Promoting Generals and NM/VP Loss

[charlesonmission]

I've sort of asked this before, but have never been able to figure it out. When I promote a general, how do I know what if any the NM and VP loss will be? Note this isn't about the Army HQs, just the normal promotion.

Thanks,

Charles

[lodilefty]

There should be info in the tooltip on the promote icon...

[cwegsche]

The only thing you have to look at is if you for example want to promote a 2star corps commander (leading a corps acitvly) to a 3star general and there are leaders within the corps which are also able to be promoted than these will do so too. So first thing to do is to make a single stack for the leader you want to promote because the game promotes subordinates auctomtically!

[charlesonmission]

I think I know what you mean. However, what I mean is this. On my last turn I promoted 2 one star generals to 2 two star generals. The NM loss was 0, but I lost about 25 VP from each general's promotion.

Charles

The only thing you have to look at is if you for example want to promote a 2star corps commander (leading a corps acitvly) to a 3star general and there are leaders within the corps which are also able to be promoted than these will do so too. So first thing to do is to make a single stack for the leader you want to promote because the game promotes subordinates auctomtically!

[lodilefty]

Ah. I'm not sure how it is calculated...

..another question for "The Master"

[cwegsche]

I think I know what you mean. However, what I mean is this. On my last turn I promoted 2 one star generals to 2 two star generals. The NM loss was 0, but I lost about 25 VP from each general's promotion.

Charles

Okay have to admit that I never observed that. Perhaps I just didn't realized or was ther a message regarding this in the message log?

[Jim-NC]

It should give you a message when you mouse over the "promote" button, saying something like "General X has less seniority than General Y, you will pay a penalty of w NM, and v VP". IIRC, this is tied to the Politics (political?) value of the general in question (the one being passed over). This is what makes little Mac such a pain, he has a very high politics value, and so you pay a lot to promote some one over him (or give someone else an Army).

My observations - going from 1 to 2 stars is only a VP hit, I have never seen a NM penalty listed in the messages. Going from 2 to 3 always includes a NM hit and a VP hit. You also pay penalties of NM and VP for creating armies of less senior generals.

I must admit, that I have not always paid that close attention to my NM to determine if I lose a point or 2 for promoting a 1 star general.

[Jim-NC]

How you determine that there will be a hit is different. If the general being promoted is more that approximately 4 seniority below the most senior general of that level, you will pay a penalty. For Armies, you can expect to pay if the general getting the army is not higher than the old general. I don't remember at this point what happens if they are the same seniority (they are listed in an order on the F1 screen, and I can't remember if it effects them or not).

For example,

Hardee has seniority 3 as a 1 star general.
Clebourne has seniority 5 (as a result of battle), and is promotable
Ruggles has a seniority of 96 (as a result of battle), and is promotable

You will pay a penalty for promoting Ruggles over Hardee.Also, Hardee will lose some seniority for this promotion (he will be a seniority 4 or 5 next turn).
I don't believe you won't pay one for Clebourne (as he is only 2 points below Hardee).

As for Army HQs:

Say Little Mac is seniority 1, with 3 stars
Grant is seniority 10, with 3 stars
Fremont is seniority 2, with 3 stars

In this example you will pay the penalty for giving an army to either Grant or Fremont instead of Little Mac.

[Hohenlohe]

If you deploy LittleMc to the West giving him there an Army Command shortly after giving the Potomac Army to McDowell f.e. you should not pay any penalty tthen deploy Grant the next turn in the East and give him the Potomac Army that should prevent giving penalties to each General. I discuss here about redeploying via the special airdeploying given to the players three in a row...

in the options menu you can activate that for all players...

greetings

Hohenlohe

[Longshanks]

There is more info on losing NM and VP in the beginning of the thread "A Series of Unfortunate General Swaps" at :

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=22222

[Captain_Orso]

From my experience the greatest factor in what cause NM/VP costs is the 'Political Cost' of the general being passed-over. You can pass-over some generals who have low political cost with little or no cost at all. Although I've never seen an actual explanation I imagine that the actual cost of promoting over higher seniority is calculated by factoring the seniority difference by the political difference.

