Promotions

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Basically, what does it take for a general to become eligible for promotion?

[Captain_Orso]

If he gains 2 levels of seniority above his original seniority at the current rank.

But, exactly in detail how he gains seniority, I've never heard, or I can't remember.

Basically, seniority is gained through combat, whereby winning the battle is not necessary. I've seen leaders lose a battle1), but having caused so many more losses than receiving, that the leader gained seniority and was offered a promotion.


1) Whoever controls the battlefield at the end of the battle wins. Anything else is considered a draw. So, if at the start of the next turn, one side is in PP (Passive Posture) and plotted to leave the region, or has already left, the other side wins the battle.

[Teatime]

This is from the old manual but I think it all still applies

To promote a leader to a new rank, it is specifically needed that:
- He is potentially promotable (the database must have an entry for his new grade). This is indicated by a 'Yes' in the 'Is Promotable' line, element detail window.
- He has a seniority of 1 or 2 in his current rank OR
- He has gained 4 points of seniority since he appeared on map (the base seniority is under brackets in the the Element Detail Window, top panel section).

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Thanks to you both

[Durk]

The difficulty is your soon to be promoted leader will be, for instance, a division commander. You must get him out or his corps or army to promote. How to do this? I often strip all units, then promote and hand troops to a different commander. But always a challenge.

[Captain_Orso]

The real trick is looking for the leaders you want to have promoted and "mentoring" them; ie having them fight battles in which they will win with a large difference in casualties to their advantage. Sometimes one good battle like this will make the leader eligible for promotion.

But remember, if the mentored leader has moderate or low seniority, he will be promoted over other leaders and it he can only be promoted at some penalty in VP and possibly even NM, depending on the political value of the passed-over leader and the difference in seniority and political values between the two and the rank to which the leader is being promoted; the larger each of these are, the greater the penalty. Also, the leader being passed over will lose a point or 2 of seniority, which in the case you also want to promote him might be counterproductive over all.

One you've promoted a good leader to *** and you wish to give him an army command, you will be confronted with basically the same situation with regard to other *** leaders who don't already have an army command. Early in the war this generally means giving Grant an army command over Butler, Banks, Fremont, or possibly even Halleck and McClellan, all with more or less high political values.

A few times I've payed a fairly heavy penalty for getting Grant in command of an army, but in the long run I've always found it to pay for itself in the long run.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

While I'm at it, what role does sentry duty play within this game? What are its advantages, disadvantages, etc?

[Captain_Orso]

I never use it, but IIRC it psydo-locks the selected stack. If you use the next-stack-without-orders buttons to cycle through your stacks, stacks 'on sentry' will be skipped. I don't think there's any other purpose.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

I never use it, but IIRC it psydo-locks the selected stack. If you use the next-stack-without-orders buttons to cycle through your stacks, stacks 'on sentry' will be skipped. I don't think there's any other purpose.

Cheers

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Where does it tell me if a general is promotable or not? I've read that it's on their information panel, but I don't see it anywhere.

[khbynum]

Click the last tab, "Various". If that panel has the line "Upgrade to:" followed by the general's name, he is promotable. Otherwise, no.

[Captain_Orso]

Also, you get a message in the mail box at the bottom right stating that the leader is promotable, in the last section I believe.

If you select the stack the leader is in, in the Stack Panel, the leader's name bar will be a different color, and IIRC will flash slowly.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

I'm seeing a lot of generals who, I'm assuming, will never be promoted beyond the rank of brigadier general. I think that's a little crazy. I don't think it makes much sense to have a less senior general stand no chance of promotion despite winning a number of impressive victories. I like that the promotion system within the game pays heed to seniority among generals, and I understand the point behind it, but I think it nonsensical that any general cannot rise above the rank of brigadier. I think this needs a little refinement and I'm suggesting the following as a possible solution:

Generals with a seniority between 1-10 must gain 4 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 10-20 must gain 6 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 20-30 must gain 7 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 30-40 must gain 8 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 40-50 must gain 9 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 50-60 must gain 10 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 60-70 must gain 11 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 70-80 must gain 12 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 80-90 must gain 13 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority between 90-100 must gain 14 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.
Generals with a seniority of 100+ must gain 15 seniority points to be eligible for promotion.

Obviously this idea may need some improving upon, so feel free to expand upon it. Whatever the case, I like it

[Captain_Orso]

The leaders who are ineligible for promotion, are not ineligible because of their seniority, but because of their mediocrity. Generally, because historically they never attained a higher rank.

One could easily give every one of those 3-1-1's higher rank models and allow for them to be pomotable, but it would seldom happen, and actually just fill the game with huge numbers of units and models to steal memory for virtually nothing.

