Smoke and Mirrors supply system (No step back)

  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
The truck use being static makes sense to me. If you motorize a supply depot they're not running to the capital to pick up a truck every time it's needed and then bringing it back, they're setting up a motor pool or something where they have trucks to drive out with supplies when needed.

Now if it does start using fuel it might make sense that the fuel use goes up or down depending on how many supplies are being delivered. But honestly I'm not sure it needs to use fuel either since, well, I think "realism" is a really bad thing to base game design on and I don't see how it actually adds anything fun to the gameplay.
 
  • 11
  • 3
  • 1Like
Reactions:
The truck use being static makes sense to me. If you motorize a supply depot they're not running to the capital to pick up a truck every time it's needed and then bringing it back, they're setting up a motor pool or something where they have trucks to drive out with supplies when needed.

Now if it does start using fuel it might make sense that the fuel use goes up or down depending on how many supplies are being delivered. But honestly I'm not sure it needs to use fuel either since, well, I think "realism" is a really bad thing to base game design on and I don't see how it actually adds anything fun to the gameplay.
It adds meaningful decisions. Right now it is incredibly cheap to motorize your entire army's logistics. If it costs fuel, you are now deciding where to spend your fuel. Why didn't Germany motorize their logistics in real life? Fuel and industry to build trucks. In game Germany can do both with almost 0 problems
 
  • 13
  • 3Like
  • 1
Reactions:
A patchwork solution to fuel consumption may work like this.

Given a define to control fuel consumption through supply trucks (for modders), multiply this by the sum of the trucks used in all logistical operations. It can act like constant drain on fuel income because the logi trucks are currently always operating everywhere. It would be problematic to toggle supply trucks in depots to follow army advances and turn off trucks in depots far from fighting, but that's sort of already an issue.

If trucks per motorization level is also in the defines for modders this should create a reasonably flexible system for them. It may also open workarounds for mods like OWB which might not want to have such a complex logistical system. They can set the high level of motorization to be 1 or 2 units of truck consuming 0 or nearly 0 fuel if they like.
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. I personally find it very silly that providing 0.1 supply uses 100 motorized and providing 10 supply also uses 100 motorized.
Nah, sounds like the Brass Works in Mysterious Ways business you AFAIK encounter all the time in the army.

"But sir, 69th division only requires this crate of a hundred rifle bullets!"
"We've been assigned a hundred trucks so a hundred trucks it is! Do you want to put all our eggs in one basket? Load a single bullet onto the back of each truck and let's go!"
 
Last edited:
  • 5Haha
  • 3
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Modders (like me!) can at least hope for a define that allows for motorization to be based on supply though...

And how will you program the AI to account for widely varying truck numbers as the fronts evolve? {Rhetorical question. You can't}
 
  • 9
Reactions:
And how will you program the AI to account for widely varying truck numbers as the fronts evolve? {Rhetorical question. You can't}
It's not that hard to mod, actually. Giving an overall higher production priority to trucks is a good start. I haven't checked AI logic for evaluating turning on supply hubs yet (waiting on documentation for 1.11 before I start any serious work).

Regardless, arguing not to make a system hypothetically more moddable because you don't think I (or another, more talented modder) can figure out how to mod it is no argument at all. At worst we can't make it work, and we disable it and use the vanilla logic, and at best we figure out how to use it the way we want and can add a cool feature to a mod.

Don't presume to tell me what I can figure out how to mod effectively and what I can't.
 
Last edited:
  • 3
  • 2Like
Reactions:
It's not that hard to mod, actually. Giving an overall higher production priority to trucks is a good start. I haven't checked AI logic for evaluating turning on supply hubs yet (waiting on documentation for 1.11 before I start any serious work).

Regardless, arguing not to make a system hypothetically more moddable because you don't think I (or another, more talented modder) can figure out how to mod it is no argument at all. At worst we can't make it work, and we disable it and use the vanilla logic, and at best we figure out how to use it the way we want and can add a cool feature to a mod.

Don't presume to tell me what I can figure out how to mod effectively and what I can't.
I'm going by what the devs said - it's an unmanageable system for *humans*. The other strawman arguments can be ignored.
 
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
Don't presume to tell me what I can figure out how to mod effectively and what I can't.

I'm not. But I won't hold my breath waiting for it. And if there was a bookie taking bets I would place my money on it not being accomplished. That's my opinion to your opinion.
 
