Question about Efficiency

[Minato009]

Hi,

I've read some guides that stress how important preserving unit efficiency is. They caution about increasing brigade sizes too much with an unskilled officer resulting in decreased efficiency... but I'm not sure if this is good advice. I will give three examples of why I'm confused, from my current campaign.

*) A brigade of mine with 1358 men, under a Brigadier General has 40. When I increase brigade to 2000 men the efficiency drops to 32. That's a 20% decrease in efficiency, but on the other hand I get 50% more soldiers in my brigade https://trackeasy.fun/usps/ https://showbox.tools/ so that seems like a worthwhile trade off.

*) When I create a brand new brigade under a Major, or Brigadier General the efficiency is 17 with 500 men and remains at 17 with 2000 men. There appears to be no difference in efficiency derived from either the rank of the commander, or the amount of men in the new brigade.

*) I have 2 star veteran brigade with 58 efficiency, and when I reinforce it fully this efficiency drops to 53. I've tried putting a Major in the brigade, and I've put a Major General in the brigade and they both effect efficiency in the same way. i.e. both are commanding with 58 efficiency, and it drops to 53 as I increase size.

Therefore, at first glance it appears that the efficiency mechanic isn't working correctly and a commander's rank has no effect on the brigade, only the proportion of veteran troops. Is this working as intended?

Edited June 8, 2021 by Minato009

[LAVA]

12 hours ago, Minato009 said:

Hi,

I've read some guides that stress how important preserving unit efficiency is. They caution about increasing brigade sizes too much with an unskilled officer resulting in decreased efficiency... but I'm not sure if this is good advice. I will give three examples of why I'm confused, from my current campaign.

Hi mate,

What the guide is trying to say is that (for example) if you put a low ranking major into a unit of 2,000 men, you will see the efficiency of the unit will drop because that officer is not capable of commanding that many troops. In this situation, if you look at the unit, there will be a segment of the efficiency line which will be red. If you mouse over the red area of the efficiency it will tell you exactly that. It will say (more or less) "this officer is too low a rank to command this amount of men".

Efficiency represents the overall skill of the unit. If you take a battle hardened unit and add a bunch of recruits the overall average of that unit's efficiency will fall. The Leadership does make a difference, but it is marginal.

If you have a good Divisional Commander and Brigadier (each contributes to leadership) and you want to increase the size of a brigade then you have 3 options:

1) You can reinforce the unit with recruits, in which case the efficiency of the unit will, naturally, fall.

2) You can reinforce the unit with veterans, in which case the efficiency of the unit will maintain its present value.

3) You can reinforce with veterans and recruits to make sure that you spend the absolute minimum amount to maintain the unit's perk(s).

Most folks try to get brigades up to around 2 stars and maintain them at that level. Three star units (with the exception of artillery and skirmisher/sharpshooter units) are far too expensive to maintain on Hard difficulty or above.

[pandakraut]

Some other details here. When you add men to a unit there are two different ways that efficiency can be affected. First, adding recruits will average the stats of the recruit and the stats of the unit. For a brand new unit this will result in no difference, but for an experienced unit this will cause the efficiency to drop. Adding veterans retains the unit's stats so no drop will be seen from a change in stats.

Second, an officer can only command so many men when assigned to a specific type of unit without penalty. When this occurs, the efficiency will go down and the red bar will be displayed. The amount that can be commanded goes up as the officer's experience increases.

However, the amount of men that can be commanded by low xp officer's tends to be very generous. So you basically have to take the minimum rank officer that can command the unit, and then add the maximum number of men to a unit to start seeing the red bar.

So in your first example, a BG can command a max size infantry unit, so the only change in efficiency you are seeing are from your stats being averaged with the recruits. If that drop in efficiency is worth the size increase and the best way to do it is it's own rather involved discussion but let's just say that if you want a 2k unit then you can safely go to 2k without incurring a penalty from the officer.

In your second example a major can command a 2k unit without penalty from what I recall. And adding recruits to a new unit results in no stat change, so the efficiency changing is expected. I think you hit the penalty if you go up to 2.5k but I rarely play with units that size so I may be mistaken here.

Your third example is a combination of the first two, adding men drops efficiency due to stat averaging but not due to the officer.