Keeping your armies supplied?

[darkspeck]

Have been testing this supply movement a bit, was checking how to move them with transport planes.

Anyway from what I have seen, I sat down an figured out how much a brigade in general would need in in supplies and an air unit, so if I say 1 supply for each brigade and 3 for each air unit I should be more or less safe in regard to having enough.

I have a little invasion of eastern part of south Africa going on in my game and got about 21 brigades down there, got a lvl 3 port shiping in 12 supplies each day, so my army does not have enough supplies. The thing is its annoying watching it build up the 30 day supply for the 3 divisions down there that get supplies and the rest can just starv. It does not help if I change who should get reinforcement/upgrades first it will still send supplies to the same divisions.

I do agree that it should be possible to ship more supplies via a port, 4 supplies for each level of the port is not enough. My suggestion is double it or say (lvl of port times lvl of port) + 4, so a lvl 1 would get 5 supplies a lvl 5 29 and a 10 would get 104 supplies. Would also like if you could ship supplies to a coastle province 1 or 2 supplies each.

Just my 2 cents on that.

[GLENN]

Here's another thing that effects supply; Economic Law

For example:
Germany has Mixed Industry for a 5% gain to throughput.
Heavy industry for a 10% gain to throughput.

[serafine666]

Please register the game.

Supply is not broken. Read the manual and strategy guide. Then re-read it again.

Supply
Supply moves one province per day
Supply tax the cost of moving supplies, (fuel supplies)
Out of Supply will not reinforce, update Org or Upgrade
Effects
Port Size
Infrastructure
Paraplanes
Difficulty level of game
techs tech required
Unit effected
HQ_brigade.....large_front
.....................guerilla_warfare
paratroops.......airborne_warfare_equipment

All..................supply_transportation........ ..supply_transfer_cost
All..................supply_organisation.......... ...supply_throughput

That's all very interesting. But here's something to wrap your hear around: I am playing as Germany. The infrastructure of every province is 10. I am overproducing supplies at an insane level. Both my supply transfer cost and supply throughput techs are at 30 (I fiddled with the tech files so the techs started in 1900 and advanced by 1 year every time they were researched, just because I could). Yet I keep getting random supply problems all over the map while at peace. One day it's my submarines parked at Kiel, the next day it's the fleet in port at Konigsberg and then it's all the divisions at the French border. And this happens with logistics wizard generals at all levels. Does anyone know what's going on here?

[Had a dad]

What I can't understand, and I have not seen anyone else mention it...

999,999 supplies showing in red needing anywhere from 300 to 900IC a day, yet I only have 270 ic assigned, but my supply level never drops off.... each day not producing enough supplies, yet day after day my supplies stay at the same level.

[wins32767]

What speed are you running at? I went to full speed during a lull in the war and had the same issue as you did. At the time I was also redeploying large numbers of units, but not enough that I needed 470 IC worth of supply production.

[jju_57]

Let me explain why the game has to be changed to fix supply. As has been stated infrastructure impacts the supply throughput. Fine OK. Now the problem is say you conquer Turkey and invade Iraq/Iran/India. The supply line goes through some provinces with 40 to maybe 60% infrastructure tops. That means supply issues might happen.

But now I capture a big port. The problem is that the supply line doesn't adjust to the BEST possible one but stays with the one that went through crappy provinces. If I have troops in North Africa fighting wouldn't it make sense to supply through a port on the mediterranean instead of going over land through Turkey?

It seems that the supply line sort of follows the path I used to invade and conquer the area and doesn't adjust to a better path.

Here is an example. I attacked Yugoslavia and Greece from Romania. At the time Austria and Hungary were netraul and not involved in the war. Therefore my supply line wen from berlon to Poland to Romania to the units in these countries.

Then a bit later I annex Austria and Hungary. But guess what? The supply line to units in yugoslavia (even next to Austria) still went the long way through Poland and Romania. And since the infrastructure in Romania is lower then in AUstria it hampered my throughput to these countries.

