Spain Division Problem

[lordlau1]

I used to be able to have 10 divisions I have 10 divisions now. I have done the Army Reforms for Spain, but after the reforms, it will not allow me to create divisions because it says all 5 of my divisions are already on the field. I am using activated commanders...

It appears that the Army Reforms will not allow me to create any more divisional commanders...Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

[Captain_Orso]

I think when you select the military reform option it still takes about a year for it to come to fruition. After all, your entire military has to reorganize itself, which is much more than simply moving units around.

[lordlau1]

Ok, so I will wait for it to kick in...can anyone else confirm this? It's in a 7 player PBEM so it's pretty important, lol.

[Pocus]

PM PhilThib if he missed this thread. Are reforms not allowing corps but with less divisions in the end?

[PhilThib]

WAD, this is no bug here...you are allowed only 5 Divisions of the "old" style after the Reform (i.e. combining Brigades with leaders).

What you get is 20 new Divisions units (single units) which are better and more powerful, to build. Those units can individually go into corps.

This is how it works for every nation: they have a limited number of old style divisions (player-made) and lose about half of them in the reforms, BUT they get a large number of new divisional-single-units (like the french have from start) which are much better and stonger.

You won't get the butter and the cream

[vaalen]

[quote="PhilThib"

You won't get the butter and the cream [/quote]

Why not? I use both in a number of dishes, that are absolutely wonderful. Ah, but that is cooking, not creating divisions.

And if you make butter out of cream, you have less cream.

Anyway, the WAD makes sense.

[lordlau1]

LOL, I see now..ok, that makes sense. I have started to recruit my new divisions. Can I add old brigades to those divisions to make them full 18 unit divisions?

Thanks for the support, gentleman.

[PhilThib]

LOL, I see now..ok, that makes sense. I have started to recruit my new divisions. Can I add old brigades to those divisions to make them full 18 unit divisions?

Thanks for the support, gentleman.

I suppose this is feasible, but your old style division total remains the same (so it means you won't be able to make more than 5 in total, whatever the content).

My 2 cents: if you already have 10 divisions made of brigades, don't break any! Anything you de-combine that is above 5 is a lost division (i.e. if you have 7 div, the first two you de-combine will be lost permanently)

[lordlau1]

I understand.

The question I was trying to ask was...the new divisions I recruit only have 8 or 11 elements within them. Can I still add my old elements to them?

[PhilThib]

I understand and I believe this is possible (until you reach total of 18 elements)...but I feel it is a waste, because it is more interesting and efficient to make your 5 allowed (old) divisions with brigades only

[lordlau1]

Phil,

My new divisions only have 12 elements in them, not 17 or 18. I add a general, then there are 13 elements. However, I cannot add any brigades to make a full division.

Why not?

Can France?

[Captain_Orso]

The 'new style divisions' work the same as brigades with regards to game mechanics, so you cannot add other units to them. How are they in power compared to the 'old style' divisions?

[PhilThib]

What I meant was if you want to waste one of the old style div combination, you could create a super division made of one new style div (12 elements) + 1 or 2 old brigades (3 to 6 elements), as long you don't exceed 18 elements...

Typically I did that with the Brits

[veji1]

WAD, this is no bug here...you are allowed only 5 Divisions of the "old" style after the Reform (i.e. combining Brigades with leaders).

What you get is 20 new Divisions units (single units) which are better and more powerful, to build. Those units can individually go into corps.

This is how it works for every nation: they have a limited number of old style divisions (player-made) and lose about half of them in the reforms, BUT they get a large number of new divisional-single-units (like the french have from start) which are much better and stonger.

You won't get the butter and the cream

See Phil, this is typically a problem with the reforms, they require too much management, which is annoying for the player, but virtually undoable for the AI.

What should happen in this instance is that when the reform is passed the engine should basically take away the current old style troops (ad hoc built up divisions made of brigades) AND give the country (player or AI controlled) the newly rebuilt army structure with corps and new style divisions. This way it would work a lot better.

so say France trashes Prussia and Prussia enacts its reforms, its army made up of say 7 old time divisions and 15 brigades should just be replaced by a new army of 12 new style divisions in corps and all. A bit like a begin of scenario set up. Than the player (or the AI but for the AI it would be harder) could still build up more troops, modify this or that, etc.

It would give the game more shelf time as well because as it stands as the french once one has trashed every body once, well the game is stuck in an endless loop of "silly crushed Austria declares war again and is destroyed because its force is a still a mess, rince/repeat".

It's something to keep in mind for future games at least.

