Oil and Logistics Mega-thread: Post all discussion here

[KimSand]

Supply be it equipment, men, ressources, is about a flow of things. When things flow from one place to another you can in a realistic way make infrastructure, terrain, interdictions, sabotage etc. key elements.

You can fight a war on different levels in a realistic way. You can create supplylines, supplycaches, ressource transports, you can make them go one way around africa or another way around africa. You have to find your enemys' routes, then you have to position yourself the be able to interdict them, you have to evaluate if an interdiction is viable and would create more loss for your enemy than for you. You can identify a week link in an invasion and strike there.

I love the supply engine in HOI3, it can be improved but the essense of it, for me, does more to create an enjoyable game than the opposite.

The OOB is control, it is planning, it gives me the opportunity to strengthen a front, and shift weight without shifting units, and last it gives me a historic sense. What and who do we talk about and remember when we talk about a war, a battle ? We talk about the leaders, the formations, the way they worked together, or didn't, the flaws or strengths of the leadership and how they solved big mindblowing operations or failed.

And as this is a Grand Strategic Game, where our view upon the army is from the very top, I will be missing what makes the units and the story we make in our heads, interesting.

Im very sad to see these parts of the game gone, they where key elements for me on this level of gameplay.

 

[Ernestas]

Yes, lately Paradox seemed just to give up on that part and because of that, combat feels cheap and arcady. Like in EU 4. I can just as well keep fighting in Spain long and massive conflict as fucking Lithuania as I can defend my homeland... Stellaris is also the same shit, fleets mechanics are so damn gimicky, even counters to just blitzkrieging through your empire are countered by things which they are supposed to counter...Unless of course you want to spam shit out certain units thus abusing game mechanics.

 

[KiwiNoob]

Your effort is praiseworthy but try to read (an possibly to understand) what others tell you: once more there is no supply/logistic system in HOI4

That is simply wrong. There is a supply system in HOI4. There is a good supply system in HOI4, much better than in HOI3.

Don't get the oil discussion (oil as a production resource instead of a consumable resource) confused with the supply system.

 

[Cardus]

That is simply wrong. There is a supply system in HOI4. There is a good supply system in HOI4, much better than in HOI3.

Don't get the oil discussion (oil as a consumable resource vs a production resource) confused with the supply system.

Can you tell me on what it is based your statement? Did you read about the fact that supplies grow like grass in HOI4? If for you that is a supply system I think that we a a VERY different idea of what is a SYSTEM...

Supply in HOI IV is and not trying to be funny but its like grass.


Supply Areas with a lot of grass have less horses dying from starvation so requests for replacement horses are less, Supply Areas with good infrastructure have a lot more fields which means more grass which means you can support more horses,there is also a flow of grass from neighbouring Supply Areas.


That is basically how it works you are not manufacturing supplies and sending them to your troops you are improving the environment that your troops are in so they lose less equipment which means you have less equipment to replace.


The only thing that actually flows to your Divisions is equipment and I am not sure if that even actually flows.

 

[tommylotto]

Well the amount of "grass" in a given supply area is determined by logistically relevant factors such as access to local supply, excess supply from adjacent friendly areas, distance from capital (?), size of port (if overseas). There is no real "supply" as a thing that you must manufacture, but it uses logistically relevant factors to spit out a stacking limit that you would be wise to follow, and it gives you logisticky things to do to improve the situation (improve infrastructure or port size, etc.). You do not have to actually produced supplies that actually pulse through the system like blood through veins and arteries, as in in Hoi3. HoiIV is a vastly simplified system with much less potential for accurate simulation, but it is a system -- and a system that uses less processing power, freeing up precious processing power for more models doing push-ups.

 

[KiwiNoob]

Can you tell me on what it is based your statement? Did you read about the fact that supplies grow like grass in HOI4? If for you that is a supply system I think that we a a VERY different idea of what is a SYSTEM...

Given a great deal of 'supply' is food then I imagine a lot of it does grow like grass. The rest of it is manufactured.

Supplies were historically produced all over the place and the places that had better infrastructure usually produced more of it and had a better capacity to move it around. It's a much better approach than having all the supply pouring out of the capital.

