The base, the whole base and nothing but the base.

[rmonical]

The base used for leader checks is 10, 20, 40, 80 for corps, army, army group and high command. If the army is the first level in the command chain, then the base rachets down to 10, 20, 40.

I may be presumptuous in saying this, but I think the 10,20,40,80 requirement is what I call a mutable requirement. "Let's put something out there and see how it works." The idea here is that we will make it a tailorable parameter and tweak it in based on more experience with the implemented system. The fact that it has stood without challenge for this long is testimony to the fact that it was a pretty darn good point of departure. Recently, I think the general conclusion is Axis corps are less useful than they ought to be (maybe not - the designer may be very intentional about this impact).

As I wrote in the post about the probability of failing the initiative check - the intent of the designer is key.

So if we were to frame this as a requirements statement, we might have for the "Probability to Pass Leader Check" requirement:.

The game should reinforce traditional corps-army command structure by ensuring that in typical situations, the leader checks are more likely to pass when a corps is in the chain of checks then when one is not. The typical situation should be considered a corps commander with an effectiveness of 5 and an army commander with an effectiveness of 7.

If that is the the intent, this post takes the notion to the next level of refinement. Applying my handy dandy speadsheet (PM me if you want it), there are two ways to achieve this:
1. Improve the effectiveness of the corps commander.
2. Reduce the effectiveness of the army commander if it is the first level in the chain.
A third alternative is to make the command checks continuously variable based on the command scope. In other words, a corps commander with six points has a greater probability of success than a corps commander with eight points. My impression is that the designer has firmly rejected that approach. It remains an option with many variations. The current design is continuously variable down to the default command scope then constant.

For the requirement as stated and using whole numbers for the base, for option one we get seven as the base for corps in the first position. The base for the army in the first position remains ten. This implementation improves the effectiveness of corps commanders in all situations.

For option two, we leave the corps base at ten but change the army base to thirteen if it is in the first position. See the next post for the exciting details. This option reduces the effectiveness of army commanders in the first position so primarily effects the Soviets unless the Germans are deleting corps commanders.

[rmonical]

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[Peltonx]

You need to nerf Stavka first before doing anything.

SHC players can easly exploit the current system much easyer then GHC.

SHC player need to simply put armies under Stavka and that exploit is far better then the GHC disbanding Corp.

SHC leaders need at a min a 3 point drop in every area.

Its great your tring to put in a sulution to the current non historical ruleset that makes SHC much more effective then GHC.

But the fact is only looking to nerf the side that alrdy sucks as far as C&C goes is not going to bring balance back to the game.

The biggest issue I have with Corp for GHC is that replasements dont get to the front.

In one game I disbanded Corp ealry I have 26,000 men in replasement pool and the other I did not disband them until late 42(not done yet fully) I have 306,000. The one in late to early 41/42 150,000.

The effect seems small when looking at a single turn but over 130+ turns its HUGE.

Corp at this time are a handy cap and Stavka a boon.

[Peltonx]

The best way to test the Corp and disbanded Corp set-up would be to do 2 AI vs AI battles.

One with out Corp or missing 40ish and the normal set-up.

Also could do another with any new armies arriving for SHC go under Stavka.

I have 3 late 43 games, but those #'s can be argued est est, but running AI vs AI several times per would high light any possible advantages for both side

[rmonical]

The notion of the base as a modifier for command and control effectiveness is a powerful and potentially subtle one. It can be varied by country and over time. However, any changes would require playtest to understand the impact on the balance and realism of the game.
I suspect the current implementation is a set of constants. Since WiTE is in bug fix mode until the new engine from the eagerly awaited WiTW is released - very little can be done to explore this notion. The most that could be hoped for is exposing those constants to tweaking either in a one off build or directly by the players. The question is does the base for the Army in the first position have a second set of constant or do the constants just ratchet down when the corps is eliminated from the command chain.

As indicated above, to address the immediate concerns about German corps usefulness discussed in this thread (and others) tm.asp?m=3305426 one might create a build to test the global corps base set to 7. This is effectively an enhancement to the Germans and no nerf to the Soviets. However, the major issue seems to be ahistorical Soviet C&C in 1941 (and 42?). To easily create a test build changing that, one needs separate constants for the army in the first position case. Setting the army in fist position base to 13 nerfs both the Germans and the Soviets, but the Soviets much more. One could continue up the change and set the AG in second position to 30 and HC in third position to 60. This would have the major impact on the Soviets. I am not optomistic this can be realistically accomplished in the current code base. I hope that adding more flexible C&C bases (national by year and first position command level) can be an enhancement to the WiTW and WiTE2 engines. This might make 39-41 easier for 2x3 to build out.