How to assign leaders?

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.

The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).

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DTomato
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How to assign leaders?

Post by DTomato »

So what is the optimum approach for assigning leaders? Is it better to put a leader like Zhukov in command of an army to exploit is combat ratings, or assign him to higher command? Or someone like Vassilevsky, who has a good Admin rating but also a good Infantry value?

The manual is vague about how leader values influence the game. For example, if Zhukov commands a Front, do his armor and infantry values come into play? Or does this only happen if he commands an army?
Stelteck
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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by Stelteck »

Leaders have massive impact to the combat ability of units. (Like you can easily double the combat value). There are leadership's check everywhere in combat and during logistic phase.

The closer the leader is to the unit, the most impact he have. If a check is failed at army level, there is a try at front level, then at stavka level, with increase difficulty each time.

Relative to success chance, (using perfect distance to the unit and no overloading and no additional factors), the chance of success of a leader check in an attribute of value 5 is :
50% at army level.
25% at front level.
12.5% at Stavka level.

So Zhukov can be a godlike leader providing insane boost for a small number of unit at army level, a very good leader providing good boost for 4 time more units at front level, or a good leader providing small boost at stavka leader for all your units.

What you prefer is your personnel choice.

PS : Alternative CV calculation take leadership into account for CV display, you can use this option to have a feedback of average leader effect.

PS : Distance to unit and especially HQ Overloading KILL the benefits of having a good leader.
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DTomato
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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by DTomato »

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

Leaders have massive impact to the combat ability of units. (Like you can easily double the combat value). There are leadership's check everywhere in combat and during logistic phase.

The closer the leader is to the unit, the most impact he have. If a check is failed at army level, there is a try at front level, then at stavka level, with increase difficulty each time.

Relative to success chance, (using perfect distance to the unit and no overloading and no additional factors), the chance of success of a leader check in an attribute of value 5 is :
50% at army level.
25% at front level.
12.5% at Stavka level.

So Zhukov can be a godlike leader providing insane boost for a small number of unit at army level, a very good leader providing good boost for 4 time more units at front level, or a good leader providing small boost at stavka leader for all your units.

What you prefer is your personnel choice.

PS : Alternative CV calculation take leadership into account for CV display, you can use this option to have a feedback of average leader effect.

PS : Distance to unit and especially HQ Overloading KILL the benefits of having a good leader.

Thanks, that was really useful. A couple of questions:

Does this apply to all leader attributes? So, Zhukov at STAVKA would use his Infantry rating to give a 12.5 percent chance of every infantry unit passing a combat check?

Is the bonus all or nothing? Does, say, assigning Zhukov to command an army versus commanding Stavka just affect the probability that a unit under his command will pass a check? Or is there an actual bonus that depends on what level of command Zhukov has been assigned to?
Stelteck
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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by Stelteck »

ORIGINAL: DicedT
Thanks, that was really useful. A couple of questions:

Does this apply to all leader attributes? So, Zhukov at STAVKA would use his Infantry rating to give a 12.5 percent chance of every infantry unit passing a combat check?

Yes, Zhukov at Stavka will try to use his Infantry rating in case army and front level fail an infantry check.
ORIGINAL: DicedT
Is the bonus all or nothing? Does, say, assigning Zhukov to command an army versus commanding Stavka just affect the probability that a unit under his command will pass a check? Or is there an actual bonus that depends on what level of command Zhukov has been assigned to?

Checks are all or nothing but there are tons of them, even for a single battle or action.
If the unit succeed 90% of them, it will fight far better than if it succeed only 50% of them.

Zhukov have no special ability, just far better stats than the average soviet leader.
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Telemecus
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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by Telemecus »

ORIGINAL: DicedT

The manual is vague about how leader values influence the game. For example, if Zhukov commands a Front, do his armor and infantry values come into play? Or does this only happen if he commands an army?

This is one case where, while the manual per se is not very explicit, an example it gives shows the exact mathematical formulas used. If you have not seen it have a look at the example given in section 11.3.2 of the manual

What each each rating type (admin, morale etc) does however is scattered over the manual. But they always relate to function rather than level of command.

One very important point is that morale has no range modifier unlike the other ratings checks. To get no range modifier the first level up HQ (e.g. front or Axis army) has to be no more than 1 hex away, the next level (e.g. STAVKA or army group) no more than 2 hexes away etc. So it actually will be very unusual for a higher level command to get multiple times the number of units of what a lower level command will get with little or no range modification. For this reason I tend to think the other ratings matter little at the highest command levels - but this is a point others may disagree on.

