Keeping your armies supplied?

[Aequitas]

Nath123, you can understand logistics, aspects of warmaking, etc.
But you can do nothing with one fail-point - your capital.
Supplies system seems broken due to concept "capital only produce supplies".

Try USSR for example. You have about 350 divisions at start.
You have 3000+ supplies demanded every day.
And the throughput of your capital is around 600.
You can do nothing about it, it's not infrastructure limiting you, but the concept that supplies appears only in capital and no other place.

The war preparations means that you'll establish factories all over the country and make some depots which seems reasonable to have when your march begins.

Supply system doesn't count way of supplies from factories to capital.
Instead you assign X IC to supply production and have all of them appear in capital. In current implementation you have no chance to deliver more to your units while you are overstocked with supplies in capital.

In "real" situation you can't imagine to have developped industry (part of which would produce supplies) in Far East, then deliver all supplies from there to Moskva (8000 km) and after that try to supply all divisions in Far East from Moskva over the same 8000 km back.
If you understand logistics, of course.

[Abby]

There are a lot of ways to fix this yourself via modding, it's fairly easy. What I did was completely wipe the supply cost for moving supplies between provinces, boost units to 90 days worth of supplies carried around instead of 30, and increased the throughput globally for every province. You can find most of these settings in the /common/defines.txt file.

Oh, and I also made partisans nonexistant and instead just made more penalties for occupied territory based on your occupation policies. Partisans are so irritating. Like having to deal with pirates in EU3.

[vonDuus]

I'am increasingly annoyed that people want to attribute the blame for supply problems in the game, and don't seek to work out a solution, then they say its broken because they don't understand logistics.

Obviously there are some problems that need to be tweaked, but people are realy complaining because they lack the capacity to realise that stacking up divisions in some isolated province would mean they run out of supplies. That, makes sense!

If people don't understand logistics, then why have a game like Hearts of Iron 3, which looks at every aspect of warmaking?

I agree. My first few games I was desperate, I felt as if I was out of supply constantly. But then I began reseraching supply technologies, made sure I had new harbors and enough convoys, and generally got used to be constantly aware of who is moving/attacking, who is not, asking myself do I really need that many troops/planes for the job, ot could I do it with fewer?

Now I have conquered China a few times, without getting frustrated, because I know beforehand that half the troops will be immobile at any one time, and that the task at hand is how to conquer China when half your divisions can't move. I understand the frustration, I loved to attack on a broad front in HOI2, but this is much more challenging.

[Aequitas]

Abby, I'm sure there is no one who argues with simple fact - almost anyone can do some modifications to game settings files and be sure he'll acheive needed results.

Giving no supply routes cost, changing throughputs, etc. - you can do such setup in single game, it is ok. You payed for it and have "right" to play as you like.
But there are those who claims - you don't know logistics and game seems perfect in modelling this side of warfare.

In HoI2 the "offensive mode" button was just a "magic arrow". You clicked it, payed double cost for supplies, and your division magically recieved supplies just from nowhere, neverthless it was staying in Tibet mountains, Sakhara deserts, in the middle of German or somewhere else in occupied territories. It seemed a bit crappy and didn't have much logic "under the hood".

Now you don't have such option and you've got in trouble when your division is out of supplies. Just try to answer - why the others divisions in next provinces are full with supplies, and this lonely div stays without it? Infra is equal, so what is happening? The supply map mode gives no info about bottlenecks - yes I see, there is green patch, here also green, then red, then green. Why green, why red? What caused it, what could you do to eliminate it? The answer is "wait while AI adapts supply routes". I'm waiting for a couple of month and division has half of strength. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll call such "adapting" as "sabotage", not less.

Just try to play for couple weeks (in-game) - and you'll see the throughput of province changes a bit - someday it says 100, another day - 60, and next time it will draw 80. Why throughput is not fixed? Seems it depends on number - how much supplies are needed today. Why? Infra is at fixed level, why this number "jumps"? Wheather? I have no rains or storms. So, why?

Why you can't define "routes" of supplies to some "key points" and the AI chooses the only route he counts as "perfect"?
Why you have to amend infra in all provinces along those chosen by AI routes instead of giving some main supply aretries you see reasonable?
You move some forces a bit and the supply routes changes - AI tries to "adapt" them to new forces placement, so you "lose" infra amendements - just because AI now has new supply route.

It was German tactic of blietzkrieg - just move along good roads, establish schwerpunkts and always have supplies nearby. They defined - there you'll have route for supplying army group "north", this transport net will supply army group "east", and so on.

