Leadership

[pgr]

If ya got a fort named for you, that's good enough.

John Adams Dix
You can send him to Sullfolk Va, use him to arrest Maryland secessionists, set up prisoner exchanges, and have him serve as an emissary to France in a pinch!

[Keeler]

On the Union side, you get ample 3-1-1 2* types. In fact, in a leader mod, some of these guys can probably be culled, especially the ones that never actually commanded anything resembling a Corps or independent force in the field. I am thinking of Whipple, Berry, Dix.

Dix was a major general; in fact he was, technically, the senior Major General of Volunteers. He also served as a department commander. I suspect some of the 2 star generals have that rank to simulate these small departments which existed, and that they are included for CP purposes when commanding garrisons and independent forces. In the interest of historical accuracy, there could be some tweaks made. Heintzelman, for example, should get an auto-promotion to 2 stars since he was one of the corps commanders created by Lincoln in March 1862, which is already scripted. Berry and Whipple were promising division commanders who died before reaching the corps level, so their current rank is questionable.

I remember the devs saying game rank does not equal historical rank. It's an abstraction, so beyond game balancing I wouldn't worry too much about who has 1 star or 2 stars.

[Q-Ball]

I remember the devs saying game rank does not equal historical rank. It's an abstraction, so beyond game balancing I wouldn't worry too much about who has 1 star or 2 stars.

I don't want to beat this drum too much, because the devs did great work and made many great decisions. But leaders was not one of them. I only listed 3 guys, but if you go through the Union 2*, you will find many that never commanded anything close to a Corps. I agree the in-game ranks should be based on what they did, not the actual rank, but using either criteria you find stuff that should not have passed a researcher with access to Google or Wikipedia. A sample:

--Gilbert auto-promotes to 2* in early 1862...at which point he was a captain.
--Speaking of captains, at the point that Jo Shelby appears as a Brigadier General, he was a captain in command of a Missouri cavalry company
--Hamilton: never commanded anything larger than a division
--Schenk, Milroy, Dix, Whipple, Berry: See last comment

Meanwhile, actual early corps commanders like Hardee, Bragg, Hientzelman, Porter have to "earn" it.

As soon as the database opens, I want to do a leader mod to undo some of the un-historical leader items. Because it's frankly a mess right now.

[GraniteStater]

Uh...uh...uh...

the US Army had two grades of general officers: Brigadier General & Major General. 'Grade' is the correct term - rank is your seniority within the grade, although it is used synonymously in everyday discussion.

That was it. Grant was eventually promoted to a new grade, (re)created during the war - Lieutenant General.

What we have is a Command Structure that is entirely artificial (i. e., a result of artifice) as part of the design. The ranks are not really supposed to be a model with a high degree of fidelity - they are there chiefly for us to play the game using the Army & Corps & Division structure we have.

Lyons was dead within a few months, so was Bee - etc., etc. It doesn't matter that much, it's just a way for us to have a Command Structure. Getting the stats right for TJ or Grant or even Hood is more pertinent, if one has to seek 'authenticity'. Or who should start out being a **, that's a good discussion, 'cuz it affects gameplay.

Maybe one should be able to promote, within parameters, those one wishes, to ** particularly, for a modest cost of some kind.

Just want to point out that no attempt was made, afaics, to really model much here - more a convenience for the design, than anything else, I think.

[pgr]

Gaining seniority: if my stack wins a glorious victory, do all leaders, including the guys not directly attached to combat elements, get a seniority bump, or does one have to be fighting?

[veji1]

I don't want to beat this drum too much, because the devs did great work and made many great decisions. But leaders was not one of them. I only listed 3 guys, but if you go through the Union 2*, you will find many that never commanded anything close to a Corps. I agree the in-game ranks should be based on what they did, not the actual rank, but using either criteria you find stuff that should not have passed a researcher with access to Google or Wikipedia. A sample:

--Gilbert auto-promotes to 2* in early 1862...at which point he was a captain.
--Speaking of captains, at the point that Jo Shelby appears as a Brigadier General, he was a captain in command of a Missouri cavalry company
--Hamilton: never commanded anything larger than a division
--Schenk, Milroy, Dix, Whipple, Berry: See last comment

Meanwhile, actual early corps commanders like Hardee, Bragg, Hientzelman, Porter have to "earn" it.

As soon as the database opens, I want to do a leader mod to undo some of the un-historical leader items. Because it's frankly a mess right now.

Agreed, it would be nice to have a real good clean up of the leader aspect of the game, with a better distribution and promotion of leaders on both side + a higher casualty ratio, to make the leader aspect of the game much more enriching... I want to risk losing good leaders in those biggish battles... Not end up with 2 deaths for the whole game.

[GraniteStater]

Gaining seniority: if my stack wins a glorious victory, do all leaders, including the guys not directly attached to combat elements, get a seniority bump, or does one have to be fighting?

Have never seen it - prolly gotta risk your skin to get ahead.

