No connection to capital... Bad idea

[Alex_brunius]

In the reality of real life there would be more tools at my disposal - like sending a couple of spare men and guns there before the outbreak of war.

What prevents you from sending more divisions down there before the war to keep as a reserve force and use these instead once the equipment and manpower levels of your starting divisions on the front start to get low?

That's essentially the same thing as sending down extra men and material in advance is. Since there are several supply areas you can even keep them back and not overload the available supply at the front.

Attrition would finish them off. 0 org kind of makes it difficult to fight.

Attrition means gradual loss of men or equipment.

0 Org is something completely different. With your proposed rules the units encircled would give up due to 0 org indeed, but with full equipment and fresh tanks from the Ruhr factories delivered just hours before surrender even if they have been cut of for 2 months.

But you just pointed out another flaw that should be fixed. Division reinforcements should be multiplied by their available supply. If a unit only has 10% supply they should only reinforce at 10% of the normal rate.

Division reinforcements getting slowed down by available supply ratio is a great idea I can get behind.

 

[KiwiNoob]

This issue also makes submarines pointless when sinking British convoys, as all the territory marked 'UK' on the map is directly linked to the British mainland. In other words, all the resources directly controlled by the British empire go directly to the UK stockpile irrespective if they are not connected by sea as they don't need to be transported.

Didn't know that. Would have saved the UK a lot of trouble during the early part of WW2 if that happened IRL too

 

[Alex_brunius]

This issue also makes submarines pointless when sinking British convoys, as all the territory marked 'UK' on the map is directly linked to the British mainland. In other words, all the resources directly controlled by the British empire go directly to the UK stockpile irrespective if they are not connected by sea as they don't need to be transported.

I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. If you don't have any convoys your not going to be getting any overseas resources at all, and raiding to them reduce route efficiency so your not getting the full amount.

 

[Bundeswag]

This issue also makes submarines pointless when sinking British convoys, as all the territory marked 'UK' on the map is directly linked to the British mainland. In other words, all the resources directly controlled by the British empire go directly to the UK stockpile irrespective if they are not connected by sea as they don't need to be transported.

Open the game as UK and turn on the resource map mode. You will see that you are wrong.

 

[Meglok]

How do you propose the Italian manpower should be able to get from Italy to Ethiopia if Suez and Gibraltar is blocked?

How do you propose the Italian equipment produced in Italy should be able to get from Italy to Ethiopia if Suez and Gibraltar is blocked?




How do you know that these factories are producing exactly the kind of equipment you need and not something else, and how do you know that the population isn't already recruited to other units?

If the game was accurate you shouldn't even be able to use those 3 Military factories down there at all because they are cut off from your resources anyways...

Think of the capital as a shorthand for 'the industrial and manpower core of the country'. In the context of your specific example (a cut-off Ethiopia), I think it makes perfect sense (although if we want to be sure, we should look up the situation facing the Italian forces in the East African Campaign and see what happened there ). There are some situations that it holds up less well, but as a general rule of thumb, I'd argue it does a 'good enough' job to make everything work reasonably most of the time, and the amount of work required for a deeper logistical model would have at the very least likely delayed the game by months (development then testing). Given they were pretty keen to launch the game last year, I'd argue it's a decent decision and a reasonable-enough abstraction.

That's not to say I wouldn't love a deeper logistical model, but I wouldn't slot "main supply path flows from the capital" into HoI4's list of key issues that need resolving.

I'm confused OP, where do you think you're going to get supplies or trained men from? There's very little manpower and almost no industry in the area, which may or may not even make relevant equipment, and surely almost all training grounds are in Italy proper, rather than middle-of-nowhere Africa.

Your argument would make sense in some weird edge cases, such as an Iranian thrust north managing to separate Moscow from Kiev and Leningrad or Mexico and Canada pushing through the central USA to cut off the west coast from Washington DC, though they'd also have to sink an enormous amount of convoys for that to work. However, your case is not one of those cases. You want colonial troops to magic in new shipments of equipment and trained men that cannot escape through two of the most important naval chokepoints in the world - Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. I mean, why does Britain hold on to that land and rule the waves if not to stop the exact thing you're trying to do?

At the risk of being Capt Obvious here, I would expect the Italians to send supply and reinforcements te same way they funnel divisions to IEA, through Wilhelmshaven if allied with Germany. If not allied you had damn well better capture Suez fast.

IRL, the IEA theater was left on it's own when war broke out, but there were significant stockpiles in the theater. This is something that is not allowed in HOI4. So I am surprised Italy's forces can't even be supported thru Germany.

Add Aluminum in Asia.

 

[Saint Gwynllyw]

Open the game as UK and turn on the resource map mode. You will see that you are wrong.

Cant check at the moment, but resource map mode shows international trade routes - not resource movement. Any territory marked as the UK- (not British raj etc) does not need to transport resources to the capital. It goes straight into the national stockpile.

