AI/player need to be able to supply into allies territory, or send supplies to ally

[Axe99]

I'm playing a game as Australia, start 1939, FTM on Steam, and generally the game is great - a lot of fun, Japan actually goes around causing trouble, enemy invasion AI is solid, but there's a _big_ issue with how the invasion AI applies to the Allies. At least in this game, the US has focussed on returning to Europe through the Netherlands. It has successfully landed large numbers of troops there three times. BUT, it then gives all of its troops as expeditionary forces's to the Netherlands, who can't supply them, and they get shredded! This makes the game great to play if you're the US or UK (as you can make sure you don't liberate countries until you no longer need to supply through them, and not give your forces to nations that have no hope of supporting them), but when you're an Allied minor or the USSR, it leaves you with some potentially impotent allies*.

The AI either needs to:

hold onto control of its troops and be able to supply through allied territory (which would be the historical response! Under the current system, France would have been in charge of the drive to Germany in 1944/45, as well as responsible for all of the supplies! I'd wager that the BEF (which was under British, not French, command) didn't rely on the Belgians and French for supply either.

or

When it gives control of its troops to other countries, also ship enough supplies to that country (and donate convoy ships/escorts if necessary) so that the recently donated troops don't run out of food and ammo!

If this could be sorted, HoI3 would be oh-so-close to being a perfect foundation for a great WW2 grand strat game (I've been playing HoI since the first one, and it's great seeing Paradox get ever closer, albeit in fits and starts sometimes) - and it's great fun to play now, but it is a little ridiculous that it seems up to Australia to win the war on the ground in both the Pacific _and_ Europe all on it's own (see below).

* In my current game, it was up to Australia to win the land war in South East Asia, invade Taiwan and then single-handedly take out Japan. During all this time, the US and UK threw troops into the Netherlands, ran out of supply and died. Now Australia's working its way up through Italy, hoping that the US and UK get involved soon as there's no way my 80-odd brigades can take on the might of the Wehrmacht! The next strategy is to throw down some defensive AI direction tags in Sicily and see if I can't 'recruit' some help from the rest of the Allies.

 

[comsubpac]

when a allies are fighting in the country of another ally the owner of the land is responsible for supply. the other ally automatically sends supplies for the troops. the problem is that the AI thinks that it has enough supplies then so that it lowers its own production. to prevent that allied forces are normally handed over as expeditionary forces. then the supplies are calculated right again. this works so far and is necessary.
however, the actual problem is that sometimes the capitol of the receiving country is on another land mass so that it simply can't ship the supplies to where they are needed.

 

[Pro_Consul]

however, the actual problem is that sometimes the capitol of the receiving country is on another land mass so that it simply can't ship the supplies to where they are needed.

Yeah, and I think it would have been better if they had preserved (from HoI2) the idea of bulk trading of supplies and other resources to counteract this problem. Heaven knows the USA shipped obscene amounts of supply to the UK before, during and after D-Day, so there is ample historical precedent for it. Alas, I don't see this particular problem being remedied in this title, due to HOI3 being so near the end of its support life. But hopefully PI will remember this and address it in HOI4.

 

[comsubpac]

Yeah, and I think it would have been better if they had preserved (from HoI2) the idea of bulk trading of supplies and other resources to counteract this problem. Heaven knows the USA shipped obscene amounts of supply to the UK before, during and after D-Day, so there is ample historical precedent for it. Alas, I don't see this particular problem being remedied in this title, due to HOI3 being so near the end of its support life. But hopefully PI will remember this and address it in HOI4.

well, trade wouldn't solve anything. as i said supplies are already traded automatically but they are stored at the wrong place from time to time.

where are you getting your information from that hoi3 is at the end of its life? soon the expansion team is free again and after some patching the next project might well be a hoi3 expansion. if i remember correctly johann himself confirmed that they still have plans for hoi3. i think as long as the game regenerates income they will keep working on it. everything else would be stupid from a economic point of view. hoi is still the best selling game they have.
when they start working on a new engine hoi will not be the first title developed under it so as long as a new engine is not available they will definitely keep working on hoi3.

 

[Axe99]

when a allies are fighting in the country of another ally the owner of the land is responsible for supply. the other ally automatically sends supplies for the troops. the problem is that the AI thinks that it has enough supplies then so that it lowers its own production. to prevent that allied forces are normally handed over as expeditionary forces. then the supplies are calculated right again. this works so far and is necessary.
however, the actual problem is that sometimes the capitol of the receiving country is on another land mass so that it simply can't ship the supplies to where they are needed.

