Rank Structure, Recruitment, and Unit Command.

[Kinjo]

As I have read through many of the threads here at the totalwar center and the limited information that has been released about ETW. There is one thing that has really caught my attention, it is the ability for units to be recruited/conscripted around a general verses a provenience. I always hated the fact that you have these pointless general less armies running around. I think that the new system could solve some of those issues. After thinking about it, here are some ideas on how I think it will work. There are several areas that would or should be connected on the generals ability to conscript an army.




Rank and Recruitment:

Named characters should have a rank system this time around, that would increase their ability to recruit larger forces. For example a General should be able to conscript a larger force then a Captain or a Colonel. Ranks should act as the amount of recruitment slots a character has available when conscripting a force. A new character/officer would start as a lieutenant and would work his way up the ranks. This would be a sample ranking system for say for the Americans:

Gerneral
Colonel
Captain
Lieutenant

Titles

Titles should also be in, why would you want to leave out such a great feature? Couple examples of titles would be Commandant of the Marine Corps and Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Ships. Titles would be reserved for the top generals.




Experience

Experience in the totalwar games for the most part contributes to unbalancing in the muti-player area of the game though CA have made some attempts to reduce the effect of experience in M2TW. I think that this system needs to be reworked to a realistic approach. Currently you can have up to 9 experience for a veteran unit. I would start off buy reducing it to only up to 2 experience and translate them to rank of the unit. For example a new recruited unit would be a unit of privates and a veteran unit would be a unit of battle harden corporals. This I this is a more realistic approach to experience and would make the multi-player aspect more balanced. So a unit of privates would have no chevrons, lance corporals would have one chevron and corporals will have two chevrons. I would also get rid of the experience banners to chevrons to the soldiers sleeve of his coat. This could be done with a texture swap when the unit gains experience.


Unit Command Officers

Unit command was important during these times to keep unit cohesion, for regular line infantry I would like to see the unit lead by a Sergeant. Also the unit command should consist of and officer, flag bearer (that actully carries a flag) and a musician. I really hope CA gets away from the current way they represent banners with the floating banners and just go to one banner that is carried by a solider in the unit. Getting rid of the experience banners would also be nice and represent the experience in the form of chevrons on the soldiers uniforms.

[ivan_the_terrible]

I like your approach to experience for units.

I would go one step further and have it so that only the low level of a type of unit (say line infantry) is recruitable, and you will only get better units when they gain experience. So you may start out with the most basic line infantry unit and as they gain 1 experience, they will automatically turn into the unit ranked just above them and so on.

You may be able to skip the first level if you have sophisticated training facilities in a city, where you can recruit the 'second level' infantry, so that it gives some purpose for buildings.

I hope I'm making sense here...

[Roy Batty]

Rank and Recruitment:

Neat! I like it. Perhaps with general/leader units gaining battle experience, they also gain rank and so can lead larger forces. The production of leader units can take place in cities featuring military academies or buildings of certain levels...

Titles

Titles should be very rare, earned through great achievements by the leadership unit, or perhaps dolled out by the player after certain imperial milestones.

Experience

I like the idea of unit standard bearers but I find floating banners less unrealistic than entire units composed of lance corporals and corporals. Perhaps units can feature standard bearers (ooh and drummers/pipers!) that feature experience icons on the banner?

Unit Command Officers

I'm not sure about M2:TW but in Rome Total War, such officers were featured in certain units (centurions in roman cohorts I know for sure off the top of my head). What would be nice, perhaps, is the loss of such characters in a unit resulting in a drop in morale and maybe an increase in order-issued and order-executed lag.

[Farnan]

I disagree with your experience part, a corporal is an NCO thus a leader, there would not be a unit of corporals.

Instead of having the rank structure Lieutenant-Captain-Colonel-General it should be Colonel-Brigadier-Major General-Lieutenant General. Lieutenants would command a mere platoon and Captain a company not large enough for a TW battle.

[Kinjo]

I disagree with your experience part, a corporal is an NCO thus a leader, there would not be a unit of corporals.

Instead of having the rank structure Lieutenant-Captain-Colonel-General it should be Colonel-Brigadier-Major General-Lieutenant General. Lieutenants would command a mere platoon and Captain a company not large enough for a TW battle.

Well when I severed in the Marines towards the end of my tour 80% of my platoon was corporals or lance corporals the other 20% where replacements or poeple who have been busted down in rank. Then new privates started to arrive when it was time to replace us.