Personally, as the Union, I've learned to never even use generals that give me a hard time with promotions. Here's a list of most of the Union generals that cause you problems and early war generals you will want to promote:

[font="Courier New"]Name -------- Seniority/Political Cost
Butler*** --- 6/20
McClellan** - 1/10
McClellan***- 4/100
Lyons* ------ 4/3
Lyons** ----- 4/5
Lyons*** ---- 15/7
Sumner* ----- 27/3
Sumner** ---- 3/5
Sumner*** --- 7/5
McDowell*** - 9/15
Banks*** ---- 7/12
Freemont*** - 5/20
McClernand* - 11/10
McClernand**- 6/12
McClernand*** 10/12
Halleck*** -- 13/10
Grant* ------ 4/5
Grant** ----- 8/15
Grant*** ---- 2/25
Sherman* ---- 8/3
Sherman** --- 13/5
Sherman*** -- 18/7
Buell*** ---- 11/10
Pope** ------ 7/5
Pope*** ----- 14/7
Sigel* ------ 36/10
Sigel** ----- 9/10
Sigel*** ---- 3/10
Rosencrans*** 12/7
[/font]

McDowell will have to get his but kicked in the east a couple of times to get rid of his seniority and political clout, but that's not hard to arrange .

Sumner, is only a 311. You have droves of those in Washington, send one or two to Missouri and send Sumner Council Bluffs. If you use him with Lyons, he will gain seniority and when he gets automatically promoted in Feb '62, god knows why, he will probably outrank Lyons, who you will be trying to get promoted, making it harder to use Lyons at all and harder to get him promoted.

Sigel is a poor general, but if you use him and get him promoted, his values drop even further and seniority skyrockets, which will give you issues with 10PC. He's a training officer, just use him for that and be happy.

McClellan - If you've ever read anything about how much trouble McClellan gave Lincoln then I have no idea why you would ever want to do anything with him. Lincoln could not know in advance what he was getting himself into when he put McClellan in charge, you do; plus he's one of the worst general in the game. Give me Heinzelmann over McClellan any day.

Banks, McClernand and Halleck are lousy generals, and except for the training abilities of McClellan and Halleck, are completely useless; they are never ready and if you do put any of them to any other good use and they gain seniority it will haunt you later when you want to promote somebody else. McClanrnand is a recruiting officer, he belongs in New York or Boston with a single militia regiment passing out brochures and smiling at the pretty women.

You may want to use Rosencrans and Buell in a pinch, but I try not to, though there are worse things; see immediately above.

I've heard people say to give some of those lousy generals, especially McClellan a couple of militia, sent them to get slaughtered and let him take the blame, but I find that to be too chancy and if by some freak accident, he still might gain seniority.

Tip: if you can get them to be besieged in a town somewhere, so that they are forced to surrender, because they are starving, I'm pretty sure they get captured and are removed from the game, although there is never a message saying this. But how to get the enemy to do you this favor is the question .

In the end, you probably will take some NM/vp losses in the beginning promoting the generals you know will help you. Just do it and suck it up. It will make your game much easier and pay good dividends later.

[Longshanks]

Nice post, Orso, and I agree with nearly all your recommendations. However, the easiest way to handle Lil Mac is to take Manassas on turn 2 or 3 and keep it through the summer! The Union has at least a 50/50 chance to accomplish this, and if (when) he does, Lil Mac just stays back and trains, which is something he's good at.

[Captain_Orso]

Ahh, yes, I've forgotten that. I haven't had that happen to me in a long time .

I don't remember, if Lil' Mac isn't promoted already to Lt.Gen. will he get promoted if McDowell will be relieved?

[lodilefty]

...and there are multiple versions of lil' Mac***, so keep an eye on his POL value in the element detail

[Captain_Orso]

this guy is a night mare. Doesn't Perry need him in Japan or something?

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

I was under the impression that seniority difference didn't matter. Political value seemed to me like the only factor in the vp/nm cost.

[Longshanks]

I was under the impression that seniority difference didn't matter. Political value seemed to me like the only factor in the vp/nm cost.

I'm sure you meant "other than having to make the calculation in the first place because you ignored seniority." Right?