Qingdao. Who's dumb idea was that...?

[womble]

A level 10 port on an isthmus of low level infrastructure. A Level 10 port that consistently gets assigned as Japan's "supply source" for China. Now, it wouldn't be so bad, and it's not for a long time, because all the other ports feed supply directly out there to the wide Chinese spaces, and keep your troops fed, while the supplies in Qingdao build up and up behind the bottleneck.

Until the fateful day that the size of the stockpile, augmented by the supply stockpiles of all the Chinese factions you've conquered gets to the size where it turns off the convoys. You can turn them back on, but they only bring 1 each of supplies and fuel no matter the size of the port they're supposed to be serving.

Questions:

Why does the supply source stockpile have any effect on whether the other ports operate or not?

Is Qingdao really that huge a port with a hinterland of muddy lanes that can't ever hope to handle its throughput?

Why doesn't the supply source shift to Shanghai (Level 10 port on Infra 6) when it becomes available?

I hadn't played Japan before, and I'm at the start of '39 now, only just having researched "advanced construction" (Hmm. Where did all those loveley level10 infra provinces in Nippon come from? I thought Japan was pretty hilly, not criscrossed with convenient flat tarmac valleys). The first infra I built, the day I got the ability to do so, has just completed, and because Qingdao has told Logistics High Command that its got food rotting in its warehouses, the stevedores on Nagasaki's docks stand idle. This is a terrible disconnect, because my supply demand is just getting ever higher, as more troops run short and start demanding "replenishment" levels rather than "maintenance" levels.

 

[Federkiel]

Questions:

Why does the supply source stockpile have any effect on whether the other ports operate or not?

Is Qingdao really that huge a port with a hinterland of muddy lanes that can't ever hope to handle its throughput?

Why doesn't the supply source shift to Shanghai (Level 10 port on Infra 6) when it becomes available?

I hadn't played Japan before, and I'm at the start of '39 now, only just having researched "advanced construction" (Hmm. Where did all those loveley level10 infra provinces in Nippon come from? I thought Japan was pretty hilly, not criscrossed with convenient flat tarmac valleys). The first infra I built, the day I got the ability to do so, has just completed, and because Qingdao has told Logistics High Command that its got food rotting in its warehouses, the stevedores on Nagasaki's docks stand idle. This is a terrible disconnect, because my supply demand is just getting ever higher, as more troops run short and start demanding "replenishment" levels rather than "maintenance" levels.

Only devs can answer by correcting the imbalance.

Regarding your complaint: Japan had a comparative high infrastructrue since the middle ages. Loads of roads and a pretty advanced network of them all across the land.

Them Japanese not being able to build infra at game start while having such high infra all around is another secret only devs can reveal by correcting this obvious bug.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Regarding your complaint: Japan had a comparative high infrastructrue since the middle ages. Loads of roads and a pretty advanced network of them all across the land.

Them Japanese not being able to build infra at game start while having such high infra all around is another secret only devs can reveal by correcting this obvious bug.

Regarding this I don't think that's necessary a bug. Infrastructure to supply a division sized army will be made up 90% by railways, so what Japan need is a large heavy Industries division producing steel and thousands off locomotives.

I'm actually not sure this was present in 1936 Japan.

 

[Federkiel]

Regarding this I don't think that's necessary a bug. Infrastructure to supply a division sized army will be made up 90% by railways, so what Japan need is a large heavy Industries division producing steel and thousands off locomotives.

I'm actually not sure this was present in 1936 Japan.

Reasonable point but where does their infra come from then at all?

They certainly had the ability to produce rails and locomotives. To which extend they did make use of it or whether they decided to meld their steel into BBs remains unknown to me. But they certainly could have improved their infra if they had wished to in '36.

The exact amount of infra to be produced might be debatable but the ability unoubtably was there.


Spoken in game mechanics: Most major powers can produce infra and depending on their industrial capacity they can build thousands to trillions of kilometers of railways and locomotives if the players only decides to do so.

Why should an advanced JAP as it was be denied that ability? Clearly makes no sense.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Spoken in game mechanics: Most major powers can produce infra and depending on their industrial capacity they can build thousands to trillions of kilometers of railways and locomotives if the players only decides to do so.

Why should an advanced JAP as it was be denied that ability? Clearly makes no sense.

Well UK, Soviet and France don't have it in the 1936 start either, the only reason I can think off is some ability to build it as quickly as in a single year somehow requires very advanced machines or something.

Or Ill just agree with you and say that it makes no sense ^^

 

[unmerged(148761)]

Well they do make the best beer in China there. Perhaps your supply officers are too drunk to operate efficiently.

Personally, I think it is silly that you need to research a tech to build infrastructure, although there should be techs that allow you to build it much more quickly. The generally bad starting infrastructure in China does make sense-- they only had about 15,000 km of railway in this period, most of which was of pretty poor quality-- but the infra in ports should by high, especially that in a place like Qingdao which was owned and developed by foreign powers for so long.

 

[womble]

So I'm thinking "Maybe this is one time where letting a puppet go makes some sense. But...no.

Create Menguko? You get a pissy little country that's just going to get in the way of an attack on Russia.

Release Shanxi? Doesn't give 'em Qingdao, so no help there.

Release NatChi? Lose a quarter of your IC, and the abililty to do anything with the rest of the country, including in the Guangxi Clique areas? Nothing doing, homes.