Why you can't establish depots and define their stock limits?
There are options for building factories, infra, forts, aa, even radars, but no option to "build simple warehouses" at least in provinces with some victory points?
It would have some sense to take over such "key" points which would become more "key" than to having just a simple abstract number "this province costs 10 victory points".

The armies are struggling for supplies too and if one side was abandoning key points with arsenals full of weapons and armaments, supplies for soldiers, replacement parts for mechanics just because it was overwhelmed with enemy, it was in big trouble - they found no supplies for themselves and enemy received this "richness" in his hands.
Sometimes retreating forces successed in destroying their warehouses, sometimes they didn't have a time to do it.

Now, do you have overproduction of supplies in your capital? Just get them lost in the air. There is no way to store surpluses in provinces just next to capital, nevertheless they have high "infra", despite the fact some divisions at some distance are in serious lack.

Your supply production and delivery is like a tree with only one root, while it should be decentralised to provide some independency at regional level.

To be correct, if someone says "you don't understand logistics, so thats the reason you can't enjoy the game" - I sincerely approve, yes - I don't understand how logistics can be organised without defining main transport routes, intermediate warehouses and key points of redistribution.

You just are a spectator in such an important process and have to just see how AI "adapts" and "corrects" supply net, but you can't influence it at all.

[palaver]

I got a good idea! How about indicator...something like a supply bar that shows you how many days of supply your units have left? Like in HOI2!

By the time you figure out that your units are in low supply, it's too late. The supply mapmode is worthless--the colors change every hour. I got to hover over to much crap and guess too many numbers to figure out what's going on.

[Gromov]

I am not the OP, but i have had supply issues where I have a huge campaign in russia, have 99999 supplies in storage, I advance into russia perfectly fine barely ever running out of supplies even when im 1200 miles east of the original border!

However, i go and move units near the coast of france, and they move a province or 2 and quickly just run out of supplies. This is in 1942 when ive had freaking france for over 2 years.

Not only do they run out of supplies but they run out for over a week, and cant move at all!

WHAT THE HELL?

its a joke.

Noone knows how supply system works. Its really just confusing.

Similar event happened to me. (Soviet Union)

99.999 supplies and suddenly my troops were consuming 5.000+ supplies per day and yet the total drain reported was 25.000 supplies per day!

I was like

Could it be that supplies are not really capped at 99.999 but "run around" after a sufficient stockpile has been accrued and then produce is tons on the negative?

(I seem to recall another game from far past that had a similar problem with stockpile "overruns".)

[GLENN]

One thing to remember is thedifficulty setting.

We have all these complaints but no one lists their difficulty level.

Depending upon what you pick effects supply.

[chha]

I don't mind the model at all but it needs to be more transparent but most importantly, I should have some control over it, setting up my supply lines and creating supply depots.

One case in my game (as France) really annoys me. My troops in Tunis are being supplied from Marrakesh despite having direct convoys coming from Marseille. So seriously, the AI couldn't find a better way to ship supplies from Marseille to Tunis than going through Morocco and then crossing the desert through low infrastructures? Really?

[grumbold]

I have no problem with a high density of troops stationed in or drawing supply through low infra provinces causing potential supply problems. As previous posters have mentioned though, the basic system is not correctly designed if the low number of starting troops in Germany, USA etc are incapable of being supplied by the AI inside their own homeland. That's just farcical.

[gamingmaniac]

I'am increasingly annoyed that people want to attribute the blame for supply problems in the game, and don't seek to work out a solution, then they say its broken because they don't understand logistics.

Clearly, anyone with half a brain can see that there are problems with the supply mechanics, and they come in three flavors:

a) some stuff is broken. As posters have pointed out, having units inside a peacetime U.S. or Germany regularly starve because the game can't seem to remember they need supplies is a bug, not a feature. Having supply spike to crazy levels because a new unit is deployed outside the capital is a bug, not a feature. Having to build multiple tiny ports rather than an equivalent larger one, which in the real world makes a great deal more sense, is a bug, not a feature. Having air transport supply work incorrectly is a bug, not a feature.

b) the supply system is obtuse. A much more informative gui - say, with numbers representing throughput and direction - would've been far more intuitive than what we have. Supply is explained poorly and represented in-game poorly. This isn't a bug, it's just plain lousy design. We should be playing the game, not trying to puzzle out the color-coded mess of the gui.

c) we can select specific units to reinforce and we can select specific units to upgrade, but I've yet to discover a way to select specific units to get supplies first - so that, say, I can mount an offensive in a theater while everyone else hangs tight and makes do with what they have. As is, I just have to sit on my ass and wait until the game gets around to supplying a specific group of units, or I have to withdraw part of my forces and watch my entire front collapse as the enemy goes flying around the flanks.

