no, we do not need buildable supply depots

[GAGA Extrem]

A buildable supply unit sounds like an interesting fix...
...maybe we can give a unit negative supply consumption so it spawns supplies in it's province?

Btw, can't we have supplies spawned at the 10 largest core IC provinces AND the ability to designate "priority" provinces for supply routes? It would be like having our cake eating it too...

PS: This forum has an edit function, no need to post six post in a row, really...

edit: Nah, tested that HQ thing - doesn't work... too bad Maybe HQs could raise supply throughput a bit?

 

[unmerged(12045)]

Why not just have it so that supply originates from national capitals, regardless of ownership.

That is to say; if I'm Germany and annex France, my units in France are supplied from Paris. If I annex Poland my units in Poland are supplied from Warsaw.

Supplies are produced in each capital by the ratio of the IC for the area they cover; so if Germany has 80 IC and Poland has 20 IC [for example] then 20% of my supplies will be built in Warsaw and 80% in Berlin. Any deficit in supplies can be fed from capitals in surplus to those in deficit, along the most efficient route.

When a country has its capital captured, the supply point goes to the capturer and the defender has a new temporary - until either the original is recaptured or the defender annexed - supply point generated.

If you're playing as Britain [for example], you'd get a supply point in the national capitals of all the countries you can release, so you'd have one in Delhi for example.

I don't know, I probably haven't thought about it hard enough - what do you guys think?

I think this is an excellent idea! I others shpuld take a minute to think about it.

 

[Kuciwalker]

:wacko:
Hmm, you do not get it, right?

Gathering supplies at an "IC" was never the point of a logistic system at all!
One "IC" alone never made ALL supplies for the army and that never will be so.
"ICs" (the s means more then one btw.) ever send around lots of parts to other "ICs" and so on.

For a military supplie-system ever "Depots" were in charge of gathering the supplies for the forces and then over a well thought logistic chain of several other depots (big ones and smaller ones) it was brought down to the soldier it self (who was maybe the smalles of all depots in this chain, cause he held supplies for some days ore the comming attack).

Ok, dude, slow down, you're going to hurt yourself.

I'll make it really simple for you. There are two relevant issues:
1) Where do supplies show up on the map?
2) How do they get from where they show up to where they're needed?

The current answer to (1) is "in the capital". This is a design flaw. Any proposed change to the supply system that keeps this answer can be safely ignored.

The current answer to (2) is pretty much "the game traces a path for each unit from where the supplies are generated". This system pretty much works. (There are bugs in the implementation, but that's not relevant to design discussions.)

Now, most systems of "buildable supply depots" can be thrown into one of three categories:

A) Change (2) to "the game traces a path from the capital to each depot, which in turn traces a path to each of its subordinate units". This category can be discarded immediately as worthless because it doesn't solve the actual problem.

B) Change (1) to "spawn supplies at IC + trace a path from nearest ICs to each depot, which in turn traces a path to each of its subordinate units". This is pointless because it's clearly a strict SUPERSET of what's necessary to fix the actual problem. It is a red herring. By making noise demanding this sort of thing, it actually REDUCES the chance that useful reform will occur.

C) Change (1) to "spawn supplies at depots". This is just silly, because there's no good reason to produce ANOTHER province improvement that you have to deal with. It also doesn't make that much sense, because despite what you keep claiming ALL OF THE SUPPLIES ULTIMATELY CAME FROM THE FACTORIES.

Btw. IC in HoI inflicts some more points in the game then only supplies, how about SU, why should i build up IC in the west if i know that germany could come and get it? Only to have my suppliechain up? Waste of time, so if i could say "place depot grade x" here all is fine and i could still build up ic at a point far far away like SU did at WWII, whole factories were send to the east after the war broke out.

Thank you for demonstrating once again that my suggestion presents the players with a relevant and realistic strategic choice

 

[Kuciwalker]

Your going to tell me what I did and didn't say?

Yes, since you posted it on a public forum where we can all see it.

No you can not, you can see whether or not the unit is getting supply or not, not the 30 day supply.

Dude, click the goddamn supply mapmode, hover over the province where the division is located. IT TELLS YOU HOW MANY SUPPLIES ARE IN THE PROVINCE. Divide this by the supply consumption of your division. BINGO, you've got your 30 day supply.

 

[Kuciwalker]

Anyway, I obviously disagree with Kuciwalker, both because he's a jerk,

This is an interesting argument.

and also because I believe his idea is too complicated and would add to the computational strain of an already CPU intensive game.