That is why the supply lines in the game are broken and need to be fixed or adjusted.

[EntropyAvatar]

999,999 supplies showing in red needing anywhere from 300 to 900IC a day, yet I only have 270 ic assigned, but my supply level never drops off.... each day not producing enough supplies, yet day after day my supplies stay at the same level.

Your units are requesting a lot of supplies, maybe because they haven't been getting enough and are trying to rebuild their 30-day supply, or maybe because you have a big supply tax. However, you can't physically ship enough supplies out through your infrastructure, especially the provinces surrounding the capital. So your guys are screaming for supplies and you are building them, but you can't move them.

[Valinn]

How about this one:

I've observed the system insisting on building up a 30 day supply in one province before moving supplies to the out of supply unit dying next door.

It seems that to advance on the supply line, the existing province can't need the supplies. But "need" seems to mean having a full 30 day supply sitting in the province with them.

Which is crazy when there are out of supply units up the chain getting hammered, and some guy back in the line won't send any forward so he can build up a nice safe stockpile.

[Gargoyle]

Hmm... that's odd. The only thing I can think of right off the top of my head is poor or bombed out infrastructure. I assume you have a land connection directly to Berlin?

If you invaded from the north only, without having Hungary, your supplies are going over mountains to get to Yugoslavia.

[Celnoriak]

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.

Oh, I did. Believe me. I had a taste of it the previous game, so I made sure to research cost, throughput and production supply techs. I have looked at the mods (some look very useful and helpful), but I'm trying to hold off until a patch or two and stick to vanilla.

Also, can we get potski's post put into the strategy guide addendum in some form or another? I think it's probably the most helpful thing I've seen on the forums.

[Charles Louis]

I'm currently in late 1938 in a campaign game as Japan. I've overcome the normal supply problems just by making sure I had both key Chinese ports, and building two more ports for an additional trickle of supplies.

When I have had problems with supply I have often found my HQ's were out of range of parent HQ's. Moving them or reassigning them seems to have solved the problems. I don't know that supply is traced through the HQ hierarchy, but HQ's that are out of touch seem to have units that are out of supply.

In sparse regions like western China, Africa, and so on, it might make sense to use Army HQ's as if they were Corps HQ's, because the contact range of Army HQ's is greater, even if your Army only has three divisions.

For details, he's what I found:

1937, the Japanese North China Army moved south and Japan puppeted Shanxi. Then the North China Army moved into the Shandong region (SE of Shanxi) I landed at Qingdao and took the northern port there. Even so, I was taxing supply throughput and was only able to advance intermittently, so I pulled three divisions out of Shandong and captured Shanghai. I lacked the divisions to break of out my own Shanghai pocket without risking the Shandong front, and winter was settling in, so I made plans for Spring 1938. I built two ports in Shangdong, one on the north coast and one on the east coast. I built seven more divisions and got all of my mobile divisions (1 Armor, 1 Motor, 1 Cavalry) ready to break south to Nanjing where the new divisions would be marching up from Shanghai. I cut off about seven divisions of the Chinese army, and from then on was on full out offensive across the whole front. I manually added convoys to Shanghai (the auto cancel of duplicate supply routes deleted it) and when my new ports were ready, I manually added tiny routes there too. And I upgraded those new ports as well. In the north I had to execute a lot of small encirclements to cut Chinese divisions and force their surrender. In the south, the Chinese never did restore line of any significance and I basically run from Nanjing to Shantou (on the coast) and the Yunnan border (inland). The north was slower, because of the existence of a line; and then then front turned on the Communist Chinese. By winter 1938, Nat China was annexed, the G Clique and X warlord state was puppeted.

When putting down Chinese partisans my ownly troubles came when my units outran their HQ range, or HQ's outran parent HQ ranges.

Because some Japanese Hendan are corps units and some are army units, it dawned on me that using the army HQ's in western China was far more efficient, because their contact range was longer.

