Was doing some ground combat testing in v1.9.5 and noticed an oddity: I can't find hard evidence that commanders in any HQ above the formation's own have any effect on that formation's performance in ground combat.
Situation: two factions on Earth (temperate forest). Both have 12/12 armour/weapon and a mix of infantry and light artillery. Both have a three-level hierarchy: slightly less than 5k combat formations commanded by 20k HQs commanded by 60k HQs. HQs are empty except for the HQs and the attached formations.
Leaders are assigned to one faction. Leaders have bonuses and also have sufficient ground command to make full use of those bonuses for the whole formation or hierarchy their HQ commands. Bonuses appear to work as expected for the lowest-tier formations. After reviewing tens of thousands of shots, however, I cannot find evidence that leaders posted to higher-level formations have any effect on offensive direct-fire to-hit, defensive direct-fire to-hit, or bombardment fire to-hit. (As is already known,) they also have no effect on training or morale.
Am requesting a check-up on this issue.