So there is literally nothing I can do to sort this out in a reasonable timescale short of evacuating the mainland. I guess I'll build some Carriers.

 

[Ingtar]

Japan "hired out" much of the infrastructure work before WWII.

 

[unmerged(148761)]

Release NatChi? Lose a quarter of your IC, and the abililty to do anything with the rest of the country, including in the Guangxi Clique areas? Nothing doing, homes.

Actually, if you annex all Chinese states and then realease them as a greater Nationalist China you get a large, fairly powerful puppet that you don't have to occupy and that can help you out. It's also a historically accurate option.

 

[Poh]

seems like the AI also like to use Haikou as a main supply stash though its even worse than Qingdao.
its really :wacko:

 

[208]

Qingdao. Who's dumb idea was that...?

Germany's.

 

[cwg9]

Yes, those two chinese ports are game killing depots for Japan due to the land bottlenecks.

The fun really starts when you get a land connection to south east asia and india from there and you can't supply a single division from Delhi to Singapore to Beijing.

At this point just start building nukes and go to town, since clearly, according to Paradox and all their defenders, these quirks in the supply system are working as designed and you're just dumb and don't understand the system and how it's supposed to be hard.

Their ridiculous solution is to give you an "arcade" mode and let you turn the whole system off, when all people really want is for supplies to consistently and predictably flow into the network through all their ports. Why is that so much to ask for?

 

[unmerged(56429)]

Have we heard from PI whether there are any plans in PI to fix supply bugs in the expansion, like this Qingdao bottleneck. Reasonable fixes would be the following:
1. The AI should build infrastructure improvements around Qingdao to clear out the bottleneck.
2. Apparently Japan and some other majors cant build infrastructure without researching a tech improvement. They should have that ability, although possibly to a lesser extent than countries like Germany and US. Suggested change, every Major (and perhaps even minor nations) can build infrastructure, but those with infrastructure tech can build it faster and cheaper.
3. If a port is a bottleneck, where supplies get there but dont get out, the system should move the supply center to a port that is not bottlenecked.
4. Ports should be evaluated to see which ones have the supplies there moved out, and which ones dont, because of a bottleneck. Shipments to ports where supplies are moved forward should have increased convoys, while convoys are decreased or eliminated at ports with bottlenecks.

 

[womble]

Actually, if you annex all Chinese states and then realease them as a greater Nationalist China you get a large, fairly powerful puppet that you don't have to occupy and that can help you out. It's also a historically accurate option.

NatChi building militia isn't going to help me build carriers to dominate the Pacific, is it? I've got the land troops built, to a large extent, apart from the Marines and Paras, and the AI wouldn't use them right, even if it did build them. No, I'll weather the supply storm, thanks.

 

[unmerged(148761)]

NatChi building militia isn't going to help me build carriers to dominate the Pacific, is it? I've got the land troops built, to a large extent, apart from the Marines and Paras, and the AI wouldn't use them right, even if it did build them. No, I'll weather the supply storm, thanks.

Every resource they get over 1000 will go to you. It is a much better way of collecting resources than owning it, because it won't be decreased by revolters. And Nationalist China's troops will help against the Soviets. You start the game with more functional carriers than the US will ever have, how many more do you need?

 

[unmerged(156412)]

From the looks of it, Japan did have a well developed infastructure. The only thing was it wasnt coordinated until 1938.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_Japan

 

[womble]

Every resource they get over 1000 will go to you. It is a much better way of collecting resources than owning it, because it won't be decreased by revolters.

I don't need any more resources, other than oil to turn into fuel (and there's none of that on the mainland); holding what I have is getting me enough to run my IC. Not having China under my thumb would mean I'd need 20% less resources anyway.

And Nationalist China's troops will help against the Soviets.

With their substandard officer ratio, unresearched techs and inadequate tactical control, they'll be very little more buffer to an aggressive Soviet than the open spaces and crap troops of Manchuko already provide, and no use at all in offensive operations should I decide that I need to add the Siberian Resource Area to my holdings.

You start the game with more functional carriers than the US will ever have, how many more do you need?

Enough to beat the UK/Commonwealth, who I know will be fielding multiple 6-CAG fleets in a couple of years. The US almost certainly won't conduct offensive operations against me unless I poke the Phillipines and I have no need to do that. I've laid down 4 CVs in Autumn 39 with '40 techs, and my air techs are up to date.

 

[blue emu]

A possible fix might be to allow Infrastructure to be built by any country, but slowly... and the Advanced Construction Engineering tech doubles or triples the speed of Infra construction.

 

[unmerged(141851)]

I hadn't played Japan before....

This sums it up right here. For those of us who have played Japan all the way through, we can only say....good luck! :rofl:

 

[Galithor]

I've got the same problem in my current game. All supplies shipped to the mainland from every port are routing up to Haikou, and then being redistributed back out around the continent. Before that, it was Qingdao.

It is comical to see supplies reach Chittagong by sea, then have to be moved to Southern China, to then be moved back to India.

"Sorry Infantry, we know you're thirsty, but these supplies need to be moved to South China to get checked by logistics before we can bring them back and give them to you"

Forget the infrastructure solutions, why is the entire mainland theatre routing through ONE supply depot? That's not even remotely realistic.