OOB Idea - Company Level

[Damned Black Hat]

I had a lot of free time on my hands yesterday, and I came up with an idea: if an order of battle can be made to go down past the regimental level to the company command.

Typical OOBs look like this:

Army
Corps
Division
Brigade -> Regiments

But if it could be created like this:

Corps (Army)
Division (Corps)
Brigade (Division)
Regiment (Brigade) -> Companys (Regiments)

EX:

- (Army) I Corps: Major General John F. Reynolds

-- (Corps) 1st Division: Brigadier General James Wadsworth

--- (Division) 1st (Iron) Brigade: Brigadier General Solomon Meredith

---- (Brigade) 2nd Wisconsin: Colonel Lucius Fairchild
---- (Brigade) 6th Wisconsin: Lt. Colonel Rufus Dawes
---- (Brigade) 7th Wisconsin: Colonel William Robinson
---- (Brigade) 19th Indiana: Colonel Samuel Williams
---- (Brigade) 24th Michigan: Colonel Henry Morrow

--- (Division) 2nd Brigade: Brigadier General Lysander Cutler

---- (Brigade) 76th New York: Major Andrew Grover
---- (Brigade) 84th New York (14th Brooklyn): Colonel Edward Fowler
---- (Brigade) 95th New York: Colonel George Biddle
---- (Brigade) 147th New York: Lt. Colonel Francis Miller
---- (Brigade) 7th Indiana: Col Ira Grover
---- (Brigade) 56th Pennsylvania: Colonel J. William Hofmann

-- (Corps) 2nd Division: John Robinson

etc.


Obviously this would be for more smaller scale battles or more specific aspects of a bigger battle. This would also allow for scenarios where you control one specific regiment (such as the 20th Maine defending Little Round Top, the 1st Minnesota desperately delaying the Confederate advance on their own and the 6th Wisconsin charging the Railroad Cut). This would also be the perfect scale for orders of battle for General Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign.

Benefits in my mind include:

- Ability to use skirmishers without sending an entire regiment (historically two companies were used)
- Ability to make regimental scenarios
- Reduces the unlikely, inaccurate scenario of entire regiments being captured
- Allows more playable units in smaller battles

Potential cons include:

- Increased amount of AI scripts
- Very high amount of controllable units at higher command levels

Any thoughts/suggestions?

[bafonetto]

definitely the scenery will take on a special charm. Please continue your idea. Interesting.

[RebBugler]

Nice write up for 1:1 scale advantages. Yeah, it's being worked on in some SP scenarios for the next 'feature patch', we'll see how it shapes up with testing before release. For sure, seeing the real numbers of troops engaged adds another dimension of realism, and this game is coded well for that option.

[Cleaburn]

Great Idea!

[Jim]

A couple of thoughts. First small units tend to rout more easily so you may need to bump up their experience level to get a good fight. Second, the AI will fight your new regiment like a brigade, because that is what it knows how to do. You might experiment with mixed size subunits in the regiment for example two true companies for skirmisher duty and the rest of the 8 companies regiment in two or three battalions. Interesting experiment.

-Jim

[SouthernSteel]

I am by no means skilled with the OOB editor, but I actually tried this a while back. I tried, at least, to basically take everything down a level, so regiments became companies, brigades regiments, etc. I can't say whether it turned out terribly well, don't think anyone else ever tried it, but I could try posting it somewhere if anyone wanted to. The last-minute change I made was to offset the sprite ratio, so the troop numbers are exaggerated because of that (to try and imitate actual numbers). Anyway, I did actually get it up and running in MP on a single test, it's a huge OOB even at the division level.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

I am by no means skilled with the OOB editor, but I actually tried this a while back. I tried, at least, to basically take everything down a level, so regiments became companies, brigades regiments, etc. I can't say whether it turned out terribly well, don't think anyone else ever tried it, but I could try posting it somewhere if anyone wanted to. The last-minute change I made was to offset the sprite ratio, so the troop numbers are exaggerated because of that (to try and imitate actual numbers). Anyway, I did actually get it up and running in MP on a single test, it's a huge OOB even at the division level.

Hi SouthernSteel.

Please post the OOB. I'm always interested in trying out new oob's.

Cheers, and take care!

[Cleaburn]

Please Do kind sir!

[SouthernSteel]

What is the best way to do that to make it accessible to you lot? Add it as an attachment to my post? Do forgive my ignorance.

Edit: Oops, uploaded the wrong OOB, sorry. Should be the right one now.

As I recall, my work was far from perfect, and there were some issues (mostly things that needed to be cleaned up) as far as breaking down infantry units as artillery units accidentally, etc. But I will have to leave that to you guys to try out and fix if needed. Basically, every regiment was broken down in 5 companies, each of 110 men (guessing at start-of-the-war numbers). They are placed at 440 to represent the 4:1 sprite ratio (as I was told it was).

I believe I shifted artillery down a level, but there wasn't really much to be done about breaking the guns down into smaller crews. Cavalry is likewise divided into 5 squadrons of 100 (entered as 400) men each.

Anyway, this is a stock OOB, 3 brigades for each side, several batteries, and some cav for each side. When we got it to run in MP, it was absolutely huge. I'd think for practicality's sake, fewer regiments would be advisable.

No one seemed interested in this when I made it and posted it several months ago so I haven't touched it. Feel free to hack away and produce something useful, if you like.

[SouthernSteel]

Was anyone able to make anything of this? Or was it too big of a mess to be worth bothering with?