Clarification on OOB Organization

[Spore18]

So after playing through most of 1914 so far in this game as the Central Powers, I've noticed a few things:
1. Corps are very small, to the point where they're not actually even very helpful for saving CPs. At most you can save on the artillery you throw in next to the two divisions.
2. You only get up to 4 army groups with the Ottomans involved, and those army group leaders have very small command ranges compared with the fronts they would be expected to fight in, especially the eastern front.
3. Due to the high CP cost of corps and their small size, armies can't get particularly powerful without going significantly over CP limits. And that's assuming you can even put your armies in the chain of command, which in many places on the eastern front (and any theatre that isn't France, Serbia, or Armenia) just isn't possible.
4. My starting pool of 3 star commanders is extremely limited, and it will take a while to promote 2 stars up to army commanders.
5. The starting OOB from turn 1 on this game is quite unusual for an AGEOD game, with lots of independent corps running around.

So between all these factors, I'm quite confused on how I'm supposed to play this game compared to a game like CWII or WoN. My instincts are to want to have everything in the chain of command, with large corps under powerful armies, but that just isn't possible without massive CP penalties and more army groups. Instead, I've been more-or-less keeping the starting OOB untouched and putting newly created units into independent corps. Since I don't have many armies and the ones I do have are all full, this seems to be the only option, but it comes with a lot of problems like being unable to synchronize move and losing out on army group leader bonuses. Is that just what I'm supposed to do or am I missing something?

I have one other question: I seem to recall hearing in other AGEOD games that a commander suffers penalties for leading both a division and the whole stack at the same time. Is that true for this game with corps? My corps commanders currently are leading both the independent stack and their personal troops at the same time, some of them with loose extra troops as well, and I'm wondering if that's causing me problems. That said, the game started them out that way, so idk.

[Durk]

Your observations are correct and part of the game design. Factions like the Ottoman do not have as robust of a command structure as some of the other factions. This is intended to represent national differences in army modernization and training.
Almost all AGEOD game starts are historical and require the player some reorganization to achieve optimal game organization. CW2 is a prime example of this where initial deployments are textbooks of the Order of Battle.
There are some workarounds for promoting 3 stars to army command, for example, Russia sends the CinC to the Caucus area and British CinC going to Egypt.

However, there is a conceptual difference in what armies and corps mean in EAW. If you think of an army as a corps and a corps as a division in the other games, then it will be very similar. The CinC can have a wide command and control area of the subordinate armies.
Also, corps attach to any adjacent army. So if an army is on it left and another on its right, it will attach to each army in turn if both are engaged in battle.

This is a different game because armies are fronts and not discrete operational units, but very fun.

[Spore18]

Your observations are correct and part of the game design. Factions like the Ottoman do not have as robust of a command structure as some of the other factions. This is intended to represent national differences in army modernization and training.
Almost all AGEOD game starts are historical and require the player some reorganization to achieve optimal game organization. CW2 is a prime example of this where initial deployments are textbooks of the Order of Battle.
There are some workarounds for promoting 3 stars to army command, for example, Russia sends the CinC to the Caucus area and British CinC going to Egypt.

However, there is a conceptual difference in what armies and corps mean in EAW. If you think of an army as a corps and a corps as a division in the other games, then it will be very similar. The CinC can have a wide command and control area of the subordinate armies.
Also, corps attach to any adjacent army. So if an army is on it left and another on its right, it will attach to each army in turn if both are engaged in battle.

This is a different game because armies are fronts and not discrete operational units, but very fun.

So I understand that everything is one level up, with armies acting like corps in other games and corps acting like divisions. In the cases where I can attach my armies to army groups, everything is fine and I know exactly what I'm doing, as it is very similar to other AGEOD games.

I guess I'm mostly just asking this: What is the optimal structure for an independent stack? I have nowhere near enough 3 star generals to fit all my units under armies, so I have a lot of independent stacks running around atm. My plan is for the standard stack to be a corps commander with two attached divisions and 1-2 medium artillery, then two additional divisions in the stack to fill out the whole 24 CP allotted by a two star commander (plus various support units as necessary). Does this work, or is there a problem with having the commander be both a corps and stack commander at the same time?

Also, I've noticed that if I set an army to synchronize move while there are also independent stacks in the region, it acts as if those stacks will honor the order and move in sync. Is that accurate? I thought synchronized moving was only for stacks that are in the chain of command.

[Durk]

Just make sure the stack has no command penalty. An independent division is better than a leader led stack with a penalty. It is not a problem to have a leader in both roles if no command penalty
Yes. They will follow.

[Spore18]

Got it, thank you for the info!