The other, better, promotable leaders have nearly always higher ratings, even at lower ranks, and historically, played a major role in the war.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

The leaders who are ineligible for promotion, are not ineligible because of their seniority, but because of their mediocrity. Generally, because historically they never attained a higher rank.

I can't say that I agree with this. While it may be indeed be true that the majority of them are perfectly average, and some even mediocre, I'd have a tough time describing the likes of McCulloch, Hindman, Shelby, Watie, Hoke, Loring, etc, as either mediocre or average and completely unworthy of promotion beyond brigadier general. Military history is positively cluttered with stories of men who were promoted well beyond their abilities, and as such, I believe that the player should be able to promote a general if they so choose. However, this seems unlikely to happen, so perhaps an event in the decisions panel might be included that allows us to promote 3 or 4 brigadiers of our choosing to major general annually, or maybe 1 every 3-4 months?

Just putting it out there...

[Captain_Orso]

Mediocrity might have been a bit harsh, but I didn't want to say averageness, because that's not a word

Anyway, I'm not principally against allowing any leader being promoted who earned the promotion. As I stated, one would simply have to create the model and unit files, delete the old cache.model and .unit files, and start the game once to have the cache files generated, and that's it.

Allowing the player to arbitrarily choose a leader to promote, would however break the paradigm of the game, and be too easily misused.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Allowing the player to arbitrarily choose a leader to promote, would however break the paradigm of the game, and be too easily misused.

Maybe if it was restricted to brigadier generals who require a certain seniority then it might just work and prevent the misuse of which you speak? For example, someone like Ben McCulloch.

[Captain_Orso]

Then the first leaders the CS player would promote would be Longstreet and Jackson

If you want to get McCulloch promoted, use him successfully and let him earn it.

[pgr]

I plunged back into the data files and I believe this is the relevant coding:
"expXpGainCoeffLeaderKill = 10 // Leaders get 10% of their subordinate SU xp gain
expXpGainCoeffLeaderDie = 5 // Leaders lose 5% of their subordinate SU xp worth loss
expXPGainWhenHittingH = 50 // this value of hundredth of xp when hitting an enemy"

Based on my interpretation, elements gain experience through scoring hits, and their leaders get a percentage of that which instead of changing an experience value (a value leader units don't have) changes the seniority of the leader. Hits = gained experience; received hits equals lossed experience.

Now from in-game experience the most reliable way of gaining seniority points is to hammer single, or small groups of elements, with big forces (Grant destroying the fixed units in Ft. Donalson is a favorite example), and when I look at the code it kinda makes sense.
An infantry element has 20 hit points. If your division kills the element, then you have 20*0.50(xp gained from the hits) or 10 experience points gained as a total for the division. the leader gets 10%... i.e. 1 point and gains in seniority.

From my play experience, the seniority gain happens to both the division and stack leader.

In any event, it all goes back to what Orso put out. To promote, go win some lopsided victories. (Or just really big ass battles. If you fight a big one and there are 30,000 causalities on both sides, win or loose, so many hits were flying around that people's seniority points are likely to go up.)

What I would really appreciate is some post by the devs (similar to the blockade post) that clarifies seniority and promotion.

[Captain_Orso]

I plunged back into the data files and I believe this is the relevant coding:
"expXpGainCoeffLeaderKill = 10 // Leaders get 10% of their subordinate SU xp gain
expXpGainCoeffLeaderDie = 5 // Leaders lose 5% of their subordinate SU xp worth loss
expXPGainWhenHittingH = 50 // this value of hundredth of xp when hitting an enemy"

Based on my interpretation, elements gain experience through scoring hits, and their leaders get a percentage of that which instead of changing an experience value (a value leader units don't have) changes the seniority of the leader. Hits = gained experience; received hits equals lossed experience.

Leaders most certainly do gain XP, and having gained enough XP will gain an EL (Experience Level, the stars you see on the element detail window).



Also, if you look at the tool-tips of some of the abilities of a leader, they mention the Ability Level.



I'm not entirely sure, but I believe this is equivalent to the leader's EL rating. There are some abilities which do not show the Ability Level bonus but the Abilities DB shows the ability to have a ProgRate of between 1 and 4. Most abilities have no ProgRate though.

Now from in-game experience the most reliable way of gaining seniority points is to hammer single, or small groups of elements, with big forces (Grant destroying the fixed units in Ft. Donalson is a favorite example), and when I look at the code it kinda makes sense.
An infantry element has 20 hit points. If your division kills the element, then you have 20*0.50(xp gained from the hits) or 10 experience points gained as a total for the division. the leader gets 10%... i.e. 1 point and gains in seniority.

