Big Corps / Small Corps and Detailed Battles

Matrix Games Forums

Forums Register Login Photo Gallery Member List Search Calendars FAQ

My Profile Inbox Address Book My Subscription My Forums Log Out

Big Corps / Small Corps and Detailed Battles

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [Napoleonics] >> Crown of Glory >> Big Corps / Small Corps and Detailed Battles

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

Big Corps / Small Corps and Detailed Battles - 6/30/2006 8:59:46 PM

Russian Guard

Posts: 1251
Joined: 10/14/2005
Status: offline

I have found a real preference for smaller Corps, just thought I'd share my experience.

When I have an Army (non-French) with 2 full-sized Corps attached (6 Divisions, or 7 if I have the Corps up-grade), I find myself usually deployed at the start of detailed battles as two big "lumps" of divisions. This often contributes to the issue of your Artillery getting exposed and attacked by enemy cavalry, for example, not to mention "untangling" the glob of divisions that are deployed in a cluster.

I experimented recently with having an Army consisting of 4 Corps, each with 4 divisions attached, along with one or two divisions attached to the Army itself.

What I found was that in detailed battles, my forces were deployed across a broader front, by Corps, less jumbled together and really creating more deployment options (especially outflanking the enemy).

The downside to this approach is that you need to build more Corps containers (costing alot more Textiles in particular) and it spreads your generals out across more Corps. Some Corps will have no generals, so you lose their benefit.

I rarely play the French but I think, given their abundance of quality generals and Corps to start the game, this will work wonderfully for the French...

FWIW

Post #: 1

RE: Big Corps / Small Corps and Detailed Battles - 7/2/2006 2:28:19 AM

Southern Hunter

Posts: 847
Joined: 4/30/2006
Status: offline

Very interesting, I will try it (but not with Turkey as in my current game - just not enough textiles)

Cheers,

H

(in reply to Russian Guard)

Post #: 2

RE: Big Corps / Small Corps and Detailed Battles - 7/8/2006 9:51:46 PM

ahauschild

Posts: 118
Joined: 7/8/2005
Status: offline

There is advantages and disadvantages to having more corps in the army.
I think the computer places each corps, or army in a random general area, with a higher chance of them being close to the original entry start point. I had on several occations some of my corps start isolated, and had to spend a few turns getting them just close to the main line. That was bad, unless its cav.

The Corps system is what gave armies such as the French originaly a big advantages in battles. By breaking down the command controll into more managable groups, each one ussualy combined arms fighting force it was possible to manuver on a broader front.

Armies that did not utilize the corps system initialy did not have much flexibility in manuver. This normaly is represented in games with overall army or Corps commanders, that provided a moral, command and combat bonus to units within their range of controll. This is one part in CoG that is not represented as well. Your commanders provide rally bonuses to your units no matter where on the map they are.

(in reply to Russian Guard)

Post #: 3

RE: Big Corps / Small Corps and Detailed Battles - 7/10/2006 8:12:33 PM

Russian Guard

Posts: 1251
Joined: 10/14/2005
Status: offline

My first post was less an attempt to justify any historical use of Corps, more just to point out that from a game mechanics perspective, having more Corps in an Army (4 or 5 with 3 or 4 divisions each, as opposed to 2 stuffed ones) has generally worked well for me in terms of initial set up in detailed battle.

There have been a few times when the Corps were still jumbled together in a large mess - one particularly bad set up recently had my Corps strung out in an almost vertical axis against the horizontally aligned enemy (bad, bad), but more often than not, they were better deployed along a broader front - which I prefer.

Your mileage may vary....

(in reply to ahauschild)

Post #: 4