Hearts of Iron IV - 33rd Development Diary - Supply

[Poh]

Your not supplying the actual Division your augmenting the Supply Area and someone has left a strait in from Japan to Korea which I assume explains the high homeland figure that should be removed.

As far as I can tell looking at the Italian screen local supply is 6 and required is 1.39 so you don’t actually need the convoy for supply?

Podcat said that if there is no local victory point or base supply you will slowly starve but in this case there is actually 2 victory points so even without a convoy the Italian Divisions should remain in a state of supply, is this the case?

If so they should not lose organization, move slower or take more attrition they would however not be able to replace equipment, is this the case?

True you are not supplying per say you are argumenting the supply area by moving capacity from further down the line.

And you are correct that in the case shown on the picture the incoming supply isnt needed. We have however seen division with 1.7 and 2.5 (irrc, i posted the links somewhere yesterday) supply usage when you start adding tanks and trucks the divisions start to get hungry.

But in both cases we have been shown by Podcat you are in control of the whole supply area. The situation can shift a lot depending on what you control.

The Italian screen has 6 local supply of which 2 comes from victory points. A victory point ie. large city gives 1 supply which is the same that a Triangular division uses. So you can have 1 Triangular division cut off in a victory point city without it being out of supply, seems fair imho.
The Italian screen has 4 local supply coming from outside victory points from an area of 25 provinces on screen in that supply area. Thats 0.16 supply pr. province or 16% of the supply a Triangular division needs, not a lot imho.
Now what would happen if Italy lost most of the supply area? Assuming Italy is beaten back and only have the 6 provinces around Tobruk (including the city). Now they have a total og 1+6*0.16 = 2. So if Italy has more than 2 Triangular divisions in North Africa at that point, to defend 6 provinces, they need extra supply incoming through the port.

Like I said before you can think whatever you want even to the point of thinking the abstracted-to-non-existence supplies actually exist and are produced everywhere but there is no need for insults.

Regarding specifically your HOI III comments it is now clear that you did not play it that much because for example all experienced players know that at times the capital supplies stockpile can hit 0 due to another bug still in the game or shiping too much of it into the network (...)

It wasnt an insult i just believe it was silly to compare the supply system shown with how it works in EUIV when we both know there are large differences and they shouldnt and cant be compared.

Yes i did not play a huge amount of HoI3 i am however aware of some of the quirks it had. Like the problems with supplying the chinese theatre as Japan depending on which ports you had etc. (though thats waaaaay back).
Even if you hit 0 supply due to a bug, which is ofcourse something unintended in the system, it does not change the that i consider my point valid. In HoI3 you make sure you produce the supply the troops need. Its not a question of doing it or not. Its a question of when the supply was produced and what you prioritized not building instead of the supply. You dont go hey i want strategically to have these new panzers so i'll just let a large portion of my army starve for a few months.
Now we do not have the same stockpiles as before so the way you could have supply in the game was a drain on your civilian factories. So you lock X amount of factories into producing supplies constantly just like Y amount is locked to consumer goods.
The only thing we lose by not having this "case" is that the amount of factories does not rise when we expand our army. And thats imho a valid concern but not one i personally consider that great.

For all intents and purposes you could also assume that Consumer Goods covered the production of supplies for the army (food stuff and cloths) and then equipment covered bullets, spareparts for tanks etc. And that supply is handled this way, though ofcourse they still arent on the map.

First I must admit I must had used "living off the lands" as you are right that supply limit is a combination of local, neighbour and mainland supply limits.


But, supply cannot be imported as it doesn't exists, as you recognize yourself:

Here I catch you again, they don't send supplies, remember what you said : You dont produce supply or send it into the network.

Only if you could afford it, because in HOI3 you had to actually produce supplies and not all countries could afford to produce enough supplies, at least not unless cutting somewhere else. Shortages happened, or at least could happen if you were not careful enough.

In HOI4 there is only a "supply limit" which is a cap to how much divisions can be supported without penalty. You don't produce supply (must I quote you again ?).

That being said, I find the new system is better in many aspects because it will be more transparent and possible to act upon to solve bottlenecks.

The lack of actual supplies production I could swallow because it's supposed to be abstracted to be included in equipments we must replace.