The actual production of supply is pointless. There is no reason (that I can think of anyway) people are going to deliberately choose to not supply their troops so getting them to spend time on the production of it is unnecessary. It just forces people to do something they really have no choice about. (Queue the nightmares of the HOI3 production sliders. *shudder*)

The system may not be perfect but it's an step up and a good one at that (with further room to improve as well). I happen to agree with your last sentence. My biggest gripe is that equipment doesn't 'flow'. Supply 'flows' but as long as a unit has 'supply' the equipment just magics it's way over.

This is disappointing because when you're sending convoys to the bottom of the deep (the ones bringing the supply to the troops - not the ones carrying resources) you're not actually sending guns, men and tanks with it. Just 'supply' and unfortunately you have to sink an awful lot of that before it starts making a significant material difference.

 

[1337JiveTurkey]

Abstracting what happens at lower levels is necessary for a grand strategy game to be playable. The fundamental question that needs to be answered for any feature in a game like the logistics system is "Does this lead to interesting decisions on the player's part?"

Too many games fall into the trap of assuming that more nitpicky details make for better gameplay and end up swamping the player in irrelevant decisions. It may very well be the case that those details would make for an interesting game in their own right, but they take the player's attention away from the decisions that matter. If the player doesn't realize that they need to handle those details or simply doesn't want to deal with them, they can be at a severe disadvantage.

Often strategy game designers try to automate some of those decisions so that players can override the automation as necessary, but it's the first step to admitting that those decisions shouldn't be there in the first place. They're automated because they're not interesting in the first place, there's generally a right way to do them that the computer is capable of reasonably approximating and there's plenty of wrong ways that a player would need to figure out via trial and error.

In that case, the player doesn't necessarily want to replace the computer at what it's doing but lay down high level policy, and that's where the interesting decisions should be in a grand strategy game. At the grand strategy level, we have tanks that we need various supplies including fuel to keep running. The less of any of those supplies that we can provide, the less combat effective the unit is regardless of the exact reason why. Supplies don't represent a specific mixture of fuel, ammunition and spare parts, but an abstract commitment of industrial resources to keeping the tanks running.

 

[Marfach]

Supplies don't represent a specific mixture of fuel, ammunition and spare parts, but an abstract commitment of industrial resources to keeping the tanks running.

Fuel does lead to interesting decisions on the players part, as do supplies in general, I agree supply production can be 'abstracted' but not to the point paradox have take it.

If you are only referring to the supply system and the way in which supplies are produced in all supply zones and move from zone to zone then I think your point is fair. The issue of fuel being produced as if by magic however doesnt hold water. There is a lot more infrastructure required to extract and refine fuel than to cure meat or tin vegetables. By removing fuel the devs have effectively removed strategic warfare as a concept from the game.
Germany's goal in the war with Russia was seizing the Baku Oil fields. Japans initial goal was seizing the Malaysian and Indonesian oil fields and Rubber. The Luftwaffe was defeated by cutting them off from fuel, as was the IJN. the current supply system is fine. It is not perfect but no system is and it would be nice if equipment could be sunk the way resources are, but all in all I have no major problem with it. The omission of fuel as a "solution" to the stockpiling problem is ludicrous. They basically said we are going to solve the problem of nations stockpiling fuel by giving them infinite fuel.

 

[JoyAndMisery]

. They basically said we are going to solve the problem of nations stockpiling fuel by giving them infinite fuel.

Well, only those who have oil on their territory. Nations not having fuel are gonna be boned as soon as they are at war with their oil giver. No matter if their usage of imported oil was used 100% in the history of that particular playthrough because every precious resource you dont instantly use gets thrown away. And that is bs. Simply put pdx coulndt come up with a decent stockpilealleviating idea so they try to sell this halfarsed not wellthoughtout all or nothing approach as the holy messias to solve all problems. That just feels lazy to me.

 

[Cardus]

Given a great deal of 'supply' is food then I imagine a lot of it does grow like grass. The rest of it is manufactured.

Supplies were historically produced all over the place and the places that had better infrastructure usually produced more of it and had a better capacity to move it around. It's a much better approach than having all the supply pouring out of the capital.

