Building infrastructure in Africa?

[DABegley]

I am playing Italy in Nov. 1942 and have a question on building infrastructure in Africa. Should I? I remember a previous game as Italy where I could not move from Egypt to Ethiopia because of the 10 infrastructure coastal province in Sudan. I was advised that building infrastructure in that province would cause my supply system to go haywire so I did not. I later ran into the 10 infrastructure coastal province near Zanzibar that blocked my movement further south. I have the same issues in this game, except I have not made it to Zanzibar yet, just a matter of time, which is compounded because I conquered Vichy France and own all west Africa bumping into the 10 infrastructure province in coastal west Africa blocking my movements south. The British are happily gobbling up all my west African provinces and I face the not so appealing prospect of letting the British have them all or transporting troops to west Africa, hoping the British do not intercept, and supplying them by running a convoy that will get shredded by the British fleets. The same situation will apply in Zanzibar. Ethiopia is not a problem as I have taken all the nearby British ports so they do not come around raiding very often and I have NAV on patrol to harass them if they do.

So after a long-winding spiel the question is should I build infrastructure in West Africa and Zanzibar to allow unit movement and supply flow. Also, why will building infrastructure in Sudan explode my supply world?

Thanks.

 

[marxianTJ]

It won't kill your network completely as long as you've locked off the med. Also if you're going to build infra it's a good idea to build lots of it so that the supplies move from the ports faster. In general it's not a bad course of action for Italy as you'll be pretty manpower poor by 42' i imagine. I mean yeah you won't be at 0 but any *major* fighting can drain it to 0 if you stay in consistent action for several months against a tough enemy - the UK is not such an enemy.

The only thing that's bothersome is you'll have to keep in mind that the allies *can* hit you from new locations if you campaign goes sour.

 

[DABegley]

I own every mainland port in the med including Gibraltar and the Suez. Only Malta and Cyprus are owned by the British, haven't had time to clear them out. I have annexed Spain, the Balkans (except Romania which I puppeted), Iraq and Turkey and conquered Vichy as well as over-run all Brit territory. This means I have an actual land route to West Africa so I don't have to use convoys which I actually believe would be better but such is life. As for manpower I have about 1400, more than Russia who just attacked me last month. The rats. Germany took forever in France so Russia just got tired of waiting I guess and declared war. I am heavily involved on the Russian front, about 60 Divisions, and am maintaining my manpower levels for now. For better or worse all my inf are 2 Inf/2 art so they are manpower cheap, IC expensive. Almost all my troops are in the Caucasus or in an invasion of Sevastopol, Rostov and the ports south of Rostov. I want to try and cut off the Russian Caucasus troops with the invasion and get the turf all the way up to Stalingrad cheaply and quickly if i can, that and surround a bunch of Russian troops as well. Hopefully it will work out. I will try the infra build route. I have a lot of IC and infra is cheap. I will also try it in the Caucasus and Turkey if I have spare IC, hah like that will happen. Thanks.

 

[Kovax]

Usually, the best you can afford to do is to build up a few of the worst bottleneck provinces by a level or two. It's a half-way measure, but better than nothing. Building up the couple of Level 1 infrastructure provinces in the way, at least to level 3, will allow you to station a few units in East Africa, but won't support a significant presence if the UK wants to contest it. You're still going to need supply convoys for anything more than a token garrison force, or else a lot more infrastructure that you really can't afford to build. The real question is: how badly do you need those African colonies?

 

[DABegley]

Kovax, you really do have a point. There isn't anything in West Africa that I really care about and the troops I would send would probably be better used in the Caucasus. I can supply East Africa safely with convoys and if I can slip a few divisions around the Zanzibar block I can probably supply them with convoys as well and cover the convoys with NAV. Two carriers come on-line in 2 months and that should enable me to control the coast of East Africa with a little land air help. Thanks.

 

[Nick U]

I believe you are talking about the level 1 infastructure provinces (not 10). Most of the interior of Africa is impassible level 1 infastructure provinces and with a few exceptions only the coastal strips up to 2 provinces in, have higher levels allowing troop movement and supplies to pass.

These coastal strips are then broken into effectively 3 different sub-continents, by blocking level 1 infrastructure provinces on the coast. One blocks exists about 6 provinces below Casablanca, another about 8 provinces below Cairo and the third is to the south west of Ethiopia. Thus you get North Africa, South/West Africa and East Africa as 3 seperate sub-continents.

