Oil and Logistics Mega-thread: Post all discussion here

[Ibn_Solmyr]

Reading once again the comments amongst the supply DD, I would like to ask for some clarifications :

* Is the initial amount of fuel needed to build a motorised vehicle, plane or even ship related to only the manufacturing needs ? (make the machines work, energy, industry logistics, etc)
* Is the rest of needed fuel for this vehicle, plane or even ship to make it move, train, fight etc provided only by the supplies flow ?

I'm confused now because of :

FieldMedic was asking :
"Lastly I assume you still need oil to produce supply for motorized equipment or am I wrong about that."

Podcat to answer :
"And yes motorized equipment requires oil of course."

 

[dav77-b]

Reading once again the comments amongst the supply DD, I would like to ask for some clarifications :

* Is the initial amount of fuel needed to build a motorised vehicle, plane or even ship related to only the manufacturing needs ? (make the machines work, energy, industry logistics, etc)
* Is the rest of needed fuel for this vehicle, plane or even ship to make it move, train, fight etc provided only by the supplies flow ?

I'm confused now because of :

FieldMedic was asking :
"Lastly I assume you still need oil to produce supply for motorized equipment or am I wrong about that."

Podcat to answer :
"And yes motorized equipment requires oil of course."

Everytime your Division does stuff like moving, training or fighting, it looses equipment (Tanks ) .
The equipment ( Tanks ) need oil to be produced. Without a constant flow of oil, you can not reproduce the equipment ( tanks ) to fill the losses. Your divisions will slowly go out of equipment.

The supply per region has NO need for oil.
The supply limits how many divisions could get supplied with fresh equipment. A division out supply does also get combat mali independent of equipment.

 

[Midden]

.....and you missed, that we were told that if Fleet and Aircraft do not have enough supply then they can't do missions. (which sounds like an abstraction, but also an effective way of representing a fuel shortage).

 

[Axe99]

.....and you missed, that we were told that if Fleet and Aircraft do not have enough supply then they can't do missions. (which sounds like an abstraction, but also an effective way of representing a fuel shortage).

Not really - it just means if the fleet/air forces in a region are under the stacking limit then they can conduct operations with impunity, and if not they'll have restrictions. It doesn't simulate fuel shortages as much as trying to run too many aircraft/ships from one airbase/port, at least as far as I can see. Something that simulated fuel shortages would be able to restrict fleet/air force operations even if the number of ships in port/planes at the base hadn't changed, but the fuel situation had.

 

[Midden]

,Yes exactly if they are in supply they have what they need.

Once you come around to the idea that supply check = suffiecient fuel you will undergo a relaxing euphoria and not be so stressed, about perceptions as to what the game is simulating and what isn't simulating, at the end of the day there seem to be mechanics to achieve the playing experience of not having not enough stuff to do what you may want to.

Then it might be a good idea to think what things in game that you can do to disrupt how many things an enemy can keep operational within what you said was a Stacking Limit, as this seems to be strategic areas. Then it seems to me as players that we have the information and if we build the right things, the tools to have some impact on logistics effects in game. This is quite an improvement on Hoi 3 in my view.

Lets say Italy and Germany put forces into North Africa, I pummel their convoys, with submarines and aircraft from Malta, with no remorse I bomb their rail heads and ports, and thus degrade their Supply / "Stacking Limit", and then roll them up with my 8th army. Will Hoi IV let me do this, with a logistics cause and effect, that I can understand? I hope so. If it achieves this end not so bothered if Supply Check is aggregated to mean ammunition, fuel, horse shoes or wooly socks.

Apologies for spelling errors.

 

[Denkt]

What supply is in HOI4 is basically the ability to supply the divisions in that supply area. The supplies take the form of equipment.

 

[Axe99]

,Yes exactly if they are in supply they have what they need.

Once you come around to the idea that supply check = suffiecient fuel you will undergo a relaxing euphoria and not be so stressed, about perceptions as to what the game is simulating and what isn't simulating, at the end of the day there seem to be mechanics to achieve the playing experience of not having not enough stuff to do what you may want to.

Then it might be a good idea to think what things in game that you can do to disrupt how many things an enemy can keep operational within what you said was a Stacking Limit, as this seems to be strategic areas. Then it seems to me as players that we have the information and if we build the right things, the tools to have some impact on logistics effects in game. This is quite an improvement on Hoi 3 in my view.

