Smoke and Mirrors supply system (No step back)

[Antillie]

That's a known bug and will be addressed in an upcoming patch.

Is it? Thank god. This issue is currently preventing the US, UK, and Japan from being able to have a pacific campaign. Its also seriously screwing up Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the UK in the Mediterranean and causing issues with Portugal.

Got a link to a blue comment about it? Arheo's comment implies that this is "working as intended".

 

[Bremen]

Is it? Thank god. This issue is currently preventing the US, UK, and Japan from being able to have a pacific campaign. Its also seriously screwing up Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the UK in the Mediterranean and causing issues with Portugal.

Got a link to a blue comment about it? Arheo's comment implies that this is "working as intended".

Rather, having a fleet docked at a port seems to interfere with the local supply above and beyond how it should, basically the fleet doesn't seem to draw supplies from the hub, just the state, and when it's docked any land divisions (and likely air? I haven't tried) also stop drawing supplies from the hub. It's in the known issues thread as "Armies do not get supply from the local naval hub if they stand on a port while there are ships in the harbour"

The supplies from a hub getting split up into small pie slices even on single islands with the port right there does seem to be working as intended, and I really really hope they change it.

 

[DaveyDave]

Is it? Thank god. This issue is currently preventing the US, UK, and Japan from being able to have a pacific campaign. Its also seriously screwing up Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the UK in the Mediterranean and causing issues with Portugal.

Got a link to a blue comment about it? Arheo's comment implies that this is "working as intended".

What happens is that the fleet and land units stationed in the port do not request supplies from the port/hub, and can use only supplies generated in the state. One workaround I've discovered is to use transport planes in the airzone of the affected area - even just a small number of transports can supply these units. Once addressed in the upcoming patch, that will no longer be necessary.

Patch 1.11 known issues

Hello all! I hope you're having a good time with the Barbarossa patch and the No Step Back DLC. As usual for new releases we are keeping an eye on bug reports and I'll try to keep the list of known issues found so far, as well as their fixes or...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Antillie]

Rather, having a fleet docked at a port seems to interfere with the local supply above and beyond how it should, basically the fleet doesn't seem to draw supplies from the hub, just the state, and when it's docked any land divisions (and likely air? I haven't tried) also stop drawing supplies from the hub. It's in the known issues thread as "Armies do not get supply from the local naval hub if they stand on a port while there are ships in the harbour"

The supplies from a hub getting split up into small pie slices even on single islands with the port right there does seem to be working as intended, and I really really hope they change it.

What happens is that the fleet and land units stationed in the port do not request supplies from the port/hub, and can use only supplies generated in the state. One workaround I've discovered is to use transport planes in the airzone of the affected area - even just a small number of transports can supply these units. Once addressed in the upcoming patch, that will no longer be necessary.

Patch 1.11 known issues

Hello all! I hope you're having a good time with the Barbarossa patch and the No Step Back DLC. As usual for new releases we are keeping an eye on bug reports and I'll try to keep the list of known issues found so far, as well as their fixes or...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Yeah the issue with ships being in the port is a separate problem. To quote myself:

However much supply a hub has should be distributed among all division in range, with no cap on how much supply any one province can receive, aside from the limit of how much supply the hub is able to draw from the rail network after accounting for any reduction due to tac/cas logistics bombing. The range can of course be affected by terrain and motorization level.

So say I have 15 supply worth of divisions in a hub's area of effect and the hub can draw 15 supply from the rail line. It should make no difference if those units are in five different provinces or stacked in one province. The hub has 15, they need 15 and are in range of the hub, everything is fine. Now if I move 5 more supply worth of units into the area I have a a problem. Or, if the enemy starts doing logistical bombing and cuts the hub down to say 10 available supply I also have a problem. If the rail line gets cut by some fast light tank division, or a paradrop, or strat bombing I have a problem. But the hub shouldn't constrain my ability to move my units around within its range to suit the current tactical situation.

