Keeping Armies Supplied

[CatKnight]

Alright, so it's early game and my armies were relatively well supplied (green indicators). Then abruptly they started switching to yellow.

So...I check the armies out. They're only receiving 57% of their supplies. Hm.

I see their supplies (in this particular case) depend heavily on small arms, canned food, and wine for my elitist cavalry. I assume the Trade AI is happily doing its job, but just in case I manually order a small stockpile.

No effect.

Well...I did lower military spending in my budget a year or two ago. My top 'military' window was now indicating I was fielding more regiments than I could afford. Perhaps that was it. I upped that to maximum.

Still no effect.

Any idea what I can do/should have done to keep army supplies flowing smoothly?

 

[ComradeOm]

Maybe there are just no goods to be purchased on the WM? What's your prestige ranking and your national stockpile slider like?

 

[unmerged(131989)]

Did you have your national stockpile slider set to the maximum amount? That is the amount of money you will buy goods with, so if your only goods are military supplies, you will not be spending enough to supply your units at 100%.

Military spending doesn't affect this supply, but just affects the desirability of becoming a soldier or officer as it pays their wages.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Put the stockpile slider to 100%

When you go to war, make sure to pull the stockpile slider all the way to 100%. The way I understand it works, is this: The slider allocates how "quickly" your trade AI should act on the market to fill your demands. If you set it below 100%, not only will it keep a small stockpile, but it will also not directly buy all your military needs.

I don't fully understand how it works, but in the demo I lost my first way to Mexico due to my troops being unexplainably low on supplies, while the stockpile slider was at 30% or so. The next war I pulled the slider to 100%, and the troops were always well supplied. I won that war.

It costed a lot of money to leave the slider at 100%, but my impression is that this makes your trade AI buy everything that the army needs ASAP, and leads to much better supplies reaching your armies.

 

[CatKnight]

That's almost certainly it. I'd lowered my stockpile slider to balance my budget then just left it there when the fighting began. Thanks!

 

[Tormodius]

When you go to war, make sure to pull the stockpile slider all the way to 100%. The way I understand it works, is this: The slider allocates how "quickly" your trade AI should act on the market to fill your demands. If you set it below 100%, not only will it keep a small stockpile, but it will also not directly buy all your military needs.

I don't fully understand how it works, but in the demo I lost my first way to Mexico due to my troops being unexplainably low on supplies, while the stockpile slider was at 30% or so. The next war I pulled the slider to 100%, and the troops were always well supplied. I won that war.

It costed a lot of money to leave the slider at 100%, but my impression is that this makes your trade AI buy everything that the army needs ASAP, and leads to much better supplies reaching your armies.

Yes, but I saw another effect with this too. As i was pulling it to 100% national stockpile, I had built many troops and lots of ships so I got a severe deficit of course, but then some things were sold back to WM and i got a severe income by selling stockpile at the same time so it evened out. Some sell-buy mechanism went on in the background and budget fluctuated like a yoyo! As trade was on automatic but some military goods i had stockpiled a little bit and set to Sell > 50. I am neither sure how it works with supplies buying and the trade screen. It seems a bit confusing to me at the moment :wacko:

Also I then used to set the National Stockpile to zero at peace time to earn money, but I am not sure if that is a good idea. Will soldiers still get their needed goods or will they lose their jobs? I kept military spending somewhere above 50%, and that should give them pay, or so i thought.