Yellow Star

[Marvin Pontiac]

Hi,

Does anybody know what the yellow star over a unit's flag means. I'm in a sandbox game just playing a single captain (Captain Bernard) commanding about 8 artillery. When I select Bernard all artillery units show a green thing over their flag and about 5 of them show a yellow star. Why don't the others show such a star?

Marv

[con20or]

it lets you know which units are getting an officer morale bonus. This is range dependent - so only the close units have the star[;)]

[Marvin Pontiac]

Oh I see, I thought that was the same thing as the commander bonus (as indicated by the star on the infobar) but it isn't. Also the officer has to be quite close for them to get this star. Walking along my line of artillery units I see the yellow stars 'travel' with me.

Thanks con2Oor!

[Marvin Pontiac]

Bit weird though. According to the manual the yellow status icon in the infobar indicates whether the unit get's a moral bonus because of a nearby commander. All units have this icon highlighted and have the icon shown in the status panel (when pressing 'status'). Some of the units don't have a yellow star over their flag though.
So this isn't the same thing then?

[con20or]

Sorry, the officer morale bonus is the commander bonus - i should stick to one term

There is also a yellow mark that will appear over every unit belonging to a general when he is selected, is that what youare seeing?

[Marvin Pontiac]

Here's what I'm seeing: I have Captain Bernard selected, he's a captain over an artillery division? (about 8 units of artillery). All of the units show the little green thing above their flag to show they belong to captain Bernard. On top of that some (not all) of the units also show a yellow star over their flag. Some however don't show this yellow star. All units on the status panel and on the status icon in their infobar indicate that they are receiving the command-bonus.
The showing of the yellow star seems to be associated with the distance the captain has from the unit. To illustrate: If I move the captain to the left side of the line of artillery units, about 4 units on the left will show the yellow star above their flag. If I now walk the captain parallel to the line towards the right-side then the units more to the right of the line will start showing the yellow star until eventually only a few on the right-end of the line show the yellow star over their flags. While the captain walks from left to right all units will continue to show their command-bonus indicator on the info-bar highlighted.

[vincere]

I've been wondering about this and some other things, that lead me to conclude that the manual is a little light on describing some of the deeper mechanics.

[Marvin Pontiac]

I think I figured it out. With a commander selected, a yellow star over other units means that they are near enough to that commander to receive the commander bonus from that commander. The things is that a unit can receive the commander bonus from any commander in it's army. Also there can be multiple commanders close enough to the unit for it to get a commander bonus. Selecting each of these commanders will show a yellow star above any unit that is close enough to it to receive a commander bonus. Such units do not need to be under it's direct or indirect command as long as they are in the same army. So the direct subordinates of my Captain Bernard (the artillery units) that I saw with a star when Captain Bernard was selected were close enough to captain Bernard. The other units without a star but still indicated on the info-bar as having the commander bonus were receiving this bonus because one or more other commanders were close enough to it. Also, the maximum distance for this seems to be different per commander. I observed that a general has a far larger distance over which it gives commander bonus to units that a captain does. The yellow star isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual.

[con20or]

The manual does have a section on the commander bonus/yellow star.

[Marvin Pontiac]

No it doesn't. It explains that the star icon in the information bar means that the unit is receiving the commander-bonus. It also has a bit about what different color stars above flags mean but this only mentions red, gray and light-orange stars which mean different things than the yellow star I'm seeing. This is what started my confusion because I first thought that what I perceived as yellow was called 'light orange' in the manual, which according to the manual indicates a unit is a direct subordinate of the selected commander. But not all direct subordinates of the selected Captain Bernard had this star. That's when I started thinking: Hey this means something different.

[con20or]

lol - you are confusing me now too. Does the manual not say that the yellow star is the commander bonus and that it shows that the unit’s morale is raised by the presence of a nearby commander?

[Marvin Pontiac]

[:D]Sorry it's my fault, you very first reply to me was mostly right. The yellow star does imply that the unit is receiving a command-bonus. But, as I understand it, it is only shown above a units flag if the selected commander is close enough to that unit to give it a moral bonus. So the fact that some of my artillery units don't show a yellow star when I have the captain selected doesn't mean they aren't receiving a command bonus. They could be receiving it from any other commander that is close enough. This is what confused me. First of all I assumed that a unit could only receive this bonus from it's direct superior (which isn't the case) and secondly I wasn't prepared for the fact that the range for this bonus on a captain is much smaller than on a general. So my captain is only a few meters away and is not close enough to give some of it's units the commander-bonus whereas a general 100 meters away is giving them this bonus.

Oh my this is getting silly.

I dunno my manual doesn't say anything about the fabled yellow star.

EDIT: Forgive the possible pedantic tone here. If you saw my face you would know that that is not my intention.

[con20or]

Ask as many questions as you like - that is what the forums are for [:)]