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Patrick captured St. Louis after a siege and was promotable and so I promoted him. The next turn he had lost his exceptional leader rating and it was replaced with a dispirited leader rating.

How does this happen? Any ideas? Seems strange since he was just promoted.

I have attached a photo showing his new dispirited attribute.

Every leader has predifined different stats and abilities for every rank. So if you promote him, he may not be as good as before. But on the other hand he may become better.
The best example for this is general Hood, who was great divisional commander, good corps commander, but awfull Army commander. The change in the way he handled DIFFERENT tasks is described by different stats he has.

In your specific example, Cleburne is getting dispirited leader trait when he is promoted to 2 stars. I think the trait is given on the basis of historical fact that he proposed freeing and arming slaves and argued that if the CSA did not do that, they will loose the war. IMHO that is maybe too harsh, and he should not be given the trait only because he was telling the truth.

For Cleburne in particular, I have been trying to get this changed!

It was someone’s opinion that because he proposed arming slaves and bringing them into the army, that he caused serious discontent in the ranks.

There is no evidence of anything like this happening. In fact Lee and several others proposed the same thing at different times.

So far as I can find, it had no effect on his troops or the majority of officers in the army. There were a few Generals much opposed to the idea but they had no effect on his generalship and he performed as well or better as a Major General than he did as a Brigadier General. With other, like Hood, it is a demonstratable difference in how they handled command.

OK, I shall remove this trait from the next patch base then

Ol' Choctaw wrote:For Cleburne in particular, I have been trying to get this changed!

It was someone’s opinion that because he proposed arming slaves and bringing them into the army, that he caused serious discontent in the ranks.

There is no evidence of anything like this happening. In fact Lee and several others proposed the same thing at different times.

So far as I can find, it had no effect on his troops or the majority of officers in the army. There were a few Generals much opposed to the idea but they had no effect on his generalship and he performed as well or better as a Major General than he did as a Brigadier General. With other, like Hood, it is a demonstratable difference in how they handled command.

He gave a formal speech in front of all the leadership of the AoT. It was recorded on paper (at least after the fact). It wasn't a political statement, but a practical one. They were losing and he was looking for solutions. Most of the leadership wasn't, and never would be ready for the proposal. Lee and Ewell, among others, may have discussed it but they didn't ever actually propose it or push for it in the way Cleburne did... His speech was ordered repressed by every ranking person who saw/heard it, and a copy didn't even surface until 25 years after the war.

Now! Whether that should affect his abilities automatically as a corps commander is a rather different question. Say he ended up marching to Pea Ridge instead of the AoT. After helping crush the Union, he takes command and captures St Louis like is shown above. He wouldn't be making any proposals, at least until the CSA started losing, so why is he a dispirited commander? I personally don't think it should come up unless he becomes a 3* (LT General) which he never became. He's not going to propose anything unless the war is getting desperate, and even then, it's going to get suppressed unless he's powerful enough to show it directly to the press.

PhilThib wrote:OK, I shall remove this trait from the next patch base then

Beat me to it. Sounds good. The biggest thing that kept Cleburne from advancing was his alliances with Hindman and Hardee, and the complete workplace disfunctionality that Bragg had with his subordinates. It had little to do with his "proposal", and was only somewhat due to his nationality and education.

What can I say “Bragg” he kept many from promotion and refused or could not look at anything objectively.

He held many back from their potential. But lets not get into all that. Cleburne under a different commander might have shone even brighter. Look at what he and Churchill did under Smith in Kentucky! Much more dynamic and dramatic than anything that could or would happen under Bragg. And he hated them for it.

This is one of the only problems I have with AACW and I guess CW2. Once you play a few times, you know who gets nerfed after promotion, and then you will never promote them ever again. I never promote Longstreet, Smith, or Hood past 2-star, nor A.P. Hill or Ewell beyond 1-star. To me this is very gamey.

I would love to see an additional promotion system added on. You can still have manual promotions, but stick an auto-promote feature which promotes the #1 seniority leader automatically, thus taking the decision out of your hands. That way Longstreet won't languish as a Major-General while other leaders are promoted again and again over top of him.

Canon wrote:
I would love to see an additional promotion system added on. You can still have manual promotions, but stick an auto-promote feature which promotes the #1 seniority leader automatically, thus taking the decision out of your hands. That way Longstreet won't languish as a Major-General while other leaders are promoted again and again over top of him.

Hmmmm...very interesting I think I like that idea.

One thing that has bothered me; if a 'senior' General is angered by the promotion of a 'junior' General wouldn't the converse be true. the 'junior' (who has 'earned' a promotion), become annoyed at not being promoted while the Army plays politics? A disgruntled Longstreet would not be a pleasant thing! LOL (It might be another way of forcing a decision.)

Speaking about generals and promotions, etc, what would be great would be to have a system similar to what existed in a very old gem of a DOS game, (I think it was from Fort Sumter to Appomatox ?) Where you could set the generals on random at the beginning AND not know there worth until they had been tested in a few battles !

