Supply hub sizes

[Wiglaf]

It'd be cool if it were possible to have at least two different sizes of supply hubs. At times there are small areas I can't get supplied and building a supply hub is total overkill. Just having a smaller size as an option for reduced cost that covers less area would be nice.

 

[Khoryace]

They have in fact 3 sizes. Did you think about upping the motorisation level?

 

[Wiglaf]

They have in fact 3 sizes. Did you think about upping the motorisation level?

Oh I know that—I was thinking half the size and cost of the non-motorized hub.

 

[lgsml1]

I think Paradox did more bad than good allowing building supply hubs. In one of the topics about that, dev answered that at some point they considered removing option of building supply hub at all, but left it in game for the extreme corner cases - like late game stale fronts, important situational choke points and simply original hub placement design issues.

Building hub, from devs point of view, is rather a nuke-like option, and should be used on extremely rare occasions. But because it was added on the same UI layer as other, more usual, province buildings, most of players consider building a hub as a legit common way of dealing with army supply, and of course frustrated about 20k cost.

I was in the same boat and ranted about 20k supply hub after release, before I saw that it was not the idea to make player build it in the first place. Sadly, Paradox forgot once again that playerbase can not read dev minds, and it was very poorly communicated what hubs building is intended for.

 

[sekelsenmat]

I think Paradox did more bad than good allowing building supply hubs.

You clearly don't play as Communist China. If I don't build a supply hub, how am I supposed to supply my troops defending against the Japs in the north near Mongolia? I tried airplanes, it is not enough after the nerf...

 

[lgsml1]

You clearly don't play as Communist China. If I don't build a supply hub, how am I supposed to supply my troops defending against the Japs in the north near Mongolia? I tried airplanes, it is not enough after the nerf...

I did not, but I played Japan a lot. You make a fallback line and allow Japan to push in no-supply zone a little. I made a mistake once as JP and tried to push north-west direction over Mengjiang - it was much more devastating for Japan than for China. Japan also has no supply coverage there, and after pushing a bit and entering no-supply zone - it is just a meat grinder stale front for Japan. That was the whole idea of the update - to play clever around supply and know where to retreat, where to hold, and where to push.

So after supply update defending north as China became much easier, in case you do not waste 20k IC to build a supply hub for them there - AI should be stupid enough to try to push, and you can just let them die there trying to attack your fully stocked fallback line without supplies on Jap side.

 

[LordWahu]

During a Romania campaign, I was pushing near Stalingrad and simply couldn't because all the hubs were just out of range even on extreme motorization

So I waited 6 months to build a hub, and in the meantime managed to capture Moscow, at which point once the hub was done I took the rails and cut off the entire Russian army

It's incredibly annoying yes, but the timing was just right to make sense, and force...alternative strategies

So I'd say working as intended

 

[sekelsenmat]

I did not, but I played Japan a lot. You make a fallback line and allow Japan to push in no-supply zone a little. I made a mistake once as JP and tried to push north-west direction over Mengjiang - it was much more devastating for Japan than for China. Japan also has no supply coverage there, and after pushing a bit and entering no-supply zone - it is just a meat grinder stale front for Japan. That was the whole idea of the update - to play clever around supply and know where to retreat, where to hold, and where to push.

So after supply update defending north as China became much easier, in case you do not waste 20k IC to build a supply hub for them there - AI should be stupid enough to try to push, and you can just let them die there trying to attack your fully stocked fallback line without supplies on Jap side.

Yes, the japs get out of supply too, but only in the end of the state, so you lose control of it. And after early 39 the Japs completely stopped attacking there in the north, so without a supply hub I could never counteattack to retake my state, which is also my main source of iron. And with the decision you get to build 1 hub at 1/4 the price.

 

[Jays298]

The problem is hubs don't do enough. Motorization doesn't do enough. Railroads basically do nothing but connect hubs.

Motorization makes a hub go from "useless" to "not entirely useless but too far away" in many many cases. The range is too short to matter. The front moves faster.

The difference between horses and fully motorized is insignificant. Pointless enough to not have really messed with it in two games. You are unlikely to have supply issues AND be close enough to a hub where the extra tile or not would matter.

And that is probably the idea, but it is also why there's basically no point in messing with supply in this game, beyond taking enemy supply hubs and following their rail lines.

It is better than the old system but still bad because instead of thruput deceleration, long distance transfer issues, etc., we have magical supply hubs with very short reaches that are magically solved when the next hub is captured.

I would rather be able to build them and have a range similar to the scaling of radar, but also maybe have a mobile supply hub, think of it as making an exit off a rail line from scratch, impromptu site for storage and distribution.

 

[goodcigar]

They could add more Motorization levels to Supply Depots.

They could allow building Minor or Forward Supply Depots on non-rail provinces.

They could allow us to relocate Supply Depots.

They could allow us to insta-resupply local units (to an extent) when capturing an enemy Supply Depot.

They basically copied the Unity of Command 2 supply and logistics system which is good because it's the gold standard. But not all of it so we're left with problems like this. Often it's far too easy to supply your units and other times it's literally impossible.

They could allow us to target/prioritize what units are receiving supply in an area rather than it being distributed completely equally among all units in the area.

