Paradox please fix trade and supply

[mjb2k]

Would it really be so hard to have a convoy system similar to hoi2 back? Right now not only trading sucks but convoy raiding anything except trade and troops is also impossible. The introduction of the rubber puppets slightly accounted for the secure oversea territory to capital transports but there are still many other high ressource areas in remote locations that especially the allies rely on: French, British and Dutch alluminium deposits in South America (British Guyana, etc) UK's rubber island off the coast of India (Ceylon) and France Chromium islands north of New Zealand (New Caledonia). Except from these high value location this also applies to all of Africa. If the Axis were able to convoy raid all these rubber and aluminium convoys they should be able to win the air war against the UK, but only if. IMHO this is a major balance issue because in order to give Germany a chance, synthetic plants were made op while the navy and especially submarines are completly useless.

I see where you're taking this and you're right the axis should be able to squeeze the allies ability to use their colonies as a source of resource gathering. I disagree that subs are completely useless because if you convoy raid right (where the allies trade goes to the Soviets) you can basically make it impossible for them to trade with them because the efficiency will be terrible. But yes, if say you're convoy raiding in the correct spots around these resource rich areas, rather than sink convoys (because that seems a bit OP) it reduces the amount of excavation that can come from the areas.

 

[PG908]

There's even more shenanigans with supply.

Your supply route has to be able to support enough supply for everything in the supply region.

If you're playing as South Africa (stretching north to Ethiopia), for an example, and send a few rank divisions to help British Raj out, you'll notice that you're in poor supply while raj is fine. Why? Because your ports and infrastructure in Ethiopia can't support the supply that the raj troops need. Even though you are only using 6-8 supply at most, you bottleneck because the system demands you have a capacity to support everything.

The calculations used need to be completely thrown out and redone so bottlenecks are calculated by how much supply actually needs to flow, rather than how much the region is capable of having teleported to it.

Really, the teleporting supply rears its head in other places besides when multiple allies are shipping supply in from overseas origins.

The way supply is calculated also leads to supply in Russia not really being a challenge for Germany (the states in the back of the supply zone easily negate the destroyed infrastrucure at the front of it, among other things) and supplying the Far East being almost impossible for Russia.

There should also be a throughout penalty for changes in ownership (particularly recently acquired territory; it's not like every civil engineer in your country is hot on the heels of your army). German supply should get worse crossing into Russia. I would suggest reducing manual repair and construction speeds in occupied territory, but having a somewhat soft cap on how much can be destroyed. It's not like any amount of combat will reduce super low levels of infrastructure (you can only do so much to a road once you reduce it to gravel—it's always going to be better than trying to cart supply through the jungle).

Also, I don't think anything has to be said about local supply and everything coming from your capital (if your capital is surrounded everyone loses supply until it's taken).

 

[grandad1982]

I'd love, love, love the ability to manually specify supply/trade ports if I so desire.

 

[Meglok]

@mjb2k
Thanks for starting this thread. Many of these issues regarding supply have been discussed before but it can't hurt to remind PDS this is a subject the natives are restless about.

The choice of an overseas supply port has been a major issue since HOI3. The HOI4 supply system is an improvement over HOI3, but it still has some major issues as you note.

One suggestion, when you do an important thread like this tag @podcat or @Archangel85 in the thread so they get flagged, and or submit an official suggestion. Personally I dislike using the suggestion forum because it seems good ideas go there to die and are missed by 95% of the forum population (that is just my humble opinion), but it is the requested method for suggestions.

The inability to reroute convoys is a whole other kettle of fish. And I agree, it's a damn nuisance.

I'd love, love, love the ability to manually specify supply/trade ports if I so desire.

I could not agree more with these sentiments. Having the ai change supply ports away from enemy dominated sea regions when possible and giving players the option to chose supply ports is on my top 5 list of things that desperately need to be fixed (well above many of the issues and items currently being trotted out in 1.5)

Another item I would like to see is being able to turn OFF unneeded resource convoys. If I have no need for 600 rubber I don't want to have to dedicated scarce convoys to shipping them or to have to expose those convoys to enemy attacks.

 

[bERt0r]

@mjb2k
Thanks for starting this thread. Many of these issues regarding supply have been discussed before but it can't hurt to remind PDS this is a subject the natives are restless about.

The choice of an overseas supply port has been a major issue since HOI3. The HOI4 supply system is an improvement over HOI3, but it still has some major issues as you note.

One suggestion, when you do an important thread like this tag @podcat or @Archangel85 in the thread so they get flagged, and or submit an official suggestion. Personally I dislike using the suggestion forum because it seems good ideas go there to die and are missed by 95% of the forum population (that is just my humble opinion), but it is the requested method for suggestions.