Something like this would be great : keep the same general tenants (The CSA has better generals on average to begin with) but have their stats randomized (well one would have to have an attribution mechanism that keeps some logic going on, no 1-2-2 general with fast mover trait...) and make their stats invisible at the beginning of the game, only being revealed progressively.

Less extrem but still fun, there should be a slight randomization of stats on promotion for generals, at least the most famous and interesting ones. Have 3 alternative profiles (the historical one and two more alternative ones, ie better or worse or just different). One would never be quite sure that upon promotion Bragg or Hood will become hideous, and can hope for a better outcome, or won't know if a Sherman stays a killer or turns bad (reckless, hothead traits for example). That would be interesting too an I am sure this is doable since upon promotion the game retrieves a new profile in the data base, just make it 2 or 3 profiles from which the game randomly choses one.

Last, it would have been great to have events tied to generals that can modify traits as well : a general gets the dispirited trait after a defeat, or a general gains the hothead trait after a victory (victory disease...) etc..

Randomized generals is already an option. Look in the game options. The default setting is off, but you can use it if you like.

veji1 wrote:Speaking about generals and promotions, etc, what would be great would be to have a system similar to what existed in a very old gem of a DOS game, (I think it was from Fort Sumter to Appomatox ?) Where you could set the generals on random at the beginning AND not know there worth until they had been tested in a few battles !

Something like this would be great : keep the same general tenants (The CSA has better generals on average to begin with) but have their stats randomized (well one would have to have an attribution mechanism that keeps some logic going on, no 1-2-2 general with fast mover trait...) and make their stats invisible at the beginning of the game, only being revealed progressively.

Less extrem but still fun, there should be a slight randomization of stats on promotion for generals, at least the most famous and interesting ones. Have 3 alternative profiles (the historical one and two more alternative ones, ie better or worse or just different). One would never be quite sure that upon promotion Bragg or Hood will become hideous, and can hope for a better outcome, or won't know if a Sherman stays a killer or turns bad (reckless, hothead traits for example). That would be interesting too an I am sure this is doable since upon promotion the game retrieves a new profile in the data base, just make it 2 or 3 profiles from which the game randomly choses one.

Last, it would have been great to have events tied to generals that can modify traits as well : a general gets the dispirited trait after a defeat, or a general gains the hothead trait after a victory (victory disease...) etc..

This option has been discussed, but requires a change of the game engine, and they way generals are handled. Not that I wouldn't like it, as it would bring back some variability.

Another factor is wounds. By the time Hood is 3* general , he has suffered several amputations, and is addicted to pain killers. Yet he is still out in the field trying to fight. I think that may have had something to do with his poor showing (compared to his earlier commands).

Thanks for the feedback.

I had noticed that when I promoted other generals that they sometimes lost a positive attribute.

But this was the first time I noticed a negative attribute being added after a promotion.

Canon wrote:This is one of the only problems I have with AACW and I guess CW2. Once you play a few times, you know who gets nerfed after promotion, and then you will never promote them ever again. I never promote Longstreet, Smith, or Hood past 2-star, nor A.P. Hill or Ewell beyond 1-star. To me this is very gamey.

I would love to see an additional promotion system added on. You can still have manual promotions, but stick an auto-promote feature which promotes the #1 seniority leader automatically, thus taking the decision out of your hands. That way Longstreet won't languish as a Major-General while other leaders are promoted again and again over top of him.

Here's my (modest :neener proposal that I believe would be fairly simple to implement-

Auto-promote any (otherwise eligible) general who will receive a new malus upon promotion, along with any normal upset penalties.

This would apply regardless of the setting used in the option for random stats.

The rational is that each of these "strong personalities" has garnered enough political support that it's out of the hands of the military.

The desirable result is that it gets them back into the game (without even having to randomize stats, if desired).

apy:

Ol' Choctaw wrote:What can I say “Bragg” he kept many from promotion and refused or could not look at anything objectively.

He held many back from their potential. But lets not get into all that. Cleburne under a different commander might have shone even brighter. Look at what he and Churchill did under Smith in Kentucky! Much more dynamic and dramatic than anything that could or would happen under Bragg. And he hated them for it.

Hey, Ol'Choctaw! Good ole Braxton really got a bad reputation, still... Not sure if I already pointed to this interesting piece of history:

http://c-spanvideo.org/program/Stones

The C-SPAN ACW discussion rounds are quite good.

Klink, Oberst

Ol' Choctaw wrote:Randomized generals is already an option. Look in the game options. The default setting is off, but you can use it if you like.

I know but as an option the way it is it is a bit of let off : stats all over the place, not logically linked with the traits.

What be really good though would be my second suggestion of alternatives upon promotion so that one can never quite be sure it will work out as hoped.

The easiest way would be auto promotions if the generals is promotable and 1 in seniority. So unwanted promotions could happen...