Workaround for this supply model quirk?

[Constans337]

I was conquering provinces of a country that was separated by sea from my capital, and was getting supply overland from an ally's provinces that were joined by contiguous land provinces from my units to his capital. So far so good. I then captured a small port and I noticed that my supply is now being traced from the port only, which is too small to supply my force, and my units are now going out of supply. I'm assuming this is a limitation of the supply model, and any suggestions of workarounds would be appreciated.

As a note, I went into the saved game file and increased the port to a 10, but it still wasn't enough. I then edited the file to give the port to the ally, and I assume that will restore the situation eventually, but I expect it will take a few days for the supply chain to fill with supplies again. The only work around I can see is to avoid capturing ports, or capture lots of them at about the same time.

Any thoughts appreciated!

 

[Charles Reeps]

Kinda of hard to figure out without actually being able to mess around with a save. Also would be nice to have a better geographical understanding; f.e., what countries? You should check to see if your ally is also drawing supply from that port. I suspect it is, and if it is its supplies (and supply production) will eventually get to the depot. Just my best guess.

 

[Kagernaut]

Where is the region in particular, what nation are you playing as, how many ports do you have access to, how far are you from the port in question (use supply mapmode, see how many nodes away you are)?

 

[Constans337]

Thanks for the replies. Here is some more info based on examining a couple of saved games:

- We're playing two player co-op multiplayer, me as US, and my friend as Japan (I know, wildly ahistorical, but we've been playing WW2 grand strategy games since the 70s so we're having a bit of sandbox conquer the world fun!)

- We're invading China. The US forces are on the provinces to the south-west of the Gulf of Chili. The Japanese forces are arrayed to the north and south of that.

- The offending port is Tianjin. If the Japanese hold Tianjin, then the US forces trace supply to Dalian (which is on the other side of the gulf), which is the Japanese depot (there was an error in my OP regarding the supply source). Some also trace to Chengde, which seems an otherwise unremarkable landlocked province, but Chengde then traces to Dalian. The Japanese forces trace to Dalian also, except for some that have no land route there, and they trace to Qingdao.

- When the US holds Tianjin (supplied by convoy via San Francisco), both the US and Japanese forces that trace to Dalian (including those via Chengde) now trace to Tianjin, even though the Japanese can still trace overland to Dalian ... and OOS problems start. As a side note, the Japanese forces that trace to Qingdao continue to do so, even when they are connect to Tianjin via land provinces (a mix of US and Japanese).

 

[Kagernaut]

So, when you take a new port, the supply lines trace to the new port instead of the old (where there was supply and everything is fine and dandy), and then you experince out of supply problems?

Chengde is south a ways of Tianjin, correct? (trying to remember my chinese provinces lol)

 

[Constans337]

So, when you take a new port, the supply lines trace to the new port instead of the old (where there was supply and everything is fine and dandy), and then you experince out of supply problems?

That's correct.

Chengde is south a ways of Tianjin, correct? (trying to remember my chinese provinces lol)

No, north east, about a third to a half of the way to Dalian (there is a province with a similar name, so you could be thinking of that).

 

[Kagernaut]

It can take time to form a supply depot, and even longer to move supplies form a depot.

If the depot becomes Tianjin, and its not supplying you, this is likely because there are no real supplies there, and what was there has already been distributed; it won't take long to move the supplies there via convoys (a day), but after that you have to wait for them to move out to the provinces. If memory serves, thats about a day a province. Takes time to move them.

So, you basicaly have two options, from what I can tell:

1) Wait. You'll be out of supply, but eventually it should sort itself out. You can use air transports in the meantime to supply some troops, and there should be some local supply to supplement that until the new supplies arrive.

2) You can manually disable the convoy to Tianjin. This will force the supply system to pick the nearest location (nearest port, when you're overseas basicaly) and use that as the supply depot, where you already have supplies flowing from without trouble.

If I'm understanding your situation correctly, one of those two options should work.

 

[Constans337]

Thanks for your response.

I've done some more playing around with the saved game, and here is what I've found:

- A number of the OOS provinces are only one or two provinces away from Tianjin, so it is not a time delay issue (I let it run for over a month);
- The depot is definitely in Tianjin;
- When I disable the supply convoy and leave it on manual, they still keep trying to draw from Tianjin (after a couple of weeks). There is no other US port to draw from, so that could explain it. The previous port that supplied them, Dalian, is Japanese (ally) controlled and a Japanese depot.
- Tianjin only ships in 50 supply a turn, but I saw that the required supplies at Tianjin was about 300. I disbanded all the US troops and saw that it still needed around 80, which was for the Japanese troops that are drawing supply from there.

This just seems to be a quirk of the game system and the fairly rigid way it calculates supply sources. It looks like giving Tianjin to the Japanese is the only way to restore the previous supply situation, although I need to check whether that might change their depot. Any other suggestions greatly appreciated.

(Made a mistake in a previous post - Chengde is 2 provinces north of Tianjin.)

 

[Charles Reeps]

- Tianjin only ships in 50 supply a turn, but I saw that the required supplies at Tianjin was about 300. I disbanded all the US troops and saw that it still needed around 80, which was for the Japanese troops that are drawing supply from there.

There are only two reasons to have such a massive demand of supply (220-for US troops):

1. The units are demanding double supply because the units have less than a twelve day supply reserve;
2. You have too many troops for the Chinese theater.

Even if #1 is true, a 110-supply demand (normal) is pretty hefty for the area. This leads to #2: as suggested use air transport to fly supplies in or get more ports. Short of this you have to remove your aircraft and other supply hogs (tanks) from the mainland. Rebase your aircraft and any ships to airfields/ports not on the mainland.

You can also use the command structure to reduce your supply consumption. Put your highest skill general in charge of your Army Group. This saves 5%/skill level. Place a Logistics Wizard in any Army and Corps HQ until you run out. If you have any Logistics Wizards left, place them in any supply hog divisions you absolutely can't do without.

 

[Pro_Consul]

The remedy solution once something like this has happened is to pull back and let the enemy retake the port, thus cutting off your ability to supply the units yourself and forcing them to go back to drawing supply from your ally.

The prevention route is to pre-build a few naval bases, say 4 or 5, and avoid taking a port until the prebuilt ones are completed and ready to place. Then take the port province and plop down one naval on each of several nearby coastal provinces close by the newly captured port. That will give you the captured port plus 4-5 level 1 ports in nearby provinces, all able to receive convoys to feed the new depot that will be created by capturing that first port. And of course you would immediately order each province to improve its port, if you planned on expanding the supply demand in that beachhead.