Oil and Logistics Mega-thread: Post all discussion here

[Praetori]

Ideally i would have liked ammo to be split off and be consumed at varying rates, too... ´Rations´, Ammo and Fuel should be the bulk of what´s being distributed (and produced - and to reasonable extents stockpiled - in order to maintain units) and equipment (and manpower-) attrition be at realistic levels with only accordingly relatively few pieces of (stockpiled!) equipment needed to sustain a unit at rest. Well...

I was initially thinking along the same lines but then when you consider strategic bombing and other effects it gets complicated, hard to balance and easy to exploit.
There's always the issue with the AI not being able to handle the multiple variables in an intelligent fashion against exploits or even just efficient player playing and bad AI is what's broken so many detailed war-games in the past.

On the strategic level and even on the operational level it's not really about rations, fuel and ammunition but overall supply-tonnage, transport resources and logistics throughput. Logistics staff down to the army and corps quartermasters make do with the available capacity so that the larger formation have enough of each (even though the individual battalions may complain about a lack of fuel, rations, spares or ammo it's not something that's even noticeable on the strategic level) and corps and army commanders are forced to adapt their operations accordingly (yes it sucks not being able to bombard the enemy day and night and keep pushing those armored formations forward but limitations are limitations).

The real trick is higher up the chain where actual capacity needs to be balanced between operational needs for logistics and transportation vs other sectors and this is where the focus of grand strategy games land.
I wouldn't mind a more detailed operational simulation that's more in-depth than even HOI3 but I'm pretty sure the game would be crappier if they did, mostly because no AI model would be able to cope.

 

[Jazumir]

Well, Praetori, AI-issues are of course real. I have been thinking about how to have this 3-way-split a bit, but didnt post, cause, well, it´s a bit OT, since it´s not what is going to happen. But since you ask:

- Rations: Used in constant rates unless there is a shortage. A coverage between 50 and 100% will result in moral loss and lowered ORG-cap. Coverage below 50% will raise (MP-)attrition, signficantly. Rations get delivered (and produced by the AI) first and exclusively, until the 50% mark for all units is met. Only beyond this, the following are added to the mix:
- Ammo: Used at low rates when at rest and high rates (3-4x normal) when in combat. A unit is in ´combat´ when it is either defending, attacking or training. I am fine with a binary-variable for this. A gradient between the three types of ´combat´ would be nice, but is not needed. A lack of ammo results in a proportionally lowered fighting to-hit-chance (a shot not fired will not find its target). Ammo gets produced (by AI) and delivered once at lest 50% of the rations-need is met. It´s priority is between that of rations and
- Fuel: Used at low rates by fuel consuming units when at rest or defending (if status is handled as a binary variable) and at elevated rates when moving (includes attacking and training). Lack of fuel immobilzes a unit or reduces its speed proportionally. Fuel is last in the priority list for delivery and production (for the AI).

The priorites are not absolute. Ammo starts being added to the supply mix, when rations is met by more than 50% and likewise, fuel gets inserted in the mix, when ammo is at 50% or higher. Well, those would be the default for delivery and AI-production. It would be nice if we could fiddle with those ratios as humans (given for production, but also for distribution). Since factories are still not discrete in HoI4 (correct me if i am wrong please), the targets of strategic bombing are effectively the choice of who is being bombed. Then it´s a matter of having the AI rearrange its production list according to the priorities laid out above, after it has been bombed. Losses in the delivery system (due to convoy raiding for example) are deduced as a mix correspondent to the current production mix.

An in-game example: You play germany, eastern front 1944 (or thereabouts). You still hope you can hold the soviets in the current line and of course you could always use more Iindustrial production. So you give your troops enough rations and ammo, so that they can fight well where they are, but skimp on fuel, cause they are not going to go anywhere anytime soon. Three weeks later, due to constant attacks by the soviets, your units are bled out despite your efforts to keep them up. A soviet breakthrough is immanent and if they do, they might very well roll over your whole army group. Time to churn out fuel, screw rations and ammo- backbackback, everyone! (Ideally there would of course be some delay between production and avaiability at the frontlines, but as far as i can see, that wont be in 4).

