Confederate Seniority + Army Command Problem

[Canon]

Playing a PBEM game as the South, came across a fairly significant problem with the leadership of its armies. In 1861, formed three armies under the usual suspects (Johnston, Johnston, and Beauregard), with the plan being that either JE Johnston or Beauregard would be demoted to Corps command once Lee arrived to take control of an army. Polk also earned a promotion to 3 star, so when Lee showed up I had five 3-star Generals.

So with Lee unlocked in spring of 1862, I marched him to the CSA Army of the Potomac, intending to replace Beauregard with the military genius Lee. Then the problems started:



This goes against the rules in place of the game, because as you can see, Lee has more seniority (4) than Beauregard (6)




Annoyed, but not wanting to make a fuss mid game, I attempted to form a new army under Lee, with the CSA limit being 4 now, but then ran into the same problem, this time with Polk.



Which again, by the rules, wrong.


To keep the game going I simply made Lee into a Corps commander, but now I'm worried that this is a bug that has creeped into all games going forward. I'm playing patched up to 1.6. Was there anything in 1.6.1 - 1.6.3 that addressed this? Anyone else come across this problem?

[Gray Fox]

I just tried out a save game for 1862 and I made Lee commander of the 4th CSA Army with no problem. Also I am using the latest patch and you get six Army commands in 1862, not four. IIRC, it was always six.

[Durk]

It is a question of how you are handling you leaders. Keep each army commander as a distinct unit. This should allow you to do as you wish.
Remember corps commanders will hold on to their old commanders until a new army general is the one who is nearest.

[Canon]

I just tried out a save game for 1862 and I made Lee commander of the 4th CSA Army with no problem. Also I am using the latest patch and you get six Army commands in 1862, not four. IIRC, it was always six.

Hmm and you could replace an existing army commander no problem as well?

Weird, I guess I'll update after this game to 1.063 (latest?). I usually wait till it's official but in this case I'll make an exception.

I'm sure the limit is 6, I just knew I could make more than 3 so I expected to be able to create one with Lee no problem.

Thanks!

[Canon]

It is a question of how you are handling you leaders. Keep each army commander as a distinct unit. This should allow you to do as you wish.
Remember corps commanders will hold on to their old commanders until a new army general is the one who is nearest.

So you are saying if Beauregard was on his own, added Lee to him, and then switched it would work as expected? Seems like it shouldn't be that complicated, never remember it being that way before, but hey if that works I'd be happy. Generally as a rule I do keep my army commanders separate from combat troops to make sure as many troops can actually perform in combat, but wait until my corps have been established to my liking (if the enemy allows me the time and space).

But that wouldn't explain why Lee couldn't have command of a new army without penalties from Polk. Lee was on his own when I tried that, and Polk was a Corps commander in Tennessee.

[Captain_Orso]

Hmmm... this is an issue I've never seen before. The tool-tip messages obviously are incorrect in that R.E.Lee has a higher seniority than both Polk and Beauregard.

Maybe, just maybe, it has to do with your having dropping Lee into Beauregard's stack. I would have expected him to automatically be put furthest to the left and taken command, the same way it works with corps commanders, being that he has the highest seniority.

Possibly at some point Pocus decided to address the situation of a leader with higher seniority taking command of an army through dropping him into a stack (which is not the way you are supposed to do it), but I don't recall having heard of it.

What I would have suggested trying would be to delete the ord file you had generated up to that point, and simply give Lee an army command, which is the way you are supposed to do it. If you then wished to also relieve Beauregard of his army command at the same time, you could also do that too. I believe the game engine is sophisticated enough to recognize that Lee is higher ranking that Beauregard and thus assess no penalty, regardless what the tool-tip says. The tool-tip is limited in its overview, and not able to take the full situation into account, as I believe the game engine does.

Remember, what you are doing in the UI (User Interface) is plotting your turn. The order in which you input your plot has nothing to do with the order in which it is executed. The game engine determines the order in which your plot is executed including creating and relieving commands, and as far as I can remember, it has always done this correctly.

The only issue I know of dealing with jumping seniority is if you jump two or more levels if seniority. For example, if Lee actually did have a lower seniority than Beauregard and Polk (hypothetical seniorities: Beauregard (4), Polk (6), Lee (8)), the tool-tip would have told you that giving Lee an army command over Beauregard, and coincidentally Polk, would have been assessed with a penalty. If you decided to give Beauregard an army command in the same turn to alleviate the situation, you would get no tool-tip warning about Polk. You have this exact same situation when promoting over leaders with higher seniority.

It is I believe simply one of those things you are going to have to try out to see if it works as it ought to. If it doesn't, we'd have to see from there.

[Canon]

What I would have suggested trying would be to delete the ord file you had generated up to that point, and simply give Lee an army command, which is the way you are supposed to do it. If you then wished to also relieve Beauregard of his army command at the same time, you could also do that too. I believe the game engine is sophisticated enough to recognize that Lee is higher ranking that Beauregard and thus assess no penalty, regardless what the tool-tip says. The tool-tip is limited in its overview, and not able to take the full situation into account, as I believe the game engine does.

I'm going to save the backup file for that turn (we've moved on at this point) and resolve it after the conclusion of the game. Hopefully it works properly, and then it was just a misfired tooltip! I'll let you know how it goes!