Logistical Strike Strategy

[Piddyx]

This is just an idea.

In an unmodified game, the capital tends to become a bottleneck for supplies. If you were to destroy the infrastructre around an enemy capital, you could maybe put a nation's entire army out of supply.

 

[NAM]

I once destroyed the infrastrucrure in one of the two provinces in Cyprus, while attacking the unit in it and when I checked the combat, it didn't say "lack of supplies". And it was destroyed form more than a month.

 

[mattpilot]

I once destroyed the infrastrucrure in one of the two provinces in Cyprus, while attacking the unit in it and when I checked the combat, it didn't say "lack of supplies". And it was destroyed form more than a month.

Did it have a port? Was it airsupplied from a transport?

The 30 day supply, afaik, is for full consumption - so when the unit is stationary it would use less supply, thus lasting longer?

Why didn't you do some logistical bombing on the target province to bomb their supply levels?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I think this is exactly where we have a problem with the centralized supply system.

Right now I imagine US strats flying over Berlin/Brandenburg, turning the infra into ashes and cutting the whole german army... :rofl:
...I will give that a shot in my current US game!

 

[NAM]

Did it have a port? Was it airsupplied from a transport?

The 30 day supply, afaik, is for full consumption - so when the unit is stationary it would use less supply, thus lasting longer?

Why didn't you do some logistical bombing on the target province to bomb their supply levels?

Yes, it does have a port, but infra:0 and supplies:0 from logistical bombing.

 

[unmerged(25337)]

Personnaly I have used V1 and some V2 to ruin all infrastructure in combat zone...Only problem is everything is broken when you occupy the provinces
I did that against russian troops so I am not sure if they noticed a difference in their lack of supply !

 

[Kuciwalker]

This is just an idea.

In an unmodified game, the capital tends to become a bottleneck for supplies. If you were to destroy the infrastructre around an enemy capital, you could maybe put a nation's entire army out of supply.

Yes.

 

[mattpilot]

I see pro's & con's for the current supply system.


On one hand its a arbitrary system that limits large empires and makes it exceedingly more difficult to expand - which IMO is GOOD, otherwise it would get easier & easier the bigger you get and thats simply not the case. Every large empire had 'supply' issues the larger it grew and was the main reason it had to stop expanding. So the current system is a nice 'check' o nthat.


On the other hand a 'smart' human player would only have to bomb the capital and/or the surrounding provinces and the entire empire is cut off. Not cool. Personally i wouldn't use it as its gamey and neither does the AI, so i don't see a big issue personally in SP, albeit i understand people playing MP would have an issue with that.




Personally, i'd like to see some improvement. We know the game can handle seperate supply dumps. Maybe a system that would let the player designate provinces that would then stock, and distribute up to XX% of the nations total supply (not to much, maybe 15% - maybe modifiable via the laws). The daily supply/Fuel would then not exclusively be 'produced' in the capital and shipped out, but on creation be distributed with the same XX% among the supply dumps.


Limitations could be imposed that only provinces with say a level 5 factory can be player designated supply dumps as described above (would perhaps give a reason to build IC other than increased output longterm). Plus, if a player designates additional supply dumps, it would not increase the total amount decentralized from the capital, but would rather devide the maximum allowable among the provinces. And the maximum allowable % should be based off of the Industry Policy Laws. Like say Consumer oriented policy has 10%, mixed policy 20%, and Heavy industry policy 30%.


For example ->


Example 1 - Player designates 1 eligible province other than capital as a 'supply distribution point'. His Industry Policy is set to Mixed Industry, allowing for 20% to be 'decentralized'. His daily supply production is 100, and his fuel production is 20. This province would then produce' 20% of the daily production (20 supply and 4 fuel). The remaining 80% is produced in the capital. If there's no demand for those supplies, it will stock them until it reaches 20% of total stockpiles - everythign else gets stockpiled in the capital. If the demand exceeds what the province puts out, then additional supply will be drawn from the capital via conventional means.




Example 2 - Player designates 3 eligible provinces other than capital as a 'supply distribution point'. His industry policy is set to Heavy Industry, allowing for 30% to be 'decentralized'. His daily supply production is 100, and his fuel production is 20. Each 1 of those 3 designated provinces would then produce 10% of the daily production (10 supply and 2 fuel). The remaining 70% would be produced in the capital. If there's no demand for those supplies, it will stock them until each reaches 10% of total stockpiles - everything else gets pushed off to the capital, even if other designated distribution points haven't hit their 'cap' due to increased demand.






Not to complicated, fairly realistic and hopefully easy to code .

 

[ComTrav]

Its funny to think about this, because at one point the Allies thought Berlin was a unique target and such a plan could work.

Mostly I've had the best results with Logistical Strike against enemies at the end of a long logistical tether. (By the time the Japanese finally got around to landing in Malaya, a long tac kept them all at bay for months...) It feels amazing in certain situations, and not very useful at all in others.

 

[M240Gulf]

In my Germany game, I got really sick of Britain strat bombing me so I started my buildup of forces to invade them. However, I wanted to invade southern England but they had so many troops stationed at every port along the south. So what I did was logistically bomb their roads in Taunton and Maidstone.

