Merging Brigades and Weapon Types

[GeneralPITA]

I wanted to settle this once and for all, quantitatively. Here's some raw data to peruse. There's been discussion about giving Henry repeaters to an entire division by merging with a small elite brigade. I wanted to test it. I used Springfield 1861s, but same idea. 

Case #1: All five brigades in this division are assigned lieutenant colonels and given 500 men. They are rookies with no perks and have basic M1842s. Below are the base stats for each brigade in the first division. Notice they're all basically the same. Any variation can be attributed to the slight experience difference of the officer. 

After merging, morale and command increase, but stats top out at 1500 men. 

 

Treatment #1: Repeat as above, but give one brigade Springfield 1861 rifles. Below are the base stats for each brigade in the second division. Oddly, the 1861 brigade has identical stats as the other M1842 brigades, but obviously does not perform the same in battle. This may be a bug. 

 

Upon merging the second division you can see a big command boost (which tops out 1000 men), but otherwise base stats stay the same across the board. Note that the weapons icon only switched to M1861s with the final merge. My 1861s are the first brigade in the 2nd division, so it's odd that they merged last. It appears brigades will merge with whichever brigade is closest in their division, provided it's small enough to allow a merge. The superbrigade will adopt the best weaponry available.

The resultant 1st and 2nd division brigades end up with identical base stats except for a 7 point morale boost in the 1861 superbrigade, which is more likely a result of slightly better lieutenant colonels.

To test their efficacy in battle is more difficult because variables are not all equal, but a single volley against ~2200 rebels under 100% cover with the 1861 superbrigade yielded 37 kills. The M1842 superbrigade assumed the same firing position and only achieved 16 kills with a single volley. It appears performance betrays the stats indicated by the tool tips. The 1861 brigade is 2.3 times more efficient! It also has a faster reload, which means it's many times more deadly.

Tip: I'd recommend having one brigade hold ground when issuing the merge order. Sometimes they wind up in an endless chase, like a dog chasing its tail. You can also issue the merge order and then order one brigade to run toward the other manually, which is the fastest way to go about it, but is tedious. 

Bug: In tool tips, rank is a blank field. See how all brigades show no rank unless you click the "i" button?

Devs should fix this, truly. I'd suggest adopting intermediate values for stats on merged brigades.

[GeneralPITA]

If someone wants to add to this, test how XP gets distributed and/or how promotions are issued. I suspect you can rank up 7 officers at once (5 brigade officers, 1 division officer, 1 corps commander), but cannot say definitively if this is the case. 

In side missions this is useless, but if you add a few divisions like this to your reserve corps (particularly at Antietam), you'll have some beefy reinforcements and rank up a bunch of officers. 

[GeneralPITA]

Soldier enlightened me on steam forum under "Soldier's Guide to Repeating Rifles" that the morale and command bonuses are a result of the variation in division officers (both are colonels, but one is more experienced). Also, it's not necessarily the best weapon that is assumed, it's simply the last brigade that merged which determines the superbrigade's weaponry (even if it's a farmer rifle).

I'd post a link but can't do that here, you need steam client to see it.

[paulus1975]

Interesting @GeneralPITA! What about the differences in "Reloading" and "Range" (show only graphically) that appear even though the weapons are the same? (2nd set of graphics, 4th and 5th brigade examples).

Edited January 13, 2017 by paulus1975

[GeneralPITA]

Good point, paulus1975. I hadn't noticed that. This is bugged. You see the same thing in the second division.