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Keeping your armies supplied?

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I had 1 AA unit short of supply 3 provinces south of Danemark, I checked around and saw that ground was frozen so I suppose that with bad meteo the supply route can be closed or delayed enough to block supply.

Also if you 5 divisions are very close their supply will need the same way for all. One thing you learn rapidly when using using supplied units is not to use all the units at same time to not bottleneck the supplies after (Remind the 2 tons trucks in the manual)
 
In my latest game i conquered france and poland in half a month, which should give me two years for Barbarossa. I build some 100% infra lines into annexed poland. Will this matter in the end(BTW its dirt cheap 0.6 IC per infa).
 
Here are my observations:

Supply map mode is not very helpful. I would expect it show where and in what amounts supplies are flowing. In other words to see my supply lines. What supply mode is showing is something else or I cant properly read it.

I would expect units in case of shortage to get partial supply. In other words, available supply to be distributed through my divisions. What I see mostly however is that division is either in full supply or totally out of it.

On picture below, you can see how unhelpful and confusing supply mode of map is:
supply.jpg


As I sat, I would expect it to show, where and how much of supplies flow. But it clearly is not the case. Cavalry division in Beping is in full supply, province have high throughput, demand and some local supply. Provinces in green to the north have some local supply but no throughput. Now tell me if this map makes some sense to you since to me it does not give the slightest idea of my supply network and situation or what is going on with supply altogether. Note also green provinces to the east with no units but green color. I have no idea what those colors on map should represent.

This picture shows also another problem I came across. Border to the east is one with Manchuria, my puppet and ally. As long as my units were on Manchurian territory they could trace supply to my provinces in Korea and via ports back to Japan. However once my troops crossed border and took enemy port, all supply through Korea ceased, even if that new port cant satisfy all my needs. That makes no sense of course.
 
The only problem that I have had so far was when my divisions in southern Yugoslavia (me playing Germany) attacked Greece (after they declared war on Italy... :) ).
I had release Croatia and I didn't realize that supplies could not travel through there when they were a puppet. Fortunately Nationalist Spain were on my side and Gibraltar were in their hands so I had convoys sailing in. Though that small harbor was not enough to feed all my troops very well. I'm not fully sure about why my Garrison didn't get any supplies but the fighting divisions did. Might have something to do with Bulgaria invading Greece as well.
 
well i'll agree the colour coding is not very useful in many cases and the fact you can't move supplies through your puppet is counterintuitive - still, it's quite obvious here there's not enough supplies flowing. if you leave your troops idle there's a chance it will slowly turn more green, starting from the top left, if idle usage is lower than those about 18 throughput coming from your port. bottleneck is mostly the port here: 4 units of supply for one level of naval base with some bonus for basing tech. will take a long time to build up a reasonable stockpile, and even then you quickly run into trouble when you get your army moving. so, as many others have said, it's extremely important to take the larger ports at qingdao and shanghai quickly.
 
Recury said:
Transport planes can do air supply drops. Haven't tried it yet to see how well it works, but it's an option if you have them.
Click to expand...
If you assign a transport plane to a HQ with a mission, the AI will use it to keep the units in supply. I noticed this while conquering Ethiop as Italy (low infrastructure down there!)
 
falanf >> this was screenshot from some older save, I did of course understand that one port is not enough to cover all my supply needs. I took two other Chinese ports bit later with second invasion force waiting in home ports. I posted it as an example of supply map mode which should give you overview of your supply network and some idea of what is going on with your supplies. It is possible that it is what it does at the end, but if then in very confusing and unhelpful way. Result is that you dont have clear idea why some of your troops are not supplied and thus you cant react to it in correct way. In screenshot its clear that port is what cause problem, but thats just logical deduction, map does not help you to understand that. Imagine map where supply is traced only via land. You can only guess where problem is and where your supply lines are and why are your units not supplied.

I would at last expect that map mode to show my supply lines. If it would show places of that line which are unable to transport quantity requested would be even better. Say grades of green for sufficient lines ...more supplies flowing -brighter the color, red grades for insufficient lines -parts where more is requested than capacity allow, bigger the difference, brighter the red color. Like that you would have clear idea where your supply lines are and lets you quickly identify problematic places.
 
Whoever said supply isn't broken is blowing smoke. I have certain airfields in Germany that I can't station planes at (e.g., Frankfurt am Main) because supply lines are never established to those airfields. This despite the fact that I'm at peace, there's nothing wrong with the German infrastructure, and I have plenty of supplies and fuel. The supply lines just never show up. If, however, I fly the planes to Kassel, the supply lines are almost instantly established.

Sometimes supply lines aren't laid out as they should be. That's a BUG, not something that's working as intended.
 
This is just an idea: If source of all supply is your capital than if your army is big enough or infrastructure of your capital is low enough than your capital province, very source of your supplies can very well be also bottleneck for all those supplies. Than what ever you do, some units of your army would not get supplies ...even if they all sit right in your capital. But that is just speculation :)
 
CookMyLock said:
I am not the OP, but i have had supply issues where I have a huge campaign in russia, have 99999 supplies in storage, I advance into russia perfectly fine barely ever running out of supplies even when im 1200 miles east of the original border!

However, i go and move units near the coast of france, and they move a province or 2 and quickly just run out of supplies. This is in 1942 when ive had freaking france for over 2 years.

Not only do they run out of supplies but they run out for over a week, and cant move at all!

WHAT THE HELL?

its a joke.

Noone knows how supply system works. Its really just confusing.
Click to expand...

am also seeing this, but i also have about 50 airwings assigned to the ai and he has put them all in paris can this be sucking up alot of the supplies?
 