On a sidenote: I wonder - how big is the aversion in the community against player-exlusive features in such games? Genuine question. In your opinion (everybody): If the AI can not be taught to handle a feature, you´d find really interesting to fiddle with - under what circumstances could said feature be still brought into the game but the AI be allowed to ignore it, entirely? Close at hand example: Say the AI can not deal with stockpiles for its life - would it be a valid option for the designers (in your opinion) to say: "Well, then we´ll have the AI run on infinites but have a player-exclusive option for limited stockpiles"? Just an example - please take the question as an abstract one. I´d like to hear examples where it would be okay for you (if any), and those were it would not. And related (but obviously less interesting): Could there be features that are AI-exclusive, because for a human, they´d be just to much tedium to deal with?

 

[Praetori]

Good and valid points and for the operational level gameplay I completely agree. Fuel, rations and ammo should be tracked in a perfect game (and the gods know that you in reality get food when you need ammo and fuel when you need food down on bat. level).
But the issue with the AI still stands as not all players will at all times during a game (and some never) handle said specific features but will want to automate those.
Thus if the friendly AI cannot handle it in a good way it will force the players to micro even though the opponent AI is utilizing a different mechanic.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the current mechanics even though the fuel part included in production for life irks a bit. I have less of a problem with rations, ammo and other supplies being bunched together or fuel in general being automatically "assumed" to be part of the general supply as the game is mostly a strategic game with operational scale warfare.
DLCs and expansions could improve on the system and add depth in supplies and stuff like ammo and fuel but IMO it's much better if they can build a solid core-game that doesn't need feature patching of broken or exploitable mechanics like HOI3 (which just turned some stuff into a big mess until the last expansions, and some stuff is still almost insurmountable for a new player).

 

[ILoveLamp]

In regards to fuel stockpiles:

The main issue with the omni-purpose fuel stockpiles was the question of what would happen if/when they ran out. In past games this would mean that all of your fuel-consuming units, all at the same time, would get a huge negative modifier which basically ended your game at that point. This created an incentive to keep the stockpiles always high enough to allow for a good amount of freedom in how players could approach the game while preventing the game from ending an unsatisfying way.

Because of this, simply reducing the max cap of the fuel stockpile wouldn't solve the core problem. IMO what would really need to happen is for the single abstract fuel stockpile to be divided up into multiple stockpiles that existed entirely on the map. This way the existence of fuel would not be a universal binary on off switch and logistics would become a much more localized problem. HOI4 solves this in a simple way, by only allowing stockpile of equipment/units. This way, when a given stockpile runs out, the effect is only felt by one specific type of unit and the effects are local to formations that utilize that equipment. This creates a granular effect which is much better for gameplay and more representative of reality. The reality being that operational planners would work out logistics to some level of competency, then it would be a matter of choosing what to do with whatever units they had at their disposal. Now, instead of being threatened by a doomsday countdown timer the player will be forced to deal with lackluster unit compositions, just like operational planners did IRL.

 

[Secret Master]

The main issue with the omni-purpose fuel stockpiles was the question of what would happen if/when they ran out. In past games this would mean that all of your fuel-consuming units, all at the same time, would get a huge negative modifier which basically ended your game at that point. This created an incentive to keep the stockpiles always high enough to allow for a good amount of freedom in how players could approach the game.

Because of this, simply reducing the max cap of the fuel stockpile wouldn't solve the core problem. IMO what would really need to happen is for the single abstract fuel stockpile to be divided up into multiple stockpiles that existed entirely on the map.

Umm, that's how the fuel and supply stockpiles worked in HOI3.

The capital serves as the primary stockpile (and is the one that is measured by the "how much fuel do I have?" meter on the interface.

But fuel and supplies were also distributed on the map in various regional/theater stockpiles. Not only that, they are also flowing along the supply arteries. Supply and fuel are present on the HOI3 map. Your troops capture fuel and supply as they advance into enemy territory (if there is any to capture). You can also bomb it. You can even capture the entire national stockpile (minus what is currently in the network) by capturing the capital.

Supply also moves at a specific rate of speed. It does not instantly teleport over land. I've run out of fuel in my stockpile while still having just enough in the network to win a war.

Look at these screenshots:

In this screenshot, Berlin currently holds 12473.95 fuel.

In this screenshot, Warsaw (which is connected to the stockpile in Berlin) holds 189.45 fuel. Should the Soviets capture it on this game day, they get that.

