The Supply System NEEDS Fixing!

[Bargey]

This topic has probably been discussed, but I would like to add my two cents to it as well.

I was playing a game as Hungary (In the black I.C.E mod, but that makes no matter). I built up my GLORIOUS army, 750k strong. Of course, the second world war starts and all. I helped Germany defeat Yugoslavia so I can get my cores. (My army was 500k strong at the time). Yugoslavia was the last action I saw for awhile. By the time the first shots of Operation Barbarossa were fired, my army was a staggering 750k. A big improvement over the starting 100k.

I was doing very well for supplies. It was costing more IC the more I expanded my army, but the land I had gotten off of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia had increased my IC (plus one IC construction). Supplies were being distributed nicely. Then I was called into the war by Germany.

It went well for awhile. We Blitzkrieg'd the Soviets all the way to the gates of Moscow, then, the supply thinned out. Germany was giving supplies to only its own units, even though they had a massive surplus of supplies. I went to the supply mapmode and saw that the only green tiles were the ones with German troops. So I send my forces onto the green tiles. But as soon as the Germans move, they completely cut off supply to my units!! What the heck?! "Well alright. No need to worry. I have my own supplies, right? This campaign should go smoothly!" I wait a few days. Still no supplies. I wait a week. Nothing. My tanks cannot move faster than 0.25 km/h now. So I wait for supplies. I go back to the supply mapmode. My tile is red whilst the Germans have full supply (bright green) I click on my unit and see this little gem. "Supplied from Berlin" That really set me off. I looked at Germany's rapidly expanding supply stockpile and see they have over 100k! And look at mine, next to no supplies have been used at all!

In HoI 4, they need to have your allies to supply YOUR troops instead of leaving them to die (literally). And if your allies only have enough supplies for themselves (which was not the case in my HoI 3 game) then you should have the option to supply your own troops. A feature like this would greatly improve Hearts of Iron, as in HoI 3, combined forces on a large front; USSR, India, China, even Europe. Hell, anywhere but islands, is made impossible, and it just ruins the game, brings wars to a standstill, and makes the game boring. To supply troops in another nations campaign, they could be supplied like normal (or however the HoI 4 supply system works). If it is overseas, you need to send convoys to allied territory. Or if it is the case of me, trying to help Germany, then they should be supplied like normal.

And to anybody who says "Just send a expeditionary force", well let me just say I have NEVER seen an AI accept an expeditionary force from a player. Ever

 

[potski]

...

In HoI 4, they need to have your allies to supply YOUR troops instead of leaving them to die (literally). And if your allies only have enough supplies for themselves (which was not the case in my HoI 3 game) then you should have the option to supply your own troops.

I hope in HOI4 you must supply your own troops regardless of where they are on the map. If railways are included to allow strategic movement of supplies overland, then it is easy to allow your supplies to go through provinces controlled by your allies and puppets.

 

[CarlClausewitz]

yes it is really disturbing to be limited to the allied ressources on their territory.

I would also like manually set supply centers like theaters.

It is really annoying if you invade Amerika and the supply center is in Canada and you troops are in the south.

Switching to arcade mode feels like cheating but the current supply system has some limitations, when the empire is growing.

 

[Gamer_1745]

I hope in HOI4 you must supply your own troops regardless of where they are on the map. If railways are included to allow strategic movement of supplies overland, then it is easy to allow your supplies to go through provinces controlled by your allies and puppets.

+1

 

[DocMorningstar]

Not as much fun as when in hard/hard, as France, I stopped germany cold on my frontier. After years of grinding away at them, and helping to slowly crush Italy in the med, America landed dozens of divisions to 'support' me. I immediately went supply-broke, and was overrun in weeks. ARGH

 

[LarryLeica]

Not as much fun as when in hard/hard, as France, I stopped germany cold on my frontier. After years of grinding away at them, and helping to slowly crush Italy in the med, America landed dozens of divisions to 'support' me. I immediately went supply-broke, and was overrun in weeks. ARGH

Oh yes, one of the reasons I stopped playing France, as you have no control over this sort of thing unless you get very lucky and manage to take down the Teutonic Order, erm, Germans, before the US joins in.

I imagine the supply system will get a complete overhaul as the HOI3 system is seriously flawed. You need at least to be able to set supply centers and not just one per continent, at least two or three, preferably more or maybe linked to your supply distribution techs.