They could add an Emergency Supply ability on the Army or Army Group. Which refills a units supply if they are within range of the local Supply Depot.

They could add an Oversupply ability that basically resupplies a unit instantly if it ever runs out of supplies. The idea is that they are carrying extra supplies with them and use them if they need to.

My suggestions summarized.

Similar complaints from other users about the supply system:

The Supply system balance is off, it's not punishing enough

I get why it's balanced this way so that it's more fun to attack but as a defender it's no good. Look at how almost every enemy division has a red supply status with an exclamation mark? doesn't prevent them from pushing my troops. it makes no...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Supply from Hubs to Units?

Hi, I've mostly been able to understand the new supply system, and quite like this added aspect. What I'm not clear on is the part between hubs and units, and the bottlenecks there are not clear., I've never had shortages to the hubs and they...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Smoke and Mirrors supply system (No step back)

It's just smoke and mirrors. It took me a few minutes to see past the façade. As you can see in the screenshot provided. Logistics elements does not actually move supplies from where they are produced, to where they are needed. Supply depots...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I like the new supply system, but also think it doesn´t punish enough and is too easy at the moment

I think the devs made a really great work on the new supply system in common, its way more immersive and more fun than what we had before. But on the other side I can ignore the new supply system in the same way I could ignore the old supply...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/change-supply-hub-distribution-curve-so-that-it-covers-a-larger-radius-but-at-low-levels-beyond-a-certain-range.1499895/#post-27924192

 

[Kazakk]

I think Paradox did more bad than good allowing building supply hubs. In one of the topics about that, dev answered that at some point they considered removing option of building supply hub at all, but left it in game for the extreme corner cases - like late game stale fronts, important situational choke points and simply original hub placement design issues.

Building hub, from devs point of view, is rather a nuke-like option, and should be used on extremely rare occasions. But because it was added on the same UI layer as other, more usual, province buildings, most of players consider building a hub as a legit common way of dealing with army supply, and of course frustrated about 20k cost.

I was in the same boat and ranted about 20k supply hub after release, before I saw that it was not the idea to make player build it in the first place. Sadly, Paradox forgot once again that playerbase can not read dev minds, and it was very poorly communicated what hubs building is intended for.

Well, in poor supply zones like China you will benefit greatly from building supploy hubs. And when forming Siberia as Tannu Tuva I also had built one which was extremely important for the campaign.

It would be amazing if we had multiple sizes of supply hubs. And the cost of motorizing a supply hub should scale with how much supply is being consumed in the region.

 

[jpd]

During a Romania campaign, I was pushing near Stalingrad and simply couldn't because all the hubs were just out of range even on extreme motorization

So I waited 6 months to build a hub, and in the meantime managed to capture Moscow, at which point once the hub was done I took the rails and cut off the entire Russian army

It's incredibly annoying yes, but the timing was just right to make sense, and force...alternative strategies

So I'd say working as intended

One of the things I tend to do in that area, is to pull out my panzers, motors and mechs from the front line. Send them back to a rear area supply hub nearby, and let them rest and recuperate there for a while. Then, as they've soaked up the plentiful supply in that R&R location, I drive them back to the front, and make good use of their supply grace period to punch a hole in the front.

Then it becomes a matter of rinse and repeat

 

[Kanitatlan]

One of the things I tend to do in that area, is to pull out my panzers, motors and mechs from the front line. Send them back to a rear area supply hub nearby, and let them rest and recuperate there for a while. Then, as they've soaked up the plentiful supply in that R&R location, I drive them back to the front, and make good use of their supply grace period to punch a hole in the front.

Then it becomes a matter of rinse and repeat

I've done this elsewhere, especially effective in North Africa. You can improve the fuel situation even further by using strategic movement to get back to the front line. To bounce through el alamein to alexandria I used a separate attack and exploitation wave to preserve enough fuel for the drive to alexandria. Do a degree this just illustrates that the new supply rules have much greater impact in relation to fuel than supplies.

BUT

One thing it does show is that you can transport additional supplies to the front by moving units creating the rather odd situation of addressing supply issues by shuttling units backwards and forwards.

In terms of other issues discussed on this thread, I haven't joined in because I can see why the dev team have ended up where they have ended up and I'm really not sure what can be proposed to improve it. There is a definite conflict between "out of supply isn't harsh enough" and "can't get any supply" because of the gaps between hubs in certain areas. The core problem is designing a way to allow better poor supply without ending up providing players with a way of just being in supply everywhere. I'm still mulling it over.

 

[Zer0Cool]

I think the solution could have been a Supply buffer, perhaps just add that to the logistic company (maybe a small boost with the Logistics Support Company), then say a main line Logistics Division that doubles the Supply Storage Capacity but lowers all the stats for the whole Division. That way you can negate the Out Of Supply Penalties, but reduce the other attributes so you'll only want to use it in limited areas.
It'd probably be useful in Asia and Africa, and perhaps as a breakthrough force to try to capture Supply Hubs.

 

[FindFloppies]

Don't forget upgrading rail connection to a hub can increase its range, and adding infrastructure increases the innate supply per province, too.