Here I am bombing the UK's national stockpile. The tiny number floating is the tooltip for how much fuel is in London. 13862.66

Hell, I've bombed the UK until they have zero fuel left (it takes 24 months of very dedicated logistics bombing with a stack of very nice high tech STR that doing nothing else but bomb London every day). You can do the same thing elsewhere, although the infrastructure of a province usually collapses long before you wipe out the fuel.

But on islands, you can easily bomb the port to cut incoming supplies and then bomb the supplies until the defenders are starving. Makes wiping out Japanese garrisons much easier.

 

[ILoveLamp]

Umm, that's how the fuel and supply stockpiles worked in HOI3.

The capital serves as the primary stockpile (and is the one that is measured by the "how much fuel do I have?" meter on the interface.

But fuel and supplies were also distributed on the map in various regional/theater stockpiles. Not only that, they are also flowing along the supply arteries. Supply and fuel are present on the HOI3 map. Your troops capture fuel and supply as they advance into enemy territory (if there is any to capture). You can also bomb it. You can even capture the entire national stockpile (minus what is currently in the network) by capturing the capital.

Supply also moves at a specific rate of speed. It does not instantly teleport over land. I've run out of fuel in my stockpile while still having just enough in the network to win a war.

Look at these screenshots:



View attachment 154056
In this screenshot, Berlin currently holds 12473.95 fuel.

View attachment 154058

In this screenshot, Warsaw (which is connected to the stockpile in Berlin) holds 189.45 fuel. Should the Soviets capture it on this game day, they get that.


View attachment 154057

Here I am bombing the UK's national stockpile. The tiny number floating is the tooltip for how much fuel is in London. 13862.66

Hell, I've bombed the UK until they have zero fuel left (it takes 24 months of very dedicated logistics bombing with a stack of very nice high tech STR that doing nothing else but bomb London every day). You can do the same thing elsewhere, although the infrastructure of a province usually collapses long before you wipe out the fuel.

But on islands, you can easily bomb the port to cut incoming supplies and then bomb the supplies until the defenders are starving. Makes wiping out Japanese garrisons much easier.

Fuel/supplies did bunch up, according to unit locations and infra levels, but ultimately the whole system was totally automated and tied to the capital province. You could create new supply convoys but you could not manually control the flow over land.

I should have pointed out that all stockpiles technically exist physically in the capital province. When I play HOI3 I usually don't think about them actually sitting there, just that the flow originates from there. For me, the stockpiles may as well exist off map. I never play multiplayer, so I don't have think much about the possibility of any gamy tactics being used against me (like dropping airbone infantry around the capital) and I don't really enjoy employing gamy stuff like that when I play single player.

At some point the supplies/fuel are magically transported from the factories to the stockpile location, whether it's to a single province or multiple provinces. At least with multiple provinces, the bombing or outright capture of one province would not effect the entire supply stockpile. There's a lot of more in-depth logistics stuff I would like to have seen introduced to the HOI3 flow system - point being that as it stands now it just doesn't model things in a satisfactory way, IMO. Not sure if you're debating that, or if you're just pointing out incorrect stuff in my post (???).

 

[Praetori]

In regards to fuel stockpiles:

What I miss about HOI games is the logistics Effort. We can speak of infrastructure, libertyships, red ball express, lend lease of spam and trucks to the USSR and so forth all day long but on the strategic point of view this all consolidated into planning and resources spent.

From a simplified historical view suitable for a grand-strategy wargame such as the HOI series the logistics side is often neglected, as is the shady business of intelligence/information warfare as well as domestic politics and morale (which is simplified to a few numbers and mostly outside of player control).

On the simplistic side the war in North Africa was won by the Allied forces having invested in more logistics (on the strategic and operational levels) than the axis. Had spare parts, new tanks, reinforcements, water and ammunition been aplenty for the DAK and Luftwaffe then the second battle of El Alamein would never had happened as the allies would never had gotten the breathing room to reinforce and stop the axis advance before Cairo.
If Axis logistics would have been a non-issue then case blue would have seen a german advance to the Volga with the entire 6th army and 4th panzer-army and then an advance of List's armygroup A into the Caucasus with two panzer armies instead of one.
The list goes on and on but in truth (simplified) it was low axis investments into logistics compared to te allies that tipped the balance mid war when experience and momentum was favoring the axis.