1) Corps work fine where the density is so high that all your divisions are easily within range, but when you can't get that, try using Army HQ's as corps, and see if that doesn't help your supply problems.

2) build and upgrade additional ports

3) manually add supply convoys to ports in the same theater to keep you properly supplied.

[hendriks]

I like the supply system as it introduces a good dose of realism

When I reached Moscow with my 15 motorised brigades (the armor was 300km back having run out of fuel) they were still at full strength and full org.

Thinking back to the first German units to approach Moscow IRL - well I think one only had 12 Panzers left and they were all but dead due to the reinforcement lag and the much heavier fighting than I experienced. One of the reasons they got pushed back quickly.

Now from my understanding a division on the move will take strength losses whether it is in combat or not. I would suggest that we need something like a 1% a day strength loss for any moving brigade (with possibly a new tech to capture forward engineering units to repair broken trucks etc) - especially if they are hard - possibly 2-5% for them - modified by the reliability tech.

This would have a number of effects on the game. It would limit offensives to a certain point. IRL they alays run out of steam as mean and material breakdown and get exhausted and you need a pause to consolidate. It would also push people into using strategic movement more - and if you gave some HUGE penalties for units in strategic movement entering combat then you have some wonderful oportunities in breakthroughs for chewing up unprepared divisions.

So just as the supply system got 'fixed' so to should the reinforcement system.

Yes, very valid post, I think I can safely say not a % is deducted from any units on the move, and it really should, 20 days of driving with a panzer division, even without ANY fight, would FOR SURE make you loose 20% of the panzers, so 50 days half. Unfortunately, strength and MP are combined in one bar, a great design fault I believe, so, if that would be the case, you would also need a large amount of MP...
Same for all vehicles, but what about infantry?
You shouldn't be able to just have your troops move 24-7, how can they? This is so unrealistic in my view...After battle there is the delay, which is good, but without battle, how could you march your infantry without rest, there should be penalties for that, loss of org, but maybe difficult for the AI to handle again, remember HOI2 and the loss of org, all AI units at 50-60% org due to constant moving...

[EntropyAvatar]

Yes, very valid post, I think I can safely say not a % is deducted from any units on the move, and it really should, 20 days of driving with a panzer division, even without ANY fight, would FOR SURE make you loose 20% of the panzers, so 50 days half.

Given the game system, I think this stuff is best modeled as ORG loss. Those tanks that broke down are recoverable. The panzer division would be more strung out by taking lots of territory quickly rather than destroyed. We would have something of a mutiny if players were made to reconstruct half their divisions after every movement (AND lose all that manpower).

Edit: Just agreeing why ORG loss works better with the system.

[rotaugen2009]

How about this one:

I've observed the system insisting on building up a 30 day supply in one province before moving supplies to the out of supply unit dying next door.

It seems that to advance on the supply line, the existing province can't need the supplies. But "need" seems to mean having a full 30 day supply sitting in the province with them.

Which is crazy when there are out of supply units up the chain getting hammered, and some guy back in the line won't send any forward so he can build up a nice safe stockpile.

The scary thing is, this is what often happens in reality. War commentaries are full of depictions of supplies being held back for use of rear elements while the ones doing the fighting are starving.

[MisterV]

When people talk about the realism of this system, I can understand their reasoning, because they want historical reconstruction. How about keeping this system on Hard difficulty? Besides, I don't think realism has much to do with the crazy stuff that can happen in the game right now. My point is: if I'm Germany, and I'm able to have more than 1000 IC, field zillions of panzer divisions with end-war-period technology at the beginning and have a carrier battle group or two, then I should be able to resolve something as simple as supllies, don't you think? If I wanted historical reconstruction in any particular game, I'd limit myself, introduce house rules, et cetera. Right now I just think the system's screwed up.