  • 4
  • 3
Reactions:
HOI3 logistic is computationally expensive. And it doesn't really work as intended either ( a lot of broken stuff going on).
Good thing we have railroads to route the supply making the computation easier as HOI3 would try to route it along any available province you controlled to try and get it to where it needed to go. Here the player is in control. Computational problem solved as railroads that are built limit the number of possible computations

Code:
|--------(100)-----|
|---(20)---| |
|[40/40]|---(40)---[?]
|---(40)---|
How much capacity is available for the ? hub? Answer: 40 ;-) How is it priorizied? What "stream" is it taken from? Where does it go to? How do you make it workable for the user? And so on and so forth. Under that considerations, the supply "spawning" (your words, not mine) is an acceptable tradeoff.
It is taken from whatever stream has the available supply.

As for what is prioritized, well if we borrowed HOI3s system of priortizing certain armies or army groups for supply that would certainly help with priortizing routing wouldn't you think beyond the whole theatre level. Otherwise the only other way to determine it would be divisions designated as elite would get priortized for getting the routed supply first. So it would work like this 1) Supply is routed to priority theatres, 2) Check for any divisions designated as elite. 3) elite divisions get first pick, 4) supply rest of military in theatre.

For usable, second paragraph as this only requires a little management and automation can do the rest


It may be that I'm not understanding your vision clearly here, but I really don't see the value in simulating transported goods. In a game with such a wide strategic layer, it doesn't add anything to the player decision making - which is really how we should be designing features, not as a deep simulation first (despite how much I love simulation within grand strategy).

You all ready do this with convoys with lend-lease. By that logic let us abandon sinking lend-lease convoys and consigning it to the bottom of the ocean. And I've detailed why it is important in the strategic layer. If each tank, rifle, and so fourth must go from homeland to the frontline that is a vulnerability that can be potentially targeted. Each train, truck, and so fourth carrying these materials destroyed also destroys the equipment they are transporting.

Which then means players, just like with convoys need to ensure their railways are protected. They can do this by maintaining air superiority where they need the supplies to get. Meanwhile their interdiction of enemy rail transportation is depriving their frontline divisions of supply. That tank division is no longer getting it's replacements because the factories can't keep up. Speaking of which once enough factories are made that is no longer an issue anyway. It is now not getting it's replacements because the replacements on the train shipment were destroyed.

This sounds just like lend-lease convoys so unless your going to do away with simulating transportation of lend-lease equipment you just torpedoed your own argument. After all simulating transportation of lend-lease goods doesn't add anything to player decision making or strategy. They should really just poof over to the receiving player instantly,
 
Last edited:
  • 5Like
  • 4
  • 2
Reactions:
Another example of the implication of the system.
First of, each division in the screenshots use 1,02 supply. This is deliberate, so it's easy to follow how much supply is being requested by the army at a glance.
I built a supply hub on the border between Siam and Singapore, i consider this to be very reasonable considering the Japanese can Ally Siam through a focus prior to attacking the Allied powers.

Screenshots in order, with some explanation

Screen 1: The Japanese has set up a supply depot, and a sizeable army on the northern border to Singapore. Deploying 25 divisions, consuming about 25,5 supply. The entire army is 100% supplied.
The British army has set up 30 divisions, using about 30,5 supply. All the divisions are fully supplied. The units have been set up to offer resistance at the border, especially at the north-western port. The army continues south, along the important railway connection and the adjacent tiles. The Eastern port has been fortified, as has Singapore itself along with the air field immediately north of Singapore city. 4 unimportant tiles have been left undefended.

Screen 2: The Japanese has pushed the border, and captured the port. A railroad has begun construction, to integrate it with the Siamese railroad network. The Japanese army is fully supplied.
The British army has fallen back, forming a new defensive further back. Most of the army is behind the river. Supply is still 100%.

Screen 3: The port of Kuala Lumpur has fallen. The British has been pushed back, and the loss of this vital supply hub has seriously impacted the Brittish ability to maintain formation so far away from the now only remaining supply hub in Singapore itself. The two front line tiles, can only supply three divisions each.

Screen 4: The British army has pulled back, in order to more efficiently supply it's army... would be the realistic outcome. However, in game. Moving your army closer to the supply hub, has in fact the OPPOSITE effect. The British army has starved itself of supply by moving closer to the source of supply.

