Idea: (food) supply policies

[CaptRobau]

The latest Crash Course World History explained WWII from the perspective of resources, more specifically food. It went into the daily caloric intake of all the various combatants, which was surprisingly not just a matter of circumstances (encirclement, defense, etc.) but also of policy.

US: 4000+ calories a day. Policy was to feed them as well as possible
Germany: 4000 calories a day. Supply situation wasn't as good as that of the Americans, yet they chose to feed their soldiers well
Russia: not mentioned, but low. Soviet soldiers were often required to live off the land.
Japan: lowest of all main combatants. The Japanese were really required to provide themselves with food. They were often not even issued with field kitchens

This could be made into an interesting policy, where food supplies or general supplies (not sure how supplies are set up) of the army can be manually set. When the supply situation is bad, one can then choose to purposefully underfeed all your army units instead of having some units undersupplied, while others are supplied normally. Or you can prioritize supply production and set the food policy to max, to get maximum combat efficiency but at the expense of other raw material production (move your iron smelters to farms so to speak).

Thoughts?

 

[Klausewitz]

Since this quickly goes into the forbidden areas of atrocities and war crimes i doubt it will be modelled.

 

[Chukada]

I think its safe to say, wont be in game.

 

[msaaim89]

Won't be in as the next request would be to control how much of the food gets through to POW's.

 

[Hayro]

could be abstracted as: supply policy
which is already in the game as slider

 

[Chromos]

Having food seperated from other mil supplies would open new possibilities to simulate the great effect of food had in ww2.
Having enough food had a tremendous effect on many countries strategies to get through the war.

I would like to have modifiers that let your combat efficiency drop if units are low on food, or get a morale drop if so for a longer time etc..
Also the player would maybe sometimes then need to make a decision if he is low on food, if he takes a dissent hit from the homefront, or is risking combat efficiency drop on the frontlines.
Both could have different short time/long time effects wich would add to the feeling of the need to make decsions wich decide the fate of a country.

 

[PEP]

could be abstracted as: supply policy
which is already in the game as slider

No really but that's probably what will happened.

 

[Secret Master]

Well, there already was a food mechanic of sorts in HOI3. Consumer goods and agriculture techs were important. Plus there's the black soil strategic effect, which also makes a significant difference.

I know it's not the same thing as managing food, but then again, HOI4 isn't Vic2. We aren't managing the production of every widget in the economy.

It also starts taking us into forbidden topics; there are certain aspects of the war which won't be in the game and which Paradox has no interest in modelling. I suspect that wasting time on a food mechanic which could lead us to forbidden topics is not on the agenda.

 

[Chukada]

Having food seperated from other mil supplies would open new possibilities to simulate the great effect of food had in ww2.
Having enough food had a tremendous effect on many countries strategies to get through the war.

I would like to have modifiers that let your combat efficiency drop if units are low on food, or get a morale drop if so for a longer time etc..
Also the player would maybe sometimes then need to make a decision if he is low on food, if he takes a dissent hit from the homefront, or is risking combat efficiency drop on the frontlines.
Both could have different short time/long time effects wich would add to the feeling of the need to make decsions wich decide the fate of a country.

I can imagine this being a key feature in the China and Pacific Theatre.

Pick Nat China and Japan and watch your units starve to death or steal from civilians and make civilians starve to death!

 

[Secret Master]

And this is why it leads to forbidden topics. All it takes is for one person to bring up deliberate starvation of civilians as part of military policy... :sigh:

War crimes against civilians will not be modeled in HOI4. Advocating for such a mechanic is not in line with forum rules.

Thread closed.