There sure is something fishy with supply, I have also had supply problems on Germany at 36 GC while still at peace. Odd thing that land divisions on border seems not to get infected by it but HQ's on 1-2 province inner Germany.
 
I think the suppy model is fine .. I think where the problems occur is our usage of it.

If you have a large force concentrated in one area .. then each division is going to send a supply request to the local depot (capital, closest naval base or supply dump) .. when the request is received, the supplies get sent out (by the optimal route) day by day and travel one province per day to fulfil the request.

Because you have a large concentrated force - the route taken for the supply is going to more or less take the same route for all divisions (diverging only near the final destination) .. hence, bottlenecks will occur in the chain. (hence why you see a line of green provinces heading towards the force and then diverging when it gets closer).

It doesn't matter if your 200km inside France or 1500km inside Russia .. if the bottleneck is at the French border or in and around Warsaw your going to lack supplies at the front.

When the bottlenecks occur - it looks like the AI tries to work out alternative routes for some divisions .. Remember, its looking for the quickest / most optimal route .. if that is through 6 consequative "Plains" provinces, snaking their way through mountains on either side - its going to funnel all the supply, for all divisions in your concentrated area, through those 6 provinces. This might be the quickest route - but eventually, the amount of traffic passing through those 6 provinces will cause bottlenecks (due to throughput).

Then, weather will have an impact. Lots of rain / snow on the optimal route will cause further bottlenecks when trucks get bogged down .. sadly, you can't do much about the weather ..

So where is the problem?

I say its in the concentration of force.

East Prussia - with Germany - is a perfect example. I tend to put way too many divisions in there pre-Poland .. and bit by bit, I start to see them struggling for supplies. I have too many divisions in there to be able to supply at 100%. As soon as I start to remove divisions - the supply problems fix themselves.

I've not done this so don't know for certain - but start a 1936 game with Germany and send all your divisions to a province 4 steps from Berlin .. I imagine you'll get supply problems .. It doesn't matter how close if the amount of divisions is too large in one area .. the route to where they are will get overwhelmed.

As an example with Italy and Africa (where I had serious supply problems when I played that game) .. Its not a case of how many divisions you would WANT or LIKE on the continent - its about how many you NEED and can SUPPLY. Once you go over the limit of what you can support - then you'll get supply problems.

When this happens you can either :

a) Carry on and accept your going to get supply problems and plan for it ..
or
b) Take the hint - you've got too much force here than what can be adaquetly supplied - and ship some back to the main land.

On fronts - don't concentrate large forces .. spread them out a little bit to open up different supply routes to not cause bottlenecks 300km behind the lines ..
 
well you are not wrong, the intermittent out-of-supply issues behind the lines are almost always (i've seen the odd strange case) caused by troops "ahead" soaking up some supplies. it's still a bit of a nuisance; for example i don't want to run out of supplies on jinan airbase whenever i move my army around in manchuria (as natchi). perhaps something rather simple like designating units as high priority might fix this.
 
I tend to think of it this way :

If I have a stack of 4 divisions in province A .. and 1 divison each in province B and C, 2 provinces away and either side of it .. then the stack in province A will naturally draw more supply. I think it will also be prioritised .. its better to have 1 division out of supply, than 4, for instance (my thinking - dunno if thats how it works).

However, this causes a further problem .. the route to the 4 stack will have a greater supply demand, than to the couple of 1 stacks .. if this supply demand goes over the throughput of the provinces needed to pass through to get the supplies to the 4 stack .. a bottle neck will occur and the 4 stack will not be 100% supplied .. So you could end up in a situation where the 4 stack is drawing all the supply to it at the expense of the 1 stacks either side of it .. and then due to this, causing a supply bottleneck so that the 4 stack doesn't get fully supplied anyway ..

Solution?

Split the 4 stack .. send 1 division to each of the 1 stacks (so you have 2 divisons in each A, B and C province) and see if the situation improves ..
 
GLENN said:
Eventually the supply concept will sink in.

It's not broken.

Remember:

supply_transfer_cost
supply_throughput
force to space ratio
reinforcment draw takes longer
Click to expand...

One part that does seem broken is with reserves ..

Start Germany in 1936

Go to East Prussia and make sure each division / HQ is in 1 province by itself ..

Check each brigade in anyone division (click on the brigade when the division is selected to bring up its stats) .. and sum up their supply need

You should get (on one of the divisions as an example).

0.18 + 0.18 + 0.18 = 0.54 total supply needed for division

Now switch to Supply Mode and look at the Supply Demand for that divisions province - it will read 2.11

Check in production for the supply cost for a newly created (full strength) division consisting of 3 infantry brigades .. it will be 2.01

2.11 - 2.01 = 0.1 = Supply tax?

Yet, the division is a reserve division on the map .. it should have a Supply Demand of the 0.54 mentioned earlier .. plus the tax of 0.1 .. so .. 0.64 Supply Demand.

Yet the provence is demanding the full 2.11 .. which is for a full strength division + tax.
 
I think the issue is that the system isn't intuative. There is nothing that seems to easily tell you - 'Hey, here is the problem. It's this reason your units are not in supply'. Granted that would be difficult as the situations vary so much. I think we will slowly be able to piece it together but the explanation behind the supply routes does not seem to be well laid out in the game
 
I'll agree with that .. I personally like puzzles so I'll sit and try and work it out by moving things around and see what happens .. but I can understand the issues for those who just want to play and fight!
 
Thunda said:
I'll agree with that .. I personally like puzzles so I'll sit and try and work it out by moving things around and see what happens .. but I can understand the issues for those who just want to play and fight!
Click to expand...


Heh - but that moving things around messes with my invasion time tables! :D
 
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