This problem makes naval invasions of meaningful size impossible and prevents you from being able to use places like Guam, Iwo Gima, and Malta. The pacific campaign currently can't be played which makes playing as the US, UK, or Japan in a historical game impossible and the war in the Mediterranean is also really screwed up with Malta and the Greek and Turkish coats being heavily affected. Portugal also suffers quite a bit. You also cannot effectively defend El Alamein.

 

[Bremen]

Yeah the issue with ships being in the port is a separate problem. To quote myself:

However much supply a hub has should be distributed among all division in range, with no cap on how much supply any one province can receive, aside from the limit of how much supply the hub is able to draw from the rail network after accounting for any reduction due to tac/cas logistics bombing. The range can of course be affected by terrain and motorization level.

So say I have 15 supply worth of divisions in a hub's area of effect and the hub can draw 15 supply from the rail line. It should make no difference if those units are in five different provinces or stacked in one province. The hub has 15, they need 15 and are in range of the hub, everything is fine. Now if I move 5 more supply worth of units into the area I have a a problem. Or, if the enemy starts doing logistical bombing and cuts the hub down to say 10 available supply I also have a problem. If the rail line gets cut by some fast light tank division, or a paradrop, or strat bombing I have a problem. But the hub shouldn't constrain my ability to move my units around within its range to suit the current tactical situation.

This problem makes naval invasions of meaningful size impossible and prevents you from being able to use places like Guam, Iwo Gima, and Malta. The pacific campaign currently can't be played which makes playing as the US, UK, or Japan in a historical game impossible and the war in the Mediterranean is also really screwed up with Malta and the Greek and Turkish coats being heavily affected. Portugal also suffers quite a bit.

I think the current system could make sense for provinces distant from the hub; it makes sense that a hub might not be able to send the full 15 supply to a big army four provinces away through poor infrastructure hills and mountains, even if the trains carry enough. Admittedly this wasn't a concern in previous versions, where a supply zone could evenly distribute supplies to all units inside the zone, but railways make it a lot easier to get meaningful supplies from the coast to inland China or whatever and I understand they didn't want to make the supply system too easy.

What I don't understand is why they decided to apply that even to units standing on top of the hub itself. If, say, the hub province had supply potential equal to the hub throughput itself, then adjacent provinces had some larger proportion of it, with the amount available in each province falling as it moved away from the hub, similar as it does now, I think that would solve most of my issues with the new system. Motorization level could then reduce the rate of falloff, which again I think is basically how it works now.

And yeah, this includes the complete nonsense of your amphibious invasion getting crushed before they can spread out because the game won't let a large number of divisions be supplied in the same province, even when the port where all the supplies are coming from is right there.

 

[Antillie]

I think the current system could make sense for provinces distant from the hub; it makes sense that a hub might not be able to send the full 15 supply to a big army four provinces away through poor infrastructure hills and mountains, even if the trains carry enough. Admittedly this wasn't a concern in previous versions, where a supply zone could evenly distribute supplies to all units inside the zone, but railways make it a lot easier to get meaningful supplies from the coast to inland China or whatever and I understand they didn't want to make the supply system too easy.

What I don't understand is why they decided to apply that even to units standing on top of the hub itself. If, say, the hub province had supply potential equal to the hub throughput itself, then adjacent provinces had some larger proportion of it, with the amount available in each province falling as it moved away from the hub, similar as it does now, I think that would solve most of my issues with the new system. Motorization level could then reduce the rate of falloff, which again I think is basically how it works now.

I think there is room for "falloff" of supply level over distance based on terrain, weather, motorization level, and air attack. But the current system where divisions are fine if spread out across four or five provinces but starve if they are in only one or two provinces is just dumb. Its counterintuitive and limits gameplay choices. Not to mention it totally breaks the pacific, El Alamein, and parts of the Mediterranean.