Another example, when playing as the Soviet Union I have had Azerbaijan completely cut off and surrounded with no port, and all oil there continued to go into my stockpile.

 

[Saint Gwynllyw]

The only convoys you can sink in the game are trade and troop transport.

From the wiki

http://www.hoi4wiki.com/Logistics#Convoys

Convoys [are] used for international trade of goods and resources. Also used to ferry troops around and for performing naval invasions.

 

[Bundeswag]

Cant check at the moment, but resource map mode shows international trade routes - not resource movement. Any territory marked as the UK- (not British raj etc) does not need to transport resources to the capital. It goes straight into the national stockpile.

Another example, when playing as the Soviet Union I have had Azerbaijan completely cut off and surrounded with no port, and all oil there continued to go into my stockpile.

That is due to them being on the same continent iirc. Just try it and you will see the convoys.

 

[dasaard200]

In some time-line, WHY NOT TAKE MALTA ??
Your supply lines would be more secure, reinforce Libya, and stomp on into Suez .

 

[Dalwin]

Sorry - updated the OP to be clearer.

Even with supply your units will not reinforce (manpower or equipment) without the connection to the capital.

That is to some extent how it should be. Perhaps not only literally the capital, but not from just any VP either. If I have Germans surrounded in Lyon, they may have enough supply to not die or lose all their org, but they would not be getting any replacement tanks at all simply because they have a source of local supply.

To think that any supply source should be sufficient for replacements is at least as much rubbish as a capital only model. Some board games got around this by making any connected pocket of 3 homeland industrial cities sufficient for full supply regardless of the status of the capital.

 

[KiwiNoob]

That is to some extent how it should be. Perhaps not only literally the capital, but not from just any VP either. If I have Germans surrounded in Lyon, they may have enough supply to not die or lose all their org, but they would not be getting any replacement tanks at all simply because they have a source of local supply.

To think that any supply source should be sufficient for replacements is at least as much rubbish as a capital only model. Some board games got around this by making any connected pocket of 3 homeland industrial cities sufficient for full supply regardless of the status of the capital.

I disagree. VP's don't produce much supply at all. In cities big enough to warrant victory points it's entirely plausible and realistic that a small number of troops would be able to make do on captured/scavenged equipment and supplies in the short term. Most divisions main needs were guns, artillary, ammo, trucks, etc... simpler things that would be captured/left behind to some degree in a city. Even when it comes to LARM/ARM there would most likely be some that was captured or could be repaired.

Especially in the timeframes we're talking about. Captured/scavenged equipment is not going to last forever but it's unlikely that surrounded divisions will be sitting there reinforcing for weeks/months without coming under attack.

One amendment/addendum that came out of the discussion is that units with abysmal supply currently still reinforce at the maximum rate - I think this change should be paired with tying a divisions reinforcement with it's supply level. E.g. A unit with 20% supply will only reinforce at 20% speed or perhaps go further with 75% supply = 50% reinforce. 50% supply = 0% reinforce. This means that if the trapped units exceed supply they still wont be reinforcing much/at all which is correct - you could capture/scavenge enough for a small number of troops but not a large number.

With the two changes combined it's going to make virtually 0 difference to encircled units but a big difference to units simply operating out of a non-capital area.

Also mentioned earlier in the thread - when provinces are cut off from the capital their available supply drops dramatically. In core provinces I think it was about 1/4 of what it was, in non-core it's just what VP's you have. This works pretty well, letting people be able to support a greatly reduced number of troops from non-connected provinces and prevents having to worry about getting more complicated with the supply system.

The alternative is to provide some sort of mechanic to work around this such as a way to stockpile spare men/equipment in certain places. But thats not going to happen in a hurry (if ever)

It's far worse to say that an area with plenty of spare manpower, industrial capacity and was a known staging point for an invasion years in advance was instantly unable to provide even basic equipment the moment the connection was lost.

 

[Saint Gwynllyw]

That is due to them being on the same continent iirc. Just try it and you will see the convoys.

You may be right, but the outcome is the same, you cant sink domestic resource convoys anyway so if they do appear on the map its just cosmetic.

 

[Daliena]

Cant check at the moment, but resource map mode shows international trade routes - not resource movement. Any territory marked as the UK- (not British raj etc) does not need to transport resources to the capital. It goes straight into the national stockpile.

Another example, when playing as the Soviet Union I have had Azerbaijan completely cut off and surrounded with no port, and all oil there continued to go into my stockpile.

This was with some mods (Millennium Dawn, improved AI, I have no idea if either one would affect it but just to have it said, right?), but when I took over the Congo as the UK for that sweet, sweet rubber, none of it was flowing into my resource stockpiles until I was able to set up a naval base.

 

[Bundeswag]

You may be right, but the outcome is the same, you cant sink domestic resource convoys anyway so if they do appear on the map its just cosmetic.

I know that I sink something while using subs, but I can't really tell if it is resource convoys. I don't see why they wouldn't be sinkable like trade convoys. If this is the case we should make a bug report.