Recent Change to Generals

[Indirik]

A few weeks back, there was a change to generals. We are now not allowed to see the army details on ArmyInfo.php. Apparently now the general can only see the same generic details that every other army member can see? I don't remember any particular announcement of this change. I really don't like this at all.

I can't remember anyone ever complaining that the general had access to the army status. I'm curious as to the reasoning behind this change. It makes my job as general significantly more difficult. I don't see as to how this change improves the game in any way, or adds to the experience at all.

[Charles]

Hm, I hope that is a mistake.

[Shizzle]

Having sent my General army reports on several occasions, I must agree the change is no improvement. But perhaps it's too soon to tell

[Lorgan]

I agree. All this makes me want to do is steal the vice marshal position from someone else... which is not a good development for the game I think.

[Zakilevo]

So what is the point of having a general anyway when he can't really see much of what is going on in his military? Better to just let marshals work things out than having a general trying to figure out with inaccurate information.

[De-Legro]

So what is the point of having a general anyway when he can't really see much of what is going on in his military? Better to just let marshals work things out than having a general trying to figure out with inaccurate information.

The idea is that Generals develop an overall strategy. Finer details are either left to the marshals or discussed within the military hierarchy. Its working okay for me right now, but then the realm I am general in isn't in a war that is really testing our military either, and I do want to strangle one of my marshals.

[Tom]

It is not true that generals see that same thing as everyone else. They have an additional summary at the bottom that aside from them only the sponsor and marshal see. That summary should contain all the info that the general requires at his level of command.

[De-Legro]

It is not true that generals see that same thing as everyone else. They have an additional summary at the bottom that aside from them only the sponsor and marshal see. That summary should contain all the info that the general requires at his level of command.

For those interested you get a army summary like this

Total Troops: 678 men (7185 combat strength)
(258 Archers, 420 Infantry)

What was removed was individual unit CS and Readiness values.

[GoldPanda]

This is only going to encourage "one army per realm", Tom. 

Or maybe we will all follow Darka's example, and have one army for all the Courtiers and Diplomats, and one army for everyone else.

If you want to make the armies more important, please overhaul the combat system so that it makes sense to split your forces. Because currently the optimal strategy is "blob up and hit the other blob". Splitting up will just get your armies defeated in detail.

Putting blinders on your players will only encourage more micro-management (a General can still see the information you've hidden with enough scout reports, or by demanding data from other nobles), and more consolidation and centralization of powers around the General (one army per realm). Which I believe is the opposite of what you want to encourage.

[Zakilevo]

One giant army with the general as either the marshal of the army or the VM. That sounds more efficient.

[GoldPanda]

Actually, I've found that having a Vice Marshal actually hurts more than helps. If your Marshal gets stabbed/captured, that army is stuck on his last Marshal setting until he comes back, as the Vice Marshal cannot change the settings. Sure, you still have a Vice Marshal enforcing line settings, only now they might be the wrong ones. I've actually seen incidents where the Vice Marshal were told to move away from the battle site so that he can't screw up his army's settings.

It's another example where the game mechanics ended up discouraging what was meant to be encouraged (more positions, more distribution of power, etc.)

[Telrunya]

I see it used a lot as a springboard for new promising Nobles, since the Vice-Marshal position is a nice safe position for a Noble to employ itself without big mistakes being able to happen (The Marshal takes the lead anyway). Generally, I say Marshal Formations are set correctly most of the time, and the sponsor can always temporarily switch Marshal/Vice-Marshal positions in such a case. I don't see how the Vice-Marshal actually discourages more positions and distribution of power. To me, it seems quite the opposite.

[Indirik]

Yes, the general gets a total summary. But in most situations, that summary is of no use at all. I don't care about the total army CS as anything other than a gross estimation of the army's overall health. What I really need to know is how much CS, and what type of troops do I have, in Region X? What good are troops in Firbalt if the battle is going to be in Iknopata? As it stands now, I need to beg for scout reports, wait for them to come in, then make the decision, then send a message to the marshals, then wait for the marshals to give the orders. All the while knowing that every minute the orders are delayed is CS lost because its not going to make it to the battle. If I had the information like I used to have we could short circuit all that and get down to what matters.

I really see no benefit to removing this information. It just adds frustration, confusion, and lots of unecessary busy work.

And yes, I know that if someone won't be marching with the army, maybe they shouldn't be in the army. But we all know that for every campaign there are always people that don't go for some reason, or fall behind, or get wounded. And getting lords to constantly move people around in armies is completely unreasonable.

In a perfect world, maybe this approach would work. But this is a game, and we're not perfect people. IMO this change adds nothing at all to the game except a bunch of unreasonable expectations.

[Geronus]

I have to agree here. A General needs to have at least as much information as the realm's Marshals, because he has more authority *and* more responsibility. How can he make decisions if he doesn't have information about how much combat strength he has where? I definitely think this will encourage realms to slim down to one army, with the General as Marshal or Vice Marshal. It's what I would do. I shouldn't have to be asking my Marshal to copy and paste what he sees into a letter for me every turn just so I can get an accurate strategic picture of where *my own forces* are, or begging for scout reports of where our own forces are. Why not simply do away with Generals altogether and let the Marshals run everything? That's more or less what this encourages since the Marshal will have much better information with which to make decisions; given that fact, he should *be* the one to make decisions.

[De-Legro]

I seem to recall that Tom has said previously that Generals shouldn't be making decisions every turn. For Solaria I am trialling the following. I give each Marshal their objectives and make it their responsibility to achieve them. Part of that responsibility is determining if they have the force to achieve it, reacting accordingly and updating me if an objective is no longer achievable so I can draw up new plans.

So my orders might be something like follows

March your forces through enemy territory taking this route, attempting to avoid pitched battles and rally in region X within 7 turns. The other armies shall join you there. Once we are rallied siege the city. The siege should take place within 3 turns of our force arriving at the rally point.

I could also list general contingency plans, but to be honest that would just confuse one of my marshals at this stage. The weakness of this method is inter army communication when something goes wrong with the plan. To counter this I need to ensure that the marshals have a good understanding of the mission and the acceptable risks. As our system develops it will be part of our standard operating procedure that in emergency situations the first commander (This is our general description for Marshals and General) to become aware of the situation (log on) will assess and provide immediate orders. As General is is my job to then rework the plans to our current situation. Its not necessarily my job to provide a immediate response to the situation, the marshals should have adequate information to achieve this.

I'm basing most of this on my experience as a Lieutenant. At all levels of military command you need to make decisions immediately without necessarily being able to get clarification from above. A major part of my job as General is to ensure the marshals have the skills and information to react appropriately to the situations that arrive rather then being the man to make every single command decision.