 

[SmallBamboo]

Been lurking this thread, and while on paper i was getting the main points, in-game i'm getting this situation where enemy AI doesn't run out of supplies even though they have no hub in the region and, most importantly, no access to the capital.
I probably miss something here, but i though that, like in the old supply system, once the capital gets encircled, everything else runs out of supplies pretty quickly.

tldr the enemy doesn't run out of supplies even though they have no connection to their capital

 

[safe-keeper]

I know this is a sample size of one, but I was disappointed by how fast China fell in my game. I was hoping the supply system would make things more tricky for Japan, but the Chinese capitulated in 1939 #isitjustme.

 

[Bremen]

Been lurking this thread, and while on paper i was getting the main points, in-game i'm getting this situation where enemy AI doesn't run out of supplies even though they have no hub in the region and, most importantly, no access to the capital.
I probably miss something here, but i though that, like in the old supply system, once the capital gets encircled, everything else runs out of supplies pretty quickly.

tldr the enemy doesn't run out of supplies even though they have no connection to their capital
View attachment 778980

The local area generates a small amount of supplies regardless of hub status (I think it's based on VPs); looking at that screenshot it probably wouldn't be enough in that situation though. Do the units have a red supply malus when you attack them?

I know this is a sample size of one, but I was disappointed by how fast China fell in my game. I was hoping the supply system would make things more tricky for Japan, but the Chinese capitulated in 1939 #isitjustme.

I've been playing a Japan campaign and I found attacking China a lot easier now. It's much easier to build rail connections than bring everywhere's infrastructure up, and the new low supply penalties feel more forgiving than the old super punishing ones.

 

[SmallBamboo]

The local area generates a small amount of supplies regardless of hub status (I think it's based on VPs); looking at that screenshot it probably wouldn't be enough in that situation though. Do the units have a red supply malus when you attack them?

They eventually run out of supplies, but it took several weeks (when i took the screenshot i had just captured valencia, maybe it was enough to supply all those units), might be because those are really small divisions (6 and 8 width it seems).

 

[safe-keeper]

The local area generates a small amount of supplies regardless of hub status (I think it's based on VPs); looking at that screenshot it probably wouldn't be enough in that situation though. Do the units have a red supply malus when you attack them?



I've been playing a Japan campaign and I found attacking China a lot easier now. It's much easier to build rail connections than bring everywhere's infrastructure up, and the new low supply penalties feel more forgiving than the old super punishing ones.

Cries in Nationalist Chinese

 

[Axe99]

I know this is a sample size of one, but I was disappointed by how fast China fell in my game. I was hoping the supply system would make things more tricky for Japan, but the Chinese capitulated in 1939 #isitjustme.

To extend the sample slightly, in my SOV game (and I haven't helped the Chinese at all either), they're doing just fine, I think still have Beijing, but are holding out in the north, and Japan isn't making much in the way of progress at all. I've read other reports of China falling quickly, and some of it holding on well, so it seems like there's quite a spectrum.

 

[safe-keeper]

Ah, okay. Guess I'll wait for more data. Thanks.

 

[WindingArc]

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty disappointed that supplies still come from the capitol. Because Washington D.C. is a famously industrial city, producing all the supplies of the US military.

I agree. Ideally, there would be a hierarchy of supply hubs, or else some non-capital core states from which supply could flow to other states. Maybe hubs in states with a particular number of buildings or building slots could serve as regional supply capitals? Or maybe the setup could be edited to include regional supply capitals in major industrial areas like the Ruhr and New York?

I'd also very much like to see trade routed through supply hubs and ports somehow, both to better simulate trade routes (Caucasian oil, Swedish minerals and Siamese rubber come to mind) and to facilitate adding trains and trucks as costs to overland trade routes.

3. Yes, [motorized supply hubs consuming fuel are] on the radar to look into as a possible balance change.

That would be great. Any type of marginal cost per hub or unit of supply capacity would be a welcome change.

That is the part i have a gripe with. Let me visualize it with some screenshots.

Screenshot 1: The army of 264 000 men is standing on the supply hub. On top of the port, and is receiving 8,73 supplies / 20,37 requested = 43%
Screenshot 2: The army has spread around inland, into jungles and hills. And this has increased supply.

Screenshot 3/4: The distance traveled.