On the strategic level the decisions regarding logistics were about prioritization. Army vs Airforce vs Navy on a theater level. The Allied concentration of strategic warfare (starting with the British Air Ministry's focused doctrines in 1940) with focus on Axis POL products (petroleum, oil and lubrication) forced the Axis to actually prioritize industrial effort vs army, navy and airforce in the end.
Germany ended up prioritizing industrial output dependent on coal and then put the majority of POL product efforts into the army leaving for example the Luftwaffe at a deficiency (again simplified history up to mid-war) with the result of decreased pilot production (lack of training and non-combat flight-hours).
Now this is all stuff at grand-strategy-level which is where the heart of the HOI series is. On the operational-scale (in reality realized and properly introduced in HOI3) the results should be secondary and dependent to that of the strategic level.

The difference in approaches lies in the granularity between Strategy and Operations where the libertyships, red-ball-express and Channel pipelines benefit the operational level side of the game but are in reality the result of a huge investment on the strategic side of things.
Fuel was never an issue on the Strategic level for the western Allies since they put enough effort and resources into avoiding that. This enabled a full fledged strategic bombing campaign while at the same time pushing enough supplies into the groundforce network to ensure victory. On the operational level however the cross-channel shipping capacity, harbor efficiency and the red-ball-express proved less than enough compared to the distances and resistance involved leading to a halt once the majority of France had been liberated. The bottleneck thus was not on the strategic level but on the operational level and this is where it gets difficult to model properly. In HOI3 the stockpiles for most players never ran out before 1947 or so leaving the operational level (in reality the on-map supply system) as the force limiter. The system was pretty binary with strategic deficiencies (ie diminishing or low stockpiles) having huge disruptive effects on the operational level outside of the players control which would have been ok if it hadn't been for the lack of the latter (control).

A perfect system would of course enable the player to prioritize between theaters, branches and battleplans as well as strategic effort into geographical areas regarding supplies while at the same time enabling some manner of control to the player on what and where to prioritize.

 

[ILoveLamp]

I really hope that the new logistics system (the supply zones) will properly model some of those operational level logistics problems that you mention. E.g. - the inability of the allies to quickly advance from their beachheads in Normandy - they had all the supplies in the world but they lacked access to deep-water ports.

I have a feeling that, in an effort to further streamline the game, problems like this won't occur frequently enough. From what little combat we have seen in the WWW vids, units appear to bounce around the map with little consequence or thought. I just hope someone is forced to take a look at the supply mapmode eventually...

 

[Praetori]

I really hope that the new logistics system (the supply zones) will properly model some of those operational level logistics problems that you mention. E.g. - the inability of the allies to quickly advance from their beachheads in Normandy - they had all the supplies in the world but they lacked access to deep-water ports.

I have a feeling that, in an effort to further streamline the game, problems like this won't occur frequently enough. From what little combat we have seen in the WWW vids, units appear to bounce around the map with little consequence or thought. I just hope someone is forced to take a look at the supply mapmode eventually...

HOI3 actually had some interesting mechanics on the operational side but it was completely outside of the players control (beside infrastructure and techs) and routed supplies and fuel in seemingly strange ways and was completely disconnected from the OOB system (in both control and feedback). I don't mind simplified "zones" but investing time, resources, IC and manpower into logistics should in a perfect game be necessary to get the western allied logistics juggernaut that kept entire strategic airforces fueled while operating the worlds largest navies across the globe and fighting a ground-campaign in both Europe and Asia/Pacific. Then again you cannot have everything everywhere so "control" and intelligeble GUI feedback is also important. That would be control beyond building infrastructure and ports as in balancing the logistics resources to where they're needed.

If you have a system where your 100 logistics-points gives you the ability to field 4 divisions in North Africa OR 20 divisions in the Ukraine then you'll have a supply-system that has operational meaning and consequences. The current HOI4 system kinda mimics that in that there's a cap but that can only be improved (as far as we know) by working the bottlenecks and for example increase the port-size. There's nothing preventing you from putting 20 divisions in France as well as 4 divisions in N.A. as all the supply zones are simply assumed to be instantly supplied once the first soldier plants his boot. No pre-planning (other than resources for convoys) is needed on the logistics side and that's something that I would've liked to see a different mechanic for.