As for the rank system goes that was a very basic list of the 1775 American Revolutionary Army rank structure, I just chose to leave out coronet, subaltern and ensign.

[Trax]

Simple experience levels like in Take Command 2nd Manassas would be nice.

Green, Trained, Fair, Regular, Good, Veteran, Elite, Crack.

I would merge Trained with Fair and Elite with Crack, that means 6 levels of experience, more then enough IMO.

[Maréchal_Martin]

How about being able to promote leaders ? As you pointed out, colonels and generals get more men, so to keep people from promoting when it's not deserved, put in a type of punishment for promoting captains who are unfit to command larger forces (like increase in troops desertion, moral in battle reduced, maybe units are less responsive in battle (this might just be frustrating even though realistic, hehe))

Promoting a captain whos command level and experience do allow for him to be a good commander will not give any penalties, and depending on his experience can give bonuses and so on.

[Farnan]

Just make limits to the number of characters able to hold such ranks. Maybe 1 LG (using my rank system) per Huge City, 1 MG per Large City, 1 BG per Minor City, and unlimited Colonels.

As far as I am aware, the position of Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps is not an NCO while a Corporal is. Thus a unit full of Lance Corporals would be normal, but Corporals not (I'm Army, we have a lot of Specialists (E-4s) and PFCs (E-3s) in the ranks, few E-1s and E-2s)

[Kinjo]

Just make limits to the number of characters able to hold such ranks. Maybe 1 LG (using my rank system) per Huge City, 1 MG per Large City, 1 BG per Minor City, and unlimited Colonels.

As far as I am aware, the position of Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps is not an NCO while a Corporal is. Thus a unit full of Lance Corporals would be normal, but Corporals not (I'm Army, we have a lot of Specialists (E-4s) and PFCs (E-3s) in the ranks, few E-1s and E-2s)

I agree there should be a limit to the amount of generals you can have related to the size of your empire. One thing I would like to see is that the General actually commands something such as a Battalion or a Division. The General should be attached to a group such as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalion or the King's Division of course this would depend on the nation you are playing. This would actually give the feeling that there is some organization to the army. One neat feature that could be added is unique units that could be attached to a certain Battalion or Division. Some examples of this could be the The Duke of Wellington's Regiment of the King's Division or the The Scots Guards of the 1st Battalion.

[schoenkoenig]

Really and truly, at the level of government control TW places you in, namely the monarch, you aren't going to be dealing with anyone under the rank of general. Mostly, one should be dealing with marshals and upper-rank generals (rank systems were not uniform across countries at this time). Anyone at the rank of colonel or below just wasn't dealt with directly by the central state.

[Kinjo]

Really and truly, at the level of government control TW places you in, namely the monarch, you aren't going to be dealing with anyone under the rank of general. Mostly, one should be dealing with marshals and upper-rank generals (rank systems were not uniform across countries at this time). Anyone at the rank of colonel or below just wasn't dealt with directly by the central state.

I agree to a point but due believe that there should be a rank system of some type. Even if the lowest rank started as Colonel and there was different general levels such as Brigadier, Major General, Lieutenant General, and Field Marshal. The problem with characters in totalwar games is they are so generic. There have been things that CA has done in the past to help with this, titles was a great feature that should be back in the series. Kingdoms brought us unique characters which is one of the best things they have done with the generals. Another thing I would like to see is unique looking faction leaders that does not look like the rest of the generals and are different looking for each nation.

[GeneralMonck]

I wholly agree with the idea reflecting historical reality with ranks, command structure and special units, my one reccomendation would be that these features be largely passive, that is, that they dont slow down the speed of play for those who arent as interested. My worry is that this could hurt sales and threaten future CW projects.

Another great option would be to make unit experience part of the specialization process mentioned by Reiksmarshal, for example, units of a sufficiently high experience level could become unique units, or Generals who win Heroic victories could be rewarded with a unque unit.

[Agent Provocateur]

For me experience should mean filling the ranks with ranks - that's just ridiculous and isn't used in serious armies as it devalues the whole ranking system.

Experience should be represented by a lesser tendency to desert, greater steadyness, higher rates of fire, higher accuracy, faster manoeuvering and more complex drills available. Officer academies could be developped to have a greater impact than just a couple of new units recruitable. They could actually increase the efficiency of your troops in general (their point surely?).

