Oil and Logistics Mega-thread: Post all discussion here

[No idea]

You mean like how Japan never needed to go to war for oil in HoI3 or 2, and so fuel wasn't particularly relevant? Yeah, fuel was realistic before, and HoI4 is a step away from that.

Dont think anybody argues HoI 3 system was perfect and they want it back.

HoI IV logistic system seems ok, but the "no fuel needed to move things around, just to produce them" is a nonsense, which I think will lead to several important problems, it is counterintuitive and I find no reason why they have taken fuel out of the things issued to your troops, just like equipment is given. Oil and equipment are two very different things, there was no need to make them a single one (from the logistic point of view)

 

[Poh]

I agree knowing how equipment stockpiling works is important (and it will be especially important depending on the gap between new and old tanks, planes...), as we can get a system where oil stockpiling (like in HoI 3) has just changed to equipment stockpiling.

But there are also some other potential problems that will come due to the indirect (instead of direct) use of oil for units. Kiwinoob did a good summary:

"Just to try ad summarise some of the points raised on other threads here (and feel free to add to the list):

1. Ships especially are unbalanced by this as they don't suffer 'attrition'. Japan could build a hundred battleships pre-war using oil imports from the SU or US then when war breaks out and they are cut off - no biggie, BB's don't use oil.
2. It's unbalanced post-battle. The country that performs well and has lots of planes/tanks/ships left no requires no oil even though they still have lots of planes/tanks/ships. The country that performs poorly now requires lots of oil (for replacements) even though they no longer have any planes/tanks/ships.
3. Capturing a countries oil supply wont have a dramatic effect for potentially years as anything already produced is free to run for life. Players will abuse this and use equipment to effectively stockpile oil. Japan loses virtually all of it's oil production? Oh well - business as usual for their navy, airforce and armour divisions
4. It kills the idea of a naval reserve. Why bother keeping a reserve in port when one of the main advantages of it was that it conserved fuel? With that gone there is no reason not to have the whole fleet as big as you can possibly make it sailing around.
5. The amount of oil needed should reflect the standing size of the force not how quickly it's destroyed. If a country has 1000 active tanks they should use 1000 tanks worth of oil. At the moment if they have 1000 tanks dying slowly they only need 500 oil, if they have 1000 tanks dying quickly they need 2000 oil. Even though the whole time the number of active tanks remains the same.
6. Because planes/tanks/ships (especially ships - running theme ) don't require oil to run large countries could produce units and then give them to small countries even though those countries couldn't realistically use them. I like the idea that New Zealand can field a fleet of Battleships imported from the US even though we have nothing but sheep to fuel them with but it's not very realistic. (NZ is a good example because we had ok 'supply' but it was only for infantry/cavalry units. We had practically no oil in the grand scheme of things)
7. You cant plan ahead. You cant build 10,000 tanks as Greece and then invade Romania to get the oil to run them. It means pre-war oil production is vastly more important than capturing or maintaining oil production during the war."

Not to talk that a sucessful army, with plenty of tanks, planes, ships and mechanized forces, will need less fuel than a beaten, half destroyed army with almost no tanks, planes and ships. That is simply ridiculous and goes against reality (not just realism, which I agree that it is too much abused as an argument).