 

[Jazumir]

Hmmm, interesting thoughts praetori. Thx for taking the time typing them up!

So, if i understand correctly, in game-terms, you´d like to see something akin to HoI2´s transport capacity (TC) in addition to what is currently planed for 4 - some sort of abstracted logistic capability you could build up. Sort of the trucks for the roads, the trains for the railtracks - the depots along both. So an area should mabye have a ´potential supply limit´ which you´d first have to make avaiable by pouring some of your ´TC´ into it, with relocation of TC taking some time?

 

[Praetori]

So, if i understand correctly, in game-terms, you´d like to see something akin to HoI2´s transport capacity (TC) in addition to what is currently planed for 4 -

Something like that yes but not necessarily similar to HOI2.
What I'd like is the ability for players to affect logistics beyond ports and infra by strategic decisions and planning.

Optimally the first shown supply limit should be an estimate based on recon, espionage and staff planning with the effective capacity the result of techs, logistics effort and preparation/planning (and also fixed modifiers such as ports, infra and weather).

The ability for the player (and AI) to actually do something about supplies and reward (supply capacity wise) planning, preparation and spent resources would be great.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The ability for the player (and AI) to actually do something about supplies and reward (supply capacity wise) planning, preparation and spent resources would be great.

One of the most interesting aspects of the lend lease IMO is that USA sent Soviet 430 thousands trucks, 2 thousand locomotives and 11 thousand rail cars of different types which greatly assisted their logistics capacity and ability to wage war across one of the most drawn out fronts.

If you in a HoI game could actually build these things, and assign them to logistics tasks, then there is also an attrition cost when strategic bombers attack with logistic strike or when partisans hit, and you would also need to plan ahead and expand your capacity such that you have enough trucks and fuel when going into places with bad infrastructure or enough trains available when advancing into good infrastructure.

I think it could tie into HoI4s production system and supply area system quite neatly to be honest, and add alot of depth for a comparably small extra need in management and complexity added.

 

[Praetori]

One of the most interesting aspects of the lend lease IMO is that USA sent Soviet 430 thousands trucks, 2 thousand locomotives and 11 thousand rail cars of different types which greatly assisted their logistics capacity and ability to wage war across one of the most drawn out fronts.

If you in a HoI game could actually build these things, and assign them to logistics tasks, then there is also a attrition cost when strategic bombers attack with logistic strike or when partisans hit, and you would also need to plan ahead and expand your capacity such that you have enough trucks and fuel when going into places with bad infrastructure or enough trains available when advancing into good infrastructure.

I think it could tie into HoI4s production system and supply area system quite neatly to be honest, and add alot of depth for a comparably small extra need in management and complexity added.

Exactly. And if something similar to said resources could also be assigned to boost battleplans you'd get a dynamic supply system with simple mechanics on-map.

 

[Axe99]

If you have a system where your 100 logistics-points gives you the ability to field 4 divisions in North Africa OR 20 divisions in the Ukraine then you'll have a supply-system that has operational meaning and consequences. The current HOI4 system kinda mimics that in that there's a cap but that can only be improved (as far as we know) by working the bottlenecks and for example increase the port-size. There's nothing preventing you from putting 20 divisions in France as well as 4 divisions in N.A. as all the supply zones are simply assumed to be instantly supplied once the first soldier plants his boot. No pre-planning (other than resources for convoys) is needed on the logistics side and that's something that I would've liked to see a different mechanic for.

One of the most interesting aspects of the lend lease IMO is that USA sent Soviet 430 thousands trucks, 2 thousand locomotives and 11 thousand rail cars of different types which greatly assisted their logistics capacity and ability to wage war across one of the most drawn out fronts.

If you in a HoI game could actually build these things, and assign them to logistics tasks, then there is also an attrition cost when strategic bombers attack with logistic strike or when partisans hit, and you would also need to plan ahead and expand your capacity such that you have enough trucks and fuel when going into places with bad infrastructure or enough trains available when advancing into good infrastructure.

I think it could tie into HoI4s production system and supply area system quite neatly to be honest, and add alot of depth for a comparably small extra need in management and complexity added.