Are you starting to grasp this Nath123, or are you failing to understand the issue at hand? Because your obvious disrespect for the people having difficulties seems to be getting in the way of your thought processes.

[DaveMotes]

Playing USA in 1937 with over 60,000 supplies built up, yet I have units in CONUS running out of supply - not sure I understand...

[RisingSun]

I just want to make sure everyone is researching those supply technologies. Start early and keep going. That and research the delay technologies. Many a supplies are lost waiting for the stupid 6-day delay for attacks to be over. While those six days are happening, put them on prepare, that way they will at least stockpile some supplies.

Also, if you are playing as Japan or China, check out my mod in the mods section called Mirehn's Manchurian Mod. It allows you to add a buffer zone as Japan, eliminating some of the over-exagerated supply problems.

That mod is not bad at all, but i need to correct few things to it and included default or their works. Here the details...
CL Kitikami is mispelled should be Kitakami
CV Ryujo should be an escort carrier and remove Soryu or put on production.
BBI have picture mismatch, look like the Yamato! That a no no lol.
IJN CAG look like P-40 warhawk argh, that need to be fix!
CL Hirado should be Katori
CL Yahagi should be Kashima
CVL Zuiho should be Ryujo, cuz Zuiho wasnt out til Nov. 1942 converted from Takasaki CVS at Dec. 1940.
and not sure about those old heavy cruisers Asama and Izumo.
Still missing alot of WWI destroyers and some fubuki class as well submarines.
Damn i prob have to redo this whole things again for USN and other nations like i did on HOI2

If you want i can go ahead correct these and send those files back to you, bewared i will remove those IJN tag, i dont like em.

[darkspeck]

damd nice post potski, cleared one major thing up for me and that the 30 day stockpile. I was sure units in supply, just had a 30 day stockpile, din't realise it had to show a 30 day stockpile in the province it was staying at, thanks for pointing that out for us

I think they have to change when you stockpile for 30 days, I mean if the unit has priority set to on it should build up 30 day supply stock else don't.

I mean I would rather have 3 divisions geting supplies and able to defend a front, then have 1 division geting all supplies, so it could stockpile for 30 days and then have the front colapse around me and 2 other division in full retreat. I mean how smart is a stockpile of supplies if its going to fall in the hands of the enemy.

I did have an idea of how to supply an army, build air bases max 500km appart each and have air transport planes move supplies from you home to the front using them. Every trip a plane makes it can transport 15 supplies (cargo cap of 15) and they can do that many times a day. Lets just say you can make 4 trips a day you could move 60 supplies a day, with 2 planes each airfield 120 supplies, hope you get the BIG impact 1 air transport can do

[Aequitas]

darkspeck, dropping supplies with air transports is sort of exception.

There was an episode in 1942, when a wermacht corps was encircled under Demyansk (21 february 1942 to 18 may 1942 - approx 3 months).
Germans used Ju-52/3m to deliver total 71520 tons of supplies, 30000 reinforcements and extract 35000 wounded soldiers.

They lost 265 planes in total - some scored soviet AA and some were lost due to accidents.

Air planes is exceptional way to deliver supplies and it was used just a number of times only when wermacht forces were moved deep in enemy territory too fast for supply lines or there was urgent need to move reinforcements through roads where supplies should travel.

Divisions staying at homeland normally are supplied by railroads/trucks.

While 6th army of general Paulus was encircled under Stalingrad germans tried to supply army with planes. Germans assembled transport planes corps (375 Ju-52/3m planes) for help. Airline functioned from 25 november 1942 to 2 february 1943. Supply need was estimated as 830 tons supplies each day (for army). They managed to deliver average 93.5 tons/day, nearly ten times less than needed, just count - 375 planes and only 93.5 tons of supplies is roughly 0.3 tons of supplies delivered per plane.

German lost more than 260 planes due to soviet AA and fighters, and over 1000 men of air crew in this operation.

After Paulus capitulated soviet army won about 100 Ju-52/3m as prize.

So, proposed solution to deliver supplies to your armies by planes when they are connected to your homeland is incredible, if player is in need to make such 'crutch' when in peace time he deploys new unit, for ex., then something is naturally broken.


