Do ground commanders in superior HQs have any effect? (v1.9.5)

[Polestar (OP)]

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.

[DFNewb]

They do not.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110196#msg110196

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105832#msg105832

[Ulzgoroth]

They do not.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110196#msg110196

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105832#msg105832

Neither of those posts appears to say anything of the kind.

This post clearly implies that they're supposed to, but that wasn't the OP's question.

[DFNewb]

They do not.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg110196#msg110196

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg105832#msg105832

Neither of those posts appears to say anything of the kind.

This post clearly implies that they're supposed to, but that wasn't the OP's question.

Interesting that there is a post that references it as they do not have any effect at all and there was no reference to this in the changes. It would be silly if it was the case cause then you can game the system by have progressively bigger HQ's and your units would get crazy bonuses.


Oh that was from 2018, I am sure he changed it by then after realizing how you can stack the bonuses.

A simple in-game test also reveals it does not effect training and I doubt it helps in combat either:

[Ulzgoroth]

So what it looks like you demonstrated is that subordinate units don't benefit from superior commanders' training bonuses when they have no commander of their own.

You didn't show whether they benefit or not if they do have a commander.

Try giving one of the other subordinate commands a commander with zero ground training attribute? That might be interesting.

[DFNewb]

So what it looks like you demonstrated is that subordinate units don't benefit from superior commanders' training bonuses when they have no commander of their own.

You didn't show whether they benefit or not if they do have a commander.

Try giving one of the other subordinate commands a commander with zero ground training attribute? That might be interesting.

If you look carefully some formations do have commanders and some don't. I normally play with auto-assignments and never in my life have I seen a formation with a commander with 0 training get it's morale over 100 even if the parent formation's commander has a training score.

[Ulzgoroth]

So what it looks like you demonstrated is that subordinate units don't benefit from superior commanders' training bonuses when they have no commander of their own.

You didn't show whether they benefit or not if they do have a commander.

Try giving one of the other subordinate commands a commander with zero ground training attribute? That might be interesting.

If you look carefully some formations do have commanders and some don't. I normally play with auto-assignments and never in my life have I seen a formation with a commander with 0 training get it's morale over 100 even if the parent formation's commander has a training score.

I did look carefully. As best I can tell, the one subordinate formation that has a commander also has morale above 100. None of the other subordinate formations at morale 100 have commanders. That's why I made the suggestion I did.

Of course, if you wanted to make a real test of the proposition, you need two separate superior formations, each with a subordinate formation. Give both subordinate formations commanders with the same training rating, and the superior formations different ratings...

[DFNewb]

So what it looks like you demonstrated is that subordinate units don't benefit from superior commanders' training bonuses when they have no commander of their own.

You didn't show whether they benefit or not if they do have a commander.

Try giving one of the other subordinate commands a commander with zero ground training attribute? That might be interesting.

If you look carefully some formations do have commanders and some don't. I normally play with auto-assignments and never in my life have I seen a formation with a commander with 0 training get it's morale over 100 even if the parent formation's commander has a training score.

I did look carefully. As best I can tell, the one subordinate formation that has a commander also has morale above 100. None of the other subordinate formations at morale 100 have commanders. That's why I made the suggestion I did.

Of course, if you wanted to make a real test of the proposition, you need two separate superior formations, each with a subordinate formation. Give both subordinate formations commanders with the same training rating, and the superior formations different ratings...

Or just play with autoassignment on and pay attention to your ground forces once in a while.

[serger]

If GF hierarchies have the same mechanics with bonuses as Naval ones - they have to transfer smth like 25% down the hierarcy, so no infinite stacking - this sum will be always finite with 50% max bonus limit, though good superior commanders in sum will bring smth like 15-20% increase in combat capability.