Overloaded Corps

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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Ridgeway
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Overloaded Corps

Post by Ridgeway »

I see a lot of people intentionally overloading corps that have top commanders. The big example is putting six infantry divisions into I Korps under Model.

Doesn't/shouldn't the overload penalty offset the leadership bonus? Can someone show the math that explains how one relates to the other?
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Crackaces
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RE: Overloaded Corps

Post by Crackaces »

There is a penalty and you turn an excellent commander (typically Model) into an average commander. My understanding , and correct me if wrong, each overloaded unit reduced leadership values by 1 which translates to 10% penalty? My education comes from Telemecus who I have had very enlightening discussions.
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Telemecus
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RE: Overloaded Corps

Post by Telemecus »

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

There is a penalty and you turn an excellent commander (typically Model) into an average commander. My understanding , and correct me if wrong, each overloaded unit reduced leadership values by 1 which translates to 10% penalty? My education comes from Telemecus who I have had very enlightening discussions.


I should say it is a linear approximation - less true with commander ratings at 9 or 1 but about right for 5. As most of the time you are dealing with ratings like 4,5,6 it should be close enough. Remember the ratings apply to all in the command. So putting an extra division over the top in a command "might" help that division, but it will worsen the ratings for all of the others. For me that is the killer - why help one or two divisions at the cost of four.

The only counter argument is that if you have all six divisons in a battle there is no battle penalty for any of them - but on the other hand having more than one HQ allows more SUs to be committed. I have posted before about this and included the maths - so far there has been no counterargument. So I am with you Ridgeway!
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Ridgeway
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RE: Overloaded Corps

Post by Ridgeway »

Thanks - that is more or less what I thought, but I wanted to be sure.
No idea
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RE: Overloaded Corps

Post by No idea »

Would you say that a 20/18 soviet corps is too overloadad? I thought overloading wasnt linear. I tought the malus was low with few overloading, increasing the more you overloaded. Thus, I tought that 20/18 corps wasnt to bad.
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EwaldvonKleist
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RE: Overloaded Corps

Post by EwaldvonKleist »

Base roll range for the first C&C level is 10, be it an army or a corps. Not 100% sure how the RNG generator here works but this means a rating 5 leader has a chance to succeed of 50%. If you overload the corps/army by 2 points, the roll range is now 12, resulting in a 41,6% change to succeed.
So overloading the first C&C level in any way is a very bad idea. If Zhukov with infantry rating 9 commands an army and you overload it by one point, he has a de facto infantry rating of 8.
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Telemecus
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RE: Overloaded Corps

Post by Telemecus »

ORIGINAL: No idea

Would you say that a 20/18 soviet corps is too overloadad? I thought overloading wasnt linear. I tought the malus was low with few overloading, increasing the more you overloaded. Thus, I tought that 20/18 corps wasnt to bad.

You're right it is not linear - that is just an approximation to make the maths simpler and is close to right for ratings in the middle - it gets more wrong with the extreme ratings (1 or 9 say). EwaldvonKleist, being a good mathematician, gives more exact numbers rather than the cheap and dirty estimate!

The malus is actually disproportionately strong with the first overloading and decreases after that. Basically you can never get to zero, so when you have a lot of overloading a bit more will not make much difference at all. Putting more units into Army Group South at the start of the campaign game is not going to reduce the ratings checks of Runstedt (or only microscopically) - although it is multiplied over many more units. The first does change it more than the second etc.

I do not play a lot as Soviets so I may get my foot in my mouth commenting there. But to my mind 20 for a command capacity of 18 is detrimental. Removing one division (2CP) will give worse ratings for that division, but much better ratings for the other 9 (18CP) - so if the question is ratings checks there is almost no question that you are better off with no command penalties. However the Soviet Union does have many armies that you could move that division to - so they will not lose a whole level of ratings checks. As I tell Axis commanders, a Rumanian general commanding German divisions has better ratings checks than Model does when very overloaded. I am sure the same applies to Zhukov and lesser generals in the Soviet Union.

However there are other reasons than command penalties for your chain of command. For instance it may be necessary to optimise distance to HQ/distance to rail supply chains, make sure all units are in the same command to avoid a battle penalty in a combat, optimise multiple use of the same SUs in an HQ and so on. And also is the point spend best used to remove command penalties. So I would be a bit worried making a blanket statement for Soviet armies.
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