[GraniteStater]

Agreed, it would be nice to have a real good clean up of the leader aspect of the game, with a better distribution and promotion of leaders on both side + a higher casualty ratio, to make the leader aspect of the game much more enriching... I want to risk losing good leaders in those biggish battles... Not end up with 2 deaths for the whole game.

* Higher death/wound risk is arguable; personally, dunno, I seem to get enough popped in any start I care to look at - could be playstyle.

* better distribution and promotion of leaders on both side - per what criteria? I understand what you guys are saying, but stop & think a little bit - there were two, count 'em, two, general officer grades!! What's a poor game designer spozed to do at a certain point? Rewrite history?

* TJ can go to 3* - no, you don't, you're dead.

* Lyons can run wild in the West - hello, you're dead.

* Longstreet can go to 3* - "Great, thanks. What's a 3*?"

All those admirals - there were no Admirals! Until Farragut was appointed the very first one, ever, in the USN.

*sigh*

You guys are a great buncha players and some here could run rings around Bruce Catton when it comes to knowledge about the ACW.

But one of these days, I'm going to post a 17,500 word post on how software is developed. Maybe, it's because I'm in IT.

I've documented vaporware. This was a real conversation:

"We don't have that done yet."
"Well, what do I do? Sit around until I can get it?"

***

"OK, what's it supposed to do?"

That's called vaporware. Not very often, rarely, quite rarely, but, it happens. Yes, I've documented vaporware.

I don't like to do that. I am a highly trained and knowledgeable professional when it comes to technical communications.

But it happens.

And not everything is going to be hunky-dory in the model. And some things Ain't Gonna Change, at least not much, and not anytime soon.

Because this is a business. Believe me, resources have moved on in Ageod. Yes, they're still tweaking it & reading our input, but, geez, guys, can't you see that *, **, *** has Little or No connection with Historical Reality?


This is an outstanding model, top shelf & better. Keep the input coming, Pocus wants it, they all want it, but expectations need to be tempered a little bit.

There were only two grades of general officers and no flag officers in 1861. For History Heads & Grognards, That Should Tell You Something.

*, **, *** in this case, is not really trying to be a model - it's much, much more for playability.

Please forgive me if I get antsy sometimes. Just want to introduce some perspective, that's all.

[veji1]

Relax granite, no one is saying "this thing needs to be redone from top to bottom"... I think the whole thing is a very good system, with its necessary simplifications (the different stars) and all the challenges it forces the player to face. I am not advocating in any way a multiplication of leaders so that players can happily shop around.

I think rarity in terms of leaders at least until late 62 is a good thing for the game. It should be a big problem for the CSA but a problem too for the Union. I want to see the players forced to use baddish leaders because hey, they need them.

In terms of casualties, well I don't know if it's game play, but I could really use more deaths and injuries I can't count how many battles with 6+ divs on either side I've had, with corps structure and all, and no one dies... Part of the "what if" value of the game and what makes players fantasize is the leaders aspect... "what would have happened with Jackson in the Gettysburg campaign, etc...". I want to be faced with a situation where Barnard Bee becomes an important corps commander but where Longstreet dies in late 61. I want the "s***!" moment when you lose Sherman in early 62. I want that steady stream of promotions due to leader's losses... In the end I would like to reach end of 64 having lost 10/15 leaders, not 1 or 2. Might be just me, but I see as part of the fun.

[Keeler]

I don't want to beat this drum too much, because the devs did great work and made many great decisions. But leaders was not one of them.

I agree with everything you said in this post; leadership needs some cleanup. I would also add that there are some generals who should appear a bit earlier.

I should have been more specific and said the 1 star/2 star issue doesn't concern me as far as generic (3-1-1, no special abilities) leaders go. I am not too worried about Hamilton, a 3-1-1 commander, being 2 stars and Heintzelman, a 3-1-1 commander, being only 1 star. That's an issue of flavor and historical accuracy, which modding will eventually be able to fix. On the other hand, OO Howard gets auto-promoted, while Hancock, Meade, Hooker, Porter, Sickles, and other historical corps commanders don't. Perhaps there's a reason but it seems odd, even considering Howard was a political favorite. I don't want them all auto-promoted, but I would like it to make sense.

When it comes to these skilled leaders, we begin to run into the balancing dance. The game will be better off in the long run with Team Phil examining leadership in this broader sense, such as fine tuning the balance between the two sides or tweaking the promotion system. Some of the other stuff we can handle with mods.

And besides, Civil War leadership was a mess

[GraniteStater]

AFAIK, 3* are not entirely immune. Union has to risk Grant at 2*, pronto, to get a quick promo, 'cuz he is a high seniority 3* when he gets it and nobody gets riled when he gets bumped up & now, voila! a really, really good Army Commander.

I have lost him in October 61. That is definitely a grrr moment.

I've lost Jackson.

Quite recently, lost Hancock, first battle, killed.