Why? I actually demonstrated mathematically that this ought to, in the ABSOLUTE WORST CASE of someone building 1IC in every territory, increase processing time for the supply system by 80%. In practice it should be under 10%.

Instead, I believe that the throughput cap should be removed for capital provinces, and we should have the ability to designate forward supply depots. Now the depots shouldn't be "buildings", as such, like we currently have with air bases or naval bases.

 

[Oerdin]

I don't think supply depots should be buildable but players should be able to designate provinces as supply depots. Currently the AI just builds on per continent (not counting the continent where the capital is as the capital counts as a supply depot) and that means supplies just slowly dribble in over long distances. If I'm Italy and I want to designate that supplies be stock piled in Conquered Macedonia for my planned invasion of Greece then I should be able to do that.

As it is my armies in Greece will run out of supplies almost as soon as they cross the border and Greece becomes a long slow nightmare no matter how well I plan. In fact the only effect ways to do it quickly currently is to drop paratroopers or do an amphib. In real life armies had forward supply depots so the game should have them as well.

 

[Onedreamer]

Dude, click the goddamn supply mapmode, hover over the province where the division is located. IT TELLS YOU HOW MANY SUPPLIES ARE IN THE PROVINCE. Divide this by the supply consumption of your division. BINGO, you've got your 30 day supply.

Bingo ? Not for me. You will see supplies in provinces even when there are zero units in it, hence that math can't be right.

But back to the OP, why do people think that being able to create depots would help the situation ? I actually think that if they worked as most peolpe expect (from capital to the depot, from the depot to the units in the area) they would create MORE congestions than the current implementation. This because a better and faster path could be drawed from the capital directly to the units most of the times.

 

[Kuciwalker]

Bingo ? Not for me. You will see supplies in provinces even when there are zero units in it, hence that math can't be right.

Why are you trying to calculate 30day supply for a unit that doesn't exist?

But back to the OP, why do people think that being able to create depots would help the situation ? I actually think that if they worked as most peolpe expect (from capital to the depot, from the depot to the units in the area) they would create MORE congestions than the current implementation. This because a better and faster path could be drawed from the capital directly to the units most of the times.

This. If depots were actually more efficient under the current supply model, the algorithms would create them.

 

[TiggyFiggy]

I like the supplies at IC idea, to be able to have large supply stores built at the front will lead to players spamming the front with supply depots, meaning that logistics are no longer important except in the worst possible terrain. It also means that when I Conquer China as Japan or the british with India, I don't need to ship all the supplies for my army, as would be most realistic.

Also means that soviet players can't just put all their IC in a few upgraded Siberian provinces far far away from anywhere without significant rail/infrastructure investment, as would be realistic and prevent gamey tactics.

The only problem i see would be whether to ajust the supply production per province based on the local need for supplies. So if as Japan the majority of my army is in conquered China, do all my Chinese provinces produces a higher ratio of supplies to my Japanese ones as there is a far greater demand.

 

[unmerged(141552)]

I think this is an excellent idea! I others shpuld take a minute to think about it.

so there is no need to gather intelligence to find out the location of the supply dumps, i'll just bomb your capitals its not like they going anywhere.

also how is this helping me in planning an invasion? best case scenario its will help with the supply problems, nothing to do with strategy and invasion, i guess shipping all your supply's during the war is better then stockpiling some before (not 30days)
also no much help when in need to prioritize the front when u simple dont have enough supply's unless u wish to participate in a 200+ click fest
also you will be constricted to defend the capital instead of placing it where most logical strategy wise

yes its better idea then only 1capital IC but by no means a complete one.

 

[Onedreamer]

Why are you trying to calculate 30day supply for a unit that doesn't exist?

I'm just saying that the total that you see on the province most likely doesn't include only the 30 day supplies total from the units, so dividing that number per the number of units might be wrong.

 

[unmerged(141552)]

I like the supplies at IC idea, to be able to have large supply stores built at the front will lead to players spamming the front with supply depots, meaning that logistics are no longer important except in the worst possible terrain. It also means that when I Conquer China as Japan or the british with India, I don't need to ship all the supplies for my army, as would be most realistic.

we can restrict the number of supply depots and/or their capacity.
why would be supply depots spamming any more than ic spamming?
why logistic will not be important, how do u think the supply depots get supplied?

why its not logical that u will ship more than 30days supplies for your army preparation for the invasion?

 

[Kuciwalker]

I'm just saying that the total that you see on the province most likely doesn't include only the 30 day supplies total from the units, so dividing that number per the number of units might be wrong.