Ranks should be represented maybe as the ability to continue on the battlefield with gaps in the command structure. So, you could have people within a formation who have a direct impact on its efficiency. A colnel gets hit and the formation responds to orders much more slowly, morale takes a hit. A captain takes a hit and again morale dips and the formation slows down a bit. Sergeants get hit and rates of fire take a dive, that kind of thing. A bit random on th eunits in a game like TW, but with bullets and cannon balls flying all over the place in an 18th cent battle random is right. Many contemporary accounts stress the randomness of surviving and being killed.

[Kinjo]

For me experience should mean filling the ranks with ranks - that's just ridiculous and isn't used in serious armies as it devalues the whole ranking system.

Really? lets just take a look at the origins of the rank Lance Corporal.

The Italian lancia spezzata, which literally means "broken lance" or "broken spear", which was used to note a seasoned soldier, as the broken spear was a metaphor for combat experience. I merely suggested a new experience system because the current experience system is one of the biggest problems of the multilayer aspect. Its not unrealistic to have a unit of seasoned troops, therefore why is it unrealistic to a have a veteran unit where the average rank of the solider is Lance Corporal or the equivalent. I think that the current system that is in the totalwar system is unrealistic, you can have up to 9 experience which are represented by floating experience flags, whats realistic about that? Being a former US Marine which has its origins during this time period it is not uncommon to have a regiment/platoon that has been in service
for two/three years to consist mainly of Lance Corporals granted some things have changed with the ranks since then but not by much.

[Agent Provocateur]

Really? lets just take a look at the origins of the rank Lance Corporal.

The Italian lancia spezzata, which literally means "broken lance" or "broken spear", which was used to note a seasoned soldier, as the broken spear was a metaphor for combat experience. I merely suggested a new experience system because the current experience system is one of the biggest problems of the multilayer aspect. Its not unrealistic to have a unit of seasoned troops, therefore why is it unrealistic to a have a veteran unit where the average rank of the solider is Lance Corporal or the equivalent. I think that the current system that is in the totalwar system is unrealistic, you can have up to 9 experience which are represented by floating experience flags, whats realistic about that? Being a former US Marine which has its origins during this time period it is not uncommon to have a regiment/platoon that has been in service
for two/three years to consist mainly of Lance Corporals granted some things have changed with the ranks since then but not by much.

I meant substantive ranks rather than appointments. Lance Corporal was not actually a rank per se in the 18th cent (in the British army in any event). Anyway, I was talking about a unit full of sergeants - which would be rank inflation.

[OutOfFaze]

I like your idea of rank, personally though, I'd develop it a little further.

Now that we're fully into the era of professional armies, I think all CO ranks should be accounted for. I'm not exactly sure of the structure of the army (so I'm looking it up as I go along), but let's say every unit you recruit is a company. A company is led by a Lieutenant. When you hire a company, a named character gets created with the rank of Lieutenant. Every battle fought, the soldiers get more experience, and honour, as do the officers. If the rout, they lose honour. Honour could affect the morale of the opposition. Example, not many armies would cherish the thought of going up against Napoleon's Imperial Guard.

Now lets say, once you have 5 units, you can group them together to form a Regiment - which are numbered in the order they're created, and can be named. The Lieutenant with the highest experience and honour becomes the Colonel-Commandant (leads the entire regiment, while the Lieutenant in charge of the first company of the regiment becomes a Captain-Lieutenant.
You could even have Dukes, Lords and other wealthy landowners request you raise a Regiment for them, which they will pay for, or partly for. This regiment would be numbered in the usual way, but named after whoever payed for it. Said Duke or Lord would become the General of the regiment.

The scope for change and improvement in this version of the game is unimaginable.

[OutOfFaze]

Also, once you have created a regiment, you could give them a base. Simply select the head of the regiment, tell him to construct a base (much like building a fort etc). This regimental base could be where you recruit soldiers for that regiment. The base could have a series of sliders which set things like the quality of training for regular troops, officers, medics etc etc, offset by greater cost and recruitment time.

[Agent Provocateur]

Also, once you have created a regiment, you could give them a base. Simply select the head of the regiment, tell him to construct a base (much like building a fort etc). This regimental base could be where you recruit soldiers for that regiment. The base could have a series of sliders which set things like the quality of training for regular troops, officers, medics etc etc, offset by greater cost and recruitment time.

I like this, actually have a real regimental system in place. However, it didn't work like that for all nations. I think you are coming at it from the british model, but Britain had a couple of advantages in this respect. Home bases were never really liable ot be attacked and the demands in terms of numbers was never the same as continental armies. Large/huge armies with a high demand for casulaty replacements would make the regimental system you describe very difficult to keep going. However, if you can keep to small(ish) armies and secure your bases then it's a great idea.