I also think, it would be nice if your infra throughput is a function of currently employed industry emphasis.
So, if you concentrated on light industry just to make all people content - you presumably have a priority to deliver consumer goods to your people.

If industry emphasis is heavy - you are making war preparations and you mobilize all resources for making not children toys, but weapons and supplies, so you infra has priority to deliver those fast.

[Oscu]

As so the Soviets, I'm at peace, boo-koo supplies on hand, and a HQ sitting still deep in the interior runs out of supplies! I can just imagine waht is going to happen if I attack someone.

Also the supplies needed per day bounces around a bit like a yo-yo for no reason. I had this prob with HoI2 as I recall.

about "yo-yoing"
Not quite sure. I think with germany it was due to them convoys shipping materials to east-prussia. They would always take more than one days load with them? Well that was my impression. Feel free to correct me

[high empty]

Might the problem be, ( Move one province a day)

Most of these problems seem to be that you need supply in more than one direction. And so the supplys go from the capital out being reduce as " units move to eat them up"

Seems to me, the solutions would be the addition of a supply corridoor that you can mark on the map so that supplies run thur that section, for example.

Russia One goes out to the far east( note this sort of happens anyways with the infra effect, single path) more infra reduces the effect. Second would go to the polish boarder and run up and down it.

Oh and as for modding it, The - supply tax is bad, the game REALLY doesn't like it, if you stop your reseach when it's at 0.01 or 0, you should be better

[GLENN]

A logistic General helps.
Plus any Army Group commander gives bonuses to logistics.
Best way is to use a Army Group HQ with a general that has the logistics trait.
Then set to AI control and do battle.

Strategic redeployment costs two times the divisional supply need, though it requires no fuel.

So use this wisely.

I have run several tests. It looks like the base number of supply throughput needs to be increased by 9-10% fro difficulty level Normal and above.

Haven't checked the Ports yet. They probably need to be increased too.

My test also increased the infrastructure impact by.1

If we can get these changes into patch 1.2 we will be good to go.

Note: This is with about 80 Divisions 10-01-1939 day before War!
Before we were lucky to get 3 or 4 provinces that were blue(excess supply) Look at the Yugoslavian border. Notice the blue supply line is due to zero troops in that area. No troops no supply demand.

[RisingSun]

I agreed, the supplies and fuels are moving around contsantly everyday, it all depend on unit's movement. Just like Glen said, it pretty much in the book if you read carefully. I though it would be like HoI2, but its much more complex and realistic. Im glad they did it

[DropBear]

Can I try to explain that map:
<snip>

Worthy of the Wiki.
Thankyou for the explanation potski.

[DocDo]

In some other games I've seen the supply rules implemented as tracing routes up the HQ hierarchy. I wouldn't want to change around the whole way things are done, but several people have asked for "supply dumps", and rather than introduce additional units/facilities that have to be moved around or created on the map, I'm wondering if a lot of the unwanted behavior of the current system could be smoothed out with a simple change to HQ behavior and a few small changes to the supply algorithms.

Right now from what I understand, the modeling is based on each unit drawing it's own supply all the way from the capital and they all compete to draw through bottlenecks of limited throughput, in order to try to maintain a 30-day supply in their own current province. What if instead, units used the same algorithms, but instead of drawing all the way from the capital, they would each draw from their own HQ, which in turn would draw from it's HQ, and it would only be the theatre HQ's or other unattached units that would draw all the way from the capital.

Set it up so that each higher level of HQ would attempt to stockpile a greater amount, based on the sum of needs of all its attached units, i.e. a Corps HQ might be stockpiling say a 45day supply for the entire Corps, an Army HQ a 60-day supply for the Army, etc.

This would mean that all the combat units would be only needing to trace a much shorter path to a nearby HQ, and each path is only possibly competing with paths from a few other nearby units that are drawing on local HQ supplies. I think you would see far fewer of the inexplicable out-of-supply situations, and with your major trunks branching out through higher HQ's that aren't moving around as much, the system should be much more stable, and problems should be much easier to visualize, understand, and fix. For instance:

You moved your Army Group HQ several provinces off into the low-infrastructure sticks and notice that it's supply reserves are dropping. Well before it runs out and starts causing problems for your actual combat units, you fix the problem by moving the HQ back a couple provinces where you had no problems before. You realize you need to build up a higher-infrastructure corridor if you want to continue moving a whole army group off in that direction...