Lieutenants and Hierarchy

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I believe it was mentioned before but I think it was by word of mouth and I have forgotten by now.

Is the Lieutenant rank supposed to be another hierarchical level in the squad system, or will it be a rank given to those who perform more of the administrative and other support work which is an inevitable occurrence which increases as a military increases in size? I am curious because I have begun translating over some of my previous work on militaries and want to have a firm grasp of the Emperor's vision so the end product is both as close to the original vision as well as well oiled in its operation.

Likewise, once our military begins to swell considerably I think it would be best to not have too many Imperators, do we have plans for seniority at the C level, or in the event of a population explosion, do we have a plan in case the military begins to exceed 1000 people. Past about 750 we will begin to have a bloat of Imperators.
To answer your first question about the lieutenant rank in short, this rank will be another level to the hierarchical squad system. With regards to the inevitable administrative work you mentioned, the level of administrative workload that comes with a promotion will naturally increase. This does not mean that as one climbs the rank, they will be increasingly tasked with reports & proposals to fill out and submit to a point of distaste because the Imperial High Command and the Emperor himself put a great deal of emphasis on having an immersive and enjoyable experience for the mid to high ranking soldiers. One of our greatest efforts on this matter will be the elimination of as much paperwork in all operations of the military as possible. I think we all agree that it would be far more enjoyable for those involved when the acting captains of their destroyers are flown in their personal shuttles to the flagship of their acting admiral to discuss the general strategy of the upcoming battle so that questions can be answered in the here and now as well as main points can be clarified once to the group of captains as opposed to private messages being sent through discords detailing the battle plans and numerous conversations being held to answer questions. As you can see, this would more more enjoyable and more efficient in the case of the former.

As for your second question, I believe you are being a bit preemptive in your concerns over the amount of Imperators the Empire will have considering that once the two ranks, lieutenant & commander, are added to the current ranking system, and Imperator will have a total of 3,280 men under him. For the sake of this explanation lets say that more than ten Imperators is as you described, "a bloat of Imperators" for the Emperor to manage himself alongside the equally demanding and numerous civil leaders. From now to that point is going to take at least two years which is plenty of time for the Emperor to come up with a solution to manage the high amount of his own direct military subordinates which will likely come in the form of a "High Imperator". Remember that the Imperial Military will always evolve with need.

Imperator (5 Captains - 3,280 + 1)
Captain (5 Commanders - 655 +1)
Commander (5 Lieutenants - 130 + 1)
Lieutenant (5 Squad Commanders - 25 + 1)
Squad Commander (4 soldiers - 4 + 1)
Ah point taken in the numbers, I forgot about the Commander rank and I had also assumed the squad directly attached to Officers would only have a squad leader in charge unless I am still missing a piece of information here. I may have misinterpreted the term Captain's squad as the five soldiers who always go around with the Captain, rather I now assume the Captain's squad is the current/temporary name for the whole unit the Captain is in command of. This being the case my worry about bloat is highly unlikely to become a reality unless we populate way beyond our higher expectations.

My concerns about administration, however, are more aimed at the "hurry up and wait" parts the military will be in. Unless we end up in constant large scale conflicts a decent chunk of the militaries time will be spent doing menial things (humourous examples only), marching, digging trenches, sleeping through briefings. In peacetime, records will need to be kept on activity levels, soldiers will transfer to different units which specialize in different things (which is good to have soldiers experienced in different areas as well as keeping things fresh). Within the management system someone at some level of leadership will need to update those various points of data. Different awards will require different levels of leadership to authorize being awarded, and likewise authorization to promote. Before I begin to flesh out a system which matches simplicity with functionality for a proposal I would like a better understanding of the current intent of the ranks.

Other administrative tasks I have been thinking about include: who grants an increase to which security clearance and at what levels, who is allowed to enforce discipline for misconduct at varying levels, when interacting with Ordinance (in or out of a combat setting), depending on various circumstances what levels of authority trumps whose (some of this administrative some not), who determines a unit's training regime, who enacts the same training.

Or in other words, I would like to discuss the intended purpose and levels of responsibility different ranks will have so I can do one of the things I do well and organize it all into a functional system. Different thread?

Edit: Added an image for concept/example


The concern about portions of the Military having nothing to do is valid, although this has been taken into consideration early on and is an essential part of the Empires hierarchy. The ranks of the Empire do not necessarily qualify certain roles in the Empire, they are primarily there to demonstrate who is in command of who, and anyone with a higher level of power has complete control of subordinates to terminate them from the military to promote them to any level that is not higher or equal to their own. A captain of the Empire now, for example, can choose his own squad commanders at will, de-rank and terminate members. A squad commander cannot though promote a soldier to the squad commander position or above but can terminate them from the Military. (Although appealing is easy and the majority of the time soldiers terminated will just be reassigned to another squad unless the person who terminated you has provided a strong case with evidence)

The roles system, on the other hand, is completely separate from the ranking system, consider it as a certification system. All soldiers will have the base Infantry role which they are trained for, but to be a pilot it requires additional training before you are given that certification and allowed to fly in the Military, other certifications such as Grenadier or Enforcer will require small courses on the Imperial capital lasting up to an hour before you are able to serve that role in the Empire. Some certificates can only be granted on the other hand, such as Elite, Royal Guard or Advisor. Imagine the ranking system is the base template for power and order and the role system is the specialisations you can optionally receive.

In the field and by launch squads will be better suited to both timezones and roles, so there could be a full squad of grenadiers to operate artillery in the field and a full squad of pilots. It makes everything easier to organise for battle commanders.

In terms of boredom and being out of duty there's a tonne of roles for soldiers to optionally take on when not in a battle that will severely help the Empire, for example when in deep space (Travel in some instances could take weeks in the game by launch) These soldiers, if they have an interest, can work in maintenance to ensure the Destroyer is operational for the journey and ready for battle, a programmer can work in the R&D labs during these periods to assist with the next mission, or Hanger managers and Traffic controllers can monitor the patrols of squads during defensive periods, by launch there is hope to be potentially hundreds of roles covering any level of interest.

Now, of course, I can estimate the next question will be about maintaining all these permissions, changes and roles. How such a fluid system is kept in check and managed without constant communication and people to keep track of all the changes. This is also something that has been in consideration for a very long time and is currently still under heavy development. It's called the Imperial network and it's a piece of software that any imperial can log into to see a live ranking chart, apply for roles, request meetings or even view the next mission and destination you need to be at. It will be a mostly automated micro-management system that will support the Military. Ordinance requests can be sent and you will have a profile that lists your squad, any direct messages, events and emergency alerts. We don't want this system to feel like a boring portal though, it will be designed intuitively to feel like it's part of the game and isn't running the military but just available to support you if you are lost within orders or changes. Within a glance, you should know what is happening on the field and where you should be. I do urge you not to ask the specifics on how the data will be input into the network and how certain tasks will be delegated, just know there is a team within the Empire working countless hours on this network and it's been under development for over a year and have considered every question at this point.

Thank you, I will take this information and run with it in my spare time to codify an outline on this information.

I will assume the latter part was more meant for others since I have already been told about the management system and have been using a similar one in a faction from another game I play which is equally socially complex, if not 3D though. I like the preview image a bunch though. Would love to help with any analytics but I don't think that is needed yet as you already have my application.

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