A negative number of convoy ships of an AI country
I have 3 questions about some things I don't understand concerning trade convoys - first of them must be a bug, second one might be a bug, and third can be considered to be a bug. (No doubt I'm not the first player to spot those issues, but couldn't find an answer to any of them.) I'm playing AoD's latest version without mods, checksum is correct (MZJY). Here it goes...
1. I played Germany and noticed that my subs sink implausible amount of Dutch convoys. It seemed weird. I saved a game and loaded as Netherlands. And what did I notice? - she had a negative number of convoys. So, although I had destroyed UK's merchant fleet, UK was still getting +10 Oil in day because of the bottomless reserve of Dutch convoys that fed UK based on trade agreements initiated by Netherlands. Efficiency of all trade agreements was 100%. (It's even more frustrating as UK's Oil stock wasn't that high in the context of amount burned each day - I might have had a chance to oil-starve UK in couple of years without the 'Dutch problem'.) The only 'abnormal' thing I did in a mentioned game was that I didn't conquer Poland - just for the sake of experiment - in its historical year (although I was in war with her). But surely this can't have an effect like this, unsinkability of Dutch merchant fleet? (Anyhow, it should be fixed.)
2. I wonder why does the supply map show a different number of convoy routes compared to trade folder? I played UK with a supply map mode turned on and witnessed how the number of visually presented routes dried up as game progressed - across the globe, UK had only 9 convoy routes left eventually (as of the beginning of 1941). On the other hand, trade folder shows that the trade agreements aren't canceled, resources flow as normal, there's a sufficient stock of newly built unused convoys, and the information box says that UK has 'Convoys Running: 25/39' (it means 25 active). So even if each visually showed route on the map is bidirectional and counted twice, there's still a gap between pictured and numerical presentation of an amount of convoy routes. What am I missing? (In addition, why does the 'convoy route dry up' effect exist? Is it purely graphical, supply map mode based?)
3. How is decided which two coastal provinces will become a startpoint and an endpoint for the trade convoy route between two countries? Some of the choices seem to be completely arbitrary - ahistorical and highly ineffective (wasting transports, as the number of ships per route depends on route's length (although I haven't figured out the exact connection)). Thanks to the missing part of the Northern part of the globe not presented on the map and freezing of the Soviet ports in North, one could maybe even rationalize the choice of the trade route between UK and SU as Plymouth-Khabaravosk. But UK's trade convoy route with France in line Plymouth-Toulon (instead of Plymouth-Brest, for example)? And this requiring 65 ships when Plymouth-Khabaravosk require similar magnitude, 82? Or maybe one of the weirdest routes of all, Plymouth-Los Angeles... why can't the Brittish merchant fleets just harbor in Washington D.C. (capital of USA, coastal province), only two provinces away from the USA-UK trade route, instead of passing through an additional 9 sea zones to reach Los Angeles (from where the goods are traveled across the whole USA to another shore to increase stocks in capital). Is it in each game like this? Can it be altered in some database file? I'm sure that everybody here knows where mentioned cities are, but just to visualize the absurdity below is a presentation how it looks on map (light brown arrow - Los Angeles, bright blue arrow - Washington D.C., yellow arrow - Plymouth). Sorry for the low quality of the picture, in original it was ok.
Can anyone help with these issues?
EDIT: Problem no 2 ('convoy route dry up' effect) got solved. It is purely graphical issue - if Supply Mapmode is turned on for a long period of time (weeks or so), then sometimes the routes (probably after shift of their paths) may not be shown on the map anymore (although they do exist and function properly behind a curtain (at least I presume so)). That may lead to a weird situation where you may get a message pop-up informing you that you have lost some convoy ships (due to enemy's hostile activity) in sea zones that no convoy route is seemingly passing (but in reality at least one must pass, of course). It helps when you switch on for a moment some other map mode and then switch Supply Mapmode back - as a result convoy routes will be visually refreshed on the map. I don't know under what conditions and why the 'visual convoy route dry up' effect (disappearance of the convoy routes on the supply map) occur - most of the time the routes are displayed with no problem, even after a shift of their paths (which you see constantly). In an ideal, this issue might be fixed, but it's just a minor thing really (as the remedy is so simple - good old paradoxian 'you have to exit the screen (or reload the game in rare worse cases) to refresh the data and make it work properly').
I have 3 questions about some things I don't understand concerning trade convoys - first of them must be a bug, second one might be a bug, and third can be considered to be a bug. (No doubt I'm not the first player to spot those issues, but couldn't find an answer to any of them.) I'm playing AoD's latest version without mods, checksum is correct (MZJY). Here it goes...
1. I played Germany and noticed that my subs sink implausible amount of Dutch convoys. It seemed weird. I saved a game and loaded as Netherlands. And what did I notice? - she had a negative number of convoys. So, although I had destroyed UK's merchant fleet, UK was still getting +10 Oil in day because of the bottomless reserve of Dutch convoys that fed UK based on trade agreements initiated by Netherlands. Efficiency of all trade agreements was 100%. (It's even more frustrating as UK's Oil stock wasn't that high in the context of amount burned each day - I might have had a chance to oil-starve UK in couple of years without the 'Dutch problem'.) The only 'abnormal' thing I did in a mentioned game was that I didn't conquer Poland - just for the sake of experiment - in its historical year (although I was in war with her). But surely this can't have an effect like this, unsinkability of Dutch merchant fleet? (Anyhow, it should be fixed.)
2. I wonder why does the supply map show a different number of convoy routes compared to trade folder? I played UK with a supply map mode turned on and witnessed how the number of visually presented routes dried up as game progressed - across the globe, UK had only 9 convoy routes left eventually (as of the beginning of 1941). On the other hand, trade folder shows that the trade agreements aren't canceled, resources flow as normal, there's a sufficient stock of newly built unused convoys, and the information box says that UK has 'Convoys Running: 25/39' (it means 25 active). So even if each visually showed route on the map is bidirectional and counted twice, there's still a gap between pictured and numerical presentation of an amount of convoy routes. What am I missing? (In addition, why does the 'convoy route dry up' effect exist? Is it purely graphical, supply map mode based?)
3. How is decided which two coastal provinces will become a startpoint and an endpoint for the trade convoy route between two countries? Some of the choices seem to be completely arbitrary - ahistorical and highly ineffective (wasting transports, as the number of ships per route depends on route's length (although I haven't figured out the exact connection)). Thanks to the missing part of the Northern part of the globe not presented on the map and freezing of the Soviet ports in North, one could maybe even rationalize the choice of the trade route between UK and SU as Plymouth-Khabaravosk. But UK's trade convoy route with France in line Plymouth-Toulon (instead of Plymouth-Brest, for example)? And this requiring 65 ships when Plymouth-Khabaravosk require similar magnitude, 82? Or maybe one of the weirdest routes of all, Plymouth-Los Angeles... why can't the Brittish merchant fleets just harbor in Washington D.C. (capital of USA, coastal province), only two provinces away from the USA-UK trade route, instead of passing through an additional 9 sea zones to reach Los Angeles (from where the goods are traveled across the whole USA to another shore to increase stocks in capital). Is it in each game like this? Can it be altered in some database file? I'm sure that everybody here knows where mentioned cities are, but just to visualize the absurdity below is a presentation how it looks on map (light brown arrow - Los Angeles, bright blue arrow - Washington D.C., yellow arrow - Plymouth). Sorry for the low quality of the picture, in original it was ok.
Can anyone help with these issues?
EDIT: Problem no 2 ('convoy route dry up' effect) got solved. It is purely graphical issue - if Supply Mapmode is turned on for a long period of time (weeks or so), then sometimes the routes (probably after shift of their paths) may not be shown on the map anymore (although they do exist and function properly behind a curtain (at least I presume so)). That may lead to a weird situation where you may get a message pop-up informing you that you have lost some convoy ships (due to enemy's hostile activity) in sea zones that no convoy route is seemingly passing (but in reality at least one must pass, of course). It helps when you switch on for a moment some other map mode and then switch Supply Mapmode back - as a result convoy routes will be visually refreshed on the map. I don't know under what conditions and why the 'visual convoy route dry up' effect (disappearance of the convoy routes on the supply map) occur - most of the time the routes are displayed with no problem, even after a shift of their paths (which you see constantly). In an ideal, this issue might be fixed, but it's just a minor thing really (as the remedy is so simple - good old paradoxian 'you have to exit the screen (or reload the game in rare worse cases) to refresh the data and make it work properly').
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