[lordlau1]

"The 'new style divisions' work the same as brigades with regards to game mechanics, so you cannot add other units to them. How are they in power compared to the 'old style' divisions?"

The power is less than half or more of the old style divisions. My new divisions fully formed as Spain are 135-152 power.

My old divisions range from 298 to 446. The reforms have actually weakened me as a fighting force unless I was able to get all my Corps to "March to the Sound of the Guns" at exactly the same time. That will never happen as veterans of CW1 and CW2 know...it just isn't realistic.

I think that I should be able to create full divisions with the reforms. What is the point of reforming an army and my army is weaker and my divisions are all undersized at just over half strength?

Pocus....insight, please?

[veji1]

"The 'new style divisions' work the same as brigades with regards to game mechanics, so you cannot add other units to them. How are they in power compared to the 'old style' divisions?"

The power is less than half or more of the old style divisions. My new divisions fully formed as Spain are 135-152 power.

My old divisions range from 298 to 446. The reforms have actually weakened me as a fighting force unless I was able to get all my Corps to "March to the Sound of the Guns" at exactly the same time. That will never happen as veterans of CW1 and CW2 know...it just isn't realistic.

I think that I should be able to create full divisions with the reforms. What is the point of reforming an army and my army is weaker and my divisions are all undersized at just over half strength?

Pocus....insight, please?

The problem here is that reform should give you not only the ability to form divisions, but divisions themselves !!! Maybe theys should need filling up with some chits, maybe there cohesions should still be low, but you should get the actual troops as replacement for the old ones... Otherwise it doesn't make much sense for you, and it becomes completely unmanageable for a poor outmatched AI.

[lordlau1]

I agree as far as the aI, but in this PBEM game i am in, the reforms have guaranteed that I cannot ever even try to fight any other power now. At least before the reforms I could make 10 divisions and create 1 or 2 armies and have 3-4000 power. Now I cannot even do that, I am relegated to the backseat and am essentially destroyed.

It turned out to be a huge waste of months of gameplay and trying to get the reforms and now I have had my power cut in half.

Maybe when I get all 20 allowed divisions created...but that will be long after the game is over.

[veji1]

I agree as far as the aI, but in this PBEM game i am in, the reforms have guaranteed that I cannot ever even try to fight any other power now. At least before the reforms I could make 10 divisions and create 1 or 2 armies and have 3-4000 power. Now I cannot even do that, I am relegated to the backseat and am essentially destroyed.

It turned out to be a huge waste of months of gameplay and trying to get the reforms and now I have had my power cut in half.

Maybe when I get all 20 allowed divisions created...but that will be long after the game is over.

this is why reforms should essentially "transform" your troops, not just modify the rules regarding your army (what you can assemble, what you can build, etc)...

once you pass the reforms an algorythm should dissolve your current units into the new ones, maybe giving you some benefit for what you already had.

The flip side of the coin is that before reforms you should be stuck with a much more annoying structure : I believe that a country like Spain should have NO divisions whatsoever buildable the old way.

Actually the way I see it in this game for reforms to make sense, "old style" divisions, ie AACW style divisions should just NOT exist. Austria / Prussia / Russia, etc.. should be have an army made of what would ingame be BIG brigades whose command cost still is more expensive than divisions.

Basically before reforms you should at best be able to build big "mixed arms" brigades made up of say 5inf elements, 2 arty and one cav which would have a command cost of 4... compare that to the new divs with 12 elements and command cost of 4 and you see the gain you get in reforms, particularly now that you can have corps.

The way I see the game, before reforms the players should be stuck using their current 3 stars, even if they suck, because they are the only ones able to command a "big enough" stack to still have force because you only have Command points costly brigades : So you need that 3 star with his 20 (I think) Command point ability. It means you can have him command a stack of 5 big brigades without penalties, or more with some penalties (pick your poison).

By giving the players the ability to build AACW divisions in this game the devs sort of made reforms not that interesting. By not making reforms actively transform armies (taking away old troops and giving you new modern ones) they have made them too complicated and not that usefull for the players, and darn well unmanageable for the AI.

[Captain_Orso]

Does anybody have a Save with any or all of the major factions with Military Reforms in place that I could have a look at? It would be much appreciated

[veji1]

Does anybody have a Save with any or all of the major factions with Military Reforms in place that I could have a look at? It would be much appreciated

I don't think anyone has gotten that far.

[Captain_Orso]

If nobody has gotten to the point of implementing Military Reforms, why are there such complaints?

