up assuming the game knows what it's doing.

But on this occasion I was only able to rectify the Independent Detachment and duly put it back into 1st Army but as a separate stack. The other 2 Corps are unplayable as they've been allocated to 3rd Army which is locked! The forces management screen won't let me touch them.

This raises two issues: 1) these stacks, since they now belong to 3rd Army against my express orders, cannot draw on the Reserves of 1st Army if attacked, and 2) three Corps that were part of an Army required to make a mandatory attack have been 'let off the hook'.

Can anyone think of a way out of this or do I have to start the game again?

Has anyone else had problems with the force management screen?

Thanks in advance.

[calvinus]

If you go to the map view, select the independent detachment and drag and drop it with the right mouse key, can you assign the stack to the proper army?

[Chris Ferrous]

No, unfortunately not.

The independent stack had already been re-assigned back to 1st Army but I am not allowed to right click on the two stacks that have been given to 3rd Army. As soon as I do so the view reverts to the 1st Army stack in the same zone. I can view them with a left click, or by using space bar to scroll through the stacks but I cannot manipulate them in any way.

Here's the game file again. First Army is just west of Metz.

[Caccio]

Chris, I too have had difficulties with this screen, often and frustrating enough to render the game almost unplayable. This is too bad, because otherwise it's a great game, so I keep banging my head against this wall. In particular, I find it impossible to assign units to my GHQ, because it does not appear on the lower part of the screen with the army HQ's. Still worse, I've been unable to get units out of the GHQ, even by trying to form a separate, independent stack in the same region.

I hope that our comments will get the developers' attention, and that this confusing and faulty interface unit will, before the next patch, get a thorough overhaul.

[WallysWorld]

I too have/had some problems with this screen, but calvinus' suggestion of right-clicking and grabbing a force and placing it anywhere on the map works. Do that and up pops a list of the armies you can assign the corps or unit too. The unit doesn't move to where the army is located, but it will designate itself as belonging that the army you choose and then you can move it.

[Chris Ferrous]

Yes the right click method CAN be helpful, but it was of no use in my situation above, as the armies to which my units were arbitrarily assigned were locked and unmanageable.

In other words, once the incorrect asignment had been made, the 'lost Corps' were locked too.

[calvinus]

I added a fix: immobilized armies are now not taken into account when detaching corps. I think this will fix the problem for the future. Stuff for a future patch.
Thanks, Calvinus.

[Chris Ferrous]

Thanks Calvinus

That will be helpful.