Barbarossa DLC: a case for a map and railroad overhaul at the example of Fall Blau (Stalingrad)

[seattle]

I seriously hope that the upcoming grand expansion Barbarossa will overhaul many things in HoI4. Let's discuss the map and logistics here.
I'll start with an example of the Fall Blau region from Rostov to Maikop and the lower Volga.
I recommend TIK's Battlestorm Stalingrad series on YouTube as a reference: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNSNgGzaledi9jQeOzCUtBP2pxYdCYiXX

This is how "Warplan" (Slitherine) models the region:
- Stalingrad-Astrakhan: Lots of swamps on the eastern bank of the Volga. You can tell at one glance why Germany wanted to take Stalingrad and Astrakhan (railway junctions and the latter also being a port for the Caucasus oil.
- In WW1 Ludendorf declared the end of the railroad for troop logistics and announced the age of trucks for flexibility. However, that might work in France, but not in Russia with severe fuel shortages and the Rasputitsa. In 1942 Germany's oil situation was so dire that Fall Blau relied almost solely on railroad transports and supplies instead of trucks. That however lead to a "railroaded" (pardon the pun) conduct of the campaign. Which leads to the next point:
- Railroads from Rostov to Stalingrad and from Rostov to Maikop: That is a possible explanation why Hitler split the Heeresgruppe and sent one half prematurely into the Caucasus. The railway capacity was already strained be half of the army group, so the split at least made logistical sense.
- A two-track railway line can transport the same amount of supplies as the equivalent of 1,600 trucks. Tradeoff: less fuel consumption for less operational flexibility

HoI 4: The Stalingrad-Astrakhan region.
- All plain territory, no swamps. Zero logistical puzzle due to lack of realistic terrain and complete absence of railroads.
- In vanilla you can simply rush from Rostov to Turkmenistan with neither Stalingrad nor Astrakhan playing a role.
- Logistics hardly exist and can be easily solved by repairing infra and constructing more while blitzing ahead. Even tough mods like "Total War" (which are brutal on logistics) can stop a player from annexing the Soviet a.i. in 1-2 years.
- Rivers don't feel like sizeable obstacles, partly because of missing railroads.

Google Maps: here you can see how accurate Warplan got the region.

 

[seattle]

Another map depicting the importance of the railroad lines for Germany's operational range.
Again, if you think about HoI4: did you ever feel logistical constraints? If railroads are not explicitly on the map, the gameflow should at least feel as if there were railroads.
Same thing applies for terrain and weather: Neither Pripyat marshes nor General Winter have an impact. Winter sets in --> who cares, just push further ahead. It's almost as if Hitler was an avid HoI4 player in preparation of Barbarossa.

Image taken from TIK's video:

 

[Bki]

- Rivers don't feel like sizeable obstacles, partly because of missing railroads.

This bring to mind another point about rivers : with the tactics that reduce combat width that always end up getting used in river-crossing battles, even with the stats penalty they can often be more advantageous to the attackers, as the defender is just one bad reinforcement roll away from being pushed back, while the attacker who is attacking with a single 40-width tank division obviously doesn't care.

 

[Harin]

You paint an excellent picture on why railroads, terrain, and rivers are abstracted to the point of teaching bad strategy in the game. WW2 was not a map painting exercise. Some of the most brilliant military minds in history participated and they made decisions based on much more than the current abstraction is providing.

I know abstraction is necessary, or HOI4 becomes more a simulation than a game, but there is room for improvement.

Railroads, highways, river ways, etc... mattered. In the game, maybe it needs to be abstracted as two concepts: (1) throughput channels and (2) throughput weight per time unit (or other words of measurement). The player needs to know exactly where those supply channels, or railroads/river ways/highways are. They were common knowledge to friend and foe. The player also needs to know how much supply can be moved down these channels. You simply cannot develop a coherent operational plan without knowing these basic elements.