I asked, ".. with any or all of the major factions with Military Reforms .."; sorry if I wasn't clear

Anyway, I've been thinking about this ... I'm not going to directly address the statements about how Military Reforms should work, because many of the statements are simply disappointing, in my view. But sometimes you've got to get things off your chest, and I'm just going to chalk those statements up to that and move on.

I have always been a proponent of never putting a governor on anything. If it's 1805 and you are Austria, and you can raise enough troops for building 15-20 divisions with full compliments, then I say, go for it! But, unless the game is giving you an exorbitant amount of resources, this is not going to happen. So at this point in time a cap on divisions is practically unnecessary.

If in 1807 Austria has recovered enough to raise 15-20 division, and the player wants to do that, why should anybody be against it. Is it historic? No, but isn't that exactly the point of this game? to do things that those in history did not do?

There will be consequences for putting all you money into troops, and if you do that, you will experience those consequences. Maybe the consequences will not be so bad; maybe they will be devastating. The fun is in finding out.

There's no point in having any discussion about replacing on-the-map 'old style division' with anything, when Military Reforms occur. It would be practically impossible to code, and nobody would ever really be satisfied with the outcome.

I can find no reason to eliminate the old style divisions in order to fit them to the new style division, nor do I see it as a technical possibility. But why should old style division be so much larger than the division-as-a-unit divisions? Why should the normal, maximum division size not remain at 17 elements plus a leader; unless the old style divisions are a mistake, of which I've never heard an argument. So I'm going to go by the assumption, that the old style divisions are the norm, and the division-as-a-unit is an enhancement (it saves some time and work in getting the units for a division together).

My conclusion is therefore, the Military Reforms should only be changed in that they should allow for either an unlimited number of division, or a much higher number of divisions, than is currently allowed. This would IMHO remove all objections and complaints about Military Reforms, other than perhaps, "why don't I get them from the start?!? " .. .

You may now tell me how stupid my idea is

[veji1]

Sorry I meant no one got as as far as having all countries implementing military reforms. Sorry misread your post !

[veji1]

No idea is stupid.

I stil think that it would be better for the reforms to indeed give the country/player a whole new army. Maybe there should be some sort of instrument coded so that elements don't disappear but are transferred to the new divs, I don't know what could be doable.

But what I know is that the only way the game can be made "more" playable particularly against the AI, but not only, is if military reforms do indeed give a whole new set of forces AND their better command structures. At least it makes it a challenge for the player : again with army/corps/div structures, the best experiences to be had in AGEOD games were in AACW or CW2 as the south against an already structured northern army with the 62 or 63 scenarios.

All AGEOD games of similar set up should help the AI and players of defeated countries by having events/reforms set up armies.

After all in Napoleon's wars, that's actually how it went for Austria or Prussia anyway.

[Captain_Orso]

Sorry I meant no one got as as far as having all countries implementing military reforms. Sorry misread your post !

No problem , I kind of thought that's how I was misunderstood.

No idea is stupid.

Sure there are, but sometimes they are very difficult to recognize

I stil think that it would be better for the reforms to indeed give the country/player a whole new army. Maybe there should be some sort of instrument coded so that elements don't disappear but are transferred to the new divs, I don't know what could be doable.

Lots of things are doable. The better question is, are they worth the effort?

A Military Reform, which transforms your current military (every single element) into some new set of units would require a massive set of target units to fit every possible combination of old units, and a massive addition to the code to do it, just to have even more of these new division units. I see absolutely no advantage in doing that; only a HUGE amount of investment (work) for a very tiny return (old brigades melded into new division units).

The division units are not special in any way, other than the number of elements in them, compared to brigade units. All units are built from the same set of elements (models), so there can be no advantage to them over brigades with the same number of the same elements.

And I assure you, there will be players, who will take great offense to breaking up their old division, because after hundreds of hours of play, their favorite elite division, the one they've taken through years of war and hardship, and marched hundreds of miles across Europe, and has become legendary in the narrative of the player's mind, is suddenly trashed.

Give the players the ability to buy his new division, and mix and match his old war-horse brigades with them, or retain them in their 'ol' grognard' division, and he will be happy. But I've never heard a player say, "I can't stand looking at my old units anymore, take them away and give me new ones", unless the new units have a stark advantage over the old ones.

But what I know is that the only way the game can be made "more" playable particularly against the AI, but not only, is if military reforms do indeed give a whole new set of forces AND their better command structures. At least it makes it a challenge for the player : again with army/corps/div structures, the best experiences to be had in AGEOD games were in AACW or CW2 as the south against an already structured northern army with the 62 or 63 scenarios.