Moving the army hundreds of kilometers (in air distance) inland. Has alleviated the supply issue, which the army was suffering from. I find this very unintuitive.

I agree. Perhaps urban terrain could be changed to have very high potential local supply? I'd also like to see victory points increase local potential supply in the same way terrain affects it now, although to a much smaller degree than urban terrain.

I think ports are literally OP in real life though. This feels right.

e.g., modern day:

The point isn't that ports shouldn't be able to support huge supply throughputs; it's that they're far too cheap to construct in the current game build. I'd be in favor of making new ports as prohibitively expensive to build as new supply hubs are, particularly for owners of No Step Back since they can deploy mulberry harbors instead of building new level 1 ports.

 

[Novat]

Been lurking this thread, and while on paper i was getting the main points, in-game i'm getting this situation where enemy AI doesn't run out of supplies even though they have no hub in the region and, most importantly, no access to the capital.
I probably miss something here, but i though that, like in the old supply system, once the capital gets encircled, everything else runs out of supplies pretty quickly.

tldr the enemy doesn't run out of supplies even though they have no connection to their capital

I tried to recreate the issue in my own game, using console commands to tag switch around in order to investigate supply zones on both sides.

What seems to happen is that, when a capitol is surrounded and cut off from the supply network. The ''second in command'' capitol, seems to be prematurely assigned the role of capitol city for logistics purposes. Even though the actual capitol has yet to be captured.

As you can see in the first Screenshot. The game does not recognize that Madrid, the capitol city, has a logistics connection to the capitol. And that, in the exact same game state. The next in line for capitol city, Madrid has already been assigned the supply ''production'' associated with civilian and military factories. Third screenshot, Madrid has been taken and Barcelona is the ''official'' capitol city, but for the purposes of logistics and supply there is no difference between these three screenshots.

Not sure how i feel about this to be honest. The way the capitol city currently works as the center of your logistics network, and how factories add to the total supply in the network. This does necessitate an abstraction of how supply is produced and transported from the location of your factory to your capitol. But this also means that, encircling the capitol would mean supply teleports past enemy lines into your capitol from the far away factories. And supply hubs outside of the pocket, receives 0 supply. I would say the solution to the problem is crude, yet effective. One upping would be to create a ''two capitol'' system, but the current system seems functional enough and there are other issues to tackle first.

Edit: No need to post another reply.
I did mess around in single player with console commands, trying to break the system. But it seems fairly robust in recognizing it's own network. What constitutes an encircled capitol, is determined by the connection it has to the supply hubs and not who controls the individual tiles. So you cannot leave open a gap in order to have the capitol still function as the logistics center.
You cannot make a bigger encirclement, so that the capitol connects to a single other hub while several others not connected suffers. But i'm not sure what the break off point is.
I think it would be feasible, through VERY convoluted play to game the system into erroneously disconnecting large portions of the network through very specific capture of territory versus a handful of countries. But i seriously doubt this will ever occur in normal play, and most certainly never against a human opponent.

 

[Axe99]

The point isn't that ports shouldn't be able to support huge supply throughputs; it's that they're far too cheap to construct in the current game build. I'd be in favor of making new ports as prohibitively expensive to build as new supply hubs are, particularly for owners of No Step Back since they can deploy mulberry harbors instead of building new level 1 ports.

Level 1 ports though (a pier or two in a bay with enough depth to allow ships to enter, and with a warehouse or two and an admin building) are not expensive to build. Something like Portsmouth or New York, or course, should be very expensive, but significant amount of supply during WW2 went over small ports as well as the big ones. I think the devs introducing an additional port cost per level in the new beta patch is a good move, but the base cost feels off (relatively to historical plausibility and game design from my angle, but I appreciate game design preferences are subjective and my preferences may well be a bit silly ).