I've been mulling over something (in the background, I'm mostly ships in terms of thinking about modding at the moment) - what if you could build 'logistics support units' that, when moved to an area, increased the supply capacity? These units would themselves require a fair bit of constant upkeep, so would be very expensive, and because they're units on the map, would be bombable (but bombable locally). Balance it out so it's a relatively small number of expensive units (rather than having to build squillions of them) and you'd have some kind of on-map representation of greater logistics effort in a certain area. Might be a bit tricky getting the AI to use them correctly though....

I've also thought along the lines of what Alex is suggesting - have some kind of overall 'logistics capacity' that you assign motorised equipment and transport to, that affects the amount of base supply flowing out from your capital (probably easier to get the AI to do sensibly) - would also give a place for transport planes to be useful when they're not doing paradrops or trying to save the sixth army.

You could even potentially link the two - so the amount of supply provided in an area by a logistics support unit is affected by the capacity of your overall logistics network. Geeky me would probably go for something like this, if I could make it work (with fuel in there as well, of course, and the amount of fuel available to the logistics network and division impacting on their capacity to increase the supply cap).

 

[Director]

Axe, I think what you're describing is functionally a headquarters unit, if they are movable by land, and a cross between a US Navy floating base and an amphibious support HQ (Mulberry, anyone?) if it is a naval unit. Nothing wrong with that, just trying to make sure I've gotten the concept. Allied commanders used to hoard transports, cargo ships and amphibious-warfare ships at the beachhead and in rear areas close to the beachhead, and breaking up those logjams was a continuing headache for Allied theater commanders, and both combat loading and beachhead management were highly valued specialties.

Praetori, I agree with your concepts but would like to bring up one small quibble. It isn't true that "Fuel was never an issue on the Strategic level for the western Allies". In the strategic sense, in that the US and Britain both had relatively secure sources and refineries, yes. But I can think of at least two cases where fuel directly impacted Allied strategy and operations - during the battles on land, air and sea at Guadalcanal, and in your aforementioned Red Ball Express. Just a minor point, but it does speak to your concern for logistics infrastructure.

I agree that giving the player decisions to make about the depth and breadth of logistical capacity makes for a better game. Certainly the men who built the Luftwaffe and rebuilt the Wehrmacht before WW2 made certain assumptions about how far their forces would have to operate from friendly logistic and support centers; the fact that their assumptions failed to be right for all cases just points up the compromises necessary. Doctrine and capability are always driven by perceived needs and always fail in certain boundary conditions.

 

[Praetori]

I've also thought along the lines of what Alex is suggesting - have some kind of overall 'logistics capacity' that you assign motorised equipment and transport to, that affects the amount of base supply flowing out from your capital (probably easier to get the AI to do sensibly) - would also give a place for transport planes to be useful when they're not doing paradrops or trying to save the sixth army.

I would be happy if such tools were available as simple assignment per theater/front. Moving logistics resources between areas of operation could take time thus making two front warfare a problem even for a numerically powerful nation.

I agree that giving the player decisions to make about the depth and breadth of logistical capacity makes for a better game. Certainly the men who built the Luftwaffe and rebuilt the Wehrmacht before WW2 made certain assumptions about how far their forces would have to operate from friendly logistic and support centers; the fact that their assumptions failed to be right for all cases just points up the compromises necessary. Doctrine and capability are always driven by perceived needs and always fail in certain boundary conditions.

Indeed. The German armed forces were outperformed and outsmarted significantly on the strategic level, not because they performed poorly on the lower operational scale but due to a lack of preparation and trying to do too much with too little. The constant inability to provide enough logistic muscles meant that even their motorized and armored formations were at a severe disadvantage compared to the opposition. Not only because spares, fuel, replacements and other critical supplies often failed to appear in time but also because the sluggish high echelon logistics resulted in a lack of endurance during deep-operations and thus the operational mobility benefits of their "mission-type tactics" were diminished. The interesting thing is that this was known and studied by the Germans after both the Polish campaign and the invasion of France but the necessary steps to remedy the issues weren't taken (in full) for various reasons and even downplayed to comply with OKW planning and that resulted in a botched Barbarossa despite all the other advantages.