Honestly, the few times I've played those scenarios, which start some time into the war, the first several hours I spend assessing where I have which units with which makeup of regiments, and how to reorganize them into the force that I want.

I decided long ago, before I do that, I'll start from the beginning and do it my way from the start. YMMV.

All AGEOD games of similar set up should help the AI and players of defeated countries by having events/reforms set up armies.

After all in Napoleon's wars, that's actually how it went for Austria or Prussia anyway.

I've always criticized Athena for not making force organization the very first priority; the very best leaders, with the very best divisions, and only then look for where to put them. But who listens to an ol' bear anyway

[veji1]

Well to me replayability means having to face a challenge, and a challenge means an AI that is given the tools to compete. With the game set up as it is, once you trash Austria and Prussia once, they are dead in the water for the whole game. Russia a tiny bit less so, but still massively weakened if you hurt it badly enough. If as France one wants the game to be somewhat enjoyable, you need the AI or Austrian player to be given a nice new efficient army after some reforms. Same for Prussia and others so that they can at some point rise against the Corsican giant. Otherwise once you trashed them once in 1805/1806, the game is over...

[Baris]

I think after Peace of Pressburg there is an event to form Austrian divisions for AI.

[Captain_Orso]

Austria always starts out with a 10 division limit. Her first problem it to fill them, and then that France has so many more, and then that the Russians to so drunk... I mean slow to go west

[lordlau1]

"Does anybody have a Save with any or all of the major factions with Military Reforms in place that I could have a look at? It would be much appreciated "

I have a save for you. I have gotten this far...it's the entire reason I created this thread....

Where would you like the Zip sent?

[deidaraakatski]

My conclusion is therefore, the Military Reforms should only be changed in that they should allow for either an unlimited number of division, or a much higher number of divisions, than is currently allowed. This would IMHO remove all objections and complaints about Military Reforms, other than perhaps, "why don't I get them from the start?!? " .. .

You may now tell me how stupid my idea is

No idea is stupid but this one is infinitely better, feasible, efficient, and just brilliant. This would allow the AI to compete and is more tangible to program. This way programmers don't have to code and develop a huge new army for all the nations and will keep the significance of having the old divisions in the game in the first place. Perhaps there should also be a small manpower reward with this military reform as well, mainly to buff the AI to start building.

[veji1]

My conclusion is therefore, the Military Reforms should only be changed in that they should allow for either an unlimited number of division, or a much higher number of divisions, than is currently allowed. This would IMHO remove all objections and complaints about Military Reforms, other than perhaps, "why don't I get them from the start?!? " .. .

You may now tell me how stupid my idea is

No idea is stupid but this one is infinitely better, feasible, efficient, and just brilliant. This would allow the AI to compete and is more tangible to program. This way programmers don't have to code and develop a huge new army for all the nations and will keep the significance of having the old divisions in the game in the first place. Perhaps there should also be a small manpower reward with this military reform as well, mainly to buff the AI to start building.

This would not allow the AI to compete, because the AI doesn't know how to build complicated forces (ie build brigades into divisions and divisions into corps) and it never knew. It couldn't do it in AACW or CW2 for example. The AI is able to manage sort of decently a well organised set of forces you give to it. That's why scenarios such as 1862 are fun to play because the AI is given a structured force whereas the in a 1861 scenario the AI has to build a greater part of its forces and never manages to do it.

The suggested solution here is a nice one for the players : have military reforms give them more flexibility in what they can build, fair enough. But for the AI the ONLY solution that would help it is if military reforms came with a new set of forces, properly structured and led, otherwise its forces will remain a mess.

I love AGEOD games, but by now we all know how they work. If force composition is merely "put those counters together in a stack and roll with it" the AI can do it (BoA, WiA, AJE) but if the AI has to structure its forces it is doomed once the first organisation it is given is shattered : Trash the Army of the Potomac or the Austrian army once and it's game over for the AI in that instance because it will never be able to restructure its military tool.

To have more fun in AACW or CW2, I would usually go to the northern side too during winter months and rebuild and restructure its forces during the winter pause : build divisions led by good generals, put them into corps, etc.. and then I would revert back to the south in the spring and could really have a fun time in the campaign season because I had restructured the AI forec. When the AI has to build its forces it is Kaput... And this is where a long campaign means you have to give it crutches. If the AI can give you a fun ish challenge in a 1806/1807 campaign for example, it will crumble in a long campaign once you break its structure once.

For replayability's sake the devs should have implemented a tool give the AI new set of forces and military reforms, aka progressive ones for example in the case of Austria, would have been a great way. Sadly they didn't and it contributed in making a grand campaign a vast mop up operation...