From my play experience, the seniority gain happens to both the division and stack leader.

In any event, it all goes back to what Orso put out. To promote, go win some lopsided victories. (Or just really big ass battles. If you fight a big one and there are 30,000 causalities on both sides, win or loose, so many hits were flying around that people's seniority points are likely to go up.)

What I would really appreciate is some post by the devs (similar to the blockade post) that clarifies seniority and promotion.

One point about assaulting a garrison to gain XP and possibly promotion, some garrisons will do a battlefield surrender before they are wiped out, if they get a chance, sometimes before a hot if fired, so you cannot count on getting XP for every hit the garrison has.

[pgr]

Ya I have noticed that siege surrenders don't do anything for seniority. It seems like hits have to be done in battle to have an impact for experience. (I just used assaulting forts as an example because those fixed forces just cant retreat away).

In any event it seems like there has to be a correlation between leader experience gain and seniority gain, because gameplay seems to work out roughly in the same way as that bit of coding would suggest.

[Captain_Orso]

Ya I have noticed that siege surrenders don't do anything for seniority. It seems like hits have to be done in battle to have an impact for experience. (I just used assaulting forts as an example because those fixed forces just cant retreat away).

Yes, that too is an issue I'd previously brought up. Going by this game engine, Grant's victory over Vicksburg would have given him nothing on XP nor seniority.

But I was actually talking about assaulting a garrison inside a city. Often times when you look at the battle report, the garrison took no hits, or may have taken some hits during the first and only round of battle. The 'rest' are listed as captured CC's. IE they surrendered before a shot was fired, or before being wiped out, thus no or few XP.

In any event it seems like there has to be a correlation between leader experience gain and seniority gain, because gameplay seems to work out roughly in the same way as that bit of coding would suggest.

Maybe, it may also be a function of the battle engine.

I seem to remember having lost a battles and still having the commander being promotable. When I looked at the disparity of losses, I couldn't really say that the losing side actually produced so many more casualties than it took, although there were more enemy casualties and/or cohesion loss, but that may have just been my subjective view.

If seniority were simply a function of XP we should see leaders gaining seniority simply over time through a series of minor battles. He picks up a few hits and XP here, and a few there, and eventually he has collected enough to have his seniority increased. Maybe that is the way it works, but I can't say that I've recognized that behavior.

[Blood and Thunder Brigade]

Then the first leaders the CS player would promote would be Longstreet and Jackson

If you want to get McCulloch promoted, use him successfully and let him earn it.

I personally wouldn't promote Jackson or Longstreet if I had the option to as I know that both are being automatically promoted in January of 1862 regardless of whether they've fought a single battle or not. As for for McCulloch & others like him, it matters not how I use him, or how much he's earned it, he can't (correct me if I'm wrong here) be promoted anyway. It strikes me as ridiculous.

[Captain_Orso]

Yes he can. McCulloch can be promoted up to Maj.Gen.

[khbynum]

In my game neither Benjamin McCulloch nor H. McCulloch is listed as promotable.

[Captain_Orso]

Ach! My bad, sorry. You are correct, both are brigadier only.

If you want B. McCulloch to be promotable, you will have to edit his model and units files, and creating additional model and unit files for McCulloch at the higher rank(s) you wish him to be able to attain (compare with Bushrod Johnson files for examples), and delete the .Cached files from the Models\ and Units\ folders. When you start the game again, the .Cached files will be regenerated, and McCulloch will have the possibility to be promoted under normal circumstances.

[kumpy1]

I hope someone can help. I have been playing around with the leaders, and i wanted to make Forrest promotable past level 2. I created new Forrest3 model and unit files, edited the Forrest 1 and 2 existing model and unit files, added the new files to the alias list, deleted the cache files. After lots of battles improving his seniority, I still can't promote Forrest past 2 stars. Is there something else I'm missing? Perhaps the latest patch hard coded the promotion eligibility? I've checked and double checked my files and don't see any errors.

[kumpy1]

I hope somebody can help. I'm trying to make Forrest promotable up to 3 stars. I've created new Forrest3 unit and model files, edited the existing Forrest 1 and 2 unit and model files, added the new files to the alias list, and deleted the cache files. Am I still missing something? After many battles, I still can only promote him to 2 stars.

[Gray Fox]

Perhaps if you took some screen shots of the files in the CW2 DBase that you changed, then someone with modding skill (certainly not me) might be able to check if you missed something minor.
Good luck!

[Captain_Orso]

I think he edited the model, unit, and alias files directly, so posting those in text format here would be sufficient.

Did you also edit the both the uni_Alias.ini AND the mdl_Alias.ini files?

We would really need to see all the files in question, other that the _.Cached files, which the game recreates by itself.