Now you can connect North Africa to Italy by annexing Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Syria and British Palastine. But to connect to South/West or East Africa you can only do that if you build up the infrastructure in the blocking provinces. It only needs to be level 2 and is easily enough done but it is a really bad idea. This is because while they remain isolated, the supply source for these sub-continents remains local. For East Africa this usually means the port of Edd, for South/West Africa this usually means the port of Boma assuming that you own them.

If you don't unblock the 1 infastructure provinces you have to run convoys down to those isolated sub-continents though potential dangerous RN patrolled waters. Or do you? Italy starts the war with significant forces in East Africa and can build up a good supply stockpile of supplies down there before the main war with the allies (Britain) kicks off. As for South/West Africa bounce a few Marine divisions down there and invade Cape Town, taking that province captures enough supplies for that entire sub continent for the rest of the war. Assuming you don't overdo your forces, but you don't need many. 1 mechanised corp of 5 divisions plus 3 Marine divisions is plenty. Expand out from Cape Town using your Marines to invade ports and then linking the new territory to Cape Town using your mechanised units. The only naval risk is to the troop transports but the enemy fleets you do meet are likely to be DD or SS only. So just bung 3 or 4 Light Cruisers into your transport fleets and they will own.

If instead you unblock the 1 infastruture provinces the supply source for South/West and East Africa will become Rome. Supplies will have to travel some 200 odd provinces to reach their destinations and the supply cost would be enormous. For example lets say you have 5 Infantry Divisions in say Cape Town, each need 3.0 supply per day. Combined they would start drawing 15 Supply from Rome, it would take 200 days for the first supply to reach them and at that point, 200 intermediate provinces would each be sat with 15 supply in them, 3000 supply commited to supplying those 5 Infantry divisions. But it is worse than that, because each intermediate province charges a supply tax of 0.1 supply, which I assume means 20 supply per day across 200 provices. I'm not certain how that is paid but would guess that Rome would actually need to pump out 7000 supply into the chain to cover the tax and ensure 15 supply actually gets to the other end.

Frankly the only way to keep your units supplied, especially during the first 200 days, would be to create a load of supply convoys (whom would suffer at the hands of those enemy DD and SS fleets) delivering supply into each captured port. However, only the units actually in the Port provinces would receive the supply. Units in other provinces, would only draw supply (accidentally) from those Port provinces if the port province was in the general supply path back to Rome. If they moved in a different direction they could end up starving while supplies could be sat in a neighbouring province outside of their supply arc. Worse, at a certain threshold, any supply stockpile that you might have shipped in or captured will start moving back to Rome. If you have got a unit sat on top of the stockpile, they might hold down a couple of hundred supplies but not the full 35000 that you typically capture at Cape Town.

 

[Kovax]

I was mistakenly assuming that you're NOT connecting Africa directly to Italy via Turkey, but you annexed rather than puppeted those countries. There would still be a direct link through Bulgaria, even without Romania as part of the chain. Since you DO have a land route, Nick U is correct, building up those intentional "breaks" would be potentially catastrophic, although you could partially circumvent the issue with convoys (but then you're not taking advantage of the land route anyway). The bigger problem is that any supply you pump into the chain via convoys is liable to be shipped right back to Rome, rather than go to the units which need it.

As far as I can tell, the supply transfer penalty is only paid once per province, not for supply to each individual unit at the end of the chain, so it's not QUITE as bad as it seems, but still pretty nasty over that distance.

Ultimately, you CAN make it work by building up enough infrastructure and waiting out the year of delay before supplies actually reach the units, but there is no easy answer.

 

[DABegley]

Yes, you are right about level 1 vs 10. I look at the infrastructure map in general and it gives level as % so I used 10 thinking 10%. It should be level 1. The supply cos sound completely unsustainable so no infrastructure builds for me in Africa. The IC would probably be better spent boosting inrfastructure in the Caucasus and Turkey anyway.

How close do I have to be to invade Capetown? I have booted the British out of Ethiopia and southern Sudan and am advancing down the coast of east Africa but haven't taken the ports south of Ethiopia yet. When is an invasion viable?

 

[Count Blue]

Yes, you are right about level 1 vs 10. I look at the infrastructure map in general and it gives level as % so I used 10 thinking 10%. It should be level 1. The supply cos sound completely unsustainable so no infrastructure builds for me in Africa. The IC would probably be better spent boosting inrfastructure in the Caucasus and Turkey anyway.