1. - True, thats a matter of balance. Japan will however be building outdated BBs if they did this and they probably wouldnt be able to build enough screens making them subject to torpedo attacks from planes, submarines and cruisers. I imagine if anything you will want to build as many screens as possible pre-war and then build new Carriers/BBs just because the war with US. Still can you replenish the losses you suffer? we do not know this.
2. - If its a close battle both parties will a good amount of losses. Another aspect is that the losing side will also lose a good amount of oil if being run over, while the winning side will take attrition from advancing. We cant really say anything about this without knowng attrition rates and how many tanks we have to replenish at all times. However WW2 isnt one battle, if you have 100 battles or 200 you might start getting closer to what HoI is about. At those numbers the values from a single battle will be averaged out and you will now have a constant loss/production where the new system in theory works a lot better.
3. - Again what is "life" what is the breakdown rates and ongoing attrition rates. You are correct that you can use your land and airforces but they will take attrition and they will need to be replenished. Thats not going to happen very fast with no Oil. Same with ships, true you can sail around and have fun but when the US starts sinking your ships if you cant build enough ships to atleast have 1:1 new ships/losses then you will eventually bleed dry and.
4. - Do we need to keep a reserve? who said that but still it might be a good idea so you do not lose all ships in one battle. And positioning or other mechanics will take care of doomstacks im sure.
5. - The production system in HoI4 isnt one where you shift around a lot. You will have a constant production needed X amount of oil which is geared towards a production of your average daily losses +a fraction. Its not like you produce 500 tanks one week and 2000 the next because you suddenly lost a battle. If you lost 100 tanks they could probably be sent from the stockpile. If you lost 200 maybe 150 could come from the stockpile and you need to wait a week for the rest to be produced.
6. - Valid point but who would send their BBs to New Zealand, do you even have screens? . I can however see the point.
7. - Are you telling me its realistic to build 10000 tanks as Greece and then hope to take Romania oil? And how does HoI4 prevent you from doing this? you will just build the tanks with reduce efficiency due to lack of Oil.

Instead of building stuff you cant support HoI4 will be more geared towards building stuff you can actually support. Ofcourse some of it you might support through trade deals you lose etc. but still. The whole production system is geared towards assigning factories and then producing a constant stream of equipment which will produce slower if you do not have access to the ressources needed. Bringing up single battles etc. for land combat doesnt make any sense in how the rest of the system works. Its all about strategic stockpiles, average losses/production per day/week/month and planning ahead with divisions, unit types etc.
I agree that for Ships it remains to be seen if the system can function. But for land forces (excluding air, as we do not know a lot about the system) its all about keeping production going and meeting average demands. In this case the system seems perfectly viable.

 

[Had a mom]

I agree knowing how equipment stockpiling works is important (and it will be especially important depending on the gap between new and old tanks, planes...), as we can get a system where oil stockpiling (like in HoI 3) has just changed to equipment stockpiling.

But there are also some other potential problems that will come due to the indirect (instead of direct) use of oil for units. Kiwinoob did a good summary:

"Just to try ad summarise some of the points raised on other threads here (and feel free to add to the list):

1. Ships especially are unbalanced by this as they don't suffer 'attrition'. Japan could build a hundred battleships pre-war using oil imports from the SU or US then when war breaks out and they are cut off - no biggie, BB's don't use oil.
2. It's unbalanced post-battle. The country that performs well and has lots of planes/tanks/ships left no requires no oil even though they still have lots of planes/tanks/ships. The country that performs poorly now requires lots of oil (for replacements) even though they no longer have any planes/tanks/ships.
3. Capturing a countries oil supply wont have a dramatic effect for potentially years as anything already produced is free to run for life. Players will abuse this and use equipment to effectively stockpile oil. Japan loses virtually all of it's oil production? Oh well - business as usual for their navy, airforce and armour divisions
4. It kills the idea of a naval reserve. Why bother keeping a reserve in port when one of the main advantages of it was that it conserved fuel? With that gone there is no reason not to have the whole fleet as big as you can possibly make it sailing around.
5. The amount of oil needed should reflect the standing size of the force not how quickly it's destroyed. If a country has 1000 active tanks they should use 1000 tanks worth of oil. At the moment if they have 1000 tanks dying slowly they only need 500 oil, if they have 1000 tanks dying quickly they need 2000 oil. Even though the whole time the number of active tanks remains the same.
6. Because planes/tanks/ships (especially ships - running theme ) don't require oil to run large countries could produce units and then give them to small countries even though those countries couldn't realistically use them. I like the idea that New Zealand can field a fleet of Battleships imported from the US even though we have nothing but sheep to fuel them with but it's not very realistic. (NZ is a good example because we had ok 'supply' but it was only for infantry/cavalry units. We had practically no oil in the grand scheme of things)
7. You cant plan ahead. You cant build 10,000 tanks as Greece and then invade Romania to get the oil to run them. It means pre-war oil production is vastly more important than capturing or maintaining oil production during the war."