I could not agree more with these sentiments. Having the ai change supply ports away from enemy dominated sea regions when possible and giving players the option to chose supply ports is on my top 5 list of things that desperately need to be fixed (well above many of the issues and items currently being trotted out in 1.5)

Another item I would like to see is being able to turn OFF unneeded resource convoys. If I have no need for 600 rubber I don't want to have to dedicated scarce convoys to shipping them or to have to expose those convoys to enemy attacks.

Fortunatly, ressource convoys cannot be attacked.

 

[billcorr]

... but it can't hurt to remind PDS this is a subject the natives are restless about.

Amen, brother!

Every post is a vote.

Vote early.

Vote often.

 

[mjb2k]

Also, I don't think anything has to be said about local supply and everything coming from your capital (if your capital is surrounded everyone loses supply until it's taken).

Yeah supply should not originate only from your capital. They should be able to come from all of your collective cities and go to all possible areas.

 

[outis]

One way of improving supply route is having a command hierarchy and associated HQ acts as supply node. So supply flows from high level HQ to low level HQ. Low level unit only need to trace to higher level HQ.

So one may actually be able to change the supply route by moving the high level HQ.

 

[Mug Bubule]

Another problem might be how supply is essentially a non-issue. I never think about supply when I'm invading Russia for example. The supply situation must be really dire for me to take care of it (like when I'm landing in a lvl1 port in north canada with 24 divisions.

I remember caring about supply way more in HOI3. The system wasn't perfect. It could have been help by being able to create supply node where you could accumulate supply. Capturing a supply node would have meant capturing supply (like when you take the capital). Pathfinding for supply would then have been : Capital -> nearest units /node. Node -> nearest units/node and so on. Giving the people that wanted more granurality in handling supply a way to bypass pathfinding shortcomings in certain case and to prepare for offensive by preparing more supply. By default, each node would have received enough supply for units under them (supply and demand) but you could have modified the value to prevent unwanted shortage while still restraining from using too much supply as its quantity was limited as a whole.

I might do a small picture to explain it, but that was my reflections about hoi3 supply system as someone who sinked a lot of hours in it.

As for hoi4, I already said it, but the supply system feel arcadey, and is a non issue most of the time while it could be crippling in hoi3 if you lacked some foresight. Maybe because there is some dillution in your whole army of this need. Like, you just loose a lots of gun, but as long as you have a stockpile, there isn't any problems? Didn't give much thought as I don't have to care much about it.

Edit : Here I go, If it make any sense at all :

I don't know if it's a realistic solution as I don't know much about logistics during WW2. It could have helped during landing too by setting supply node on each port you take to share supply between ports.

Doesn't help with the actual issue of HOI4, but I think planning supply could be an interesting mechanic.

 

[PG908]

Another problem might be how supply is essentially a non-issue. I never think about supply when I'm invading Russia for example. The supply situation must be really dire for me to take care of it (like when I'm landing in a lvl1 port in north canada with 24 divisions.

And when it is an issue, it's usually an issue for stupid reasons or basically impossible to fix. Very rarely is a supply issue reasonable or logical.

There' also an issue with ports. They're relatively limited in effectiveness. The throughput for a port is relatively low and inexpensive. I'd honestly suggest having ports work non-linearly like forts do. London is way more than 10x the port of nowhereville, for an example. Some form of actual supply efficiency would be nice, too. So a beachhead's supply will go up if you hold it and get the flow moving through the port. Again, multiple ports would be super nice for beacheads. The allies always have horrible supply issues even when they take a lot of ports (it's usually why Ddays fail in multiplayer. The allies are hard limited to a far fewer tanks than the axis will oppose them with). The allies did have supply issues in northern France, but nowhere near this bad.

 

[Meglok]

Fortunatly, ressource convoys cannot be attacked.

They will be liable to attack, just a matter of time. Now is the time to make sure PDS knows they need to address manual control of ALL convoys.

 

[PG908]

They will be liable to attack, just a matter of time. Now is the time to make sure PDS knows they need to address manual control of ALL convoys.

They can 100% be attacked. It was a problem particularly in the asian theater, where the allies were required to use convoys to transport all those resources they didn't actually need, and could be sunk by a successful japan.

 

[outis]

And when it is an issue, it's usually an issue for stupid reasons or basically impossible to fix. Very rarely is a supply issue reasonable or logical.