How close do I have to be to invade Capetown? I have booted the British out of Ethiopia and southern Sudan and am advancing down the coast of east Africa but haven't taken the ports south of Ethiopia yet. When is an invasion viable?

Once you have the situation under control down to the portugese settlement you are good to go.
From there its only a short jump to Capetwon.
The South africans sometime build some mobile forces to fight you.
Makes for a little entertainment Downsouth.

 

[Nick U]

How close do I have to be to invade Capetown? I have booted the British out of Ethiopia and southern Sudan and am advancing down the coast of east Africa but haven't taken the ports south of Ethiopia yet. When is an invasion viable?

Well the first question is what ships are in your transport fleet? Transport ships have a range of 3000 Kms, Landing Craft and Assault Ships have a range of 3500 Kms, but it is the screens that are the deciding factor. DDs have a base range of 1500, while CLs have a base range of 2000, both will improve with research although only for ships laid down after the research completes. I wouldn't advise attempting to invade Cape Town without some screens as the SA Navy usually has a small fleet of SS/DDs in Cape Town which will attack you. I tend to use a fleet of 2 x LC and 3 x CL to carry 3 Marine divisions for my amphibious assaults.

In order to invade Cape Town, your fleet has to be based at an in range port. However, your fleets have unlimited range to rebase to a port that you already own. If you take Spain (which I believe you do) you will inherit a number of Spanish ports in Africa. I personally always take out Portugul after Spain and between them you gain access to a load of ports on the African west coast. One at least is in range of Cape Town. I suspect it is a Portugese one, but Portugul doesn't immediately surrender when you take mainland Portugal. You can either force Portugul to surrender by picking off a couple more VP locations on your way down to Cape Town (there are a couple of Portugese (VP) islands off the west coast of Africa and then the Congo) or simply rebase to the most suitable former Spanish port and invade the necessary Portugese port.

Rebase your fleet there, set up a supply convoy for one night and then reload your Marines and continue. You don't need to leave any garrison behind and you can cancel the supply convoy as soon as your fleet has picked up one night of supplies and departed. I've never seen the allies invade the South/West Africa sub continent, the only danger is from enemy units already there, but once you have Cape Town and it's supplies it just a matter of time to roll up the whole sub continent. Bring in reinforcements of say 4-6 Motorised/Armored divisions directly into Cape Town and have them fan out in two directions along the coastlines. Your Marines need to be reloaded onto their ships and used to take another South African port on the East Coast. After that push one Marine division inland to secure Johansburg. SA should surrender when you take that province as your Mobile forces should have overrun the other VP locations by then. Once the SA army disbands there is little else in the whole sub continent to oppose you and once you have secured the whole sub continent you can simply abandon it, perhaps leave one garrison division on the local supply source which is likely to end up as Boma once you have connected it to Cape Town. Just build Airfields on every port province so that you can rush a Paratrooper division in to play whack-a-mole with any Partisan unit that pops up later. Exception - if SA forms a GIE, you should garrision all (3 or 4) of the SA port provinces, because SA often build multiple resistance cells on it's occupied territory. But your garrisons only need to be a couple of Militia each. They will easily be able to hold off the weak SA brigades that spawn until you can bring in the necessary reinforcements, or keep a couple of Motorised divisions permanently there to deal with such multiple revolts.

 

[Palmerdale]

I have done a lot of building infrastructure in Africa. I've build 'roads' of improved infrastructure through the Sahara, trying to find alternate ways to move into the interior. It can be useful to 'bump' a critical province for movement purposes in addition to the supply issues the others have discussed. It's really only useful to speed up land based reaction forces, but I've never found it particularly useful to increase the infrastructure past 3, 4 at the very high end. Probably better to just leave it alone, even if you're just messing around like I was. Probably better to spend those ICs on improving the ports to improve the supply that way.

One caveat. I will routinely build a road from Edd to cross those nasty mountains. Also useful in the rare instance when the British fleet has a significant presence in Oman. They can interfere with your sea supply to Mogadishu. But dealing with the UK presence there is likely to occur well before 42, so the infrastructure (and IC) will essentially be wasted.

Thinking about it, I've played a lot of games as Italy, and it seems most end up with me playing around like that to amuse myself.