That doesn't explain a huge US/UK/NZ/etc, force (under a Dutch flag) in the Netherlands and breaking out into Belgium and Germany (where all the land is owned by the Netherlands) running out of puff after a month or two and getting flattened due to lack of supply (and they had Amsterdam - Netherlands capital - when they were out of supply).

At the end of the day, though, it would be far better (not to mention oodles more realistic) if countries could supply their own troops in Allied territory. Handing over command for the forces liberating Europe to the Belgian/Dutch/French chain of command has all sorts of issues (particularly with staffing of HQs with quality leaders). While there are issues with the AI for invasions (it seems the AI can't gauge the size of force required to invade effectively, plus over-empasises invasions versus garrisoning home, hence Australia conquering Japan in my game, meeting very little resistance!), the supply and expeditionary forces issue really stands out in a game that in most other respects attempts to model mechanics on real-world circumstances. I'm not saying cut out expeditionary forces altogether, but for them to be used in the traditional sense (noting that the BEF in WW2 was _not_ an EF in the HoI3 (or 2) sense, to either France or Belgium).

 

[Pro_Consul]

where are you getting your information from that hoi3 is at the end of its life? soon the expansion team is free again and after some patching the next project might well be a hoi3 expansion. if i remember correctly johann himself confirmed that they still have plans for hoi3.

Rather than believe such things and later be disappointed, I like to assume the worst plausible scenario and be pleasantly surprised when I'm wrong.

 

[CplKatie]

The problem with troops on allied soil is that the only possible way to calculate is to take what the troops consume in a day on their unit interface. That...is not what the unit needs to be supplied. There are transfer taxes and weather penalties that never get paid for by the troop owner. When dealing with a nation with a 0 stockpile then its utter disaster. The stockpile will remain in batavia and a new one will begin to generate in amsterdam. Supply is generated % wise in each IC province holland owns. It may produce a TON of supply but most of it is generating in the Dutch East Indies and then if holland has no convoys its not going to the european side. I think that a possible good solution would be to allow the transfer of convoys as well as supply or to make the game not automatically give land back to its owner in a faction until its been liberated.

 

[Link Strife]

At the end of the day, though, it would be far better (not to mention oodles more realistic) if countries could supply their own troops in Allied territory.

Bull's eye! Relegating the supplies to the host country is a design choice by PI that I don't understand. It is like Belgium saying to France and the UK: 'Yes we give you military access, but only for the men. You are not aloud to bring in any munitions or food or medical supplies whatsoever. Everything is on us!'

 

[CplKatie]

No, they do transfer supply its just not targetable by your enemy. The problem is the supply given is = to the supply draw of the unit and not the supply draw+transfer costs+RR taxes+weather transfer issues. The nations recieve phantom trade routes of supply from one nation to the other the second you start using their supply network.

 

[Axe99]

No, they do transfer supply its just not targetable by your enemy. The problem is the supply given is = to the supply draw of the unit and not the supply draw+transfer costs+RR taxes+weather transfer issues. The nations recieve phantom trade routes of supply from one nation to the other the second you start using their supply network.

Does this go for non-Expeditionary Forces, and does this mean the problem is one of the supply given to the nation doesn't cover the full cost of supplying the units? In which case it sounds like what we need is that this supply given needs to be adjusted (the game should know, after all, all of the transfer costs/RR taxes/weather transfer issues). Thanks for the info .

Although I still think nations should be able to have their own supply dumps, as per what actually happened in the war, and that they should be targetable (it seems a huge hole in the otherwise very well put together logistics model in the game).

 

[comsubpac]

Bull's eye! Relegating the supplies to the host country is a design choice by PI that I don't understand. It is like Belgium saying to France and the UK: 'Yes we give you military access, but only for the men. You are not aloud to bring in any munitions or food or medical supplies whatsoever. Everything is on us!'

they didn't have much choice since you can always have only one supply network in place.

 

[Axe99]

they didn't have much choice since you can always have only one supply network in place.

So it's only possible for any one place to have one supply network? This'd explain why they had to go the expeditionary force plus transfer of supplies route. Would be good if the game would allow (as per what happened in reality) multiple supply networks, as it would get around the Dutch High Command running the invasion of Germany after a US landing, and running out of officers, as well as the the supply transfer issues CplKatie outlines above. At the moment, the system just plain doesn't work, and in certain (not uncommon) circumstances is crippling AI invasion (particularly on the Allied side, as Japan didn't go so much for the liberation side of things) performance.