Not to talk that a sucessful army, with plenty of tanks, planes, ships and mechanized forces, will need less fuel than a beaten, half destroyed army with almost no tanks, planes and ships. That is simply ridiculous and goes against reality (not just realism, which I agree that it is too much abused as an argument).

Add these to your list

1. Technologically savvy countries such as Germany and the UK will get an unfair advantage as they will suffer fewer losses and thus need less oil. Not so technologically savvy countries such as Soviet, Hungary, Italy and China will be on the disadvantaged end.
2. Countries that are likely to suffer oil shortages will have the most important of their oil consuming units categorically techrushed by the player. Losing units means losing oil and this cannot be afforded if oil is to be scarce.
3. The player will feel the need to micromanage his most oil consuming forces if he is short on oil to avoid losses that cannot be replaced due to lack of oil.
4. As your armed forces run on fairy dust, the strategic importance of oil will greatly diminish. All oil consuming units are oil per se, meaning everyone can do with relatively little oil as long as they don't take too many losses. Some wars, such as the Abyssinian war for Italy and the Norwegian campaign for Germany can be fought without consuming any oil at all.
5. As armies run on fairy dust, also the tactical importance of oil will greatly diminish. There will no longer be an incentive to cut of oil supplies to the enemy so that his air force in given province is grounded or his tanks stopped dead in their tracks.
6. The German, Italian and Japanese AI is screwed. As always, they take huge losses against the human player, only that this time they cannot replace them due to oil shortages. This is especially true if you are playing as the US or Soviet and can deny the axis oil (equipment) though trade.
7. Instead of stockpiling oil, players will now stockpile equipment, arguably leading to even weirder and more unhistorical games than in HOI3.

 

[Jeremy971]

For ships, when you have to repair them at your naval base. I think you might use oil.

A good idea, it would be that everytimes you put your fleet in naval base. You'd use a small amount of ressources as oil, steel.

And maybe the naval dockyards use a different system than military factories. We don't know yet. Or I missed a DD ?

the current model doesn't do a great job, and from a gameplay perspective it removes strategic depth and player choice

Removes ? About ressources in HOI3, the strategic depth was under 0. It was useless.
The only challenge I had about oil, it was to play German in 1944.
Otherwise the stockpile system allowed me to build and feed a huge army.
The major ressource in HOI3 was manpower. It was the only ressource that stopped the war machine.

So yeah I want to try the new system of HOI4 and see what challenges it gives. I'm curious.

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

Give me my oil back Paradox!

 

[Nicolas I]

...A good idea, it would be that everytimes you put your fleet in naval deck. You'd use a small amount of ressources as oil, steel...

Great, when the fleet is at sea it consumes no oil, but when in port it does !? That would at least be consistent with oil needed to build ships but not to operate them...

 

[Jeremy971]

You need oil to sail your fleet. So you use oil from your stock not in the middle of the sea but in your naval bases.

I searched on naval bases and dockyards. But all we know, it is the damaged ships can go back automatically to the port.

 

[King Ari]

Well, most people are attracted to this genre because they think historical realism is fun.

It's also the reason i'm interested in the game, but in the case of supply... It would literally be hundreds of hours a play-though managing each units direct supply of ammo and caliber, every tanks liter of oil requirements per hour per day. I'm not afraid of that sort of micromanagement but you have to look at the game as a whole which is covering the entire war. For a game that is covering the scope HOI does that detailed of a supply system would alienate a lot of potential players.

I'm in the camp of people who think that oil should be separate from general equipment since it is consumed at a consistent rate, But I see the easiest solution to this as being an upkeep requirement for tanks/trucks/ships/planes where you need X units of oil per day that is deducted from the oil available to produce new units. That also avoids the pre-war massive stockpile-till-you-never-runout issue.

 

[Nicolas I]

You need oil to sail your fleet. So you use oil from your stock not in the middle of the sea but in your naval bases...