Nothing happened for a couple of months so I thought it didn't work like I planned so I started a new strat, but then troops started moving. Keep in mind I'm also running interdiction and ground strikes in the ports I plan to invade and I'm sure this was the tipping point for them to start moving out.

So now instead of the 4 or 5 divisions of Marines and armor they had stationed on the ports, they left 1 division of infantry and maid it easy pickings for me.

I did run into a supply problem though, so I had to take over supply transport control from the AI so I could establish a better supply route to avoid the bombed out roads I did months earlier.

BTW, when you bomb their roads, it takes so long to recover, maybe as long as 6 months from level 0 to 10 in roads. It just seems they recover faster when it's your own province and not a conquered province.

 

[Sernaton]

The most realistic system would be that EVERY province has its own stock pile. Then some "transportation" processes will just move them around to tend to equalize them.

That way provinces from which supplies are taken are "filled in" by neighbouring provinces, and so on.

DOWN WITH THE CAPITAL STOCK PILE, I SAY!!

 

[neonknight_ger]

On the other hand a 'smart' human player would only have to bomb the capital and/or the surrounding provinces and the entire empire is cut off. Not cool. Personally i wouldn't use it as its gamey and neither does the AI, so i don't see a big issue personally in SP, albeit i understand people playing MP would have an issue with that.

But the ai does, at least before the patch (haven´t tried it yet):

While my army was busy invading Poland, I set several bombers on logistical strike missions to prevent a French attack on my thin defenses at the Rhine. They always chosed to attack Paris even after it was bombed to dust, probably because it had the highest stockpile of supplies.

 

[Kuciwalker]

The most realistic system would be that EVERY province has its own stock pile. Then some "transportation" processes will just move them around to tend to equalize them.

This is how it actually works.

 

[Sernaton]

This is how it actually works.

No, the stock pile is in the capital. Not spread through out the country. What you are talking about I guess is just the part "demanded" by the divisions.

What I am saying is what I actually see more natural and straightforward - every province produces resources and supplies, let them keep them! Then the demand from armies would just draw from closest provinces, and goods would then be transported to neighbouring provinces to cover what has just been withdrawn.

Such an obvious system provides with realistic dynamics, like making actually much more valuable richer provinces, and getting rid of the gamey pocket effects when areas of a country are isolated from the country. And of course the problems with the bottleneck around capitals would be sorted as well.

Bringing it closer to how it really works IRL, makes it actually more fun IMHO and avoid this nasty side effects that we are all experiencing.

 

[mattpilot]

No, the stock pile is in the capital. Not spread through out the country. What you are talking about I guess is just the part "demanded" by the divisions.

What I am saying is what I actually see more natural and straightforward - every province produces resources and supplies, let them keep them! Then the demand from armies would just draw from closest provinces, and goods would then be transported to neighbouring provinces to cover what has just been withdrawn.

Such an obvious system provides with realistic dynamics, like making actually much more valuable richer provinces, and getting rid of the gamey pocket effects when areas of a country are isolated from the country. And of course the problems with the bottleneck around capitals would be sorted as well.

Bringing it closer to how it really works IRL, makes it actually more fun IMHO and avoid this nasty side effects that we are all experiencing.

I disagree - not very realistic.

Not every province had a munitions factory. Not every province had combat gear factory. Not every province was producing supplies for the war effort. Etc... And it usually was not the case that every factory was the final place for assembly.

I think the centralized supply dump is a good approximation of the system and its limitations and its doing its job by keeping large empires from expanding to much, to fast.



The only point i can probably agree with that would warrent a change from such a in-game system is because of the ability of doing logistical strikes on/around the capital that would bring everything to a standstill.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

No, the stock pile is in the capital. Not spread through out the country. What you are talking about I guess is just the part "demanded" by the divisions.

He is not that wrong - each province has a stockpile, it's just that - as you said - the source is always the capital.
If you look at the supply grid, you can find provinces were supply stockpile arise due to transport capacity limits. These provinces can actually hold hundrets of units of supply.
So in fact it *could* be possible to re-write the system create and/or assign multiple stockpile provinces, each delievering supplies. But I think that will be more add-on-ish instead of a patch.

The best idea would be to spread all produced supplies among all IC provinces, determined by their effective IC. This would also lead to a more realistic supply network and ease the pain of supply transport for very large countries.

 

[Sernaton]

I think the centralized supply dump is a good approximation of the system and its limitations and its doing its job by keeping large empires from expanding to much, to fast.

You surely will agree that spreading the supply dump throughout the whole country is a BETTER approximation than a centralized supply on a single province?

 

[Kuciwalker]

If we are going to take on the computational burden of having multiple supply sources per network, we might as well do it right and have (as suggested by mattpilot above and me elsewhere) supply production spread across all IC-provinces.

 

[Sernaton]

The best idea would be to spread all produced supplies among all IC provinces, determined by their effective IC. This would also lead to a more realistic supply network and ease the pain of supply transport for very large countries.

I agree. I would also add converted oil based as well on the provincial IC.

Resources just would naturally stay where they are produced, and just transported as required. Realisticand solves the numerous isolated-from-capital issues very naturally.

 

[Kuciwalker]

Having a supply grid for resources is truly unnecessary. Having them teleport to the relevant port really is fine, IMO.