Chain of Command, are Corps independent stacks?

[GlobalExplorer]

I have still not found enough information about how chain of command works compared to the previous games.

What understand is that basically everything was taken one level up.

A GHQ is basically what an Army was.

An Army is what a Corps was in old terms, meaning it is assigned to a GHQ and acts as a combat stack.

A Corps is a division. The problem is that apparently, Corps are not assigned to Armies at all and are in fact independent stacks.
I could find no information about which Army they belong to (apparently because there isn't any), or area of influence of the Army HQ (also, seems not to exist).

The question is if this is indeed the case.

[wosung]

Indeed it is.

[fred zeppelin]

You have it right. The only chain of command that extends across multiple regions is that from GHQ to Army (up to the command limit). Corps are independent unless stacked with an Army.

I know they are working on the issue in a patch, but I can't help but wonder if this is part of the reason the AI tends to build uber-stacks. For example, assume there is an Army in Province B and independent Corps in Provinces A and C. A human player will coordinate the three of them, even in the absence of any formal command linkage between them. Unless there is some code in the game telling the AI to coordinate them, however, the only way the AI has to do that is to stack them together.

Load a game sometime and just watch the AI. The first thing it does, almost invariably, is to constrict its formations, pulling its independent Corps back toward its Armies. It's almost like an open hand contracting into a fist. Which makes sense if the AI is thinking in terms of stacks as opposed to coordination across a front.

Just my two cents.

[GlobalExplorer]

Oh dear. That means I have been playing the game completely wrong. Like in previous games I use small army stacks behind the Corps, with field hospitals, heavy artillery and such. This when in fact they will never offer any assistance to Corps. It also kind of nullifies the "synchronize movement" feature without telling the player, doesn't it?

I must say this is a very simplified, if not to say primitive, system. My GHQ is locked in Minsk and all Armies are out of command range anyway, so '"command chain" just boils down to 2 types of stacks: 5 large ones with 48 command points (8 divisions) and many small ones with 24 points (4 divisions). In fact Athena cannot be blamed, she understands much better that armies should be filled to maximum size because they are the most effective stacks.

[GlobalExplorer]

It's very ineffective to have the GHQ in Minsk and Corps in Chernowtzi but that's how it is right now.
I assume it will all improve when the game magically enables GHQ creation after turn x, but right now it does not tell me if, why and how long the feature is locked.
Just let me say that I have several 3 star generals, some activated and none of them can form a GHQ.

[Ace]

I thought that was in manual.

1) Nations can have only one GHQ
2) Other 3 star generals can form armies
3) Independent stacks act as Corps in CW2, they help adjacent stacks, and will synchronize movement when in same region (all things Corps did in CW2). Fixing GHQ in Minsk is Design choice to limit Chain of Command effectiveness in the first 2 months.

[fred zeppelin]

I thought that was in manual.

3) Independent stacks act as Corps in CW2, they help adjacent stacks, and will synchronize movement when in same region (all things Corps did in CW2).

By "region" do you mean province? In other words, if there is an Army in Province A and a Corps in Province B, will the Corps synchronize movement with the Army? Or does the Corps have to be in Province A, with the Army, before it will synchronize? Thanks.

[Ace]

Same as in cw2, they need to be in the same province. Not ideal, but I think that may be engine limitation.
But as long as stacks help each other by MTSG (Reserve force might be better term for the era), they will participate in the battle.

[fred zeppelin]

Same as in cw2, they need to be in the same province. Not ideal, but I think that may be engine limitation.
But as long as stacks help each other by MTSG (Reserve force might be better term for the era), they will participate in the battle.

Thanks. I assumed your "region" and my "province" are the same.

But is that really how CW2 works? Unless I am misremembering, I recall the Shiloh tutorial walking you through how to link Corps to an Army and how they would coordinate movement, even if the Corps was physically located in a separate province, so long as it was within the command radius of the Army. Am I wrong about that? Or am I thinking of AACW - isn't it the same as CW2 in this respect? (Sorry, I don't have access to the games at the moment.)

The problem here may be that by limiting the command linkage to the GHQ-Army level (and limiting it even at that level to a limited number of Armies), it leaves the AI with no effective way to coordinate the bulk of its forces except to concentrate them. I can't help but think that's why we see the AI concentrating its units into single-province clusters. I have saved games where the AI has 80% of its Western Front units lumped together in Brussels and Sedan.

[Ace]

You are wrong about cw2. You couldn't synchronize there either from different provinces. But, since adjacent corps would mts, couple of days marching difference don't matter. Only Pocus knows what is in AI mind when it tries to form megastack.

[fred zeppelin]

You are wrong about cw2. You couldn't synchronize there either from different provinces. But, since adjacent corps would mts, couple of days marching difference don't matter. Only Pocus knows what is in AI mind when it tries to form megastack.

Yeah, you're right. I recall now that I had to issue separate movement orders but linked units would coordinate in battle.

Hopefully, the patch will work out these kinks.

[Kensai]

I could find no information about which Army they belong to (apparently because there isn't any), or area of influence of the Army HQ (also, seems not to exist).

There is a radius of GHQ influence if you have it selected and press Shift or Alt, don't remember.