OK, fair enough. It'll usually be close enough

 

[unmerged(12045)]

so there is no need to gather intelligence to find out the location of the supply dumps, i'll just bomb your capitals its not like they going anywhere.

also how is this helping me in planning an invasion? best case scenario its will help with the supply problems, nothing to do with strategy and invasion, i guess shipping all your supply's during the war is better then stockpiling some before (not 30days)
also no much help when in need to prioritize the front when u simple dont have enough supply's unless u wish to participate in a 200+ click fest
also you will be constricted to defend the capital instead of placing it where most logical strategy wise

yes its better idea then only 1capital IC but by no means a complete one.

Good points.
But how about having them both: player buildable supply dumbs (I think there should be a limited number) + Supplies are produced in each capital by the ratio of the IC for the area they cover.

For the bombing issue this does not help but some solution could be found. I am sure about it.

 

[TiggyFiggy]

we can restrict the number of supply depots and/or their capacity.
why would be supply depots spamming any more than ic spamming?
why logistic will not be important, how do u think the supply depots get supplied?

why its not logical that u will ship more than 30days supplies for your army preparation for the invasion?

Presumably supply depots will be much much cheaper then IC, move your army away from the front line, and build as many supply depots down the boarder as you'd like. Let them/instruct them, to fill to max capacity, strat redeploy your army back to the front after you have a years supply, now I can supply my invasion of Afghanistan as japan with reinforcements and upgrades coming across terrible terrain and shipping with no problem. This is not in any way realistic. If significant offenses wanted to be made there would have to be a large infrastructure investment, like the Burma Railway.

Good points.
But how about having them both: player buildable supply dumbs (I think there should be a limited number) + Supplies are produced in each capital by the ratio of the IC for the area they cover

Absolute limits on supply depots, or anything, should be avoided as it will seem so arbitrary and meaningless. Unless it were to grow with IC or somesuch. And This seems like a complicated solution that doesn't fix many of the supply short comings

 

[Sabin Stargem]

Summery thus far, though incomplete.

One of the things that having IC provinces to be distribution centers is that it allows the AI to be more effective with less thinking on it's part. If players and the AI could build supply depots, chosen the correct location is paramount - something that the AI would have trouble implementing correctly. Furthermore, it can help make these provinces especially important for taking over for both humans and the AI, because of the dual purpose it grants to the owner.

However, supply depots as separate facilities allows provinces to be more important without being IC production centers - which might allow for quicker buildups in supply centers, and basically has the potential to grant otherwise worthless provinces strategic importance. Right now, building a factory takes a very long time, so it isn't ideal for preparing sufficient supplies for upcoming battles in a relatively short amount of time.


IC PROVINCE SUPPLY MERITS

+Humans can easily understand where the supplies are being distributed, thus improving their decisions on handling theaters. The same can be said for the AI.
+Improving the points of distribution also becomes more simple, with infrastructure and industrial capacity being the two great motivators.
+Reduces the impact of supplying troops that are are on a seperate landmass from the capital or cut off from the capital, since the capital isn't the sole source of distribution.

IC PROVINCE SUPPLY DEMERITS
-May require additional CPU calculations.
-May make IC provinces too important.


SUPPLY DEPOTS

+Adds a quick method of creating supply centers, and is also a simple concept for humans.
+Detaches the importance of actually supplying troops from the amount of total Industrial Capacity that a nation has, reducing the likelyhood of spamming industrial centers.
+Reduces the impact of supplying troops that are are on a seperate landmass from the capital or cut off from the capital, since the capital isn't the sole source of distribution.

-The AI may have trouble understanding where to put them, though it is likely that Paradox will make it work eventually.

 

[Onedreamer]

IC PROVINCE SUPPLY DEMERITS
-May require additional CPU calculations.
-May make IC provinces too important.

Like I already said, IC isn't factories, there are countries that start with ZERO factories, and the proposal is to make supplies spawn at FACTORIES provinces, not IC provinces.

 

[unmerged(141552)]

Presumably supply depots will be much much cheaper then IC, move your army away from the front line, and build as many supply depots down the boarder as you'd like. Let them/instruct them, to fill to max capacity, strat redeploy your army back to the front after you have a years supply, now I can supply my invasion of Afghanistan as japan with reinforcements and upgrades coming across terrible terrain and shipping with no problem. This is not in any way realistic. If significant offenses wanted to be made there would have to be a large infrastructure investment, like the Burma Railway.

we already have AI random generated supply depots, so we only need manual control over them (much like the HQ's allows ai or manual control) to gain all the advantages mentioned above
all the reason against in the spirit of 'it will create spamming' dont worth much as it can be applied to any aspect of the game (IC spamming anyone) and its a matter of balancing.

what not realistic in the example above? supply deopts are not a magical things, if there is no infrastructure the supply depot will not fill up or fill up any faster than the infrastructure allows it but if the infrastructure allows it, isnt it reasonable i will want stockpile supplies in remote location that will probably cut off before i start a war?
on the contrary such location with huge amount of supplies become strategic location i want to take... (paradrops sound way better now)

 

[Sir Zeus]

I apologise in advance for posting... (call it the 'pre-emptive whiners clause')

This game works in many ways on 'abstracted' concepts of real world actions, situations, elements etc. The supply system is no different but atm that 'limited' abstraction (ie capital central supply depot) is flawed and has issues.