My games seem to have enough woundings and killings. As a matter of fact, I think I usually have at least three KIAs and at least double that for WIAs by Dec 62.

The other part is just Look at Historical Reality & What is a Design team Supposed to Do?

There were only two general officer grades. Yeah, one could go into the ranking officers within the grades, but...

there are all kinds of arguments one could make at a design meeting. IRL, TJ is kaput by May 63. Should he be allowed to be an Army Commander? Well, if that's the case, why shouldn't Whipple be a **? Gilbert a **?

Custer was a Major General - of Volunteers. His real grade was Lt. Colonel. Don't forget, when the shooting started, he was a shavetail.

Grade promotions, brevets, yadda yadda, were entirely different in the 1860s. It was really a different world from what we tend to conceptualize about these things. Colonels led brigades - because brigade was not a 'real' formation. Brigade, Division, Corps, Army - these were really ad hoc groupings of convenience. The largest real formation was the regiment. Yes, these ad hoc groupings could persist for years, but there was no Finance Officer attached to Birney's Brigade. Regimental commanders did a lot of things for admin that are broken out now. There was no G1, G2, G3, G4. There was no General Staff. The US Army had no Chief of Staff.

Give me all the money and five years to come up with an Exquisite Model - what can I do about this subject? You want History? OK, just * and ** - Grant gets to be C-in-C of the US Army in 64, at ***. No others. R E Lee gets to be a *** in March 65.

You have to make design decisions and you want it to be playable.

I wouldn't expect the present command Structure and Leader 'configs' to be changed in any substantive way. "Just change the code." Remember, you change one line of code, ya gotta test it for ramifications in a lot of places. It ain't easy and takes time and money.

Just to take a WAG, CW2 could have 500 KLOC. Half a million lines of code, and I'm probably on the low side.

Good ideas, guys, good ideas, far be it from me to squelch enthusiasm. But when you start with Facts being Two General Officer grades, well...

what are you modeling? what are you trying to model? Is it playable? Etc., etc. It's not as easy as some might think.

[veji1]

Granite, no one is said that the structure has to be radicaly changed ! We all agree that the abstraction level of the stars + seniority concept works pretty darn well, it isn't broke so why replace it ? But to say that it couldn't use some tuning on the other hand would be a bit far fetched. all am sayin.

[GraniteStater]

Oh, I agree, it could. I don't even really care about the whole thing all that much and I do see that.

I wouldn't really expect it anytime soon - anytime soon at all.

Code & design has a certain inertia. They didn't change it in any fundamental way for 'Two'. So, not to be a wiseguy, but don't hold your breath.

I, personally, was rather amazed we got Two as soon as we did.

I'm gonna kiss that rodent's butt...

[veji1]

Oh, I agree, it could. I don't even really care about the whole thing all that much and I do see that.

I wouldn't really expect it anytime soon - anytime soon at all.

Code & design has a certain inertia. They didn't change it in any fundamental way for 'Two'. So, not to be a wiseguy, but don't hold your breath.

I, personally, was rather amazed we got Two as soon as we did.

I'm gonna kiss that rodent's butt...

Dude no one is talking about code change, it is about data change : change some dates for some leaders, who does or doesn't get autopromoted and when, death and injury rate, etc.. Nothing that couldn't be done by the community and then fitted in a patch if the powers that be like it.

[GraniteStater]

Feel free, guys.

Still needs to be tested, though. Even cosmetic changes in flat files can affect things. I'm no SQA expert, but I've worked with enough SQA and written enough func specs to know that sometimes even the most innocuous changes have unforeseen consequences. They have to adhere to their change control and release requirements.

In terms of project management, this is the RH tail-end of the bell curve for the project. Very, very far down the tail end.

No sane company takes modder's changes & slaps them in. There are business processes, the decision whether to do it at all, and someone has to account for changes being made.

We try to avoid the "uh-oh's" as much as possible. Careers, reputations, and office politics, too. That's reality in SDLC.

The 'KY rule' was incorporated from this community - after two or three years, I believe, to be 'official'.

Enough from me. I'm not on the Inside.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Just for reference, leader models, the scripts which bring them on-map, and the scripts which auto-promote are accessible outside the code in the game files, and based on my (partial) understanding of How-Things-Work, are essentially able to be adjusted now.

(I am not advocating that anyone do this. Make a mistake and your game will not like it, and patches are likely to overwrite or be incompatible with your changes.)

The point is, that changes to leaders are the kind of thing that the devs will probably not put much if any effort into, since players have access to it on their own.

Conversely, once things settle down and mods start coming out, leader-mods seem like one of the more straightforward changes that modders could make, so will probably be among the first ones we see. Discussions about leader abilities, stats, entry dates, etc. will be important to those efforts, and have dedicated sub-forums for people making serious efforts in that direction....

[GraniteStater]

Yeah, mod away. The KY Rule was a mod, originally.