At this point on, each additional JUNGLE tile lost. Reduces the total available supply in the area, the hub has a maximum throughput of 31, that is how much supply it can receive. But it only receives 24, because the units ARE NOT FAR ENOUGH AWAY FROM THE SUPPLY HUB!

Edit:
Proposal for fix.
Supply hub should ALWAYS have maximum supply available. There should be no possible scenarios, where Singapore has less than the maximum of 31 as shown in the screenshot. Then tiles further away from the supply hub, should have a % of the maximum available on the hub as potential supply.

Supply ''region'' has 30 supply. This is constant, it cannot be reduced as long as the logistics line is undisturbed.
Hub = 30 supply, cannot be reduced.
+1 province = 24, 80%
+2 province = 18, 60%
+3 province = 12, 40%
+4 province = 6, 20%

Just some example numbers. Adjust based on terrain, trucks, weather, and other factors.
 

Attachments

  • singaporeprelude.PNG
    singaporeprelude.PNG
    2,2 MB · Views: 0
  • Singaporeattack2.PNG
    Singaporeattack2.PNG
    1,7 MB · Views: 0
  • singaporeattack4.PNG
    singaporeattack4.PNG
    2,6 MB · Views: 0
  • singaporetrap.PNG
    singaporetrap.PNG
    2,6 MB · Views: 0
Last edited:
  • 9
  • 5Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
Why does the railway in the screenshot provided. Inform me that it has a maximum throughput of 35 supply, it being level 35. But the 54 divisions on Singapore receives 48,23 Supply from the network?
 

Attachments

  • supplythroughputcap.PNG
    supplythroughputcap.PNG
    2,1 MB · Views: 0
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Proposal for fix.
Supply hub should ALWAYS have maximum supply available. There should be no possible scenarios, where Singapore has less than the maximum of 31 as shown in the screenshot. Then tiles further away from the supply hub, should have a % of the maximum available on the hub as potential supply.

This makes perfect sense as I doubt in this example the all the deep water ports in Singapore and the roads going out have been bombed as well all the warhouses were the supplies have been stored are bombed. There should be no reason for a reduction in supply based on how much of the province is controlled. Wasn't the new supply system supposed to be getting away from the old model based on state control?
 
  • 7
  • 1
Reactions:
Right. Manners.
It is taken from whatever stream has the available supply.

As for what is prioritized, well if we borrowed HOI3s system of priortizing certain armies or army groups for supply that would certainly help with priortizing routing wouldn't you think beyond the whole theatre level. Otherwise the only other way to determine it would be divisions designated as elite would get priortized for getting the routed supply first. So it would work like this 1) Supply is routed to priority theatres, 2) Check for any divisions designated as elite. 3) elite divisions get first pick, 4) supply rest of military in theatre.

For usable, second paragraph as this only requires a little management and automation can do the rest
So, is it taken from the 100, 20 or 40? Would the 100 "backfill" any taken supply to offmap requesters behind the 40 and 20? Yes? No? Maybe? Would it be a feed-forward system? If yes, how do you determine "forward" without getting counter-intutive edge cases? How does allied supply figure? And so on, and so forth. The concept sounds nice, but once you get around doing it, it spirals quickly into a mess. Saying "from where available" is a cop-out. Sounds smart, but isn't an answer.

And yes, there are algorithmic solutions to all those problems. Those are expensive. And in HoI4 you'll have to run them every single tick. Because else, people will complain that "supply isn't properly modeled" when it doesn't update by the hour. That means either a beefier machine or slower game. All problems turn-based, two-countries-only games don't have.

The tl;dr version is: Nice concept, but you are making it yourself too easy.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Right. Manners.

So, is it taken from the 100, 20 or 40? Would the 100 "backfill" any taken supply to offmap requesters behind the 40 and 20? Yes? No? Maybe? Would it be a feed-forward system? If yes, how do you determine "forward" without getting counter-intutive edge cases? How does allied supply figure? And so on, and so forth. The concept sounds nice, but once you get around doing it, it spirals quickly into a mess. Saying "from where available" is a cop-out. Sounds smart, but isn't an answer.

And yes, there are algorithmic solutions to all those problems. Those are expensive. And in HoI4 you'll have to run them every single tick. Because else, people will complain that "supply isn't properly modeled" when it doesn't update by the hour. That means either a beefier machine or slower game. All problems turn-based, two-countries-only games don't have.