But there is no oil stockpiles in the "naval bases" nor anywhere...Ships have a built-in lifetime fuel tank, they use no "ship equipment" with an included oil component as other units do.

 

[Nicolas I]

...I'm in the camp of people who think that oil should be separate from general equipment since it is consumed at a consistent rate, But I see the easiest solution to this as being an upkeep requirement for tanks/trucks/ships/planes where you need X units of oil per day that is deducted from the oil available to produce new units. That also avoids the pre-war massive stockpile-till-you-never-runout issue.

Ships consume no "ships equipment" as others do, they can only be replaced by a whole ship. This abstraction don't work for ships unless a new Yamato is needed to "fuel" an old Yamato.

 

[King Ari]

Ships consume no "ships equipment" as others do, they can only be replaced by a whole ship. This abstraction don't work for ships unless a new Yamato is needed to "fuel" an old Yamato.

That doesn't mean you can't subtract oil from the available supply to your nation for them. But yeah if that's the case then the ships would have to have a limit to time at sea before needing to dock/refuel

 

[amalric de g.]

With the current system (oil only for production) you have to rush the reliability of your tanks and planes to minimize your atrittion and you will allways put the tech support unit into your tank and inf (mot) Divisions.

With nearly zero attrition (depending on the impact of the reliability) you can run your tanks and planes without spending a single drop of oil. Even training your units is no problem.

Only replacing battle casualties is a big advantage.

 

[Nicolas I]

That doesn't mean you can't subtract oil from the available supply to your nation for them. But yeah if that's the case then the ships would have to have a limit to time at sea before needing to dock/refuel

But as there is no oil/fuel stockpile how would they refuel when docking ?

Unless they have to dock for weeks to use the few oil resource you have. Refueling should take only a single day.

Not to mention that underway replenishment was in use since WW1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underway_replenishment

 

[JamesJameson]

Come on then Nicolas I, If you disagree, then tell me why?
Explain how I am wrong here.
Answer when you production queue will be empty during a Hearts of Iron game.

Spoiler: Quote:Jameson

Spoiler: Production

So we know that you don't need a resource to build something, but looking at this you can see you might not need a resource every game tick to get stuff built. This may be just a alpha thing, but I'm starting to think it's not. I think the general idea is that if you don't have stockpiles, but we know you do have a little behind the scenes stockpile. (I can't remember which DD said this but i'll look it up and edit it to say.) So I think its safe to say that everyone has a little bit of everything. Everyone is able to get there hands on a little bit of something, either from salvage or stealing, ect, ect. The other thing that is really important to remember is that you can't' produce everything. You are limited depending what country you are and what your division make-up looks like. So with a general idea that everyone can get a little of something then it makes sense you can still produce some stuff even without a resource flow right at the game tick. (hour in game, couple seconds real time). Don't like that?

Well then answer me this:
How many times will this list be empty when you are playing the game?
How many times was your production line empty in Hearts of Iron 3?
If you produce a bunch of ships, and then stop producing ships, do you think your opponent will stop producing ships as well? If they do wouldnt that still make it even? If they don't what do you do when you fight them?

I think it's safe to say that nobody has ever had there production line empty while playing Hearts of Iron 1, 2 or 3. Therefore, you will never have it empty in Hearts of Iron 4.

Also listen to this, "On the same screen as the Army Planner, you can also define if reinforcements, upgrades, lend lease or actual divisions have priority on equipment being produced." This is from the Army Planner DD.

Spoiler: Reinforcements

See Reinforcements?

Here is the Lend-Lease

Spoiler: Lend-Lease

Just cause it looks cool.



In Arumba's video he say's the choose to remove transports and make them like the convoys. If that happened or not I don't know but I can say that they would never make the game where you could not lose your troop on the transports. So combine that with the DD that talks about convoy's and subs, they you can be pretty positive that you can sink equipment.