Lets say Italy and Germany put forces into North Africa, I pummel their convoys, with submarines and aircraft from Malta, with no remorse I bomb their rail heads and ports, and thus degrade their Supply / "Stacking Limit", and then roll them up with my 8th army. Will Hoi IV let me do this, with a logistics cause and effect, that I can understand? I hope so. If it achieves this end not so bothered if Supply Check is aggregated to mean ammunition, fuel, horse shoes or wooly socks.

Apologies for spelling errors.

All good, didn't notice any spelling errors . Also, I'm not 'stressed' per se (it's a game - I'm interested and enthusiastic, and I'll argue a point vigorously, but the last game that caused me any stress in the traditional sense was Dark Souls ), I accept what the system does and what it doesn't - and I'm definitely not trying to have a go at you or anyone else .

As you say, we can hit their supply operationally - the issue for me is that the strategic impact has been warped somewhat by the approach that's been taken. If, for example, the Japanese Navy is based on the Home Islands (or the RN in the UK), and haven't decided to all base themselves at a small fishing village, they'll never, ever, ever run out of capacity to operate strategically. The US can bomb the port and reduce it's capacity (hit them operationally), but the fact that US submarines are sinking all the oil convoys from the Dutch East Indies, or U-boats are sending all the convoys crossing the Atlantic to the bottom, won't mean anything strategically for the operating potential of the Japanese or British fleet stationed at home.

That's the kind of strategic distortion I'm talking about, and the new supply system can't deal with this at all - HoI3's system, while poor, at least had the cogs in place to influence this situation, even if the base game didn't do it terribly well.

I've got no issue with people preferring a strategically simpler approach, but I also think preferring a more historically plausible strategically approach isn't a bad thing either . Of course, I absolutely respect the devs right to make the game they want to make, and I'm not saying they've made a bad decision from a game design perspective, just a historically implausible one.

 

[Midden]

Axe99, cheers, I feel your concern, I just have decided to take an optimistic view to the design, in the hope it's going to make a "Game of it"

I also have reconciled my self to the "home islands", possibly unlimited supply thing, it doesn't worry me as an issue for the game, here is why:

Consider this: You may want to strike at the Heart of the Beast early on because you have figured the game has factored in that their home fleet has no fuel to sortie to f%^&up your easy victory..... How would you know they didn't have enough fuel?.
I don't think WW2 was like this, (going near their home islands could be dangerous?, i've got to reckon they can sortie their fleet, or it could be wishful thinking, to my invasion).

I think in WW2 the major opponents were worn down at the fringes, attrition takes it's toll. I think this game will hopefully make you work to crush the homeland.

In Hoi 3 have you ever as the US just by passed- as much as you could and captured Tokyo easy peasy. Then as Germany a para drop on Scunthorpe and a waltz up the Thames. Or as UK invaded straight into Hamburg, there is nothing in game to make you think twice about that, why bother slogging through Normandy when you can land straight into Germany... Why didn't Overlord just target Kiel you can in Hoi 3?. Homeland supply mechanics may save us from such BS (bovine waste-products).

I think the new mechanics may make a strategically better game. I hope.

 

[No idea]

In Hoi 3 have you ever as the US just by passed- as much as you could and captured Tokyo easy peasy. Then as Germany a para drop and waltz up the Thames.

I think the new mechanics may make a better game.

What makes you think the new mechanics will change that?

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

So, if supplies really are represented by equipement replacement, I'm still really disppointed, because it seems a very bad thing to me...

* Some lights giving some of their last flickerings in my head *

 

[Midden]

What makes you think the new mechanics will change that?

I am thinking, the game design approach is different to Hoi 3, to win I may need to overwhelm the enemy with attrition, I may be better to do that in an area where I can wrangle a supply advantage.... which from the design probably won't be an immediate attack into their "homeland".

I don't know how Hoi iv will be, what I do know from my own personal enjoyment is that I am tired and bored of Hoi 3 and the gambits of charge into enemy heartlands = win.