 

[juv95hrn]

* In my current game, it was up to Australia to win the land war in South East Asia, invade Taiwan and then single-handedly take out Japan. During all this time, the US and UK threw troops into the Netherlands, ran out of supply and died. Now Australia's working its way up through Italy, hoping that the US and UK get involved soon as there's no way my 80-odd brigades can take on the might of the Wehrmacht! The next strategy is to throw down some defensive AI direction tags in Sicily and see if I can't 'recruit' some help from the rest of the Allies.

Lol. And some say that minors are not powerful enough in the game...

 

[Cybvep]

This is mostly the result of the centralised supply system and the way the game handles convoys. Remember the old-age problem with France trying to supply all Allied troops in Europe from Brazzaville? Or Allied troops running out of supply in Belgium? If the Allied countries were able to directly transfer supplies to where they need them, such problems would not exist. Even if the province controller has 215190651 supplies but its capital is overseas, it will simply lack convoys to ship the goods and there is no way to transfer convoys between countries in HOI3.

 

[CplKatie]

Does this go for non-Expeditionary Forces, and does this mean the problem is one of the supply given to the nation doesn't cover the full cost of supplying the units? In which case it sounds like what we need is that this supply given needs to be adjusted (the game should know, after all, all of the transfer costs/RR taxes/weather transfer issues). Thanks for the info .

Although I still think nations should be able to have their own supply dumps, as per what actually happened in the war, and that they should be targetable (it seems a huge hole in the otherwise very well put together logistics model in the game).

Actually the game doesn't know. Its quite honestly impossible to calculate the actual usage of a units supply in a multination front because the supply will divert amongst various provinces and share with other armies. The only number we can know for sure is the daily usage on the unit. Plus weather and RR taxes are a variable...a variable that is the culprit for most supply complaints. If it were 1 unit in the entire country then it could be calculated very closely but not perfect as weather/RR would still throw off the transfer costs slightly.

The reason we can't just make the supply system only show for your own nation and have allies seperate is because then AI's and also any alliances would be unfair as they could stack more units in an area where 1 strong nation couldn't. This would completely destroy the game in the areas of Russia VS axis and Japan vs china.

 

[Pro_Consul]

they didn't have much choice since you can always have only one supply network in place.

That is only a hurdle, not an insurmountable barrier. For example, they could make the supply algorithm simply prioritize supplies over two passes instead of one. It would first transport supplies through the network for the owner country's forces, and then the remaining capacity would transport as many supplies as it could support for all allied nations. Alternately they could introduce a feature that many players have been asking for: supply depots. A national capital would automatically be a depot, but allied nations could contribute supplies and fuel to it in order to ensure that it was sufficient to meet the needs of their own units inside that host country; and all allied units would then receive equal priority on the local network, just like now.

 

[comsubpac]

That is only a hurdle, not an insurmountable barrier. For example, they could make the supply algorithm simply prioritize supplies over two passes instead of one. It would first transport supplies through the network for the owner country's forces, and then the remaining capacity would transport as many supplies as it could support for all allied nations. Alternately they could introduce a feature that many players have been asking for: supply depots. A national capital would automatically be a depot, but allied nations could contribute supplies and fuel to it in order to ensure that it was sufficient to meet the needs of their own units inside that host country; and all allied units would then receive equal priority on the local network, just like now.

read a little bit into graph theory and you will soon see that such a thing is a nightmare. especially movable supply depots are horrific when you try to implement it as a algorithm. as soon as you have more then one point of origin and you target is moving...
an additional layer wouldn't help also because the ai cannot distinguish between supply of one country and supply of another. keeping track of that would need an terrific amount of memory and cpu power. it would be possible but the game would no longer be playable.

yes, the supply system is not perfect and it needs improving but all things brought forward by other players are either impossible or so complicated that they are just unrealistic. letting that aside, every time a player would have manual influence on the supply system it is just one big exploit.

 

[Axe99]

Actually the game doesn't know. Its quite honestly impossible to calculate the actual usage of a units supply in a multination front because the supply will divert amongst various provinces and share with other armies. The only number we can know for sure is the daily usage on the unit. Plus weather and RR taxes are a variable...a variable that is the culprit for most supply complaints. If it were 1 unit in the entire country then it could be calculated very closely but not perfect as weather/RR would still throw off the transfer costs slightly.