There' also an issue with ports. They're relatively limited in effectiveness. The throughput for a port is relatively low and inexpensive. I'd honestly suggest having ports work non-linearly like forts do. London is way more than 10x the port of nowhereville, for an example. Some form of actual supply efficiency would be nice, too. So a beachhead's supply will go up if you hold it and get the flow moving through the port. Again, multiple ports would be super nice for beacheads. The allies always have horrible supply issues even when they take a lot of ports (it's usually why Ddays fail in multiplayer. The allies are hard limited to a far fewer tanks than the axis will oppose them with). The allies did have supply issues in northern France, but nowhere near this bad.

AI always choice shortest path, even though there are longer path that has more throughput. Allowing one to manual setting the nodes (i.e. HQs) allow you to modify the path so you can get one that's better than default.

 

[bERt0r]

Only trade convoys from their puppets can be attacked.

Another problem might be how supply is essentially a non-issue. I never think about supply when I'm invading Russia for example. The supply situation must be really dire for me to take care of it (like when I'm landing in a lvl1 port in north canada with 24 divisions.

I remember caring about supply way more in HOI3. The system wasn't perfect. It could have been help by being able to create supply node where you could accumulate supply. Capturing a supply node would have meant capturing supply (like when you take the capital). Pathfinding for supply would then have been : Capital -> nearest units /node. Node -> nearest units/node and so on. Giving the people that wanted more granurality in handling supply a way to bypass pathfinding shortcomings in certain case and to prepare for offensive by preparing more supply. By default, each node would have received enough supply for units under them (supply and demand) but you could have modified the value to prevent unwanted shortage while still restraining from using too much supply as its quantity was limited as a whole.

I might do a small picture to explain it, but that was my reflections about hoi3 supply system as someone who sinked a lot of hours in it.

As for hoi4, I already said it, but the supply system feel arcadey, and is a non issue most of the time while it could be crippling in hoi3 if you lacked some foresight. Maybe because there is some dillution in your whole army of this need. Like, you just loose a lots of gun, but as long as you have a stockpile, there isn't any problems? Didn't give much thought as I don't have to care much about it.

Edit : Here I go, If it make any sense at all :
View attachment 319548

I don't know if it's a realistic solution as I don't know much about logistics during WW2. It could have helped during landing too by setting supply node on each port you take to share supply between ports.

Doesn't help with the actual issue of HOI4, but I think planning supply could be an interesting mechanic.

Funny i just thought of something similar. The whole point of the russian logistics nightmare the Germans had was that the trains were incompatible. The USSR should have a national spirit that lowers all infrastructure efficiency in occupied states by 50% or something. That means less supply and more time needed to build new infrastructure.

 

[bitmode]

Fortunatly, ressource convoys cannot be attacked.

Only trade convoys from their puppets can be attacked.

(A french resource route being raided by Japan)

I'd love, love, love the ability to manually specify supply/trade ports if I so desire.

If the AI can use that slightly competently too, yes. But at this point it could just as well be automated again

If I cannot launch a naval invasion through a seazone my convoys should not be able to go through that sea zone either.

Why not? I think a bunch of Allied shipping went through areas in the Atlantic that were not safe.

I'd like to see when I want to add supply the game to tell me where I need to build up infrastructure or ports to increase supply and by how much. Also supply should go to all possible ports.

This is puzzling to me because being able to tell were the bottleneck is was the central design goal of this supply system. Hovering on any supply area tells you where the bottleneck is. Routing supplies over all possible ports would make this much more difficult.

 

[Secret Master]

I think there is a misunderstanding regarding resource convoys.

If I understand the rules, they cannot be attacked by air power without naval units engaging the convoys. You can't spam the Bay of Biscay with NAVs and sink all that rubber coming from Ceylon. You'lll hit troop convoys and other stuff, but not the resource convoys. (Ditto for Germany in the Channel.)

If you have submarines or other naval units hitting convoys in the area, the NAVs can get in on the action.

 

[bERt0r]

You may be able to lower the trade efficiency but you are not able to actually sink any convoys.

 

[bitmode]

You may be able to lower the trade efficiency but you are not able to actually sink any convoys.

Wrong. The efficiency in the screenshot above is lowered precisely because Japan sunk convoys.

 

[kaguravitro]

Good analisys. Supply and commerce routes need changes.

 

[bERt0r]

Wrong. The efficiency in the screenshot above is lowered precisely because Japan sunk convoys.

I've been raiding seatiles around the Azores where the British aluminium convoys from South America go right through and didn't sink a single British convoy for the whole game. Not even a battle with a british flag. I had naval bombers, fighters for air superiority, radar, submarines and a surface fleet. I sunk 2000 soviet convoys (lend lease I think) but not a single British. Maybe you can do something about them if you raid directly in the seatile around the port.