Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Gil R.

You can now have historical start dates for generals, or slightly randomized start dates (within X turns of their historical date). Personally, I think that randomized will be better, but it's just plain wrong for the Union to start the game with Grant and be able to promote him to four stars.

I don't have my data with me right now, but Sherman's historical start date was also probably in 1861.

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ORIGINAL: freeboy

u could alway house rule that a General starts out at one star, and must remain so for at least x months,
this in response to the Grant at begining comment above..

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Grant went from a colonel in charge of a regiment to a major general commanding an army in slightly over 6 months. Lee's commands in that time period were the failed West Virginia campaign and commanding coastal defenses in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. If anyone needs to be restricted it's Lee.

"Git thar fust with the most men" - Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest

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ORIGINAL: captskillet

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Grant went from a colonel in charge of a regiment to a major general commanding an army in slightly over 6 months. Lee's commands in that time period were the failed West Virginia campaign and commanding coastal defenses in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. If anyone needs to be restricted it's Lee.

well it aint like Lee just fell off the back of a turnip truck into command with no experience...........he was wounded and received 2 promotions, the 2nd to Lt.Col as a member of Winfield Scotts staff in the Mexican War and then was Super at West Point.............what did Grant do before the War besides get drunk and fail in the business world????

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Sherman is appointed Brig. Gen. of Volunteers in may of 1861

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ORIGINAL: Drex

But generals were promoted ahead of seniors. this should be possible, but perhaps some kind of political penalty attached? I believe that has been mentioned by Gil before.

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ORIGINAL: General Quarters

I agree that it is odd to be able to promote generals at will, which means really on the basis of historical hindsight. But it is hard to provide a historical justification for rules requiring battles or even time in rank. Early on, guys became generals on the basis of some combination of actual military record, reputation, personal presence, ambition, political standing, previous connections, and being in the right place at the right time.

Grant was lucky to have a congressman who could get him appointed general and he ended up in charge of the troops in Cairo which were not yet an army but became one. Halleck was given a major department without having seen a shot fired in the CW. Look at Polk, G.W.Smith, Lovell, Pemberton, Toombs, Fremont, Pope (whose father was a judge before whom Lincoln had practiced), McClellan (both a military record and a lot of connections as RR pres, including Lincoln as one of his attorneys), and so on.

One of main problems of command was that many of these guys had to be dumped or shuffled off into side commands. After a time, battle records played a larger role but not in those early months.

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ORIGINAL: General Quarters

I agree that it is odd to be able to promote generals at will, which means really on the basis of historical hindsight. But it is hard to provide a historical justification for rules requiring battles or even time in rank. Early on, guys became generals on the basis of some combination of actual military record, reputation, personal presence, ambition, political standing, previous connections, and being in the right place at the right time.

Grant was lucky to have a congressman who could get him appointed general and he ended up in charge of the troops in Cairo which were not yet an army but became one. Halleck was given a major department without having seen a shot fired in the CW. Look at Polk, G.W.Smith, Lovell, Pemberton, Toombs, Fremont, Pope (whose father was a judge before whom Lincoln had practiced), McClellan (both a military record and a lot of connections as RR pres, including Lincoln as one of his attorneys), and so on.

One of main problems of command was that many of these guys had to be dumped or shuffled off into side commands. After a time, battle records played a larger role but not in those early months.

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ORIGINAL: Twotribes

It is simply amazing, we have gone from argueing that the player should be free to experiment ( usually the southern side is argued to be allowed this, while the North is argued to be restricted) to now argueing that somehow the President of the Country cant promote whom ever he wants because "historically" these particular guys werent promoted until x date.

Another interesting arguement is this " they need battlefield experience" Umm the Union Army had HOW many Divisions and adhoc Armies by November 1861? And had fought how many battles again? I guess there were no Generals to lead these Divisions and Armies and eventually Corps if the arguement is we cant promote till they do something in battle.

You dont want to promote them? DONT. I prefer to have generals running my containers, makes little "historical" sense that the Union ( or CSA) would have 20 plus Divisions and several armies ( or adhoc Armies) yet all their Generals are one stars.

I suggest the system be left JUST as it is. I or you are the Commander in Chief. If you dont like the historical hindsight, make your generals have hidden, random stats.

I find it amazing we are having this discussion after the heated arguements about how the "balanced" scenario was ok because "historically" the south had no chance.

Furthermore if any change IS made it seems it should apply to BOTH sides. Be careful what you wish for. Currently Generals arrive ( as far as I can tell) with the Highest rank they ever had after turn one, depending on what is programmed in the data base.

It is a game , unless you plan to insist only the generals that actually served in x position be promoted to x rank, I suggest it be left to the player to run his war how HE wants to run it.

Using the above arguements, can I now insist that a rule be made that prevents the CSA from transferring units out of Virginia to fight in the West? Can I insist that a rule be made that Generals only be allowed to fight in the theaters they fought in?

Provide us with Historical tools, the right population, the right economic base, the right starting armies, ect ect. What we do from there would be how the game plays out.

I would suggest that if the random generals function provides better generals overall to the North that THAT be changed in some reasonable manner. My suggestion would be that the random abilities be tied to the historical, in other words the range of better or worse STARTS at the historical and then a set max change is possible.

This would allow for the potential for the Southern Generals to be "better" as they were or appeared to be. The really bad generals may get better but only marginally so and the real good generals would be potentially worse than some other general.

Example.... lets say for arguement purposes that a general can have a range of 3 up or down from his historical rateing on random. The randomizer rolls and assigns the new rate ( if the negative or positive goes to high it simply assigns the lowest or highest allowed) Every General has ratings already so even though I am no programmer it seems this system would be feasible?

As to generals and promotions, as I understand it when you demote one he may just resign and be gone from the available pool? And you take a pretty big political hit with the Governor of his home state even if the resigning isnt a planned feature.