Hi all,
I wanted to start a thread on logistics in HoI4...
To start with, a few comments on HoI3's logistics system. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with HoI3's logistics -- I love that it constrains how much forces you can send into remote areas, but it seems so incredibly brittle, and difficult to troubleshoot. Often I've seen situations where one or two provinces are short of supply, but other nearby provinces are just fine, with no immediately apparent explanation. I find myself wanting to say, can't you guys get some supplies from the units in the next province over? I've seen the recommendations on how to deal with this -- build infra, look for bottlenecks -- but often I just wind up using air supply as a band-aid to fix the situation. It's just very difficult for me to tell when a supply problem will crop up, and when things will work just fine, even taking into account infra and force size and so forth.
What I'd hope for in HoI4 is that we have some way of doing this that gets at the basic ideas -- the need to capture/defend high-infra routes through friendly/enemy territory, the fact that infra limits how many troops you can send somewhere, that having ports near your troops is rather helpful -- but without the troubleshooting. Easier said than done, perhaps, but I had a few thoughts on this..
One idea is that units should not just use a fixed amount of supplies, but use varying amounts based on how much is available. If they have more supplies available, they take more, if they have less available, they take less. The catch is that they are less effective in combat if they're using less supplies, and more effective (with diminishing returns) if they get more supplies. Also, in this vein, provinces wouldn't take an "all or nothing" approach to supplies (where one province supplied by a bottleneck gets its supplies entirely, but another doesn't) -- but rather, supplies would be divided up among the affected provinces according to what they ideally need, so that all affected provinces get some amount of supplies. Finally, you could have a slider to adjust how much supplies the logistics system attempts to deliver (as a % of what the units normally need, say from 50% - 200%). This would allow you to have either an austere logistics system or a lavish one, depending on the infrastructure and supplies your country has available.
This way, you wouldn't have one province that's fully supplied and another that gets nothing -- it'd be evened out, and the units involved would all have their effectiveness reduced. You'd only have a unit completely out of supplies if it really was in dire straits -- surrounded or otherwise way beyond the reach of friendly logistics. This would be simpler to deal with than the bizarre situations that can arise in HoI3 at present, but would still result in a player being hampered by supply shortages. And you'd be able to adjust how well your units are supplied overall -- rather than having units just supplied or not supplied -- adding another dimension to the strategy involved with logistics.
Another thought would be that players should be able to influence the flow of supplies, in more ways than building infra or using air supply. Allow me to set up a supply depot somewhere, or deliberately set a supply route to avoid a bottleneck. It'd also be helpful if I could use multiple ports on a given landmass to support my troops (instead of everything flowing through one port). This way, you aren't left with trying to figure out how to get the logistics AI to behave -- you can manage things to some extent yourself (even if at the cost of some micromanagement).
I do want to say that I like that HoI3 tried to improve the way logistics was handled, but I'd also like to see more work done to make it more playable, less prone to breaking, and less all-or-nothing. Thoughts/comments?
I wanted to start a thread on logistics in HoI4...
To start with, a few comments on HoI3's logistics system. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with HoI3's logistics -- I love that it constrains how much forces you can send into remote areas, but it seems so incredibly brittle, and difficult to troubleshoot. Often I've seen situations where one or two provinces are short of supply, but other nearby provinces are just fine, with no immediately apparent explanation. I find myself wanting to say, can't you guys get some supplies from the units in the next province over? I've seen the recommendations on how to deal with this -- build infra, look for bottlenecks -- but often I just wind up using air supply as a band-aid to fix the situation. It's just very difficult for me to tell when a supply problem will crop up, and when things will work just fine, even taking into account infra and force size and so forth.
What I'd hope for in HoI4 is that we have some way of doing this that gets at the basic ideas -- the need to capture/defend high-infra routes through friendly/enemy territory, the fact that infra limits how many troops you can send somewhere, that having ports near your troops is rather helpful -- but without the troubleshooting. Easier said than done, perhaps, but I had a few thoughts on this..
One idea is that units should not just use a fixed amount of supplies, but use varying amounts based on how much is available. If they have more supplies available, they take more, if they have less available, they take less. The catch is that they are less effective in combat if they're using less supplies, and more effective (with diminishing returns) if they get more supplies. Also, in this vein, provinces wouldn't take an "all or nothing" approach to supplies (where one province supplied by a bottleneck gets its supplies entirely, but another doesn't) -- but rather, supplies would be divided up among the affected provinces according to what they ideally need, so that all affected provinces get some amount of supplies. Finally, you could have a slider to adjust how much supplies the logistics system attempts to deliver (as a % of what the units normally need, say from 50% - 200%). This would allow you to have either an austere logistics system or a lavish one, depending on the infrastructure and supplies your country has available.
This way, you wouldn't have one province that's fully supplied and another that gets nothing -- it'd be evened out, and the units involved would all have their effectiveness reduced. You'd only have a unit completely out of supplies if it really was in dire straits -- surrounded or otherwise way beyond the reach of friendly logistics. This would be simpler to deal with than the bizarre situations that can arise in HoI3 at present, but would still result in a player being hampered by supply shortages. And you'd be able to adjust how well your units are supplied overall -- rather than having units just supplied or not supplied -- adding another dimension to the strategy involved with logistics.
Another thought would be that players should be able to influence the flow of supplies, in more ways than building infra or using air supply. Allow me to set up a supply depot somewhere, or deliberately set a supply route to avoid a bottleneck. It'd also be helpful if I could use multiple ports on a given landmass to support my troops (instead of everything flowing through one port). This way, you aren't left with trying to figure out how to get the logistics AI to behave -- you can manage things to some extent yourself (even if at the cost of some micromanagement).
I do want to say that I like that HoI3 tried to improve the way logistics was handled, but I'd also like to see more work done to make it more playable, less prone to breaking, and less all-or-nothing. Thoughts/comments?