Replacement equipment has not been worked how you think, we still have a reinforcements tab, which is where your replacement equipment cost is factored. So maybe it will take 2 factories to repair a ship, but 4 to build it? It all just depends on the time you want it out, because you can assign multiple factories to the same thing. I suggest you guys go back and read the DD's again, all of them, one at a time and you will understand why it's like this and how it will work. It's just important to remember that every country is producing constantly, so if you stop producing something or produce it slower, they you will fall behind and lose.

Also division have multiple piece's of equipment in them, and if you have nothing in your production queue because you think your army is big enough. I really don't think your opponent is going to do the same thing. You will still have to start production back up because nobody has every had a empty queue in a HOI.

It's that simple, there is not stockpiles, but there is a behind the scenes ability to get some resources, so just like the picture quoted below, you can be -7 oil a day, - 5 rubber a day, and -36 metal a day, while gaining 123 aluminium. Also losing -4 Tungsten. It's because we all have to assume that every country can get A little bit of everything.

Yes, in HoI 3 you never run out of fuel. So what? What does it have to see with what we are discussing?

Since there is no stockpiles, you technically are just short on a resource, not completely out of it. Thus you have reduced efficiency.

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

Yo, you got proof I said that?

I said its more realistic because units use oil - a resource of strategic nature btw - after they are built. That's how REAL LIFE/HISTORY works. Therefore, I'd like to see it reflected in a HISTORICAL GRAND STRATEGY game. However in HOI3, the stockpiling ceiling was too damn high, which led most players to trade a lot before the war and ride out WW2 until the end comfortably in their little stockpile bunkers. In HOI4, they overeacted and went completely the other way. They need to fix that and make it more realistic.

 

[JamesJameson]

Yo, you got proof I said that?

I said its more realistic because units use oil - a resource of strategic nature btw - after they are built. That's how REAL LIFE/HISTORY works. Therefore, I'd like to see it reflected in a HISTORICAL GRAND STRATEGY game. However in HOI3, the stockpiling ceiling was too damn high, which led most players to trade a lot before the war and ride out WW2 until the end comfortably in their little stockpile bunkers. In HOI4, they overeacted and went completely the other way. They need to fix that and make it more realistic.

It would take to long to find the post, it's in one of those locked threads, enless I'm mistaking you with someone else, which is more than likely the case. Though, I could have sword you said somethign along those lines?

 

[Nicolas I]

He James, I said quite a few times that though the new system could have worked with supplies and fuel (as they planned initially as seen in DD#6), I can live with the new system where oil is included in equipments and as units consume equipments they consume oil.

I just don't understand why all moving units like motorized, tanks and planes consume equipments (and oil included inside) except the ships that consume no equipment and therefore no oil. It would have been so simple to include "ships equipments" consumed by ships (when/if their base is under the "supply limit") to make the system consistent/coherent. Considering the huge dimension of ships like battleships and carriers, it seems difficult to imagine that you have to replace a whole ship by another whole ship to abstract oil consumption.

 

[JamesJameson]

Yeah I can see where your coming from. I was thinking it would just be used in the reinforcements section. Like it was in hoi3.

 

[ScarfedPrinny]

Here's what I don't get; If equipment represents the items than an army needs to function for some period of time x and is transported by supply, why isn't oil just abstracted into production of equipment? For example, if your army consists of only infantry, producing equipment only uses up steel and whatever else you need for ammo. If you add a battleship to the mix, suddenly equipment should require oil as an input. With this "basket of goods" system everything is transported within the current supply system (which I think works well) while removing the problems with snowballing armies (and heavy dependence on pre-war trade) and never-ending navy operations. It also retains Paradox's intention of ease of use; within the division planner you can have a little box that states exactly how much every division (or ship) will increase your equipment's input demand. Sorry if this has already been proposed somewhere else and I just missed it. Anyways, any thoughts?

Edit: I probably should refreshed the page before I posted this, since it seems like people are okay with this kind of system lol

 

[JamesJameson]

I was looking at this picture that and thought that it should not be to hard to mod in more equipment. Seems making, "Ship Spare Parts" is a very much a possibility.