 

[Antillie]

Level 1 ports though (a pier or two in a bay with enough depth to allow ships to enter, and with a warehouse or two and an admin building) are not expensive to build. Something like Portsmouth or New York, or course, should be very expensive, but significant amount of supply during WW2 went over small ports as well as the big ones. I think the devs introducing an additional port cost per level in the new beta patch is a good move, but the base cost feels off (relatively to historical plausibility and game design from my angle, but I appreciate game design preferences are subjective and my preferences may well be a bit silly ).

To be honest they are only trying to keep people from breaking the current supply system by building a chain of level 1 ports as they advance along the coast. To me this indicates a more fundamental flaw in the system than ports simply being somewhat cheap to build.

That is literally the only reason hubs cost so much to build. The moment you brute force it and spam hubs (or ports) as say, the US with their massive civ count, the whole system breaks down completely.

 

[WindingArc]

Level 1 ports though (a pier or two in a bay with enough depth to allow ships to enter, and with a warehouse or two and an admin building) are not expensive to build. Something like Portsmouth or New York, or course, should be very expensive, but significant amount of supply during WW2 went over small ports as well as the big ones. I think the devs introducing an additional port cost per level in the new beta patch is a good move, but the base cost feels off (relatively to historical plausibility and game design from my angle, but I appreciate game design preferences are subjective and my preferences may well be a bit silly ).

Were those types of ports built frequently during the period, particularly under wartime conditions? Also, if you need some type of natural harbor to make them cheap to build, then universally cheap level 1 ports are both somewhat unrealistic and, as Antillie said above, a serious liability to the integrity of the game's supply system.

 

[Axe99]

Were those types of ports built frequently during the period, particularly under wartime conditions? Also, if you need some type of natural harbor to make them cheap to build, then universally cheap level 1 ports are both somewhat unrealistic and, as Antillie said above, a serious liability to the integrity of the game's supply system.

There were quite a few built during WW2, during the Pacific, while in Europe there's quite a few not in the map that perhaps should be there now that they're so integral to the supply system (Mersa Matruh, for example, which saw substantial supplies landed at it when it was close to the front lines). It's true that not every province would have an appropriate bay or inlet that could be turned into an effective port, but this might be best handled mechanically (although the content work would be a bit painful) by a province-based cost modifier, rather than assuming nowhere had places where new ports could be built.

As for the integrity of the supply system, I actually think it's being held back by more fundamental design issues (that also contribute to the port proliferation issue) - the supply fall-off curve seems a bit steep, particularly at its tail, creating a historically implausible incentive to build more ports or supply hubs than might have been needed historically. I could be wrong, and am yet to test it (I'll play with the new beta first and try and help spot bugs, before I get my hands dirty modding) - but I think some changes to how the supply system spreads out from a hub (and bear in mind once it's a few provinces out, it's likely to only be able to support one division max, at partial supply) would go a long way to dealing with the various issues the system has at the moment (primarily UX is inconsistent with the mechanical/content design, and the mechanical/content design has historically implausible supply "dead zones" that can only be fixed with wildly out-of-proportion levels of industrial investment).

As for the supply system breaking down once the US gets its CIC in the mix (which is still the case even with the historically implausible costs we've got for supply hubs now) that's something I'd need to think more on, and may be beyond modding to resolve - but that's an issue right now regardless of port cost (increasing building cost is a partial band-aid at least - and preventing any building literally railroads the supply network, which in turn ahistorically railroads gameplay).

 

[SmallBamboo]

What constitutes an encircled capitol, is determined by the connection it has to the supply hubs and not who controls the individual tiles. So you cannot leave open a gap in order to have the capitol still function as the logistics center.
You cannot make a bigger encirclement, so that the capitol connects to a single other hub while several others not connected suffers.

I don't think i understand what you're saying here: are you saying that, as long as the capitol has a connection to a single supply hub, it's recognized by the game as the supply center, while if it has no connections, another city (based on VP i guess) automatically becomes the new supply center?
So, if i got it right, to sum it up:
-Encircled capitol, but inside the encirclement there is a connected hub: the capitol is still the supply center, and everything outside this encirclement suffers
-Pure encircled capitol without connections: another city becomes the new supply center (and the capitol poket should run out of supplies by this logic)