 

[Axe99]

Axe99, cheers, I feel your concern, I just have decided to take an optimistic view to the design, in the hope it's going to make a "Game of it"

I also have reconciled my self to the "home islands", possibly unlimited supply thing, it doesn't worry me as an issue for the game, here is why:

Consider this: You may want to strike at the Heart of the Beast early on because you have figured the game has factored in that their home fleet has no fuel to sortie to f%^&up your easy victory..... How would you know they didn't have enough fuel?.
I don't think WW2 was like this, (going near their home islands could be dangerous?, i've got to reckon they can sortie their fleet, or it could be wishful thinking, to my invasion).

I think in WW2 the major opponents were worn down at the fringes, attrition takes it's toll. I think this game will hopefully make you work to crush the homeland.

In Hoi 3 have you ever as the US just by passed- as much as you could and captured Tokyo easy peasy. Then as Germany a para drop on Scunthorpe and a waltz up the Thames. Or as UK invaded straight into Hamburg, there is nothing in game to make you think twice about that, why bother slogging through Normandy when you can land straight into Germany... Why didn't Overlord just target Kiel you can in Hoi 3?. Homeland supply mechanics may save us from such BS (bovine waste-products).

I think the new mechanics may make a strategically better game. I hope.

Oh aye, don't get me wrong - I'm a "plan for the worst, hope for the best" kind of guy. So I've already got some rough ideas of modding approaches to cover off my strategic concerns if it doesn't pan out how I like (and even if it doesn't pan out how I like, I still expect it to be an excellent game ), but I want to give the base game at least a couple of hundred hours to convince me it knows what it's doing before I try and play with it, and hope that in that time my concerns are proved false .

 

[Midden]

So, if supplies really are represented by equipement replacement, I'm still really disppointed, because it seems a very bad thing to me...

* Some lights giving some of their last flickerings in my head *

I think there may be more to the game design at the strategic level, than a dismissive sound bite can deliver, although saying that sound bites are acerbic fun and to be enjoyed as well.

 

[PhantomXtrike]

I'm too, waiting for DD

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

Nice 1st comment.

 

[PhantomXtrike]

Waiting all day for it now. LOL

 

[Modestus]

Everytime your Division does stuff like moving, training or fighting, it looses equipment (Tanks ) .
The equipment ( Tanks ) need oil to be produced. Without a constant flow of oil, you can not reproduce the equipment ( tanks ) to fill the losses. Your divisions will slowly go out of equipment.

The supply per region has NO need for oil.
The supply limits how many divisions could get supplied with fresh equipment. A division out supply does also get combat mali independent of equipment.

You don’t need oil to produce tanks you need oil and steel to produce tanks more quickly and being out of supply or in poor supply does not mean you cant produce the equipment it just means that the Division in question is losing more equipment then normal and those losses are replaced more slowly.


If you had a lot of Divisions in poor supply you could oddly enough end up with more tanks in your stockpile.


In real life if a Division starts to run out of fuel you don’t send it more tanks, it either halts and waits for the fuel to catch up or abandons some of its tanks and continues to move forward.


In HOI IV no fuel is going to catch up only more tanks and unless the Supply Area somehow becomes good you will continue to lose tanks, the choice then would appear to either retreat to a good Supply Area or continue to move forward with less equipment, it makes no sense to halt.

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

Waiting all day for it now. LOL

same here waiting all night for it. wonder when they will post it? Probably after lunch. its almost 2 pm now in Sweden

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

You don’t need oil to produce tanks you need oil and steel to produce tanks more quickly and being out of supply or in poor supply does not mean you cant produce the equipment it just means that the Division in question is losing more equipment then normal and those losses are replaced more slowly.


If you had a lot of Divisions in poor supply you could oddly enough end up with more tanks in your stockpile.


In real life if a Division starts to run out of fuel you don’t send it more tanks, it either halts and waits for the fuel to catch up or abandons some of its tanks and continues to move forward.


In HOI IV no fuel is going to catch up only more tanks and unless the Supply Area somehow becomes good you will continue to lose tanks, the choice then would appear to either retreat to a good Supply Area or continue to move forward with less equipment, it makes no sense to halt.

But at the very least, you still spend your oil/fuel when you build your stuff, instead of along its whole life time depending on its use, which is a stragical big distorsion. And pretty ridiculous.

 

[PhantomXtrike]

same here waiting all night for it. wonder when they will post it? Probably after lunch. its almost 2 pm now in Sweden

It's 9pm in Malaysia already