Hearts of Iron IV - 33rd Development Diary - Supply

[keynes2.0]

Overall looks like a very easy to manage system that does what is important.

I dont recall if trucks are in the game but it does seem like the "realism" modders are going to quickly turn trucks into the fuel stockpile.

• It also worth noting that supply areas will change size if they are being fought over so actual levels will depend on how much you control.

This seems problematic. If I understand this correctly, when an enemy withdraws into the far end of the supply zone and you chase him over bad ground, your supply situation would actually improve because you control more of the supply zone. Not a game breaking problem per say but a bit troubling.

Maybe if you dont control much of a supply zone, the neighbor bonus should be bigger? That way chasing the enemy over bad ground would worsen your supply lines as you go further from your bases of supply and extend your lines.

It seems like a good system but it seems like the size of the supply zones is problematic. If the supply zones are too large it would be too easy to push into bad supply. If the supply zones are too small it would reward attacking from every bordering province instead of attacking along the good transportation lines like happened in China or Africa or Spain.

 

[Aries666]

I'm not clear whether this means that you use throughput like in HoI3. I.e. whether the amount supplies that can be delivered to an area is limited by the how much is siphoned off on the way by units in supply areas further upstream.
E.g. units near Stalingrad wont get any supplies, because units in the Ukraine and Poland are eating all the supplies being sent East from Berlin.

I believe there is no throughput. Imagine you have a supply chain of A(Capital)>B>C>D(frontline). The Supply for A=50, B=10, C=30, D=70, units in D, the frontline would only ever receive 10 supply as the system is bottlenecked at B. If B was improved to 70 the units in D would now receive 30 supply as the bottleneck is now at C and so on.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

I'm not clear whether this means that you use throughput like in HoI3. I.e. whether the amount supplies that can be delivered to an area is limited by the how much is siphoned off on the way by units in supply areas further upstream.
E.g. units near Stalingrad wont get any supplies, because units in the Ukraine and Poland are eating all the supplies being sent East from Berlin.

If I understand correctly, equipment doesn't really flow along the supply system. The supply capacity you see in the interface is a measure of how "connected" a given region is to your supply sources. If the demand in the supply region does not exceed the capacity of your supply system to deliver to that region, then equipment will move at the normal rate from your stockpile to the requesting division. The only way units in other supply regions will affect it is if you run out of stuff in the stockpile.

Also, as I understand it, the penalties due to being out of supply are based on integrating this "supply delivery capacity" versus "current demand". If you are disconnected from the network for 30 days, you up in a bad state, and disbanding divisions to possibly get equipment to the remaining divisions doesn't change the supply-related penalties you are taking. That is, it's not access to equipment per se that means your division is in supply, it's access to the network. A panzer division that gets cut off from supply for long enough will be taking greatly-accelerated equipment losses and huge org penalties, no matter is someone just disbanded another panzer division right next to it.

 

[Nicolas I]

I know. But what I am saying is that, as soon as you disband your "dummy divisions", the equipment goes to the stockpile, which is located nowhere, meaning it won't reach the front lines any faster...

That was not what Podcat said last june in a thread about splitting and merging divisions.

I would have to check if it changed, but if you disband one of two understrength divisions in a province the other will get its stuff right away...

That statement seems to validate dizzle3 assumption.

So then there is a potential workaround for the whole supply system. You can just use divisions as equipment dumps and equipment carriers. If you're having supply problems in an area, instead of using the supply system, send in a division which has the equipment that you need to that area and disband it.

 

[uleslaw]

Entire system seems well thought and well designed, but I think that making a special kind of equipment like oil barrels (which would be stockable) could improve it. So that beside all of those tanks, trucks etc., a mechanized division would require another type of equipment - oil barrels.

 

[keynes2.0]

Entire system seems well thought and well designed, but I think that making a special kind of equipment like oil barrels (which would be stockable) could improve it. So that beside all of those tanks, trucks etc., a mechanized division would require another type of equipment - oil barrels.

But then what is to stop every player from churning out oil barrels from 1936-1939 and never have fuel problems?

 

[uleslaw]

But then what is to stop every player from churning out oil barrels from 1936-1939 and never have fuel problems?

Costs of production? You can prepare a million fuel barrels per week, but make sure you left enought factories to also make some tanks (actually you also would need enough amount of oil resources to produce all those barrels).

 

[podcat]

That was not what Podcat said last june in a thread about splitting and merging divisions.




That statement seems to validate dizzle3 assumption.

Even if you get the equipment you will still not be in supply, we track supply status too, it isnt JUST equipment you currently have

@Keyenes2.0 the size thing are only for some stuff, because yes otherwise it can become a problem

 

[Hobus1]

So fuel is used almost like building units in Civ5.............Well at least it will appeal to the more casual wargamer.

 

[Heatth]

That was not what Podcat said last june in a thread about splitting and merging divisions.




That statement seems to validate dizzle3 assumption.

True. Meaning having "dummy divisions" is a valid strategy for quick reinforcements.

I don't think it will actually exploit the supply system, though. Extra divisions means extra supply consumption. True, it will replace lost equipment faster (maybe lost men too?), but if the extra divisions end up causing the whole region to be out of supply, then it will cause the units in combat to lose organization and fight worse, which is bad. Furthermore, the dummy divisions will suffer attrition as well, including from lack of supply, meaning you will lose more equipment than you would otherwise.

Even if you get the equipment you will still not be in supply, we track supply status too, it isnt JUST equipment you currently have

I think that may not have been much clear from DD. It seems a lot of people here are assuming that supply=equipment.