The weakness I find is the lack of fuel. OK fuel is also abstracted to be included in equipments of moving units, that could also be swallowed. Which brings me to the real weakness, ships don't use/consume equipments, they cost a lot of oil to build and then they run forever without using oil/equipment. Just lower the oil cost construction of ships and add "ships supplies" that cost oil as an equipment you must build in factories and then ships will work as all the others units (and moving units) in the game. Then I could live with the new HOI4 supply system, better than HOI3 but still perfectible.

True theres no supply in the network but it still tracks the capacity of supply that can run in it. Then it assumes that you as a player will always build the supply your troops need, which you did in HoI3. (yes special cases etc. etc., but for all intents and purposes not producing enough supply or sending enough supply into the network was not a viable strategy, it was something you just did)
And i agree on the fuel. For tanks and truck it seems okayish imho. For ships im skeptical and for planes i dont really know. But i think i'll need to try the system before i say its rubbish

 

[BeauNiddle]

You're mainly talking about the production system here, not the supply system. You're right in that individual equipment being specific to certain things does introduce some depth in supply, but I'd argue that this is offset by the fact that those individual 'equipment' actually represent a weighted average of everything that equipment will need in its life (ie, technically speaking, there is no supply at all, there's just a stacking limit, and when you lose old equipment, you get new equipment as long as you're not over the stacking limit for the supply region).

I REALLY like the fact that the systems are now connected. Supply should be linked to production.

I felt in HOI3 you played the tech game, then the production game, then the strategy game - they never really connected to each other. Tech was auto applied so there was never a point in not researching and barely a point in what order to research. Production time were so long that by the time the unit was ready, had transported itself to the front and had built up it's full org it was irrelevant to the issue I was facing when I ordered it. [It's probably worth noting I mostly played America or Britain therefore naval transport and distant theatres altered my view] On the supply issue it was all the same - supplies for militia infantry were the same as for late game armour piercing ammo needed for high end guns it was just the quantity of supplies that changed. The stockpiles from 1936 were just as useful as a fresh unit of supply straight from the factory.

In HOI4 the supply system itself can be simpler because it ties into the production system, the division designer and into country resources MUCH MUCH more. If I'm low on aircover I can use the division designer to add an AA unit to all my main infantry divisions and then my supply system will rush them to the front as soon as my production system can provide them. If I'm short of chromium I can build old model anti-tank guns rather than the new ones since they don't need as much and then my supply system will rebalance my forces as much as it can. If I get more oil do I use the variant system to design a new bomber with longer range and higher speed even if it costs me an extra 3 oil per unit produced. The supply system is merely the conveyor belt by which my interesting choices are moved to the front.

If we talk about army LOGISTICS rather than merely the supply system then the HOI4 system is so much better it's not even comparable. Your argument seems to rest on concentrating solely on the supply system whilst ignoring the other 75% of the issue handled by equipment. In which case I agree with you - the system to move supplies to the front is a lot simpler now.

 

[Tharkun]

Basic ammo load for divisions was 1 day, replenished overnight. 3 days worth of food. 150 miles worth of fuel. In the best case scenario, divisions could carry with them 3 days worth of "supplies". NOT 30.

 

[Jazumir]

The equipment = supply system would work much better, i feel, if we´d have, say, 4 different kinds of supply-equipment (land,tank,plane,ship), with different input-ratios of ressources for each, all being their own entry in the national stockpile. Every other type of equipment is tied to one of these supply-types. A division may thus require multiple types of supplies, a lack of one resulting in the corresponding parts of the unit performing worse. Attrition would almost exclusively hit supplies (of any type) first, before hitting other equipment. Only when a type of supply runs out (is close to running out) within a division (cause that division has gone ´out of supply´), will the corresponding equipment, for which there are no supplies in the unit anymore, be hit by attrition as well.