Adding these logistical channels into the game and improving the terrain map would do more to promote realistic strategy into the game than just about any other change I can think of.

 

[walt526]

It seems to me that one way to address these issues is a division speed penalty (or state infrastructure penalty) when moving more than X number of combat battalions through a state at one time. That is, we don't really need a new type of infrastructure; rather, a modification to the existing system would probably suffice.

 

[Harin]

It seems to me that one way to address these issues is a division speed penalty (or state infrastructure penalty) when moving more than X number of combat battalions through a state at one time. That is, we don't really need a new type of infrastructure; rather, a modification to the existing system would probably suffice.

If you are going to go there, which is not a bad place, I think instead of a speed debuff, the game would have to start having stacking limitations due to supply, instead. Lack of supply did slow things down, but it was much more responsible for units not being able to fight back and soldiers starving.

 

[walt526]

Yeah I think a general nerd to infrastructure level based on weight or something might be the way to go. This would impact both division speed and supply through. So maybe have an aggregate weight threshold, above which you get the dual hit to division speed as well as the supply through the state. Maybe also disable the ability to strategically deploy through an overburdened state too.

 

[Harin]

Yeah I think a general nerd to infrastructure level based on weight or something might be the way to go. This would impact both division speed and supply through. So maybe have an aggregate weight threshold, above which you get the dual hit to division speed as well as the supply through the state. Maybe also disable the ability to strategically deploy through an overburdened state too.

Good idea about strategic redeployment. If there are so many divisions built eating up all the logistic throughput then there surely would not be enough capacity to move troops without causing a terrible supply problem.

 

[Harin]

Yeah I think a general nerd to infrastructure level based on weight or something might be the way to go. This would impact both division speed and supply through. So maybe have an aggregate weight threshold, above which you get the dual hit to division speed as well as the supply through the state. Maybe also disable the ability to strategically deploy through an overburdened state too.

Even if the developers did something like you suggest, it would probably still be a good idea for them to paint those supply channels on the map, so the player can get a quick view sense of where the big supply movements are happening. Drawing in railroads and river transport systems, would be helpful to the player and may even help the developers see the realistic supply issue better.

 

[seattle]

One argument always seems to be that hex-based games can simulate railroads because they have way more hexes than HoI got provinces. That is not always the case though.
"Strategic Command WW2" comes in two versions. "War in Europe" has a more detailed Europe Map while "World at War" comes with a much smaller European theatre and less hexes than HoI4 has provinces in some places. Count the hexes between Stalingrad and Astrakhan and compare that with the number of provinces in HoI4.

Yet Strategic Command manages to fit in railway lines. The game and its supply system is completely centered around that. Your encirclements are performed by cutting off railway lines, not painting the map.

 

[Harin]

You were reading my mind! I was just thinking about hexes and how there are so many...etc...

Like you show with your post above though, whether the tile is a hex or something like HOI4, the tile can still represent the effects of having a major logistics channel going through it. It would not hurt if the railroad or river way was actually drawn on the map, to help the player see it quickly. It is such a strategically important item that it should be represented on the map, imho.

 

[Bki]

With the number and size of most provinces, one could argue that HOI4 really is a hex based game cosplaying as a province based one.

 

[safe-keeper]

Are there really that few railroads in that area, though? I seem to remember WITE having railroads everywhere.

 

[Bki]

Are there really that few railroads in that area, though? I seem to remember WITE having railroads everywhere.

While WiTE would represent smaller railroads, it also agrees that they were scarce in that particular area :

 

[safe-keeper]

Wow. I forgot they got so scarce that far east. Now I feel stupid and lazy for not just firing up WITE and checking myself. Thanks for taking the time to do so for me .

 

[sterrius]

I think the demand for railroad on HOI4 goes back to version 1.1 ^^.

While railroads where plenty and would "paint" the map in Germany/France,etc.
It does become quite important in Americas, Africa, USSR and Asia.