 

[Sky_WKing]

Not as much fun as when in hard/hard, as France, I stopped germany cold on my frontier. After years of grinding away at them, and helping to slowly crush Italy in the med, America landed dozens of divisions to 'support' me. I immediately went supply-broke, and was overrun in weeks. ARGH

That's very true. In the case of Operation Overlord the landing armies are usually crushed since my allies park 30 or 40 stacks of planes in Paris, walk randomly with some divisions and drain all the supplies.

 

[Stafroty]

why not removing supply completelly from game, and make just range limit to units. If they go over that range, lets say, from their capital, they receive no more ammo/fuel and cannot no more attack or defend untill they come back inside of that radius. This would make over extension automatic, without too complicated supply calculations.

 

[aruon]

why not removing supply completelly from game, and make just range limit to units. If they go over that range, lets say, from their capital, they receive no more ammo/fuel and cannot no more attack or defend untill they come back inside of that radius. This would make over extension automatic, without too complicated supply calculations.

but that would permanently limit a unit's range. making many countries like the US and Japan utterly useless for war, and completely break the game.

 

[Stafroty]

but that would permanently limit a unit's range. making many countries like the US and Japan utterly useless for war, and completely break the game.

a minor glitch id say. War was fought mainly on Europe. little island hopping in pasific or battles in jungles.. doesnt matter at all.

would be easier for AI too.

 

[jju_57]

Not as much fun as when in hard/hard, as France, I stopped germany cold on my frontier. After years of grinding away at them, and helping to slowly crush Italy in the med, America landed dozens of divisions to 'support' me. I immediately went supply-broke, and was overrun in weeks. ARGH

LMAO. Sorry but that is really funny.

 

[Dalwin]

Supply range yes. Drawn from capital no.

I would like to see a simplified supply system, one where we do not even track supplies or produce them (other than depots).

Lets track where the rail heads are (or ports in some cases). you get a range from there based on terrain (or infra) and season. To extend that range you need to chain together supply depots and I also think the Corps HQs should function as the end link in such a chain but only for their own units. So the HQ has to be in range of the railhead or last depot in the chain and its units in range of it.

This sounds much more complicated than it is. It is a very simple system and yes it mimics boardgame mechanics.

You could still limit how many units can be supplied through a port based on the port level. You could have a temporary depot at beachheads and stuff.

All these ideas are boardgame mechanics and they all worked well, better than what we have now.

 

[Stafroty]

what i suggest that just range, no depots nothing. just range to capitol. no fuel, ammo nothing-- tank division is 3 dices, infantry has 1 dice. motorized 2
simple battle, like risk game has. not too complicated. Could be runned totally automatic, so player just picks his country and wishes for best.

 

[Dalwin]

what i suggest that just range, no depots nothing. just range to capitol. no fuel, ammo nothing-- tank division is 3 dices, infantry has 1 dice. motorized 2
simple battle, like risk game has. not too complicated. Could be runned totally automatic, so player just picks his country and wishes for best.

Heh, well with sarcasm just as anything else, it is best in moderation. If you have a seriouis suggestion I am certainly willing to listen to it and give you the respect of a reply, instead of the insult that this was.

 

[Axe99]

+1 for supply needs to be reworked. Nothing like landing the BEF in France, moving to Belgium to defend forward, and running out of supply and getting annihilated when as the UK at start you've got oodles of supplies, and the ports in northern France and Belgium are plenty capable.

There have been lots of discussions about this. I like the idea of Dalwin's simplified system, but still think supplies would need to be produced and consumed, or some other mechanic was in place, or your army size would be limited simply by manpower and time taken to build with the available IC, when supporting an army is quite industrially intensive. I know it's generally not modelled in boardgames, but computers allow this to be done and it does add to the strategic level of gameplay, and it is a grand strategy game after all. It'd be easy enough to have consumption in Dalwin's model though. Apologies if I've misunderstood the suggestion as well.

Personally, if the system can be set up to do it, I'd model supplies fully, but allow supply through allied territory (as, IRL, the US ran their own supply depots in France and I'm pretty sure the UK, and definitely in Australia) as this is both historically plausible and gets around the problems with HoI3's supply system (which imo was the biggest hole in the game design). If there were supply 'bandwidth' issues, then I'd give priority to whoever owned the territory, but not a simple 100%/0% if full, but rather a percentage of throughput depending on the amount required by both forces, adjusted by their diplomatic relations (so really good allies with equal forces may keep it at 50/50, while the French may be a little meaner to the Brits, as they were never as close as they could have been). If no bandwidth issues, then full supply gets through.

what i suggest that just range, no depots nothing. just range to capitol. no fuel, ammo nothing-- tank division is 3 dices, infantry has 1 dice. motorized 2
simple battle, like risk game has. not too complicated. Could be runned totally automatic, so player just picks his country and wishes for best.