Also worth pointing out that higher level commanders only do their ratings checks if lower level commanders fail theirs. Putting Zhukov in a front with very good army commanders would mean he less often makes the difference to a ratings check being successful than going to one with bad army commanders. I tend to think of the higher level commanders as the goalkeepers for when the lower levels fail their checks. If the defenders are very good the goalkeeper will not be very busy.
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Crackaces
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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by Crackaces »

This is a very interesting discussion. So I understand, each attribute has a 10% factor for passing a leadership check with a '5' = 50% a 9 = 90%. If a leadership check fails then the command level beyond the unit is tested incurring an additional 50% degradation multiplied by the factor for the check.
This does not include distance penalties. So using the example and a NOT equation (or the probability of failing) is .5 X .75 X .87.5 or 0.328. A better leader at the end assuming '5' '5' and then say a '8' reduces failure to 0.30 for each like instance, but it's a top level HQ it means many more checks tested.
Extending this each check is an 'AND' equation but the sum total of checks for all units is an 'OR' equation indicating to me that the sum total of probabilities more checks overall will pass?

If I have this correct -- I think that means in general build leadership from bottom up, but replacing the very top leadership has subtle advantages?

For the Germans there are a couple of leaders at the Corps level that are mediocre and the very top leader .. For the Russians .. this is a much more complex problem ..
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Telemecus
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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by Telemecus »

This matches my thinking now so I would say spot on, but I know others have different views.
ORIGINAL: Crackaces
Extending this each check is an 'AND' equation but the sum total of checks for all units is an 'OR' equation indicating to me that the sum total of probabilities more checks overall will pass? ....

I would extend the equation to something like this

Number of ratings checks passed (Your 'And'/'Or' probability equations) x importance weighting of checks / cost to get them (i.e. admin points.)

I say weighting as not all ratings checks are equally important operationally. Failing a ratings check to destroy a surrounded unit which you can try again to destroy again next turn is not the same as the ratings check on whether you can cross the Neva the first time and isolate Leningrad. But that is probably a judgement for a player to make themselves. There may be times when you are happy to get fewer successful ratings checks, so long as you get the more important ones.

By considering the cost as well as the benefit you can see also why priority should be given to the lowest level and top level commands - they cost the least to change (in admin points).
ORIGINAL: Crackaces
This does not include distance penalties....
If I have this correct -- I think that means in general build leadership from bottom up, but replacing the very top leadership has subtle advantages?

This simplifying assumption is often made because, well the distance penalty and command penalties make the maths complicated. However you can make a linear approximation that each one point distance or command penalty is equivalent to losing a leadership rating of 1. So a corps commander with ratings 6 but a distance penalty of two would be approximately the same as a commander with ratings 4 and no distance penalty. It works better for the 4-5-6 range than it does further out though.

I would challenge you to go to any save turn you have and choose any higher command and see if it has any units without a large range modifier. If you leave OKH in Koenigsberg, or army group HQs on rails, this will probably be true for all.

The problem with commands with massive distance penalties, or command penalties (as with Army Group South at the start of the 1941 campaign game), is that they make the choice of leader pretty much irrelevant - no ratings checks are going to be passed no matter how many units they effect or how good the leader is.

The manual gives a heavy hint that you should put the best commanders at the top - but I think the correct answer is you should put your best all-round commanders at the first level command (assuming they never have distance penalties - which is why so many put Zhukov in charge of an army). The top job is best for someone with a good morale rating (which also has no distance penalty) - the other ratings are irrelevant. And indeed you may want to choose someone whose only good rating is morale (e.g. Jodl) so that they do not get auto-appointed to somewhere else.

You can also make direct mathematical comparisons with the effects of reassigning units. Reassigning a division out of a 1941 Axis corps with five divisions and a commander with an average combat rating of four is approximately the same as changing the commander to one with average combat rating six. However the former might cost as little as one point whereas the latter will generally cost a lot more. For this reason I would usually say before working on building the leadership,bottom up or otherwise, first reassign units to get rid of command penalties and make the commanders you do have effective. You get more bangs for your buck, usually, that way.
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Crackaces
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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by Crackaces »

Excellent posting Telemecus! Thanks very much! This is such a complicated game [:(] Typical GG style with tons of details that if mastered gives that player a decided advantage vs luck. Typically resulting in years of research to finally master the game.

This also helps understand the ramifications of replacing Von Chappuis with a better leader and assigning additional units to the Corps such as the 253th division with the 58th vs. just reassigning units to better commanders ..


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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by Searry »

For example if you put Model in charge of the I Corps, the combat value becomes crazy for just a corps of infantry.
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Telemecus
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RE: How to assign leaders?

Post by Telemecus »

ORIGINAL: Stelteck
PS : Alternative CV calculation take leadership into account for CV display, you can use this option to have a feedback of average leader effect.

Or even better use the actual computations of ratings probabilities displayed in each units supply details (top right on image below)

Image

This is something many of us see in the corner of our eye and know about but forget. I have to thank EwaldvonKleist for reminding me properly about it. Assuming no bugs this will display the calculation of probability the program thinks it has for each ratings check. So also before any approximations to CV, better or otherwise, are made. Hence all of these questions about distance, leadership and command penalties can have their effects examined accurately.
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