"Free folk village joins" & logistics

[Elver]

The decisions where a free folk village joins - and to a lesser degree, the ones where adventurers from your nation grab a distant asset - have some problems. Namely, as soon as the FF Marauders join your side, they run into supply (and food) issues, and gradually starve to death unless you connect them to your logistics network. Either type of troop in question functioned well enough independently to function w/o your support prior to this, but as soon as they join whatever independent support systems they have evaporates.

There are a number of ways this could be addressed. FFM could reasonably not require support given that they're pretty hard to come by and low tech, so that's not a hugely unbalancing thing. The adventurers could have some unique feat (private supply train or suchlike) that lets them resist degradation from lack of supplies for a time. More drastically, free folk villages could have a very small logistics/supply output - though that wouldn't help adventurers.

Thoughts?

[zgrssd]

I wish they simply would not start 1/4 planet rotation away from me. I mean seriously, could they at least be in the same timezone as me?

[GodwinW]

Well, it would a bit of a no-brainer if they could forage for themselves.

And you want to connect the zones anyway for the perk to benefit you. And if you do, you might as well have it like this.

I think it's fine as is.
I even think it's fine that sometimes it's undoable and other times it's doable.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: GodwinW

Well, it would a bit of a no-brainer if they could forage for themselves.

And you want to connect the zones anyway for the perk to benefit you. And if you do, you might as well have it like this.

I think it's fine as is.
I even think it's fine that sometimes it's undoable and other times it's doable.

That you need to supply the troops, is fine. That is how this is actually a challenge:
The troops you start with on the hex should be enough to defend it against any random marrauders or animals trying to take it. With a later game village quest, I once got 3 size-24 Militia units. If supply was not an issue, there would have been no way for me to fail this by inaction.

However, on the distance:
Those things are called "Decisions" or "Dilemmas".
If it is mathematically impossible for you to get troops and supply there in time, there is no decision. No Dilemma. It failed at doing the one thing it was in the game for.

[GodwinW]

You had bad luck. That's not a big issue imo. Oftentimes it's a question whether you can make it. Sometimes it's crazily easy. Sometimes it may be crazily hard.
Maybe it's even impossible a few times.
I'm not worried about it.

Sure, it would be nice if the impossible one could be filtered out but it's extremely low on a priority list I'd make. And I wouldn't want the fix to end up making it too easy in general.

[Elver]

I'm rather inclined to ask what kinds of planets you typically play on, because in my experience I haven't had bad luck when the units starved before I could reach them; I've had remarkably good luck on the odd occasions when they haven't. Large planets with a high mountain percentage has made it typically 10+ turns to get to where the village/asset is at - or more. I've had a number of games where FFMs could have bolted for my lines - abandoning their village - and had no chance of getting there b/c w/o full supply they didn't have enough AP to traverse the terrain between their position and my lines, and ended up starving to death while my roadbuild slowly plodded towards them. By contrast, I've had 2-3 instances where the village/asset was reachable before the units died.

You can argue that this isn't a big deal, but that does not reflect my experience at all - the units are more often than not spawning so far away that there's no hope of reaching them with supplies before they're wrecked, and often so far away that it's insane for them to be contacting my regime. These Decisions need to be worked on to negate the lack of supply, have their range seriously reduced (and in a way that takes terrain into account) or be removed entirely. They're broken right now.

[Gozzon]

Most of the times I've had them spawn at locations close enough for me to meet and supply them. One game I had them spawn literally half a planet (on a large planet even) away with no hope of ever reaching them especially since the whole planet was littered with extremely dangerous animals.

The planet also had really, really low number of free folk for whatever reason and hardly any free folk villages in the wild so maybe that played in a lot on why this happened but I do not know for sure.

[zgrssd]

The only time I had them spawn remotely close enough, was on small moons.

On anything bigger, they are usualy a 1/4 rotation away, on the other hemisphere of the stellar body.

[LordAldrich]

I agree, these distance that these events can spawn in should be reduced. It might even make sense to check that there's a clear path between your borders and the site (by which I mean, a path that doesn't go through a solid border that you'd have to start a war to change).

[Atros]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

The only time I had them spawn remotely close enough, was on small moons.

On anything bigger, they are usualy a 1/4 rotation away, on the other hemisphere of the stellar body.

This (I usually only play larger planets).

The fact that my planets are constantly heavily forested, possibly even with slow to move Cloud Forests or forested mountains makes reaching them a pain, even without the cost of dragging thousands of kilometres long dirt-road with you that creates serious drain on your IC production.

Last time I had narrow isthmus as the only route to reach the adventurers that could be taken to have any possibility to reach them in time and that bloody isthmus happened to have freefolk village in the narrowest point with semi-strong stack of FF AND two strong monster stacks in a time I had only turn before been able to raise my first half-strength mobilized infantry brigade. This resulted the two added independent mot. MG battalions being the only full strength units in a very desperate and bloody push trough that isthmus and could just in time to bring the road close enough to give minimal supply to save half of the adventurer unit... During a time when I would have desperately needed the IC to support my militia to hold ground against advancing monster stacks, forcing my all fronts besides that bloody isthmus into a full retreat to save force strength for counter when I can bring those units back.

That was quite epic, but still the fact that it cut that close with full effort meant that one bad roll on RNG, not fully thought round OR even one started construction project or mistake in supplying during all these turns would have meant certain failure...

My suggestion would be limiting the number of hexes away the events can happen from your borders with land connection, as then the only random unexpected element would be the terrain. Second possibility would be to calculate the movement cost from your border/closest units to the location and put a limitation into the movement cost away it can happen, preferably with atleast two turns worth of extra for mistakes and gathering forces and resources.

I wouldn't mind another event with "adventurers in dire straits", where it might be full possible that you can't reach in time, but then there shouldn't be a possibility for backlash if you answer the call for help. This could actually be a race-event where multiple regimes try to reach there first and the winner reaps the benefits and losers are left hanging (but without losing their word-score).

[Elver]

The other issue with the mechanics that underlie problems with these decisions is the lack of ability for a major to engage in combat prior to making a sustained roadbuild into the theater - only minors and independents can range ahead of clearly established logistics networks. It really feels like something is missing in the lack of any sort of light infantry model/formation that can range ahead of the main body of your forces or other units that can have a supply train to push forward to secure territory before connecting it to your road network rather than after - the ability to sustain operations for even one extra turn out of supply seems like it would greatly increase strategic options, even if doing so made the unit more fragile overall.

Relatedly, some other players have commented that the absence of any sort of logistics benefit from freefolk villages actually reduces their strategic value; right now all they are is an asset for a city to pull population from.

[zgrssd]

From the 1.04beta3:
"-The event where you got Free Folk or Adventurers on a distant Hex will now be made less distant if possible. Remember it is always possible to refuse to take this choice. Also will try to avoid to close ones. But it will not always be possible due to the randomness of the map. "