[chadwinter]

The supply system seems bugged. Today I had a panzer division that had all kinds supply/fuel problems in France, until it got cut off from Berlin and then it went off of the "30 days supply" while taking all of the major victory point provinces in France. I didn't do an air lift or anything to resupply it.

Seems like the 30 days worth of reserves is bugged and won't kick in while still connected to the capitol? If units were able to use their reserves if they didn't get enough supplies, it would probably smooth out the kinks in the current supply system. The number of days supplied would have to be decreased though 30 is way to many. I shouldn't be trying to get my troops cut off in order to keep them moving...

Also intelligent routing of supplies would help a lot or at least the option to ship supplies to a port versus having them go through 50 low infrastructure provinces first.

[wiser]

What I can't understand, and I have not seen anyone else mention it...

999,999 supplies showing in red needing anywhere from 300 to 900IC a day, yet I only have 270 ic assigned, but my supply level never drops off.... each day not producing enough supplies, yet day after day my supplies stay at the same level.

This happens to AI too. I just switched sides to see that the enemy don't reinforce, build or upgrade because of using all IC for supplies.

[Teddy Bär]

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...

That is so logical that it scares me that it was not in the game from the start...

[Zenra]

This is a great thread and I wish it could be stickied.

Thanks to potski, Glenn and others for your very valuable insight as to how the supply system works and how to make it work for you.

I have to say that I like the concept and the way the supply system has been implemented; It may need some tweaks in terms of what different level ports can handle and that sort of thing, but I think the concept is sound.

There is nothing wrong with requiring large forces to take time building up supply in preparation for a major offensive; in fact, it is very realistic. After a bug push forces need to not only rest and recouperate (modeled as ORG in HOI3), but also need to let their supply network not only catch up but then also build up the supply carried by the divisions, brigades, battalion supply units, etc. Representing this as the '30-day intrinsic supply' store is a fine approach, and if you have a lot of units all trying to replentish their stores at the same time it is naturally going to put a strain on the supply net, particularly one constrained by terrain, infrastructure, weather, port capacity, technology, etc. In HOI3 all of these appear to affect how, where and how fast supply moves, and I think it's great. I need to play more to judge whether individual values of coefficients in the settings files might need to change, but I fully expect the answer to many issues discussed on these forums will be found by first understanding and learning to use the complex supply system and then possibly adjusting parameters of the models if needed.

I am looking forward to spending time today experimenting with things I've read about and learned in this thread. It would be interesting, and also very realistic, for the HQ hierarchy and the placement of HQ units to affect supply throughput as suggested but other posters upstream. I've played many WWII games that modeled supply this way, including both board games (e.g., World in Flames, Final Edition v.1873298698416328954) and computer games (e.g., War in the Pacific), and it usually works well. I hope PI considers adding something like this, such as having HQ units add a bonus to throughput in the vicinity of their location.

Thanks again.

[Szun]

Please register the game.

Supply is not broken. Read the manual and strategy guide. Then re-read it again.

Supply
Supply moves one province per day
Supply tax the cost of moving supplies, (fuel supplies)
Out of Supply will not reinforce, update Org or Upgrade
Effects
Port Size
Infrastructure
Paraplanes
Difficulty level of game
techs tech required
Unit effected
HQ_brigade.....large_front
.....................guerilla_warfare
paratroops.......airborne_warfare_equipment

All..................supply_transportation........ ..supply_transfer_cost
All..................supply_organisation.......... ...supply_throughput

Edit: Added
Here's another thing that effects supply; Economic Law

For example:
Germany has Mixed Industry for a 5% gain to throughput.
Heavy industry for a 10% gain to throughput.

anyone thinking supply works as designed is at fault

i modified a lot of stuff incl. laws to get throughput up, for example hvy industry gives 100% now...
the transportation cost(-) and eff.(+) doubled in techfiles..

i still run into major problems, less so then befor, but still

.. and if you tell me that a fleet in Stettin, 2 provinces from Berlin can run out of surplies for a month... very realistic :P