 

[Nicolas I]

Did i miss an answer about how the ships will be fuelled ?

I didn't find any answer by Podcat. Some people suggested that building a ship will also build it's lifetime fuel need, that 's a really huge amount of fuel !

Or will there will be a new equipment named "ships parts" (why not ship fuel then?) to simulate the fuel needs the same way as for motorized units ? I cannot imagine you will need to build a new aircraft carrier to "fuel" an old one ? Or a new Yamato to "fuel" an old one ?

 

[Enewald]

Somewhere on the German conquered Caucasus in 1942:

-Herr General, we are 100km from cutting the Soviet Caspian railways, but after the recent advance our panzers are running low on fuel
-Verdammt, call the headquarters and demand they send new panzers immediately to us
-Herr General, shouldn't we just loot the recently conquered Soviet supply dump and see if they have some fuel for us?
-CALL THE HEADQUARTERS AND ORDER SOME NEW PANZERS SOFORT, WHY IS THAT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND???

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Even if you get the equipment you will still not be in supply, we track supply status too, it isnt JUST equipment you currently have

How about if you don't get the equipment (don't have any left in your stockpile), but are in supply (in a region with lots of supply delivery capacity)? I'm assuming you don't suffer out of supply penalties, but you just suffer degradation of your unit stats as equipment that can't be replaced is lost to attrition or combat.

 

[Nicolas I]

True. Meaning having "dummy divisions" is a valid strategy for quick reinforcements...I don't think it will actually exploit the supply system, though. Extra divisions means extra supply consumption. True, it will replace lost equipment faster (maybe lost men too?), but if the extra divisions end up causing the whole region to be out of supply, then it will cause the units in combat to lose organization and fight worse, which is bad. Furthermore, the dummy divisions will suffer attrition as well, including from lack of supply, meaning you will lose more equipment than you would otherwise...

I was not thinking about "dummy divisions", but consolidating existing divisions by disbanding one or more in the same area (cannibalizing their men/equipment) when "supply" is scarce. That way you also lower your overall supply need and move toward solving your bottleneck problem.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

One interesting effect of the overflow from adjacent regions: narrow advances would be more difficult to supply that broad ones. If your advance is only one region wide, you get overflow from the region behind you. If it is broader, you get overflow from more adjacent regions.

 

[Cardus]

You like or not this is consistent with the general idea to simplify the system and to fit EU/CK to HOI. Personally, as I mentioned, I would rather fund a fork of HOI as I like the "old grognard" concept but I believe that from the business point of view this strategy makes more sense. I would call this new game HOI 2.0 instead of HOI4. I hope to see, first or later, HOI4 developed by the old players for the old players (possibly without a steam account, with or without a 3D map which I don't care at all, with all the micromanagement needed to a realistic game, with Nato counters, etc). In the meanwhile I wish to Paradox to be very successful with HOI 2.0 as the company is one of the best on the market.

 

[Hobus1]

Somewhere on the German conquered Caucasus in 1942:

-Herr General, we are 100km from cutting the Soviet Caspian railways, but after the recent advance our panzers are running low on fuel
-Verdammt, call the headquarters and demand they send new panzers immediately to us
-Herr General, shouldn't we just loot the recently conquered Soviet supply dump and see if they have some fuel for us?
-CALL THE HEADQUARTERS AND ORDER SOME NEW PANZERS SOFORT, WHY IS THAT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND???

Why even order new panzers since your old ones run forever since they were built? They appear to run on bread, luckily Germany wont lack foodstuffs.
I think the general would have the man replaced by saying 'Don't you know panzers never run out of gas!'
One good thing is the Luftwaffe will never be grounded from lack of Fuel

 

[Heatth]

I was not thinking about "dummy divisions", but consolidating existing divisions by disbanding one or more in the same area (cannibalizing their men/equipment) when "supply" is scarce. That way you also lower your overall supply need and move toward solving your bottleneck problem.

I was addressing dizzle3 concern that you could work around the supply system by having dummy divisions that you disband when you needed the equipment. I argued that this wouldn't work as the stockpile is not present in the map, but you showed that it would, actually, as in this situation the under-equipped units would, indeed, receive their equipment. But then I concluded it wouldn't be an exploit anyway, since it doesn't actually address the supply concerns, only the equipments.

But, yeah, it seems merging divisions will be possible and not an exploit. That is cool.

 

[keynes2.0]

Costs of production? You can prepare a million fuel barrels per week, but make sure you left enought factories to also make some tanks (actually you also would need enough amount of oil resources to produce all those barrels).

Yes but you would still have to produce the oil at some point anyway. It makes sense to do it before the war when it's easy but that's super unrealistic. Unless oil was made ridiculously expensive in a likewise unhistorical way a player could afford to double or triple their oil production in order to stockpile while still building a military. It would come at the cost of equipment that is mostly going to become obsolete anyway.

This is like the most complicate issue of the design. The devs obviously considered the simple "solution" and there's reasons they didn't go with it.

 

[Hobus1]

Did i miss an answer about how the ships will be fuelled ?

I didn't find any answer by Podcat. Some people suggested that building a ship will also build it's lifetime fuel need, that 's a really huge amount of fuel !

Or will there will be a new equipment named "ships parts" (why not ship fuel then?) to simulate the fuel needs the same way as for motorized units ? I cannot imagine you will need to build a new aircraft carrier to "fuel" an old one ? Or a new Yamato to "fuel" an old one ?

They probably run forever like a hoi4 tank- Who needs the Nautilus?