I'm assuming this is sarcasm, so won't address this . I haven't seen a boardgame with mechanics this simple, let alone a PC one.

 

[Stafroty]

there is already supply thread here. Though this here adresses different part of that supply problem. But in both parts, its clearly said that whole supply system doesnt need fix, but complete re-coding.

Having rails here added, making allied countries open their borders for friendly supply flows, which are then directed to owner of that supply, until somekind of lend lease pact is agreed, then its shared.

Rails in that case would transport supply from port to the troops at front, and from rails its unloaded to trucks/horses which then deliver it to troops with somekind of cost depending on distance from rails, infra, weather, horse/truck=speed/amount? etc. all giving some sort of penalty in fuel or as supply(for horse food?(just to take room from transport capasity, could be non IC based blocks of hay too, which is only created when there is horses in the receiving end and doesnt have its own pool where its then put in trains. but if there would be depot, it would stack up in there.

 

[DocMorningstar]

LMAO. Sorry but that is really funny.

That was one of my (very few) ragequits with HoI. It was really a bitch of a game, since France has like freakin 5 IC not devoted to doing essential stuff. I was super proud that I held the line (without building a massive fort-wall on the belgian border...) and was doing really well. I had all of northern Italy, and was bumping into Germany on the Austrian border. Had pushed them out of BE, and then, whump, operation Overload....

 

[Kovax]

The OP's experience reminded me of a game (also playing Hungary) where I made my own corridor through southern Russia, because I wasn't going to suffer through another "no supplies" deal while fighting in German controlled territory. I made it almost to Stalingrad, despite huge problems dealing with Soviet armor, before the Germans sent roughly 40 unrequested divisions of mostly armored, mechanized, and motorized troops in behind my forces to "assist" me, and almost instantly dried up my entire supply chain. My front-line forces were out of supply, stuck in place, and quickly cut off and destroyed. Quitting time again.

Unfortunately, there's no option to say "Bring you own !@#$ supplies!"

 

[Dan1109]

why not removing supply completelly from game, and make just range limit to units. If they go over that range, lets say, from their capital, they receive no more ammo/fuel and cannot no more attack or defend untill they come back inside of that radius. This would make over extension automatic, without too complicated supply calculations.

They have a mode for that HOI3 - Arcade Mode - all units are in supply - not sure about the HQ range though

 

[Stafroty]

That was one of my (very few) ragequits with HoI. It was really a bitch of a game, since France has like freakin 5 IC not devoted to doing essential stuff. I was super proud that I held the line (without building a massive fort-wall on the belgian border...) and was doing really well. I had all of northern Italy, and was bumping into Germany on the Austrian border. Had pushed them out of BE, and then, whump, operation Overload....

ive noticed this same in multiplayer. Its really easy to keep germans from attacking deep in france. Game doesnt model tank effectiveness by used doctrines. Difference should be HUGE between different doctrines as well.

IE. If tanks are committed to Inf support only, it means, that IF infantry gets shot up/suppressed/forced to withdrawn, tanks also supporting them does the same, they stay with infantry. And there isnt too many tanks per kilometre on front, cos they are spread all around the front.

IF tanks are used as independand force, gathered in small tight area, with tens of tanks per kilometre, it means something. They have huge firepower, arent tied up to infantry support role(forcing them to follow them) and are then able to push through the lines easily, as there is only few tanks against tens= huge firepower difference alone.
And when those tank just continue with FAST speed after breakthrough, and are followed by motorized infantry for securing flanks.. Its way more efficient than inf support doctrine.

Causes less casuilties for them, makes fast breakthroughs possible, allows fast encirclements=puts enemy out of supply and also are able to overrun artillery positions, HQ:s as well maintenance and logistics etc.

That compared to inf support doctrine, where tanks advance in phase of infantry.. Slow movement allowing enemy to react with plenty of time to threat.

It makes really significant difference. modelled in game?

(russians used both doctrines)