Good point - maybe it could be countered with the Allies who've got units in allied territory being aware of the minimum level of supply in the area and being allowed to transfer some in using their own convoys? So instead of needing to know what's going on, they just need to know that the stockpile that their units are drawing from has fallen to 'X' amount, and then if that happens they can convoy some in themselves. That way they wouldn't need the US to Exp Force it's army to the Dutch (and hence keep the historical leaders in command) without needing to have multiple supply networks.

The reason we can't just make the supply system only show for your own nation and have allies seperate is because then AI's and also any alliances would be unfair as they could stack more units in an area where 1 strong nation couldn't. This would completely destroy the game in the areas of Russia VS axis and Japan vs china.

Wouldn't the stacking penalty make this a pretty bad idea anyway? I tend to get hit by this far earlier than I get hit by any supply issues (and this is with the _massive_ Australian army!) The supply stockpiles can also be pretty large as is - the issue would more be the throughput of supply through an area, and determining which nation had priority (and that could be tricky, but I doubt insurmountable).

Lol. And some say that minors are not powerful enough in the game...

40 brigades is not OP for Australia! (plus 8 aircraft, 2 CAs, 2 CLs, a few DDs and TPs). Australia's performance was very much based on a lot of luck - only reason they have 80 brigades is that they got 40 EF'd to them by the US when the Japs invaded Darwin, because the (up until then) 30-odd brigade non-garrison force was struggling to cope with the Japanese forces in South East Asia. But when SE Asia fell, the Japanese were also under pressure from the Chinese, and had the bulk of their land forces in China, and the US and UK had kept their navy in line (helped by Japan running short on oil) I have no doubt that without significant minor support that the Germans will have no trouble keeping me under control in Italy (as the SU has been pushed back past the Aral Sea). Most of the success was due to the Japanese SE Asian forces being out of supply, and then the actual forces in Japan being mainly GAR and MILs (which, unfortunately, Italy and Germany's forces won't be!). The big issue is that it took until Australia had dealt with Japan for Operation Husky to go ahead, and unlike the other invasions by far larger US and UK forces, it was successful (because I made sure my forces didn't run out of supply right away) - when they would actually have just been playing a support role to the US/UK if the US/UK didn't keep throwing away its units by repeatedly placing them in situations where they fell out of supply in a really unrealistic manner (ie, their location and size of invasion was just fine, they were just robbed of victory by a 'gamey' factor the AI can't cope with).

 

[Pro_Consul]

especially movable supply depots are horrific when you try to implement it as a algorithm. as soon as you have more then one point of origin and you target is moving...

I never suggested the depot needed to be movable. For example, the UK lands in Belgium and so must draw supply from the Belgian stockpile. If that stockpile were represented by a depot in Brussels, and the UK were permitted to run a convoy to that stockpile, then it would be a lot easier to keep the BEF supplied. To extend that hypothesis, the UK makes a landing in Japanese controlled territory in NatChi. A depot would be created in what the current system would designate as the primary port, if and only if there was no land route to NatChi's capital/stockpile. That would let the UK supply their units until a land connection was established, at which point the depot would be merged into NatChi's stockpile and the convoy would act just as secondary port convoys act today, i.e. moving the supplies ashore and then routing them to the primary port, or in this case to NatChi's stockpile/capital (which would also be represented as a depot, just as in the Belgian example).

 

[Axe99]

I never suggested the depot needed to be movable. For example, the UK lands in Belgium and so must draw supply from the Belgian stockpile. If that stockpile were represented by a depot in Brussels, and the UK were permitted to run a convoy to that stockpile, then it would be a lot easier to keep the BEF supplied. To extend that hypothesis, the UK makes a landing in Japanese controlled territory in NatChi. A depot would be created in what the current system would designate as the primary port, if and only if there was no land route to NatChi's capital/stockpile. That would let the UK supply their units until a land connection was established, at which point the depot would be merged into NatChi's stockpile and the convoy would act just as secondary port convoys act today, i.e. moving the supplies ashore and then routing them to the primary port, or in this case to NatChi's stockpile/capital (which would also be represented as a depot, just as in the Belgian example).

Aye, this would work well, and lay the foundation for a far more realistic and far more playable game.