AGEOD Forums

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I'm not so sure this is a bug. After playing with 1.06b for awhile I think it's a tweak. The game seems more historical numberwise with 12 elements as opposed to 18. Since each element represents a regiment or battery, it's theoretically possible to have divisions with up to 18k men in them. Seems a little high to me. Using the 12 element system a division could have a maximum of 12k men. That's seems a little more historical for a division sized unit. Historically most divisions were even smaller than that. So I don't think it's a bug. I think the numbers have been tweaked for historical accuracy. Of course only Pocus knows for sure so it's all just speculation on my part.

tevans6220 wrote:I'm not so sure this is a bug. After playing with 1.06b for awhile I think it's a tweak. The game seems more historical numberwise with 12 elements as opposed to 18. Since each element represents a regiment or battery, it's theoretically possible to have divisions with up to 18k men in them. Seems a little high to me. Using the 12 element system a division could have a maximum of 12k men. That's seems a little more historical for a division sized unit. Historically most divisions were even smaller than that. So I don't think it's a bug. I think the numbers have been tweaked for historical accuracy. Of course only Pocus knows for sure so it's all just speculation on my part.

Tevan, I think you may be on to something here. Allowing 18 elements in a division does result in the ability to build some pretty large divisions, to a size beyond what most divisions held historically. The CSA generally had larger divisions than the USA, but even then, they rarely exceeded 10,000 men.

What I like about this change to smaller divisions, assuming it is one, is that it forces the player to utilize more of their leaders, including those who are substandard, rather than just sending them off to remote garrisons and having all divisions led by top notch leaders. Rare indeed was the case of a Civil War army, either north or south, that did not have at least some incompetents or substandard leaders in charge of divisions. Lowering the cap on the number of elements in a division would help replicate this in the game. Perhaps as a further change, if possible, the CSA should be allowed a few more elements per division than the USA has, but I dont know if the game engine allows this. And with a lower cap on elements, the ceiling on number of divisions definitely needs to be raised. In my mod, I have it at Union 72 and Confederate 48, which should be more than enough for both sides even with lower element limits.

Anybody know where the number of elements in a division can be modded?

my main problem with this theoretical change in division limits is that most divsions in the Civil war tended to have a fairly large number of regiments, even on the Union side. Looking through the OOB for I Corps at Gettysburg, i count 11 infantry regiments in Wadsworth's division, 11 more in Robinson's division, and 12 for Rowley's division, all this exclusive of any artillery directly attached with them (Although it lists 5 batteries for the corps arty bridgade). I'm worried that this may lead to us losing any sense of proper scale for these units.

Of course, this may not be valid in the developer's eyes, since most bridgades in game only seem to have 2 or 3 inf. regiments with them in any case, hardly an historical OOB.

I personally would like this factor to be open to modders. I am in the process of developing a brigade mod (after the unitnames mod and graphics mod) which has brigades average about 4-6 regiments per (each of 500 men), making it extrmelely limiting for the CSA to incorporate their large number of brigades (ranging from 3 -7 brigades per division).

I was basing my mod on an 18 element division, which would work out, but 12 is cutting it very tight (if you want any artillery at all).

I will be very interested in seeing the mod you are workine on McNaughton.

I think the main problem here with division element capacity is that the individual regiments refill back up to authorized strength of 1000 men, which was the number they had when originally raised.

Any historian of the Civil War knows that once the regiment went off to training camp, this number was whittled down significantly by disease and desertion, and then combat took a toll as well. It was not uncommon by 1863 for most regiments to have a strength of 350-400 men or less, and if a regiment had 600 or more men, it was considered huge at this time, and the hallmark of a rookie unit. Both sides rarely if ever sent replacements for existing regiments that had been depleted, rather they simply raised more regiments to full strength and incorporated them into units. This is why by mid 1864, famous brigades such as the Iron Brigade and Irish Brigade were either broken up entirely, or completely diluted by the addition of new regiments.

So, when looking at the OOB for the Union I Corps at Gettysburg, while it is true that they had 11 or 12 regiments per division, all of these regiments were severely under authorized strength. At that point, in the Iron Brigade, the 24th Michigan almost had as many men as the other four regiments combined, due to years of hard fighting and other attrition.

The challenge here is to meld a playable game system that makes sense, with the historical realities of the War. Since there is probably no way in the replacement system to model the fact that regiments never filled up back to authorized strength historically, and as such, the designers had to work with brigades with only 2 regiments, knowing that they would fill up with replacements to 1000 men each -- and these 2000 men were the numerical equivalent of many 4-6 regiment brigades by 1863.

ussdefiant wrote:my main problem with this theoretical change in division limits is that most divsions in the Civil war tended to have a fairly large number of regiments, even on the Union side. Looking through the OOB for I Corps at Gettysburg, i count 11 infantry regiments in Wadsworth's division, 11 more in Robinson's division, and 12 for Rowley's division, all this exclusive of any artillery directly attached with them (Although it lists 5 batteries for the corps arty bridgade). I'm worried that this may lead to us losing any sense of proper scale for these units.

Of course, this may not be valid in the developer's eyes, since most bridgades in game only seem to have 2 or 3 inf. regiments with them in any case, hardly an historical OOB.

Gettysburg

The Union tended to keep raising new States Regiments, for political reasons, and not filling out the old 1861 - 62 Rgts., which often started out 1200 strong.

Some of the reprinted official Union Histories list 200+ men with the Rgts. colors at Gettysburg. Some units, who had seen much action, were down to 100+.

As an example, the excellent " Brigades At Gettysburg " by Gottfried, drawing on official returns, lists the following for the 2 Brigade 1st. Division of Reynold`s I Corps. at the start of the battle.

1st. (The Iron Brigade ) 1829 men, in 5 western Rgts. 2nd. Brigade 2017 men in 6 eastern Rgts.

The other 2 Divisions of I Corps had 6000 men, mostly in the newly formed 1863 3rd. Division, which had not seen action.

Hancock`s II Corps, which had seen much service, numbered 9900 men, in 43 Regiments. Those are the actual historical numbers.

The game allows you, if you choose, and as a player you should have that option, to far exceed those.

PS: You beat me to it Hancock

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As they are porting the code, this bug it's probably a change they made to more accurately reflect army organization in Napoleons's campaigns (same thing probably happened with 1.06a, when the rail destroy and repair buttons disappeared - no trains in Napoleons's time) that went by mistake to AACW code.

Celtic, are you there ?

No, Pocus would not make a change like this unannounced. If this were intended it sure wouls save CSA a ton of $. Also, if true, the maximum number of Divisions should be increased to 36. No way is this on purpose. I'm going back to 1.06a until this is resolved.

Just noticed that there is no 1.06a to download. May be a week before this is addressed.

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As far as I can tell, the bug that was fixed in 1.06a (compared to 1.06) was a fairly infrequent, obscure one, at least not one I've seen reported here on the forums. (I don't consider the switched "next turn"/"main menu" buttons as much a bug as an inconvenience.) So using 1.06 for the time being should be no problem while we wait for Pocus to return.

Just my 2 cents. Currency may of course vary

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You are misunderstanding my post. My point is that 1.06a breaks a lot more than it fixes. The bug *fixed* in 1.06a seems to me obscure (and the fix is therefore not that important, in my subjective opinion), while the bug *introduced* in 1.06a, which you have reported, is more than big enough to render than patch unusable.

To summarize:
1.06 - good
1.06a & 1.06b - bad

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Definately. It's a show-stopper for me. I usually play the Union, and I can't imagine life without my precious railroads to bring my troops to and fro.