The actual production of supply is pointless. There is no reason (that I can think of anyway) people are going to deliberately choose to not supply their troops so getting them to spend time on the production of it is unnecessary. It just forces people to do something they really have no choice about. (Queue the nightmares of the HOI3 production sliders. *shudder*)

The system may not be perfect but it's an step up and a good one at that (with further room to improve as well). I happen to agree with your last sentence. My biggest gripe is that equipment doesn't 'flow'. Supply 'flows' but as long as a unit has 'supply' the equipment just magics it's way over.

This is disappointing because when you're sending convoys to the bottom of the deep (the ones bringing the supply to the troops - not the ones carrying resources) you're not actually sending guns, men and tanks with it. Just 'supply' and unfortunately you have to sink an awful lot of that before it starts making a significant material difference.

Apart from food (and I would like to know which food is available in the jungle/desert/steppe) supplies means ammunition, clothes, spare parts, fuel, that are NOT produced all over the places...

Well the amount of "grass" in a given supply area is determined by logistically relevant factors such as access to local supply, excess supply from adjacent friendly areas, distance from capital (?), size of port (if overseas). There is no real "supply" as a thing that you must manufacture, but it uses logistically relevant factors to spit out a stacking limit that you would be wise to follow, and it gives you logisticky things to do to improve the situation (improve infrastructure or port size, etc.). You do not have to actually produced supplies that actually pulse through the system like blood through veins and arteries, as in in Hoi3. HoiIV is a vastly simplified system with much less potential for accurate simulation, but it is a system -- and a system that uses less processing power, freeing up precious processing power for more models doing push-ups.

Sure but it is like assuming that you eat because you have a mouth

PS

Here https://books.google.it/books?id=kYZvCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=it#v=onepage&q&f=false on table 3 you see that
1) Food was not taken from all places but delivered by the USA
2) Food was a minority (38%)of total supply

 

[Marfach]

Well, only those who have oil on their territory. Nations not having fuel are gonna be boned as soon as they are at war with their oil giver. No matter if their usage of imported oil was used 100% in the history of that particular playthrough because every precious resource you dont instantly use gets thrown away. And that is bs. Simply put pdx coulndt come up with a decent stockpilealleviating idea so they try to sell this halfarsed not wellthoughtout all or nothing approach as the holy messias to solve all problems. That just feels lazy to me.

It's baffling really, they could have made storage space buildable, like it is in reality, so Germany if it wanted could go on a huge oil hoarding project, but would not be able to simultaneously go on a huge rearming program. Opportunity cost is key in grand strategy and that is a perfect one right there, do you prepare for a protracted war at the cost of your army, navy and airforce? Or do you build up a larger Army and hope to be able to secure the Suez (Iraqi oil) or Baku before you have to ration fuel.
It makes sense to me, colonial powers would have more storage space due to large navies and spread out lands, Major oil producers/refiners would have large storage space out of necessity, and everyone else would have storage space proportional to their size as part of their economy. It wouldnt even be difficult to balance because you can mathematically weigh the cost of fuel storage against everything else and see does it make sense for Germany or Japan to invest in it (it should) and if its worth the USA, SU or UK investing in it (it shouldnt be).

 

[Axe99]

The actual production of supply is pointless. There is no reason (that I can think of anyway) people are going to deliberately choose to not supply their troops so getting them to spend time on the production of it is unnecessary. It just forces people to do something they really have no choice about. (Queue the nightmares of the HOI3 production sliders. *shudder*)

For me, supply is not about choosing to supply or not supply troops (although having an actual supply equipment in the game would allow for gameplay mechanics like building up supplies for offensives - imagine if planning bonuses took supplies and time (which, historically, was generally the case), so now more of an either/or choice?) but simulating the capacity to maintain certain levels of troops in certain locations. A large force, distributed globally, should take a stack of supply that ties up a significant proportion of a nation's industry. A smaller force closer to home would take up a smaller proportion. At the moment, for example, the US and UK face no supply penalty for building up huge forces, or sending them half-way around the globe - it's all "free of charge" and blatantly at odds to the actual cost of maintaining those forces historically (which is one of the larger reasons why, despite their manpower and industry, it was difficult for them to raise and support large numbers of divisions in Europe).

