Cold Harbor Deployments from Day to Day

[Pandemonium]

REALLY frustrating to go from day 2 at Cold Harbor to day 3, and have all your units auto-scrambled in no particular manner whatsoever to prepare for the Union assault.

Why? Shouldn't be a rather easy fix to keep my units in the general formations they were in from day to day?

Sorry for being pouty.

[Wright29]

Thing is you can end a battle in the middle of a melee, a rout, with AI units in your rear. There aren't always static battle lines. What happens then? Do you just pop right back up exactly where you left off with literally everything in the exact same place? 

[Pandemonium]

I'm not sure I understand your logic, relevant to my issue.  ALL of my units have been changed, and across the battle-map, not just a few randomn moves. And I didn't have any routed units, or AI in my rear. Come on, I've been a veteran long enough to realize battle lines are not static.

The day ends, my units may be fighting or mopping up, but units likely won't be completely and haphazardly thrown about the lines in a completely different arrangement.  Some units may move to the rear, others may be shifted along the line, but not a complete changeover.

I -THINK- it might be reverting back to the AI's initial emplacement of my Corps...I checked again after a few saves to see how it goes.

EDIT - Example - My Supply wagon I specifically deployed to the Left Flank near the woods, but on the next day, it was on the center battle map.

Edited June 3, 2017 by Pandemonium
Gave example.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Pandemonium's comments have merit. 

He is not the only person who is frustrated when  you end a day with a well formed line of battle with your artillery well sited, and at dawn the next day units are randomly reassigned. 

It won't change, that's how the game is built, but I feel your pain. 

[Bigjku]

I do wish the game would keep Corps and divisions together except in battles where there is a reason for there to be chaos.  I accept it at a place like Shilo where things were kind of chaos for the Union but yeah it's really frustrating when your divisions and corps get scrambled for no apparent good reason.

[A. P. Hill]

+3.   Or is that +4?

Edited June 3, 2017 by A. P. Hill

[Andre Bolkonsky]

5 hours ago, Bigjku said:

I do wish the game would keep Corps and divisions together except in battles where there is a reason for there to be chaos.  I accept it at a place like Shilo where things were kind of chaos for the Union but yeah it's really frustrating when your divisions and corps get scrambled for no apparent good reason.

Agreed. Or in future games just give the player a series of deployment boxes and allow him to put what he wants where he wants

[A. P. Hill]

1 hour ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

Agreed. Or in future games just give the player a series of deployment boxes and allow him to put what he wants where he wants

In other words, start each new day the same as the original battle day ...

I can get behind that.

[Fred Sanford]

1 hour ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

Agreed. Or in future games just give the player a series of deployment boxes and allow him to put what he wants where he wants

Expanding on that idea, how about if each map were divided into "zones", say a 4 zone by 4 zone grid on a typical large battle map, so 16 total.  Each of these zones is a potential deployment box.  If you have a preponderance (say 10 to 1 or were the last to pass thru) of troops in a zone, you have control of the zone, and you can use it as a deployment box for the subsequent phase.  Same for the AI player (which would require some sort of deployment logic).  If neither side has control of a zone, it is a 'no mans land' and neither can start the next phase in that zone.

Edited June 3, 2017 by Fred Sanford

[Andre Bolkonsky]

15 minutes ago, Fred Sanford said:

Expanding on that idea, how about if each map were divided into "zones", say a 4 zone by 4 zone grid on a typical large battle map, so 16 total.  Each of these zones is a potential deployment box.  If you have a preponderance (say 10 to 1 or were the last to pass thru) of troops in a zone, you have control of the zone, and you can use it as a deployment box for the subsequent phase.  Same for the AI player (which would require some sort of deployment logic).  If neither side has control of a zone, it is a 'no mans land' and neither can start the next phase in that zone.

My idea runs similar to this. But it is what it is in this game. Something to consider for future projects. 

[jamieva]

15 hours ago, Pandemonium said:

I'm not sure I understand your logic, relevant to my issue.  ALL of my units have been changed, and across the battle-map, not just a few randomn moves. And I didn't have any routed units, or AI in my rear. Come on, I've been a veteran long enough to realize battle lines are not static.

The day ends, my units may be fighting or mopping up, but units likely won't be completely and haphazardly thrown about the lines in a completely different arrangement.  Some units may move to the rear, others may be shifted along the line, but not a complete changeover.

I -THINK- it might be reverting back to the AI's initial emplacement of my Corps...I checked again after a few saves to see how it goes.

EDIT - Example - My Supply wagon I specifically deployed to the Left Flank near the woods, but on the next day, it was on the center battle map.

 

This is not the only battle it takes place at.  I brought it up previously in regards to Stones River.  Also happens at Chancellorsville.  

[Wright29]

Shiloh is the one people rage about the most I think. 

[Bigjku]

6 hours ago, Wright29 said:

Shiloh is the one people rage about the most I think. 

Shilo I understand a bit as the Union as there is supposed to be some chaos there.  Jumbled divisions is fine.  The jumbled corps don't make a ton of sense just because each tended to stay well away from others to avoid total chaos.

If it's deliberate I don't mind it.  I try to play with no or very minimal pausing so in chaotic situations it should be harder to issue orders and the jumble accomplishes that.

But many times I think that the jumble occurs simply because the battle says deploy the first 9 brigades of this corps here.  The next 4 here ect.  Corps are going to march as either a corps or division for the most part.  Sometimes their parts end up at opposite ends of the field and that doesn't make much sense.

To me an ideal system would be during major battles to simply give the player a number of marching options on how to get to the battlefield and let them assign their corps accordingly.  You could introduce some uncertainty by varying he actual arrival times from campaign through campaign and making each route of varying quality and thus varying risk to timing.  If you really wanted to add fun to it you could use such a system to make cavalry more important by having it be able to be assigned to screen or delay your or the enemies approach march.  This would give much more value to cavalry in the game.  Probably way too much to add now but interesting to me all the same.

In the short term when chaos isn't the desired setup I suggest they just deploy troops by division rather than by brigades.