Say an armored divsion has 2 parts infantry and one part heavy tanks. The former two use land-supplies, the later tank-supplies. Tank supplies need oil to produce, land-supplies dont. You lose your only source of oil (*) and thus cannot produce tank-supplies anymore. That will hurt your tanks performance in a big way, but your inf will not be affected. (Example chosen to be extreme)

*How is the current system gonna handle that? - you got 10,000 tanks supposedevly running on romania´s oil - you lose romania - what now? your 10,000 tanks fight on to their death, totally unaffected even if they drive thousands of kms, you just cant replace them - well who cares if the ussr is beaten before i run out, overwhelming them with my massive numbers, which normally, would all be sitting ducks after 100km - it´s gonna be: "Quick! Let´s build some kingtigers BEFORE we lose Ploesti, cause we know we will soon" - which IRL would just be stupid. EDIT2: It will also be: "We got no source of oil left - so let´s amass all our remaining tanks and attack with them all at once, in order to reduce losses - fortunately all of them, not only a few, still have full fuel tanks, somehow, and our lack of oil does not impair the ability to move of a single one of them in the slightest." - If both are correct assumptions of mine, of how it is gonna be, i dont think that is really palatable for a grand-strategy computer game.

EDIT: A little anecdote: I once made a WW2-boardgame, a massive monster of complexity with lots and lots of units. Everyone that ever played it, enjoyed it, but we all could a agree on one shortcoming of it: Units had no maintaince costs and thus people would just keep building beyond the rationale. It was this way, cause any other way would be unfeasable, it being a boardgame and all (who would want to keep track of all the troop-counts and possibly even weigh the supply needs of different types in a boardgame?). But if it had been a computer game, there would have been no way, i´d not have implemented maintainance costs for troops, to be paid, while they are on the board, not abstracted in their cost-to-build, cause obviously, the effect is not the same. One puts a cap on how much you can sustain, the other does not.

 

[BeauNiddle]

The equipment = supply system would work much better, i feel, if we´d have, say, 4 different kinds of supply-equipment (land,tank,plane,ship), with different input-ratios of ressources for each, all being their own entry in the national stockpile. Every other type of equipment is tied to one of these supply-types.

Why do you think reducing the different types of equipment would make for a more interesting system. A 1944 artillery battalion needs a completely different type of supply to a 1930 level militia battalion, not just the same type of equipment but 3 times as much. HOI4 makes every single variant of every single model have it's own equipment type (with the possible exception of ships - we're all waiting to hear more). If you can't afford the chromium to make the armour piercing shells for fireflys then you'll have to ship just standard shot (Sherman equipment) as replenishment instead.

What's needed by the new system is sufficiently large attrition (resupply) rates - if it's 5% at standstill, 15% moving and 40% during combat then having to keep armies supplied with the correct items is an interesting challenge. If the attrition (resupply) rates are 1% at standstill, 3% moving and 8% during combat then the new system is going to feel worthless (since most units wont need resupply at all during their lifespan)

 

[Jazumir]

You are right in that a lot will depend on the attrition levels. I expect this to be extremely hard to balance under this model.

But i think you are incorrect in saying that supply = the equipment itself. You chose an example, where it may match up, but rarely it does. Bread and butter dont need steel (or whatnot) to be produced, but most units it is being used to supply, will have a lot of steel be built into them, for example.

And the main problem remains: What you had plenty of during the time of production of a unit, you may have none left off, when it is finished. Yet that doesnt matter for whatever equipment you have already built. If you can avoid fights and attrition (to the most possible extent) you can have a massive force of tanks (planes/ships) hang around years after you lost your last source of oil, being 100% ready for battle all the time, driving from here to there, unimpeded. You may actually want to build completely counter-intutivelely stuff of which you know you will lack the ressources to run it soon, as this may be your last opportunity to build said stuff at all, and the ressources needed for it do not matter for each unit of equipment built, once it is built. Now, tell me, if you expected to lose your last source of oil soon (without any hope of retaking it soon afterwards), would you still build tanks IRL? Would you in HoI4? I think the answers are: "Hell no!" and "If i see a need for them, then sure, why not?".

 

[Jonas]

What's needed by the new system is sufficiently large attrition (resupply) rates - if it's 5% at standstill, 15% moving and 40% during combat then having to keep armies supplied with the correct items is an interesting challenge. If the attrition (resupply) rates are 1% at standstill, 3% moving and 8% during combat then the new system is going to feel worthless (since most units wont need resupply at all during their lifespan)

When I read this I get even more concerned. The very fact that attrition and resupply rate is the same thing is counterintuitive. Counterintuitive systems, such as a system where fuel, supplies and tanks are the same thing, might simplify actually playing the game but they do not simplify understanding the game. It might well put some casual wargamers off as they are trying to wrap their heads around what supply is in HoI4 and how to deal with it.

