Combining Brigades

[Beruldsen]

I know you can combine brigades during the battle phase ... but is there a way to combine beat-up brigades during the Army Organization phase?

[A. P. Hill]

If you mean in the Camp screen, ...  not yet.

[Bobby Fiasco]

That would be nice! I also wish you could select which brigades will merge. Now I just click it and see which two start marching across the map toward each other, taking flanking fire, etc. as they go.

[The Soldier]

10 minutes ago, Bobby Fiasco said:

That would be nice! I also wish you could select which brigades will merge. Now I just click it and see which two start marching across the map toward each other, taking flanking fire, etc. as they go.

You can, in theory.  Just bring the two brigades from the division you want combined close to each other.

[A. P. Hill]

33 minutes ago, Bobby Fiasco said:

That would be nice! I also wish you could select which brigades will merge. Now I just click it and see which two start marching across the map toward each other, taking flanking fire, etc. as they go.

You can prevent some of what you describe with a bit of pre-battle planning.  While in the start screen before the battle, take time to do a little battlefield organization. Selecting units and viewing the unit properties box in the lower left corner of your screen, will identify which divisions your brigades belong to. In this setting you can now place units from the same divisions on the same part of the field. Doing this before a fight prevents units crossing no mans land, or marching behind enemy lines to be wiped out, or any other disaster. 

Select the unit with the lesser stats, weapons, etc., and hit the combine button then select the brigade with the better stats.

Grouping your brigades before a battle also allows them to benefit from their leaders as well, instead of dangling out in some unsupported area of the field.

Hope this helps.

[Wright29]

With zero men in the reserve, you can just delete the unit and add it wherever you would have merged it. If you don't have zero men, then you should either be able to replace the men or you can just temporarily create some dummy brigades with spare guns you have lying around. 

[A. P. Hill]

And remember, combining only works if the total numbers combined are equal to or less than your maximum limit in camp.

[The Soldier]

13 minutes ago, A. P. Hill said:

And remember, combining only works if the total numbers combined are equal to or less than your maximum limit in camp.

Not linked to your maximum brigade size, but rather just limited to 2500.  Very useful early on.

[A. P. Hill]

OKay my misunderstanding then.   I stand corrected.

[Mason Price]

And yet...taking all that is said above into consideration and using all of these strategies...I still find there are times where two brigades that are supposed to be able to combine following the game's rules, won't combine and one or both units will begin to wonder away from each other.  Also, it seems to me that if you want or need to disband veteran units in camp, you should be able to get these troops as veterans when adding to or creating new units.

[Aetius]

15 hours ago, Mason Price said:

Also, it seems to me that if you want or need to disband veteran units in camp, you should be able to get these troops as veterans when adding to or creating new units.

This does happen, kind of. When you disband the unit, they get mixed into the recruit pool, increasing the recruit statistics proportionally. If your recruit pool is at zero, you can add them right back to another unit with their original stats. If you have the resources and space, you can temporarily put all the recruits into cheap brigades so you can disband and re-assign veteran troops with no loss in effectiveness.

[Mason Price]

45 minutes ago, Aetius said:

This does happen, kind of. When you disband the unit, they get mixed into the recruit pool, increasing the recruit statistics proportionally. If your recruit pool is at zero, you can add them right back to another unit with their original stats. If you have the resources and space, you can temporarily put all the recruits into cheap brigades so you can disband and re-assign veteran troops with no loss in effectiveness.

Thanks for the info--will have to look into this more--not sure if I completely understand what you are saying--in any case would be easier if they just had two pools of recruits so you can see what you are doing better.  Just watched your Antietam--very impressive attempt to hold them off!

[Fred Sanford]

32 minutes ago, Mason Price said:

not sure if I completely understand what you are saying

If you have 700 recruits in your pool with a morale of 10, and disband a 300 man unit with a morale of 50, you have a total recruit pool of 1,000 with a morale of 22 (the weighted average).  

Moralefinal = [(Moralepool x Numberspool) + (Moraledisband x Numberdisband)] / Numberfinal = [(10 x 700) + (50 x 300)]/1,000 = 22

The other stats are calculated the same.

IF, prior to disbanding the higher-quality unit, the recruit pool is empty (even if you make some "placeholder" units to use up the poor-quality recruits temporarily), THEN you disband the high-quality unit, THEN all of the recruits in the pool will be from the disbanded unit, and thus will have their stats.

[Mason Price]

Got it thanks--so.....that is reflected in taking recruits from the rookie pool (since they are already your troops)--or do you have to take them from the Veteran pool at a premium price?

[Fred Sanford]

take them as rookies

[Aetius]

21 hours ago, Mason Price said:

Got it thanks--so.....that is reflected in taking recruits from the rookie pool (since they are already your troops)--or do you have to take them from the Veteran pool at a premium price?

Yep, as rookies (but now with higher stats). Veterans assume the stats of the recruiting unit, and I believe their cost is based on the difference between the rookie skill levels and the current recruiting unit skill levels ... which is why buying veterans for a 3-star unit is so ridiculously expensive.

[Karri]

Just a useful tip: as soon as you get a 2 or 3 star unit disband it. Then use the men to create artillery batteries, which with 2 and 3 starts are absolute killing machines.

 

I do hope there was some sort of combine brigade, as that is how I keep my veterans up to strenght. Now I have to first equip 120k rookies with all kinds of weapons so I can disband a few brigades and use them to reinforce, and then disband all the fake brigades again. Really could use some tools for the army camp...

[Bigjku]

1 hour ago, Karri said:

Just a useful tip: as soon as you get a 2 or 3 star unit disband it. Then use the men to create artillery batteries, which with 2 and 3 starts are absolute killing machines.

 

I do hope there was some sort of combine brigade, as that is how I keep my veterans up to strenght. Now I have to first equip 120k rookies with all kinds of weapons so I can disband a few brigades and use them to reinforce, and then disband all the fake brigades again. Really could use some tools for the army camp...

You know, it's actually probably more realistic to handle things the way the system now does.  Simply put it was somewhat rare to combine regiments for a number of reasons from political to moral of the troops.

The Iron Brigade for example at Fredericksburg was made up of four regiments of veterans and one new regiment that comprised about half their total strength.

There really wasn't a good replacement system in the Civil War for either side.  It made things a lot harder than it needed to be.

 

[The Soldier]

56 minutes ago, Bigjku said:

You know, it's actually probably more realistic to handle things the way the system now does.  Simply put it was somewhat rare to combine regiments for a number of reasons from political to moral of the troops.

The way a new proposed combine brigades functionality in Camp would not nessesarily be padding out the regiments in the brigade - you'd just move all the regiments from one brigade into the next.  If he's got 7 regiments in his brigade, then so be it.  That's a perfectly historical way to handle it, I think.