Now to get back to in-game terms: From a player perspective you wouldn't want to handcuff yourself in such a way and neither would an AI (unless specifically scripted to do so) and if all figures point to there being a problem most players would take action to avoid any such situations. That's why it'd be interesting with some fog of war on logistics in yet un-invaded territory and that the exactness of supply/demand estimates and logistics capability was the result of effort actually spent on researching and planning these things. A hard pressed Germany wanting to rush conquest before tension get's too high or time/events allows the US to join the war might need to compromise (thus going along a more historical approach) but with an option to take a different path.

 

[Director]

As I remember (it was long ago) in Avalon Hill's Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, the player had to decide the level of supply provided to a front for each quarter from a finite pool that was slowly refilled. You could, as the Axis player, go all-out on three fronts (west, Med, east) but you might have to then 'catch your breath' and pause for 3 to 6 months, or try a counter-operation with less than ideal logistical support. Simple, elegant, effective.

Agreed - Germany built its air and land forces for short-strike purposes. But as a player you might want to handicap yourself that way IF there were significant decisions to be made and trade-offs to be pondered.

 

[tommylotto]

You had to select the offensive, attrition, or pass option on each front. If you select the offensive option on a front it cost you 15 basic resource points. So, going on the offensive on all three fronts would cost you 45 BRP's

 

[Denkt]

You can select the priority level for each theater. If you really like management you could create many copies of each template, one elite, one regular and one garrison version for each template. That give you pretty good control over how your equipments are distributed.

 

[Secret Master]

This is what you said earlier:

The main issue with the omni-purpose fuel stockpiles was the question of what would happen if/when they ran out. In past games this would mean that all of your fuel-consuming units, all at the same time, would get a huge negative modifier which basically ended your game at that point. This created an incentive to keep the stockpiles always high enough to allow for a good amount of freedom in how players could approach the game while preventing the game from ending an unsatisfying way.

You made suggestions for changes to the logistics system based on a faulty understanding of HOI3's system. It's not just a minor mistake, either. Aside from the errors I pointed out in my previous post, you also conflate multiple issues with being out of supply into a single issue. Running out of supply? Yeah, you face penalties that scale up based on local supply. Just because Berlin is at zero fuel and supply does not mean Rommel's Ghost Division suddenly faces the -50% out of supply penalty and can no longer move due to lack of fuel. He might have weeks of fuel and supplies, giving him a chance to sack Moscow and capture the massive Soviet stockpiles Germany so desperately needs.

But you spent time talking about "fuel-consuming units, all at the same time, would get a huge negative modifier" when that is not what happens when a country runs out of fuel in HOI3. It's not even close; trust me, I've run myself out of fuel more than once. They are also never going to run out of fuel and supply all at the same time (unless you are playing some weird version of the map with 100% infrastructure in every province with uniform divisions at all terminus points that are equidistant from the regional stockpile in the network).

HOI3 has a large number of problems with its logistics model (both from the standpoints of realism and gameplay), but when you bring up issues that do not exist and supply solutions for them, it doesn't help the situation.

Fuel/supplies did bunch up, according to unit locations and infra levels, but ultimately the whole system was totally automated and tied to the capital province. You could create new supply convoys but you could not manually control the flow over land.

I should have pointed out that all stockpiles technically exist physically in the capital province. When I play HOI3 I usually don't think about them actually sitting there, just that the flow originates from there. For me, the stockpiles may as well exist off map. I never play multiplayer, so I don't have think much about the possibility of any gamy tactics being used against me (like dropping airbone infantry around the capital) and I don't really enjoy employing gamy stuff like that when I play single player.

At some point the supplies/fuel are magically transported from the factories to the stockpile location, whether it's to a single province or multiple provinces. At least with multiple provinces, the bombing or outright capture of one province would not effect the entire supply stockpile. There's a lot of more in-depth logistics stuff I would like to have seen introduced to the HOI3 flow system - point being that as it stands now it just doesn't model things in a satisfactory way, IMO. Not sure if you're debating that, or if you're just pointing out incorrect stuff in my post (???).

I'm not sure where these strange ideas come from. Fuel and supply is not "magically transported from factories to the stockpile location." This is especially problematic when applied to overseas stockpiles. Supply and fuel follow very precise rules and mechanics that can be interfered with in multiple ways.