EAW has the "easy" march-to-the-sound-of-guns rule, which is quite cool if you ask me. You need to care less about your actual OOB, apart from the principal front armies. All corps will MttSoG as long as their Generals are set to do this (no passive mode, etc) and the right dice is thrown.

The GHQ should be used as an army as well, albeit a reinforcing army, not quite front line.

[fred zeppelin]

EAW has the "easy" march-to-the-sound-of-guns rule, which is quite cool if you ask me. You need to care less about your actual OOB, apart from the principal front armies. All corps will MttSoG as long as their Generals are set to do this (no passive mode, etc) and the right dice is thrown.

I generally like it too, though I wish there was a more straight-forward way to turn it on or off for select units. Sometimes I want some of my units to stay home and defend. I understand there is a workaround involving using the Evade Combat order, but it's unclear to me whether that consistently does the trick.

[Ace]

Well, from now on units after helping their neighbor will always return to the starting region.

[Kensai]

I generally like it too, though I wish there was a more straight-forward way to turn it on or off for select units. Sometimes I want some of my units to stay home and defend. I understand there is a workaround involving using the Evade Combat order, but it's unclear to me whether that consistently does the trick.

Unfortunately, not only it is not consistent at the moment, but if it is inactivated you cannot do that workaround. The only solution in this case is to hope for a bad dice (them not to be involved) or exclude them by setting them to passive.

This is a bad abstraction.

Well, from now on units after helping their neighbor will always return to the starting region.

Still, sometimes you really want them to rest and simply defend their own region, not take casualties by helping the other one. There are some rare cases you might want to do that.

[GlobalExplorer]

Hah, I really ran into a mental blockade when I moved my stacks, had no idea as to what is good strategy, and I now begin to see why.

The chain of command is still the same, but in order to handle hundreds instead of ten thousands of troops without reprogramming the engine they have simply moved up all stacks by a level.
Armies became GHQ's, Corps became Armies, Divisions became Corps and Brigades became Divisions (though some are still called Brigades).

Hm, but also Nations can only have 1 GHQ, and some have none, so there is actually less of a command chain than in any previous game.
Consequently the Serbian Army has no chain of command at all. Forming GHQs or Armies is not enabled for them at all, and when you form "Corps" it is just a Division of old with no relationships to other Corps / Armies.

Large army stacks could be an attempt of the AI to avoid independent "division" stacks, because they do not get support from other stacks. That would also mean that the AI needs to be completely recalibrated to that level.

I am not saying that it cannot work but I dont understand why the changes could not have simply been made on the brigade level by increasing brigades to division size, and allowing only one to be formed to a real division.

[wosung]

Hm, but also Nations can only have 1 GHQ, and some have none, so there is actually less of a command chain than in any previous game.

Germany is the only power with two GHQs: OHL & Ober-Ost.

[gorfei]

I don't know your experience, but I don't have CW & consequently I've never played it. The movement & the command/control system are very complicate to manage but, apart game considerations, they are note historically correct, at least referred at the first days of WW1. In August/September 1914, the French strategy of Plan XVII was very clear. Any commander, from the the three stars general until the last corporal of the 1st-2nd-3rd Armies kniew what they have to do: ATTACK-ATTACK-ATTACK. With the actual TEAW game system that's impossible. I tried to do it against a German AI and most of my Corps remained inactive

[fred zeppelin]

I don't know your experience, but I don't have CW & consequently I've never played it. The movement & the command/control system are very complicate to manage but, apart game considerations, they are note historically correct, at least referred at the first days of WW1. In August/September 1914, the French strategy of Plan XVII was very clear. Any commander, from the the three stars general until the last corporal of the 1st-2nd-3rd Armies kniew what they have to do: ATTACK-ATTACK-ATTACK. With the actual TEAW game system that's impossible. I tried to do it against a German AI and most of my Corps remained inactive

The game doesn't really model the warplans per se. Rather, it models the deployments and objectives of the warplans. But the player isn't required to attack as the Fench did historically - so the framework of the plan is there but its execution isn't required.

The activation rules, as you observe, sometimes make it impossible to attack across the entire front as the French did historically. May be a blessing in disguise actually, but I agree it's not especially historical.

I've noticed too that the AI rarely executes the warplans except in the most general way. I've yet to see the AI launch a true Battle of the Frontiers, for example. Instead, the AI usually is content to launch an attack against a single strategic point (Metz, for example).

[GlobalExplorer]

Yes but perhaps exactly this would is the key to solving the special problems of WW1 strategy and trench warfare. The switch from taking Paris to holding a continuous defensive line from Switzerland to Flanders is not going to happen by itself, they are completely different strategies. Perhaps it necessitates that a completely different setup for the AI is loaded when certain key points are triggered? Like: execute Schlieffen Plan, but if combat power outnumbers the Central Powers by a certain number --> switch to plan B, which is the defensive plan
??

I know Pocus is probably rolling his eyes because it is too ambitious, but wouldn't such a "meta strategy" for each faction be just a tiny graph with only a handful of options?

[caranorn]

Normally French forces attacking into Alsace/Lorraine (historic warplans) during the first turns will always be activated, will also recover cohesion faster. The same is true for German forces in Belgium and northern France etc. Also added objectives for those first turns. So this is already in the game...