 

[1337JiveTurkey]

Fuel does lead to interesting decisions on the players part, as do supplies in general, I agree supply production can be 'abstracted' but not to the point paradox have take it.

If you are only referring to the supply system and the way in which supplies are produced in all supply zones and move from zone to zone then I think your point is fair. The issue of fuel being produced as if by magic however doesnt hold water. There is a lot more infrastructure required to extract and refine fuel than to cure meat or tin vegetables. By removing fuel the devs have effectively removed strategic warfare as a concept from the game.
Germany's goal in the war with Russia was seizing the Baku Oil fields. Japans initial goal was seizing the Malaysian and Indonesian oil fields and Rubber. The Luftwaffe was defeated by cutting them off from fuel, as was the IJN. the current supply system is fine. It is not perfect but no system is and it would be nice if equipment could be sunk the way resources are, but all in all I have no major problem with it. The omission of fuel as a "solution" to the stockpiling problem is ludicrous. They basically said we are going to solve the problem of nations stockpiling fuel by giving them infinite fuel.

Fuel isn't omitted, it's included directly in the costs of the units themselves and in their reinforcements. Without reinforcements units suffer attrition when they try to do anything at all, so they need fuel indirectly in order to continue functioning. So the Luftwaffe can sortie at first but as a lack of fuel strangles their reinforcements, the number of combat ready aircraft dwindles until they can't effectively contest the skies.

 

[Marfach]

Fuel isn't omitted, it's included directly in the costs of the units themselves and in their reinforcements. Without reinforcements units suffer attrition when they try to do anything at all, so they need fuel indirectly in order to continue functioning. So the Luftwaffe can sortie at first but as a lack of fuel strangles their reinforcements, the number of combat ready aircraft dwindles until they can't effectively contest the skies.

Battleships.
Read the thread.
This is not anything approaching a sensible logistics system and how you can rationalize it is beyond me.
If people don't mind the lack of fuel that is fine but don't pretend arguments like this somehow hold water.

 

[1337JiveTurkey]

Battleships.
Read the thread.
This is not anything approaching a sensible logistics system and how you can rationalize it is beyond me.
If people don't mind the lack of fuel that is fine but don't pretend arguments like this somehow hold water.

Battleships aren't good currently, but the system can be revised for them without changing everything else.

 

[Marfach]

Battleships aren't good currently, but the system can be revised for them without changing everything else.

Battleships and navies in general are just the archetypal example of why this system does not work, and to say this oversight is somehow okay is absurd in itself considering the Navy was the most important military branch for 4 and arguably 5 of the 8 Major powers involved in this conflict.
What you are telling me is that a tank when not in combat consumes the same ratios of ammunition and replacement parts to fuel as it would when heavily engaged. You are also suggesting that all nations have infinite stockpiling capabilities however these stockpiles are somehow carried on the backs of the Tanks, half-tracks and planes when in use and cannot be transferred to another vehicle or used to fuel the replacement vehicles when these are destroyed.
This system also prevents you from cutting nations off from fuel as a means of breaking their military because once built all of their tanks planes and ships will continue to operate regardless of fuel supply. The attrition argument breaks down when you consider this means a units fuel usage is dependent on its performance in battle.
Oil is now only a necessity for replacing tanks rather than using them, meaning if you had sense about you you would rush tank techs and build up your panzer divisions pre-war as their attrition can be covered by the hindered fuel-free production, allowing you to build your infantry divisions later.
And that brings me to another point, even if you do succeed in cutting Germany off from any fuel imports and snatch the Romanian oil fields they can still build tanks, planes and ships but simply suffer an efficiency hit. So after the huge amount of planning and commitment of forces needed to take and hold the Romanian oil fields the German War economy continues to steam ahead.

All of this is looking at the European theater where fuel was important, but take a look at the Far-Eastern theater where fuel was the primary objective of both sides and the entire reason Japan went to war with the USA and European powers. Japan can now continue its war in china even under British, American and Dutch Embargo when historically Japan invaded Malaysia to save their economy from collapse and Attacked Pearl Harbor as a preemptive strike expecting US retaliation.