I like the idea of user defined 'Supply Depots', supplies should not spawn at IC; why you ask, as IC is also an abstraction of relative industrial capacity in a region/province (example - how can you replicate in game something like German issues with ball bearing production and the allies persistent attempts at their destruction, you can't, but you can 'abstract' that in ways like IC bombing etc.). Supply spawning at abstracted IC negates concepts like shipment to distribution warehouses, civilian logistical supply network prior to becoming 'military supplies' (not to mention resistance forces, internal forces, inefficiency etc etc etc.. endless), bombing infrastructure and IC represents some of that abstraction sure but that really only covers mostly the abstracted production side of things

Supply Depots could (one conceptual idea, arguments welcome) could be linked to theatres/continents, example being Germany, one continent, two theatres = 2 Supply Depots which you can 'deploy'. They could only be strategically re deployable in some way which represents the 'massive' undertaking of moving an entire supply chain 'end point' for essentially an entire front to a new location. Supply depots can be bombed? sure, it would reduce the efficiency of the depot to supply fronts and receive supplies themselves, just like bombing planes, trains and ships, storage warehouses do not have some magical aura of invincibility.

The abstracted concept of overall military supply distribution could then be where you assign a supply priority to each depot and as such some 'magical' percentage of the overall supply system is assigned for delivery to that depot. Fighting on the Western Front and Russia is quiet?, change your distribution priority. The supplies delivered themselves can be abstracted via a (most likely convoluted) algorithm where distance from capital, infrastructure, techs, partisans etc influences 'actual delivered % vs defined supply %'. Moved your supply depot to occupied France for the Western Front/Atlantic Wall defense?, relying on a huge supply network stretching from Eastern Germany/occupied Eastern Europe to the English Channel, with resistance fighters, allied bombers, corrupt officials and such here there and everywhere, well what you send from your factories and such is not all going to be what arrives intact (but from there of course there possibly a reduced chance of loss, or maybe greater if in a more hostile region) inefficient, of course; but it gets the job done, and we are trying to take over the world here you know...

The supply map wont show this single transit line from capital to supply depot, why? cause the supplies are being shipped from everywhere, its 'conceptually abstracted' but of course from a supply depot to the troops on the line, well that would have some representation, but it might not have 'routes' more so than a 'sphere of influence' the further away the more 'accidents' that the delivering of the supplies can encounter en route (the usual infrastructure/partisan/occupied territory/terrain/attrition modifiers and such).

ok so i have probably rambled a bit... but i hope an idea is in there somewhere that could be developed.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Like I already said, IC isn't factories, there are countries that start with ZERO factories, and the proposal is to make supplies spawn at FACTORIES provinces, not IC provinces.

In fact, IC is a very old concept back from Victoria to HoI1. Every factory in a region in Victoria is 1 IC in HoI. That's it.

But, btt: The problem is in general not about supply depots or not. They would be useful, for example to create a new ressource hub in a conquered Spain or France, but they don't solve the biggest problem: Limited throughput. As long as the supply mechanics cannot handle to re-reroute supplies to prevent overcrowded provinces, here is no way we can fix this issue.
In my current GER game, I have ~5k supplies in one province adjected to Berlin. All other provinces could still handle enough throughput, but the game simply doesn't use them, so my forces on the western front are constantly out of supply, though there would technically be enough transport routes to deliever them. Not to mention the missing use of ports. Why carry supplies through Denmark and Sweden to Helsinki, if I could just ship them from Danzig?
So we need a fix where supply routes adjust according to traffic and throughput, as well as an option to set up supply convoys.

The second problem: One province supply source. While this might be okay in SP, it is a huge exploit in MP: Bomb down infra around the capital and the whole army goes to hell. Obviosly we need multiple supply sources, and again, my suggestion would be to spread the produces supplies evenly amoung the country wide IC (if the country has no IC, use capital as it's now) - or, if that takes to much CPU, spread it among the top 10 IC provinces.