The tl;dr version is: Nice concept, but you are making it yourself too easy.


Why wouldn't backfill and why is this a question as supply taken away needs to be refilled. Very basic logic. Now as for forward, that would be towards where ever supply is being requested routed along the rail lines that are not sufficiently bombed out. Allied draws off the allied supply network like it already does. However I would add in a manual control for supply where you can convoy in additional supplies into controlled ports (including allied) to help deal with any supply situation. After all, the Allies didn't rely on local supply hubs in France, they took all the ports they could to ship in more to alleviate their supply situation, especially Antwerp.

And no saying from where available isn't a cop out.

If I have 3 lines of supply but two of them are bombed out that leaves only 1 line that is effectively available. It may even be overloaded at this point. And you are then presented with a few possibile solutions. Regain air superiority. Repair the existing rail lines, expand the rail lines, build new rain lines, and so fourth. And as for updating every single tick I have this to say for you. Add in a option for when these calculations are done. You want every hour on the hour? Fine toggle it. Want it day by day? Fine set it for that.

By the way, I tried running HOI3 on both my laptop I have now and my gaming Desktop. I can't run it not because the computation is too much. But I find it processes too fast for me on the higher speeds and the slower speeds seem just too slow for me. This is a personal preference, not a computational limitation. And that is with every single province being a potential path for supply that has to be calculated which means you have much more calculations and potential calculations. These don't exist here because the only calculation that have to be made are along rail lines that already exist or have to be made.

Even so you could probably help the computer cheat by saying if infrastructure is undamaged and if you are in X terrain then you have this supply as max. On the flip side max out bombing is obviously 0 and that is now another set that no longer needs to be done by the computer. Now it only needs to do the calculations when there is damage to the rail lines and with cutting off computation required for "What is max supply?" and "What is no supply."
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
It adds meaningful decisions. Right now it is incredibly cheap to motorize your entire army's logistics. If it costs fuel, you are now deciding where to spend your fuel. Why didn't Germany motorize their logistics in real life? Fuel and industry to build trucks. In game Germany can do both with almost 0 problems
Germany did partially motorize their logistics. It simply wasn't enough to overcome the scale of the problem.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
According to Nigel Askey, Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, the Germans used for Barbarossa, including Finland and units in the theater reserve (in June 1941):

Organic to units:
-150,088 trucks
-84,880 light transports
-10,748 half-track prime movers

Services of supply:
-299,912 trucks
-42,328 light transports

For a grand total of 587,956 motor vehicles, of which 450,000 were trucks.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
if you were worried that people would be building their way out of trouble then why not add different levels of supply hubs so that they don't cover such a massive region?
I have to ask, what is wrong with building your way out of trouble? That's literally what the US did historically. Sure it will take time to build more/bigger hubs and railways (time that the other guy can use to their advantage) but it should always be a viable option along side other choices like logistics companies and using smaller divisions.
 
Last edited:
  • 4Like
  • 3
Reactions:
To effectively overstack node capacity is actually quite hard:

View attachment 777880

If I stacked all those units in one of the provinces, most of them would start starving, and the hub just wouldn't be able to supply them all. Consider it a localised version of throughput.

This is the single biggest problem with the new system. It makes naval invasions of meaningful size impossible and prevents you from being able to use places like Guam, Malta, and Iwo Jima for anything since you can't garrison them while also using them as naval and air bases.

However much supply a hub has should be distributed among all division in range, with no cap on 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. 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.
 
Last edited:
  • 6Like
Reactions:
I have to ask, what is wrong with building your way out of trouble? That's literally what the US did historically. Sure it will take time to build more/bigger hubs and railways (time that the other guy can use to their advantage) but it should always be a viable option along side other choices like logistics companies and using smaller divisions.
Regardless of Paradox's intentions it has clearly failed.

Logistic companies that were previously A or B tier have now sky rocketed to S+ tier thanks to this new flawed system
 
  • 2
  • 2
Reactions:
This is the single biggest problem with the new system. It makes naval invasions of meaningful size impossible and prevents you from being able to use places like Guam, Malta, and Iwo Jima for anything since you can't garrison them while also using them as naval and air bases.

That's a known bug and will be addressed in an upcoming patch.
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions: