Hearts of Iron IV - 33rd Development Diary - Supply

[KimSand]

I still play HOI 3 because it is the best WWII grand strategy game out there. Ofcourse i would have liked to have some of the new features HOI IV as they are better, but not at the expense of the essence of grand strategy WWII warfare.

War on that level is a game of logistics, it is ressource management and ressources here being all the assets in the game for making a war machine. Some ressources are mined out of the ground or otherwise extracted from the earth and transported to a specific place to produce other ressources which again need different ressources to function. Tedious as this sounds to some, this is one very important essence of war on that scale. Managing your ressources natural or produced in a manner so that you can realize your goals faster and better than your opponents.

If you are cutting off that aspect, on the strategic level, you are going arcade. It doesnt matter how many 88mm or marders or bf 109s' or blablabla you put into the game that has nothing to do with the mechanics of war on a large scale that is just giving the numbers names.

If you as a game company say you are developing a WWII grand scale wargame in the HOI series then do it. Otherwise come clean and call it something else. You won't dissappoint a lot of people, you will be rid of all the complaints. All the people who would rather play an easier game, where you paint the advance of your army on the map instead of making the advance of your army by executing the idea yourself, and which includes a lot of namedropping "88mm, tiger tanks, spitfires" will be happier, and you will probably get a bigger sell, because things today are supposed to be easy.

What you see in a debate like this is a lot of people, not all, but quite a bit, really liking your games, spending a lot of time playing them, contributing to their continuous playability and life, being dissappointed because we had hoped for something special when you say HOI IV. We know what you can do, we play with it regularly.

We expect a Grand Strategy WWII game that allows us to use the mechanics of that era to best our opponents, and we are not getting it, because you fail to recognize some very important essence of those mechanics.

Please license the sourcecode for HOI III. You will only make money from it, the hardliners of your gameseries get the chance to get the game they dreamed of, you get rid of all the annoying people who insist upon playing hard games with steep learning curves and even steeper mastering curves.

 

[takedown47]

I don't know if this has been stated or not, but i have an idea that may or may not fix this situation with the oil.

What we know:

1) No resource stockpiling
2) Equipment stockpiles
3) some equipment requires oil to make (planes, tanks, ships)
4) attrition, fighting, etc... drains equipment

What if you remove the oil requirement from the making of the equipment and create a new equipment piece that is made at civilian factories that converts oil (resource) into fuel (equipment), and make the fuel part of the equipment pieces that require it.

So an example would be a Panzer brigade that requires tanks and fuel, just like a infantry brigade requires infantry kits, or a motorized brigade needs infantry kits and trucks. This way you get the loss of oil in a semi-realistic manner and also the ability to stockpile oil (fuel).

Its already being done with infantry brigades requiring kits of equipment which is close to the previous HOI's supplies.

This could be done to ships as well, make the ships needing fuel as a equipment supply to keep them going

**edit

yeah it's been discussed. I did think myself this could be a unique work around, but still, these fuel problems should be sorted by devs without the need for modding as supply is a core part of Hearts of Iron.

 

[Poh]

What I say is correct and right at the same time, because as long as units remain under the area limit, they essentially use no supplies whatsoever. Realising this, they then had to invent another stupid concept in order to make this stupid concept work. They invented "base attrition", which must necessarily be absurdly high if it is to even resemble historical fuel usage. (I am delibereatly concentrating on land units here, because the thought 'ships need ships to move' makes my head explode).

What's even more stupid (in fact insulting) is that they needed these "abstractions" in the first place. And I don't buy the marketing bullshit either. I don't think there is any gamer in existance above 10 years old that doesn't understand the basic concept "tanks need fuel in order to move". They were just lazy/run out of time/couldn't make what they really had in mind work.

I really do not understand how you can possibly make that claim. Your initial statement was:

You could have 99.000 supplies stockpiled as Germany and still have logistical issues in Russia. You know why? Because HoI3 had a distribution system.

Which im sure you havnt forgotten. Now going back to the quote post you claim that units will be in supply if they are under the area limit which is ofcourse true. However at the same time you manage to ignore the fact that this is also true in HoI3. If at any given time the supply usage in any given area did not exceed the amount of supply that could be transported to said area then the units would be in supply. Theres no difference between HoI3 and HoI4 in this aspect the difference lies in there being no psysical supply traveling in the network while at the same time you will be recieving better information about where bottlenecks are so throughput can be improved in HoI4.

Therefore its still possible to have logistical issues in Russia. The case you presented is exactly the reason why there exist no reason for there to be actual supply, the player would always produce enough. Now if we take a look at a case where you can not manage to input the supply needed in the system then we can create a difference between the two. However that case simply would be a matter of either sub optimal gameplay from the player (something you do not do) or a matter of bugs messing the supply system up.

Again we do not know anything about attrition value or equipment production rates so its a ballgame we can only speculate about. However why would the attrition rate need to be that high? a 1% attrition on arrival in a province might actually be really "mean" depending on how fast you can produce tanks or how much efficiency loss you take if lacking in Oil. In fact something people do not seem to comment much on is how the new system will translate much more directly from No Oil -> strategic loss of combat ability. Sure its not due to lacking fuel but to lacking equipment but in the end both lead to decreased combat stats of the unit.

Another question would be why are you even talking about "ships need ships" thats nonsens. It seems "we" say that they run on fairy dust. However from what i understood ports would still need to have access to certain "levels" of supply capacity depending on how many ships are based there.

Is it really abstractions?, as explained having actual supply in the system does in fact add nothing to the game if we look at features that makes the game fun, interesting or adds choice. its a "i must do this because its the best thing to do no questions asked". Now we can argue if the actual supply add some flavour to the individual person but they add nothing to gameplay.
And its not like fuel is "gone" and abstracted into the supply value, fuel has just been moved from affecting the game in one way to affecting the game in another. Its still there, its still needed for stuff that runs on fuel and its still important strategically. Its important in another way from HoI3 but its still there. Now we can argue if we agree on the decision but again we can only speculate about how it impacts the game.
And the thing about the devs being lazy is just plain mindblowing. You are aware that the launch was pushed about 1 year because they werent satisfied with their product? Thats not being lazy/running out of time. Hell from the screenshots we have seen if they launched on schedule we would have had fuel in the game so we can only assume that theres a good reason to have made the change and that its to make the game better.

 

[takedown47]

I still play HOI 3 because it is the best WWII grand strategy game out there. Ofcourse i would have liked to have some of the new features HOI IV as they are better, but not at the expense of the essence of grand strategy WWII warfare.

War on that level is a game of logistics, it is ressource management and ressources here being all the assets in the game for making a war machine. Some ressources are mined out of the ground or otherwise extracted from the earth and transported to a specific place to produce other ressources which again need different ressources to function. Tedious as this sounds to some, this is one very important essence of war on that scale. Managing your ressources natural or produced in a manner so that you can realize your goals faster and better than your opponents.

If you are cutting off that aspect, on the strategic level, you are going arcade. It doesnt matter how many 88mm or marders or bf 109s' or blablabla you put into the game that has nothing to do with the mechanics of war on a large scale that is just giving the numbers names.

If you as a game company say you are developing a WWII grand scale wargame in the HOI series then do it. Otherwise come clean and call it something else. You won't dissappoint a lot of people, you will be rid of all the complaints, all the people who would rather play an easier game with a lot of namedropping "88mm, tiger tanks, spitfires" will be happy, and you will probably get a bigger sell because things today are supposed to be easy.

What you see in a debate like this is a lot of people, not all, but quite a bit, really liking your games, spending a lot of time playing them, contributing to their continuous playability and life, being dissappointed because we had hoped for something special when you say HOI IV. We know what you can do, we play with it regularly.

We expect a Grand Strategy WWII game that allows us to use the mechanics of that era to best our opponents, and we are not getting it, because you fail to recognize the essence of those mechanics.

Please license the sourcecode for HOI III. You will only make money from it, the hardliners of your gameseries get the chance to get the game they dreamed of, you get rid of all the annoying people who insist upon playing hard games with steep learning curves and even steeper mastering curves.

I hope the source code comes with dev tools and manual

 

[KimSand]

Me too

 

[FUregistration]

Are you saying someone is ridiculous because they don't know if this will cause your desired effects on the HOI4?

Saying an argument is ridiculous is not equal to say someone is ridiculous.

How are you even mentioning theoritical science? The very basic of science is that you need data to be able to get to a conclusion. You can't tell from 3 screenshots, and 20-30 lines of vague presentation if a system is complex or not. You may like or not like the basics, but to say the system is simple/dumbed down without even seeing it first is just wrong.

Ah no. You are simply wrong. And I'm not even going to bother to explain basic system theory, go to wikipedia and search yourself. I'm tired of having to explain stuff people should know before denying and/or arguing about.

Really? You quote only a part of my post and tell me my answer/preference is ridiculous? Real mature.

I don't care about your preference, its irrelevant, so is my preference. We are talking about the effects of game mechanics and the realism it brings, and while even this isn't "hardcoded", its something we all understand because there's a basis to judge from. Saying something is ridiculous is not mature or immature, its just my opinion about it, don't take it personal. And victimization tactics and/or attacks on anyone's character is a clear sign of damage control when losing a debate, just saying.

My point is that abstracting is better then having a broken and utterly unrealistic system like Hoi3 had. I think the game will be deep and complex enough with all the other great features we saw so far even if the fuel has been abstracted.

The thing is that HoI3 didn't have a broken system, nor a utterly unrealistic system, certainly a million miles more realistic than what HoI4 will have.
Again its not a question of having other great features, we all like that diplomacy and production will be improved, but without a proper fuel system this game is just a dud for anyone that actually wants to play a war strategy game. I mean how many times people have to bring up the history of ww2 to show how important fuel was and how distinct it was from other supply resources...

Well maybe you can solve the issues with the supply system hoi3 had, but developers couldn't.

I rarely had problems with supplies in HoI3 because I actually didn't neglect the construction and proper maintenance of supply lines, also I understood that the deployment of correct units in correct regions was important, this is what strategy is about. So my point is, yeah HoI3 might had some bugs, but supply problems were mostly caused by player negligence, not game mechanics or logic, developers can't fix player negligence.

Any other solution is just arcade. People have the right to like it but there is no historical/real rationale behind that. In my opinion instead of trying to justify this decision from the reality it would be much more honest to say: "we like it because it is much easier" and/or "the engine cannot handle the logistic" and/or "we dumbed it down because we want to sell the game to a bigger audience" and/or "we like it because we like it".

Exactly this.
I'm not saying the devs/players are being dishonest but they aren't being honest either, they justify changes with reasons that are in my opinion false/wrong, even provide justifications and examples that are mind boggling, like the whole thing about not being fun to have the Japanese fleet on port due to fuel shortage... Well and its not fun to be the USA and embargo Japan and they can still have their fleet running around full speed!!

Now we can argue if the actual supply add some flavour to the individual person but they add nothing to gameplay.
And its not like fuel is "gone" and abstracted into the supply value, fuel has just been moved from affecting the game in one way to affecting the game in another.

The current supply system, if it works with a flow won't be that much of a change, gameplay wise won't probably change much.
As for your fuel argument, its just wrong. Yes it still affects the game, but in terms of gameplay is, well, a literal game changer... unfortunately for the worst.

 

[Jonas]

Not exactly a fresh idea, but a good and simple one. It´s rather obvious, really, isnt it? Excessive stockpiling would have to be dealt with, though, by some sort of cap, maybe? Also: If we had such a system as decribed, should tanks (et al) still need fuel -maybe less- to be produced, as in the current design?

I would prefer to use no fuel to produce tanks. If this should simulate greasing the cogs of industry, all things produced should require fuel (or oil) to be produced. If this should simulate some form of transportation cost to the front it would be the same for units set up in the factory province as for units receiving replacements on the other side of the world. I prefer not to have a system at all if it is that blunt.

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

Devs, could please show some respect to your customers and at least discuss the numerous arguments given to explain that your design decision about fuel is a huge game distorsion in the worst possible way ?
You're just killing the game and its commercial success within your core customers, so... Why exactly ? Why not taking those criticisms and potential efficient ideas into consideration ? Why not giving fuel comsumption its own way ??!

 

[Zaku]

Ah no. You are simply wrong. And I'm not even going to bother to explain basic system theory, go to wikipedia and search yourself. I'm tired of having to explain stuff people should know before denying and/or arguing about.

So you think that science is some kind of magic? Dont even try to tell me that the scientists work without any input data because thats still wrong. Theoritical Science doesn't mean it hasn't got proof beind it.
Also now you say theory, but back in the previous post you said theoritical science. Not the same thing.

I don't care about your preference, its irrelevant, so is my preference. We are talking about the effects of game mechanics and the realism it brings, and while even this isn't "hardcoded", its something we all understand because there's a basis to judge from. Saying something is ridiculous is not mature or immature, its just my opinion about it, don't take it personal. And victimization tactics and/or attacks on anyone's character is a clear sign of damage control when losing a debate, just saying.

What's there to win or loose? This is not a debate it seems like, because I can't express my preference/thoughts on something. You say it doesn't matter, but why? I mean, just like you said it my preference in a game weights just the same as yours. Besides i never said that I liked the current system, all I said that I will give it a try before I judge it.
Victimization tactic? Oh jeez louise, I'm sorry that I don't like when someone says that my opinion is ridiculous. (Let me add, that I think that my opinion on the supply system is really reasonable.)

The thing is that HoI3 didn't have a broken system, nor a utterly unrealistic system, certainly a million miles more realistic than what HoI4 will have.
Again its not a question of having other great features, we all like that diplomacy and production will be improved, but without a proper fuel system this game is just a dud for anyone that actually wants to play a war strategy game. I mean how many times people have to bring up the history of ww2 to show how important fuel was and how distinct it was from other supply resources...

Ok now start a new campaign with Japan, invade both China and India with a land connection in between and tell me your experience agin. You can't even create supply lines, supply depots. Also how stupid is that while you have factories in India, it ships back the resources to the capital, and then the supplies go back to India. Yep, realistic and not broken at all. Also because of this the game can't even tell how many supplies you need, one day it says you need 4000, the other day 0. How is something good if you can't even know how much of stuff do you need to be the most effective?

I rarely had problems with supplies in HoI3 because I actually didn't neglect the construction and proper maintenance of supply lines, also I understood that the deployment of correct units in correct regions was important, this is what strategy is about. So my point is, yeah HoI3 might had some bugs, but supply problems were mostly caused by player negligence, not game mechanics or logic, developers can't fix player negligence.

That's probably because you haven't played much with the game then. See my point before. How can you as a player stop the AI from shipping stuff back and forth between the capital for no reason? You can't even tell it to go it other way then what the AI tells you. If it wants it to go on land, then it will go on land, even if its 4000kms away.

The system worked to an extent, but it was bad. Also this is after 3 or 4 expansions. Back in the day in vanilia you coundn't even counquer Poland, hell you couldn't even have units in your own territory in Germany without supply problems.

The current supply system, if it works with a flow won't be that much of a change, gameplay wise won't probably change much.
As for your fuel argument, its just wrong. Yes it still affects the game, but in terms of gameplay is, well, a literal game changer... unfortunately for the worst.

You may not like it(just like I don't like it), but for one reason or an other the devs decided for this design element. Now in the end we customers vote with our wallet. I will still buy the game, because I don't think this is such a huge deal. I think it still gives us enough strategic options to manage our logistics. If it works well it is certainly better then the broken system Hoi3 had back when vanillia came, and is still better then the barely working system of hoi3 today.

 

[safe-keeper]

Please license the sourcecode for HOI III. You will only make money from it, the hardliners of your gameseries get the chance to get the game they dreamed of, you get rid of all the annoying people who insist upon playing hard games with steep learning curves and even steeper mastering curves.

They are reluctant to give away their engine, I've heard, which is perfectly understandable. Licensing might be a bit "safer", but I don't know. Would be cool if done, though, either way .

 

[No idea]

Which im sure you havnt forgotten. Now going back to the quote post you claim that units will be in supply if they are under the area limit which is ofcourse true. However at the same time you manage to ignore the fact that this is also true in HoI3. If at any given time the supply usage in any given area did not exceed the amount of supply that could be transported to said area then the units would be in supply. Theres no difference between HoI3 and HoI4 in this aspect the difference lies in there being no psysical supply traveling in the network while at the same time you will be recieving better information about where bottlenecks are so throughput can be improved in HoI4.

Sorry to meddle in your private discussion, but you are not right in the part I quoted. If at any given time the supply usage in any given area doesnt exceed the amount of supply that could be trasnported to said areas then the units MIGHT be on supply. Which means that they might be out of supply. Because in HoI 3 supplies needed to travel. Just like IRL. Trucks and draft horses need to "catch" the front units (especially the panzer units) and then, and only then, the advance can be resumed. In HoI 3, when you are deep into enemy territory, you´d better capture some enemy supply and fuel or you will quickly be out of supply, fuel or both. Supplies and fuel travelling was NOT instantaneous. And the further from your supply sources, the worse your logistics will be. These two things were a very good addition to the HoI series (and they perfectly reflected WW II at strategic level) and they are both going to dissapear, it seems.

 

[Poh]

Sorry to meddle in your private discussion, but you are not right in the part I quoted. If at any given time the supply usage in any given area doesnt exceed the amount of supply that could be trasnported to said areas then the units MIGHT be on supply. Which means that they might be out of supply. Because in HoI 3 supplies needed to travel. Just like IRL. Trucks and draft horses need to "catch" the front units (especially the panzer units) and then, and only then, the advance can be resumed. In HoI 3, when you are deep into enemy territory, you´d better capture some enemy supply and fuel or you will quickly be out of supply, fuel or both. Supplies and fuel travelling was NOT instantaneous. And the further from your supply sources, the worse your logistics will be. These two things were a very good addition to the HoI series (and they perfectly reflected WW II at strategic level) and they are both going to dissapear, it seems.

If the units are standing still that wont be the case. If the units are moving its true they can "outrun" supply because supply only moves 1 province per day which result in it lagging a bit behind.
Do you really consider this a good system? that supply can only move one province a time is an abstraction and the fact that frontline units and supply is not "coordinated" doesnt make sense at all. Its a failing in the HoI3 system.

In HoI4 the thing that makes you want to stop an advance and wait a little will be because you want the planning bonus from battleplans, atleast that is what we have been told. At the same time lack of equipment might also make an advance slow down and stop. Afaik that a lot more realistic but people can ofcourse disagree.

 

[No idea]

If the units are standing still that wont be the case. If the units are moving its true they can "outrun" supply because supply only moves 1 province per day which result in it lagging a bit behind.
Do you really consider this a good system? that supply can only move one province a time is an abstraction and the fact that frontline units and supply is not "coordinated" doesnt make sense at all. Its a failing in the HoI3 system.

In HoI4 the thing that makes you want to stop an advance and wait a little will be because you want the planning bonus from battleplans, atleast that is what we have been told. At the same time lack of equipment might also make an advance slow down and stop. Afaik that a lot more realistic but people can ofcourse disagree.

The fact that supply (especially fuel) lags behind is a constant in WW II warfare. Just look at what happened during most ops in the East front. During 1941 the panzer spearheads were usually stopped not because of the enemy, but due to lack of fuel (because it lagged behind). It always happens the same in all offensives. It reaches a time when units lose cohesion, casualties pile up and, if the advance has been quick and deep into enemy territory, supplies and fuel cant catch the units fast enough to sustain the offensive, so it stops, even if for just one or two days, giving the enemy a bit of relief. Basically, the "supplies must travel and the longer they travel from source the more difficult time you will have supplying your troops" principle was a good one, based on warfare realities.

 

[wingo]

No, still a broken system in reality (but looks good in theory which is why they used it for HOI3). Simple test - delete all units in Soviet Far East, wait some time and then deploy some units in Vladivostok - and see how many months it will take them to finally be in supply, which is insanely unrealistic. And then they tried to fix inherent weaknessess by giving all units 30 day supply reserve during which they fights at 100% efficiency, which is also insanely unrealistic and produces its own problems, but at least makes it playable with the broken system.
Logistics were a problem because of bottlenecks (which the new system simulates), not because trains cannot move more than one province (regardless of size) per day... Also, organization simulates cohesion and battleplan bonus simulates supply reserves (among other things). Devs consistently move away from binary distinctions (100% or 0%, nothing in between) to more gradual approach and I like it. Also, let's not forget the great improvement in supply usage:

Units need more when fighting for example.

 

[No idea]

No, still a broken system in reality (but looks good in theory which is why they used it for HOI3). Simple test - delete all units in Soviet Far East, wait some time and then deploy some units in Vladivostok - and see how many months it will take them to finally be in supply, which is insanely unrealistic. And then they tried to fix inherent weaknessess by giving all units 30 day supply reserve during which they fights at 100% efficiency, which is also insanely unrealistic and produces its own problems, but at least makes it playable with the broken system.
Logistics were a problem because of bottlenecks (which the new system simulates), not because trains cannot move more than one province (regardless of size) per day... Also, organization simulates cohesion and battleplan bonus simulates supply reserves (among other things). Devs consistently move away from binary distinctions (100% or 0%, nothing in between) to more gradual approach and I like it. Also, let's not forget the great improvement in supply usage:

Considering you have some IC in the Far East, it wont take months (supplies are produced on core IC provinces, not just your capital).

The 30 day supply reserve was something unrealistic (no division had a 30 day combat supply stock)... which again happens in HoI IV.

Bottlenecks are one of the main problems with logistics, sure, but you also had them in HoI 3. And here (in HoI IV) we dont know what that means, since supplies dont flow (and bottlenecks happen because supplies "flow" to the units). It could be a name they have given to a mechanic, but unrelated with real life bottlenecks.

 

[Hammerstein]

I cannot really judge this before I try the game, but on paper this system sounds completely unrealistic.

Let's say I build a battleship and it gets sunk 1 month later. Where does all the oil end up which was stored in port reserved for 1936-1948 ?

 

[Denkt]

Yes it is unrealistic but HOI4 main focus is not realism but grand strategy and this new supply system is most likely far superior to the old one then it comes to grand strategy. The old supply system is not exactly realistic either.

 

[wingo]

Considering you have some IC in the Far East, it wont take months (supplies are produced on core IC provinces, not just your capital).

The 30 day supply reserve was something unrealistic (no division had a 30 day combat supply stock)... which again happens in HoI IV.

Bottlenecks are one of the main problems with logistics, sure, but you also had them in HoI 3. And here (in HoI IV) we dont know what that means, since supplies dont flow (and bottlenecks happen because supplies "flow" to the units). It could be a name they have given to a mechanic, but unrelated with real life bottlenecks.

1. Not sure about how it should work in theory, but it happened to me during my Soviet game (latest TFH). Also, being able to know how many divisions I can supply there will be a great improvement over HOI3.

2. 30 day supply is different, considering the transition between "in supply" and "not in supply" is gradual in HOI4 instead of binary in HOI3 (full strength for 30 days, then suddenly full out of supply penalty). Also, Podcat stated that units during combat need more supplies which could also mean they will get the full out of supply penalty sooner than in 30 days, but that is not confirmed.

3. HOI4 system is an abstracted flow system, it simulates supply flow capacity based on bottlenecks instead of simulating the flow itself. So yes, the bottlenecks are still there as was explicitly written in the dev diary, and I have faith this system will simulate bottlenecks better than the HOI3 flow system based on flawed premises. One analogy comes to mind - SimCity 4 vs SimCity 5. SimCity 5 is based on flow system promising more realistic results, but in reality ends up being inferior to SimCity 4 more abstracted simulation.

 

[FUregistration]

So you think that science is some kind of magic? Dont even try to tell me that the scientists work without any input data because thats still wrong. Theoritical Science doesn't mean it hasn't got proof beind it.
Also now you say theory, but back in the previous post you said theoritical science. Not the same thing.

Input data = Provided game mechanics
What's so hard to understand? Would it be more accurate when you can get practical data? Yes of course. Can you analyze it without practical data and achieve good results? Yes you can.
Does scientists ever seen the inside of a star? No. Can they make reasonable theoretical assumptions about it? Yes.
Did scientists theorized the atomic bomb? Yes. Did they knew what would happen? Yes. After the first atomic bomb test, did the practical data coincided with theoretical data? Yes.
Theoretical sciences are sciences that use only theoretical data, they propose theories, later on if its possible, practical tests are made to attempt to prove/disprove the theory, if they can be made.

Let me add, that I think that my opinion on the supply system is really reasonable.

Yes I find it reasonable, supply system if it will continue to work on a flow basis it should be ok.

Yep, realistic and not broken at all.

The system worked to an extent, but it was bad. Also this is after 3 or 4 expansions.

Well you could build infrastructure, to send supplies back and forth, also you could send supply convoys from India to Japan, never said HoI3 system was perfect, just said that most problems were due to player negligence.
And yes I agree that before the expansions HoI3 was almost unplayable.

 

[takedown47]

Yes it is unrealistic but HOI4 main focus is not realism but grand strategy and this new supply system is most likely far superior to the old one then it comes to grand strategy. The old supply system is not exactly realistic either.

so using oil to build tanks and tanks to fuel tanks is a superior system?