Your suggested attrition rates will become a major issue if attrition is tied into manpower. Attrition SHOULD be tied to manpower, but not when the supply and fuel useage go via the attrition system. That is another thing that breaks when the systems are combined. I do not want to stand by the Volga, prepared to gloriously defend the Motherland only to find out the invaders died from driving their tanks. They might die from cold, but not from driving please. Have You seen the carnage of a broken gearbox? Few walk away from something like that to tell about it. And fuel! Well, we all know that when the fuel dries up the crew are sucked into the tank instead. Obviously! When the artillery shells run out we will just load the guns with soldiers and fire?

 

[Denkt]

These tanks will be obsolete and you will eventually run out of tanks because you are unable to produce new tanks.

In HOI3 I can build tanks, aircrafts and ships no matter if I have much oil or not. In HOI4 if I have to work with little oil that will mean I have either to go with aircrafts or tanks or a little of both. HOI4 you have to make much more serious considerations, oil is actually more limiting in HOI4 then in HOI3 and matter alot more.

 

[Jonas]

These tanks will be obsolete and you will eventually run out of tanks because you are unable to produce new tanks.

In HOI3 I can build tanks, aircrafts and ships no matter if I have much oil or not. In HOI4 if I have to work with little oil that will mean I have either to go with aircrafts or tanks or a little of both. HOI4 you have to make much more serious considerations, oil is actually more limiting in HOI4 then in HOI3 and matter alot more.

In HoI3 You can build tanks, aircraft and ships even with little fuel, but You cannot use them if You have little fuel. That seems reasonable to me. How are the considerations more serious and above all more realistic in HoI4? I prefer the out of supply malus when the unit runs out of fuel to being able to ignore the fuel because I cannibalize the equipment into fuel.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

It wasnt an insult i just believe it was silly to compare the supply system shown with how it works in EUIV when we both know there are large differences and they shouldnt and cant be compared.

The main issue is that I can see that both systems are not that different at all, in fact they are the exact same thing but with slightly different balance and rules (...)




There were several valid posts in this thread but there were also some posts that simply blow my mind away with the inability of people to realize the new system for what it is. IMHO this is a very clever design (as usual) that will fix most of the problems that casual players had with the previous design and still give the impression that it retains the previous depth which is not true. This a very simplified system that is not 100% arcade simply because cutting off supply to armies still seems possible.

I have no doubt HOI IV will be fun but with all the simplifications I am worried with its replay ability.

 

[Jazumir]

lol - you cracked me up there, Jonas. Spot on! Literally we will be using some of our crew and tanks as fuel to make the others move.

I think, you are also right about the importance plausibility of a model has in making a game accesible, aside of ui-quality and boiling things down to the essential (which i am all for, really - just what is essential is debatable it seems).

 

[Denkt]

In HoI3 You can build tanks, aircraft and ships even with little fuel, but You cannot use them if You have little fuel. That seems reasonable to me. How are the considerations more serious and above all more realistic in HoI4? I prefer the out of supply malus when the unit runs out of fuel to being able to ignore the fuel because I cannibalize the equipment into fuel.

In HOI4 it will be no oil no tanks no aircrafts and no ships, in HOI3 I can build everything I know that I need and then use them at the correct time. In HOI4 I will have to make huge trade off between a powerful army, a powerful airforce and a powerful navy because I lack oil. In HOI3 I can just switch between the 3, much less long term planning.

 

[Jazumir]

Denkt: You are still talking about the production system, not the supply system, really. (Almost?) Noone´s debating the fact that there wont be a stockpile for oil (only that there is, actually, in the form of equipment, but let´s not get nitpicky), nor that industry will be split in branches. We are all fine with that (i assume). But i wonder what civilian industry will be building, if not supplies, when there is nothing to repair, you neither want to expand infrastructure or industry anywhere and consumer goods used to be little more than a redundant tax on your IC (could have been as well deducted from your avaiable IC automatically for 99% of the situation outside some random events).

 

[Sleight of Hand]

What's with the Rising Sun flag? Will Japan not get its historical state flag?

 

[BeauNiddle]

I'm bouncing between threads so I get confused about what I have and have not said yet so I'll recap quickly.

If you think of equipment production as being supplies for that type of unit it all starts making sense. The materials used to build an infantryman's gun is pretty negligible against the amount of ammo supplies that gun will fire over the lifetime of that unit. Uniforms wear out, boots need replacing, ammo is expended, grenades etc. Producing infantry equipment 1 in a factory is NOT producing a Garand rifle or a Thompson but is instead producing enough supplies for an infantryman (or squad) to fight for a week (or a month but definitely not years).

An artillery unit will fire many times it's own weight in ammo so producing artillery equipment 1 is again not the barrel of the gun but rather the supplies that artillery will use in a week / month

A tank will fire many shells, burn copious quantities of fuel, need many repairs (new tracks, engine rebuilds, suspension replacements) so producing a Sherman is actually producing the supplies a Sherman will use in a week/month NOT a Sherman tank body.

In each case there is a bit extra tacked on top for the amortised cost of the base unit.

If we change the word 'attrition' to 'resupply rate' things make a lot more sense.

If you can avoid fights and attrition (to the most possible extent) you can have a massive force of tanks (planes/ships) hang around years after you lost your last source of oil, being 100% ready for battle all the time, driving from here to there, unimpeded.

This becomes if you can have a massive army and avoid doing anything that requires resupply then they can sit round for years - which is a valid statement. (I'm also going to guess driving around here to there will result in resupply / attrition and hence wont be what the armies are doing)

You may actually want to build completely counter-intutivelely stuff of which you know you will lack the ressources to run it soon, as this may be your last opportunity to build said stuff at all, and the ressources needed for it do not matter for each unit of equipment built, once it is built. Now, tell me, if you expected to lose your last source of oil soon (without any hope of retaking it soon afterwards), would you still build tanks IRL? Would you in HoI4? I think the answers are: "Hell no!" and "If i see a need for them, then sure, why not?".

If I expected to lose my last source of oil would I still build tank supplies - Hell YES!, would I build tank bodies - hell no.

As to an earlier comment about food / manpower I view the equipment and attrition / resupply rate to only apply to equipment. The 'living off the land' / in-supply calculations cover food IMO

I may be entirely wrong about my assumption but it fits perfectly with what we know about the supply system. The only thing it doesn't work on is ships.

 

[Denkt]

Denkt: You are still talking about the production system, not the supply system, really. (Almost?) Noone´s debating the fact that there wont be a stockpile for oil (only that there is, actually, in the form of equipment, but let´s not get nitpicky), nor that industry will be split in branches. We are all fine with that (i assume). But i wonder what civilian industry will be building, if not supplies, when there is nothing to repair, you neither want to expand infrastructure or industry anywhere and consumer goods used to be little more than a redundant tax on your IC (could have been as well deducted from your avaiable IC automatically for 99% of the situation outside some random events).

The production system is super important for the supply system both in real life as well in HOI. You can not have a realistic supply system with an unrealistic production system. HOI3 did not have a realistic supply system because its production system was unrealistic.

 

[Denkt]

What's with the Rising Sun flag? Will Japan not get its historical state flag?

They wen't with that flag instead of Japans flag to distance imperal Japan from modern Japan.

 

[Jazumir]

BeauNiddle: But with the replacements/supply you build shortly before the fall of your last oil source you can also choose to field new divisions. What if you dont even have any tanks before you decide to build any? What if your opponent does? Say it´s a big oil source, allowing for fielding 10 armored divs - just when you thought he plausibly cant be running a tank force effectively anymore, even if he had any (which seems unlikely, since you havent seen any for a while), he hits with an army of freshly built tanks, all with unlimited mobility.

Oh, btw, this new model seems to imply, that equipment in the pool needs no ´supplies´ at all. What keeps you from stockpiling ressources in it, then? What keeps you from building 10,000 tanks and in 1940 field them all at once (leaving a reserve for ´supply´) in say 40 armored divisions?

 

[Sleight of Hand]

They wen't with that flag instead of Japans flag to distance imperal Japan from modern Japan.

Why? What exactly would the confusion be?

It's bad enough that the Swastika is banned in certain countries regardless of context, but I appreciate the fact we must respect that, but there is absolutely no reason to erroneously adopt the flag of the IJN as the flag of the state.

 

[Jazumir]

Cause axis and allies did (iirc).