Paradox have decided that the single most important war time resource is not worth properly implementing and whether you call HoI grand strategy or a war-game this seems ludicrous to me.

 

[KiwiNoob]

For me, supply is not about choosing to supply or not supply troops (although having an actual supply equipment in the game would allow for gameplay mechanics like building up supplies for offensives - imagine if planning bonuses took supplies and time (which, historically, was generally the case), so now more of an either/or choice?) but simulating the capacity to maintain certain levels of troops in certain locations. A large force, distributed globally, should take a stack of supply that ties up a significant proportion of a nation's industry. A smaller force closer to home would take up a smaller proportion. At the moment, for example, the US and UK face no supply penalty for building up huge forces, or sending them half-way around the globe - it's all "free of charge" and blatantly at odds to the actual cost of maintaining those forces historically (which is one of the larger reasons why, despite their manpower and industry, it was difficult for them to raise and support large numbers of divisions in Europe).

I agree. I did post a suggestion that troops should need to stockpile equipment in order to build the planning bonus which I think would be much more realistic and would achieve some of what you've mentioned (for example higher equipment usage would tie up more industry).

 

[elessar90]

Fuel does lead to interesting decisions on the players part, as do supplies in general, I agree supply production can be 'abstracted' but not to the point paradox have take it.

If you are only referring to the supply system and the way in which supplies are produced in all supply zones and move from zone to zone then I think your point is fair. The issue of fuel being produced as if by magic however doesnt hold water. There is a lot more infrastructure required to extract and refine fuel than to cure meat or tin vegetables. By removing fuel the devs have effectively removed strategic warfare as a concept from the game.
Germany's goal in the war with Russia was seizing the Baku Oil fields. Japans initial goal was seizing the Malaysian and Indonesian oil fields and Rubber. The Luftwaffe was defeated by cutting them off from fuel, as was the IJN. the current supply system is fine. It is not perfect but no system is and it would be nice if equipment could be sunk the way resources are, but all in all I have no major problem with it. The omission of fuel as a "solution" to the stockpiling problem is ludicrous. They basically said we are going to solve the problem of nations stockpiling fuel by giving them infinite fuel.

Just look at "oil as resource to produce tanks" from different point of view. It could be seen as "an average amount of oil one tank consumes before dead". So this is the point! You lose tanks => you make new tanks with your oil (or do it very ineffective if you have no oil) to reinforce troops instead of sending empty tanks and oil in the barrels alongside with them. Not very different, trust me

Also mentioned HOI3 supply system. It is just a mess. Why all of my resources must go through capital? Take a look on blockaded Leningrad. They had tank production inside encirclement area and supplied a part of needs from here simply ignoring Moscow.

You will never have any system that satisfy all the players. This is why game is so moddable. If many people need it, it will be day-7 mod. If not, so... who cares?

 

[elessar90]

Japan can now continue its war in china even under British, American and Dutch Embargo

Wrong! They can now just try to. But if I remember correctly, penalty is huge and if Japan will actually use tanks in operations they will be unable to reinforce them.

We already saw how effective divisions without supply are. If you name it as "continue to war", I will name it as "Retreat without any chances";

This is grand strategy level of realism - they will not be able to fight, no matter what! But because of oil. Do you care as a Field Marshal why your tank unable to fight? Because it has no oil or it just damaged enough so you need same amount of oil to repair it? No. You just drew a plan and sent some subordinates to execute it. It is GRAND STRATEGY, not TANKMAN SIMULATOR.

Deal with it. Result is the same. But it has faaaar more accessibility than HOI3 had.

 

[Axe99]

Just look at "oil as resource to produce tanks" from different point of view. It could be seen as "an average amount of oil one tank consumes before dead". So this is the point! You lose tanks => you make new tanks with your oil (or do it very ineffective if you have no oil) to reinforce troops instead of sending empty tanks and oil in the barrels alongside with them. Not very different, trust me

I can't speak for tanks, but the issue with this for ships is that the amount of oil is nowhere near enough to approximate use, and a substantial number of ships (the ones in existence at the start of the game, many of which historically served actively until the end of the conflict) will require no oil at all. In effect, there'll be substantial numbers of vessels that are logistically 'free of charge', from an industry-use perspective.