Not only barbarrosa but Jap vs China would become a much slower war because of that because after the coast the japanese player would find it very difficulty to conquer the interior.

and railroads do work with the current supply system quite fine. Just need a few things like.

-> Add "Build raiload" option. (need to be expensive and taking a enemy railroad would demand a also expensive repair. (To adapt it to your railroad system) ) .
-> Strategy deployment outside of railroads would be a little slower and use trucks. Its kind "easy" to make a system that demand X Trucks to carry the infantary and heavy equipment.
-> current system would still emulate roads, how many, their quality and how a good portion of supply can flow using trucks.

Trucks could really be used for more than just making batallions. HAving trucks and oil cost to supply troops would greatly help the game to slow down a bit more. Helping games to end in 44-45 instead of 42-43.

No railroad and trucks? (or no oil?) Supply still flow using horses but at a lower rate. less troops can be sustained on the state.


Outside of adding railroads all i said above don´t need a super reform of the system.
Maybe even Mods can do it .

 

[seattle]

I think the demand for railroad on HOI4 goes back to version 1.1 ^^.

While railroads where plenty and would "paint" the map in Germany/France,etc.
It does become quite important in Americas, Africa, USSR and Asia.

Not only barbarrosa but Jap vs China would become a much slower war because of that because after the coast the japanese player would find it very difficulty to conquer the interior.

and railroads do work with the current supply system quite fine. Just need a few things like.

-> Add "Build raiload" option. (need to be expensive and taking a enemy railroad would demand a also expensive repair. (To adapt it to your railroad system) ) .
-> Strategy deployment outside of railroads would be a little slower and use trucks. Its kind "easy" to make a system that demand X Trucks to carry the infantary and heavy equipment.
-> current system would still emulate roads, how many, their quality and how a good portion of supply can flow using trucks.

Trucks could really be used for more than just making batallions. HAving trucks and oil cost to supply troops would greatly help the game to slow down a bit more. Helping games to end in 44-45 instead of 42-43.

No railroad and trucks? (or no oil?) Supply still flow using horses but at a lower rate. less troops can be sustained on the state.


Outside of adding railroads all i said above don´t need a super reform of the system.
Maybe even Mods can do it .

If only the creator of the awesome Total War mod was here...

So when can we expect railroads, Clark Kent?

 

[walt526]

Seems to me like the thing to bear in mind when deciding whether to construct infrastructure is that the variable that you want to optimize is total IC produced, not total CIC/MIC constructed. So many times when I see construction calculations, the outcome measure used to evaluate is CIC or MIC after X years. But there's an opportunity cost to not producing equipment (even the relatively inferior early stuff) by delaying the start of CIC construction (and thus REF and MIC). If you optimize solely based on CIC (or MIC) constructed, then you're going to overvalue the marginal value of infrastructure, at least in terms of the marginal value of the construction speed bonus. Infrastructure has other benefits (e.g., resource, supply), but typically in pre-war it's built to improve construction speed.

 

[xtfoster]

I think the demand for railroad on HOI4 goes back to version 1.1 ^^.

Probably more like the original Hearts of Iron (1) version 1.0

-> Add "Build raiload" option. (need to be expensive and taking a enemy railroad would demand a also expensive repair. (To adapt it to your railroad system) ) .

Only true when the captured tracks were a different gauge than your own (i.e., Europe to the USSR) Most of Europe (except Spain?) was Standard Gauge. And even then it would be possible to capture enough rolling stock to keep the original lines running.

-> Strategy deployment outside of railroads would be a little slower and use trucks. Its kind "easy" to make a system that demand X Trucks to carry the infantary and heavy equipment.

But would these be the same trucks that are used by Motorized Divisions and support Companys?

 

[walt526]

I'm envisioning the trucks would sort of operate like naval convoys. The trick is figuring out how to make the supply system immersive and purposeful without being too tedious. It's easy to come up with a realistic supply truck system; it's more difficult to come up with one that's fun to play.