On land, supplies flow along the network at one province a day (except in special situations I will outline later) in HOI3. They move towards demand and try to follow the path of (mostly) least resistance, with bottlenecks limiting what can actually flow. The supply network has some odd features, but supply and fuel even outside stockpiles can be bombed into oblivion. With enough intel, and some knowledge of the game's mechanics, you can literally destroy the entire logistics of an enemy theater with the intelligent application of air power. So much so that abusing logistics bombing against the AI is considered abuse by many players. I should also point out that "bombing or taking one province" won't affect the stockpile, but it doesn't matter if Army Group South now has no supply at all. Hitler can keep 80k supply and fuel in Berlin; I care about whether Guderian or Rommel can actually advance.

Aside from this, it costs supplies to move supplies. Moving supplies over land invokes the supply tax. Base cost is 0.1 supplies per province supplies move through. If you are moving supplies over land through 500 provinces (not bad for a continental power), that costs you 50 supplies a day, a value that fluctuates based on the actual number of provinces supply moves through (which will vary a lot depending on need). This is one reason supply needs fluctuate so much during certain campaigns. This base cost is modified certain supply techs.

Moving stuff overseas costs convoys but moves instantly (seriously, have extra convoys in stockpile, because you will lose some). And ports can only receive so many supply and fuel a day. Bombed ports are basically worthless. You want to paralyze an enemy navy or force it to go home? Bomb its ports and bomb the supplies at the ports. (Are you listening, players planning a repeat of Pearl Harbor in your HOI3 games?) On top of that, if the regional stockpile is in a port, it still has to build up from zero if there is no supply in the province. Nothing magical there; it's all based on throughput related to ports sending and receiving supplies.

Hell, you can even manually set up supply convoys between two friendly ports that are connected by land to help out the network. You want to know why Leningrad is a priority target for me as Germany? Because I can ship tons of supply and fuel through there.

The throughput of supply is also highly variable. A province might move a lot or a little supply and fuel based on current partisan impact, current infrastructure, ministers, and techs.

Then there is the creation of stockpiles overseas. How this works dictates a lot of stuff related to conducting certain kinds of campaigns. There's a reason some players love to conduct amphibious invasions against the Soviets as an Axis power even when they share a land border. As long as you do not connect the regions, you can supply troops from the amphibious invasion stockpile without putting any additional strain on the stockpile in, say, Berlin.

Did I mention that you can bomb the outgoing ports to prevent supplies from reaching overseas stockpiles? Supply does not teleport from IC in Chicago to Hawaii. It has to move to an originating port, then move by convoy. If the US has no intact ports in CONUS, then the US Pacific Fleet will never receive and supply or fuel overseas.

Then there are the bizarre implications of puppets and allies I do not have time to discuss (and indeed, are only well understood by a few people in the community).

These rules have enormous implications that render any discussion of "magically transported" moot.

1) Stockpiles cannot be directly controlled by the player (location or formation) but there may be thousands or even tens of thousands of supply and fuel sitting in an overseas stockpile that is not measured by the fuel and supply meter at the top of the screen. The only way to know if units are out or about to run out of supply is to use the map mode and pay attention. (warning notifiers are unreliable in some ways)

2) Supply is sitting all over the map. The Wehrmacht can literally survive for weeks off captured Soviet supplies during Barbarossa because the supply and fuel they are using is stuff in provinces they captured. This captured fuel and supply does not eat into Germany's stockpiles; the catch is that Germany still has to put supply and fuel into the network because supply and fuel are moving one province a day in the network and there are still demand indicators coming from the front.

3) Supply sometimes magically teleports from the field back to the stockpile. This is why stockpiles suddenly increase in value out of the blue.

4) The supply AI tries to use all provinces in the network to move supply around bottlenecks. There are still some unused provinces in the hinterland sometimes, but the closer you are to having too much supply and fuel demand in an area of operations, the fewer those unused provinces will be. (Provinces will keep trying to acquire supply and fuel by demanding it from all neighboring provinces that can ship it.

You are right that the system is automated and the player can't really direct the flow, but the misunderstandings in your posts regarding how stockpiles work and how supply moves can cause those who never played HOI3 to demand changes that have nothing to actually do with how the game was played if they are reading this discussion. The supply situation is contentious enough as it is; there is not need to muddy the waters.