How to run US West Coast ports in the black

[el cid again]

You will notice - except for San Francisco - many US and Canadian locations are running in the pink - and it is difficult to load large cargos in them without making that problem worse.

In RHS we try to make the US and Canadian economies "grow" - not just sit there and be static at some level. This is done by assigning "damaged" things to these locations - often so many it will take three years or more to repair them all.
As construction of ports and airfields and fortifications max out - and as damaged things repair up to the point there is no more damage - more and more of the supplies that were involved in construction and repair will become available to export or use operationally. Further - if you let HI centers repair - the more actual supply and fuel points you will be producing - compared to the initial rates. The initial net sum of all these repair and construction costs is very large.

IF for some reason it is desired to have more supplies at some point - you may turn off repair for things in that hex - or turn off build authorization for ports, airfields or fortifications. There are strategic reasons that some investments are better done early - but you are not forced to build/repair everything at every location every day. And maybe in your game for some reason that may not be the best strategy. So be aware the extent to which you spend these points is under your control - and potentially vast numbers of supply points you already are generating can be used for something other than construction/repair. And just where you build/repair what is directly under your control - in the form of the build/repair settings for each location.

[Bliztk]

Well, you have to clarify things, because RHS has damaged Allied Naval and Merchant shipyards that have no use for the Allies other than eating supply

I guess that repairing those should be always turn on, because the Allied player has no incentive to have them ON

[TulliusDetritus]

Now I think I understand pretty well the logistical, economical thing in RHS (Level 7). Anyway, you are talking about the allies. My current game: I’m almost on march 1942.

When you start the only places where you really get free supplies => Recife (30k per month) and Aden (60k per month). India is the other place where supplies are produced. But the sub-continent needs them.

West Coast: if you don’t turn off the reparation of ressources, heavy Industry, etc, you do not get supplies. The bases are in “orange” if not “red”.

New Orleans produces in theory a lot of supplies... but the reparation thing swallows all of them: numbers in orange as well.

Australia, same thing. I have sent like 300k oil (they have enough ressources) but they still do NOT produce enough supplies (numbers in “orange”). The reparations swallow everything.

Unavoidable necessities: Hawaii (and the Central/South Pacific bases) and Australia. You have to send supplies there. Not to mention Alaska (but this is a “minor” theatre).

Now, New Orleans may produce a lot of supplies if you send ressources (4k Heavy Industry). From the West Coast and Australia (the latter produces a lot; but it’s far and you need big cargos: 10k)

Conclusion: either you turn off reparations in West Coast and send supplies where they are needed or you don’t turn them off but send supplies the same (my choice). If you use the first strategy, it is evident that other theatres will have to povide the supplies for the West Coast (if players want to repair the Heavy Industry, etc.). In other words, supplies will come from Australia and East [American] Coast (New Orleans). But Australia is supposed to be the potential base for a counter-offensive...

[m10bob]

I think it was a good idea.
It's not that the ports are really damaged, but the fact they represent a preacetime economy turning and getting coordinated to move in one direction, with common purpose.
Of course there is advantage for the Allies to manually choose to build/repair or not.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

You will notice - except for San Francisco - many US and Canadian locations are running in the pink - and it is difficult to load large cargos in them without making that problem worse.

In RHS we try to make the US and Canadian economies "grow" - not just sit there and be static at some level. This is done by assigning "damaged" things to these locations - often so many it will take three years or more to repair them all.
As construction of ports and airfields and fortifications max out - and as damaged things repair up to the point there is no more damage - more and more of the supplies that were involved in construction and repair will become available to export or use operationally. Further - if you let HI centers repair - the more actual supply and fuel points you will be producing - compared to the initial rates. The initial net sum of all these repair and construction costs is very large.

Problem here is that in reality the US Economy was able to expand it's facilities as well as supply it's military. Which is why it stands virtually alone among the participants in not just expanding existing facilities, but building entirely new plants. I would say you have gone too far if the West Coast or New Orleans is suffering from lack of supply. They should start "in the black"..., though having the amount available increase over the course of the war would certainly be accurate.

[bradfordkay]

Andrew Brown did this first with the CHS, leaving the resource and oil centers on the west coast in a largely "damaged" state to simulate the time it took to build up US industry to a total war footing. The only time these locations go "into the pink" is when a player starts loading huge amounts of supply or fuel for shipment to points west without regard to the incoming amount of supply. To me this works quite well...

[TulliusDetritus]

Mike, I think that El Cid Again got it right on this one... perhaps. I too was surprised in my other RHS games (when the version was not stable). I noticed pretty soon the lack of supplies in the West Coast: "weird", I thought. I am lying. I thought he [El Cid Again] had done some sloppy work, somehow [8D]

But I am starting to think that he got the right picture after all. Yes, indeed, the American industrial production was astronomical, but not on the first months of the war.

From what I have read, on the first months of the war there was a shortage of everything. Now I don't know 100% if the lack of shipping was the reason. Or a combination of "the country is not prepared" & "lack of shipping".

But I do know one thing. This is the first mod where allied players don't have astronomical quantities of material since the 7th december 1941. So, in my opinion, El Cid Again might be "right" after all. All I can say, as ally (in my H2H game) I see the lack of everything (supplies, for example).

In theory, if my maths aren't wrong, the West Coast, etc, will start to produce supplies (no deficit then) on may or june or something like that. So we have 4 or 5 or 6 miserable months. We may say that this simulates what happened in real life. Shortages, shortages and more shortages.

[TulliusDetritus]

Bradfordkay, yes, Andrew Brown invented the "damaged HI, ressources, etc." concept. Intelligent, indeed. Now, I remember that I could send the same hundreds of thousands of supplies almost since the 7th december. There were supplies in astronomical quantities (compared with RHS, that is).

[Ian R]

What happens if you prioritise it by say:
 
1. leave a couple of places with everything turned on eg new Orleans, somewhere in souith east Australia. The rest all to off except maybe airfields, then ports.
 
2. When they finish, turn 2 more cities repairs "on", EG San Fran, next city in Australia etc
 
3. Then do another two
 
4. Then ( because its late 1942 by then) turn everything left to repairs on?
 
Do the non expanding cities provide enough so they ooze around and keep everything in the black?

[witpqs]

TulliusDetritus,

You have it pretty well figured out. I've run a couple of games through '43. You are now (March '42) at about the point where things are loosening up a lot more on the West Coast. By the middle of summer it will be much better. By late '42, quite bountiful.

Everybody,

Bear in mind that 1) this is meant to reproduce the real shortage of supplies early on, and 2) some things at some locations take about 3 years to fully repair. It is part of the deal to leave West Coast repairs on (base building is your option), if you don't then you have more than historical supplies available too early.

The only adjustment that you have to make is a few small port cities (Long Beach, and two in Oregon/Washington) that need convoys to bring them supplies to keep them from being 'deep red' and starving garrison units. That's it - a few convoys along the coast is the only price to get a great recreation of the production ramp up of supplies. As I recall all cities but three take care of themselves, and those three (Long Beach, et al) are fine after about the first 6-8 months.

There is no need at all to import supplies into the West Coast or Canada.

As far as other places go, like Australia: try like hell to get enough supplies and oil in there. You can turn off some repairs if you really need to, but that will delay their production of supplies later. Definitely turn off resource repairs at Darwin. Move resources to New Orleans as fast as possible.

New Orleans is also repairing and will produce an increasing amount of supplies later on (further into '42). Until then you must bring in resources to generate supplies that you take out.

Mike Scholl,

Please note that you can pull supplies out of the West Coast right at first, it's just that the amount is nothing like as great as in Stock. Also, getting some resources from WC to New Orleans to generate supply for Hawaii is a really great idea as it eases the supply burden on the WC.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Bliztk

Well, you have to clarify things, because RHS has damaged Allied Naval and Merchant shipyards that have no use for the Allies other than eating supply

I guess that repairing those should be always turn on, because the Allied player has no incentive to have them ON

The RHS data set is built to facilitate correct economic and military modeling. When we get Allied production, this data is going to be useful directly. But even now, if you don't repair these yards up, you are not modeling the investment curve properly, and you have "too much" supply. It is fine if you want to do that - as a strategic priority decision - but don't do it IF you want to play "strictly historically" - because you know that they were built IRL. Further - are we SURE they have no function? Just because something isn't documented, reported or understood does not mean it is not in this rich produce - as from time to time we have learned about this and that.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

West Coast: if you don’t turn off the reparation of ressources, heavy Industry, etc, you do not get supplies. The bases are in “orange” if not “red”.

New Orleans produces in theory a lot of supplies... but the reparation thing swallows all of them: numbers in orange as well.

Australia, same thing. I have sent like 300k oil (they have enough ressources) but they still do NOT produce enough supplies (numbers in “orange”). The reparations swallow everything.

REPLY: The point is that you don't have to be like AI is: There is no reason to build up every port, every airfield, every fortification, and repair every sort of industry/resource simultaneously. That is bad strategy, and it was not done IRL either.

A secondary point is that you CAN load supplies when in the pink - and it helps create demand for that location to get larger shipments.

A tirtiary point is that San Francisco virtually always runs in the black. So does San Diego. And Aden produces a significant amount of supply, while Muscat produces a lot of oil. Both produce fuel. You should run a steady stream of ships to/from these points. If you send Oil to India, you will get more production there.

Finally, re Australia, you should be importing oil, and that will make a gigantic difference. It cannot make supply points and fuel points unless it has the oil. You also should move resources BY SHIP from the West and North to the SE - the rail net won't do so efficiently enough - and this is the same as IRL - where most cargo went by sea. Otherwise you may have ample resources total, but not where they are required.

New Zealand can produce quite a bit - but won't if you don't import oil and, to a lesser extent, resources. NZ does not produce as much as it needs unless you move out some of its units - but you should do that. Even so, sending supplies and fuel to NZ is a good idea. Remember, you can get resources at Noumea - no need to run all the way to the US.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

I think it was a good idea.
It's not that the ports are really damaged, but the fact they represent a preacetime economy turning and getting coordinated to move in one direction, with common purpose.
Of course there is advantage for the Allies to manually choose to build/repair or not.

Eventually - the production becomes gigantic. And phased repair may make more sense than "build and repair everything up front." Probably does. I think it is wiser to repair the HI but not resources or all the infrastructures up front. Investing in repairing an HI center early means it "pays you back" with supply production = or greater than its supply cost - plus you get more HI points and fuel points that way than you otherwise will get. AFTER many of these HI centers are repaired up - THEN you might want to repair more oil/resources to feed them. You should build up ports and airfields you need to USE - then build up others. Fortifications may not be a priority ever - and if they are - they build up fast - not needing years (as some did IRL). So build them if there is a threat - and not if there is not. This idea - a suggestion from the Forum - was not to have static supply sources (for what year???) - but growing ones - was a pretty good one - but it was hard to implement so it worked.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again

You will notice - except for San Francisco - many US and Canadian locations are running in the pink - and it is difficult to load large cargos in them without making that problem worse.

In RHS we try to make the US and Canadian economies "grow" - not just sit there and be static at some level. This is done by assigning "damaged" things to these locations - often so many it will take three years or more to repair them all.
As construction of ports and airfields and fortifications max out - and as damaged things repair up to the point there is no more damage - more and more of the supplies that were involved in construction and repair will become available to export or use operationally. Further - if you let HI centers repair - the more actual supply and fuel points you will be producing - compared to the initial rates. The initial net sum of all these repair and construction costs is very large.

Problem here is that in reality the US Economy was able to expand it's facilities as well as supply it's military. Which is why it stands virtually alone among the participants in not just expanding existing facilities, but building entirely new plants. I would say you have gone too far if the West Coast or New Orleans is suffering from lack of supply. They should start "in the black"..., though having the amount available increase over the course of the war would certainly be accurate.

We are not writing code here. Nor is the economic model sophisticated enough. And it is very easy to program too many supplies - so that players don't actually need to repair things. RHS wanted players to have to worry about resources of all sorts - and to have to move things - and make priority decisions about what to invest in or not? Further - if you let AI run things - it always is stupid - and builds things of no use (or almost no use) - all at once. IF you "set all facilities to expand at start" (or let AI run things - it pretends that switch is always on) I see no reason to feed you supply points sufficient to do that. Then a human player that does not do that would have far too many supply points.

Even so - it may be that we need to increase supply at various points. We just did that at CANADA - and I have been testing it for 3 or 4 days. It looks like many more places are running in the black - and the rest nearly so (almost 2x requirements) - even with stupid "repair everything" AI in charge. IF you don't try to do everything - it clearly runs every place in the black (tested). Which is not to say you cannot do most things - just not everything.

The US did NOT have unlimited resources, and found (for example) problems like steel production critical: it is hard to change it fast, and you always need more than you produce - it can do widely different things - and you can only do one thing with any batch of steel. Steel is the most valuable strategic commodoty other than petroleum, and you can use it to frame factories, build bridges or railroads, build vehicles or ships, build artillery or other weapons, and a host of other widely different things. The US had to decide what to do, what not? It was not able to do everything it could dream up all at one time - and there is a lot of detail history about how priorities were sorted out. See for one example The Two Ocean Navy - about building the fleet.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Andrew Brown did this first with the CHS, leaving the resource and oil centers on the west coast in a largely "damaged" state to simulate the time it took to build up US industry to a total war footing. The only time these locations go "into the pink" is when a player starts loading huge amounts of supply or fuel for shipment to points west without regard to the incoming amount of supply. To me this works quite well...

As I recall, the suggestion was simply do do what Andrew did writ large. So the economy grows for years instead of for a matter of weeks or months. It does seem to work quite well. So do a number of "micro economies." Some work much better if you supply what they are missing. Some work no matter what you do or don't do.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

What happens if you prioritise it by say:

1. leave a couple of places with everything turned on eg new Orleans, somewhere in souith east Australia. The rest all to off except maybe airfields, then ports.

2. When they finish, turn 2 more cities repairs "on", EG San Fran, next city in Australia etc

3. Then do another two

4. Then ( because its late 1942 by then) turn everything left to repairs on?

Do the non expanding cities provide enough so they ooze around and keep everything in the black?

The thing to worry about is nearby cities. Thus - in the Pacific NW - you should not be trying to repair up everything all at one time. But do you need all those resources? Probably not - at least not until AFTER you build up the HI to use them!
Do you need forts everywhere ? Even inland? Probably not. And if a threat develops - you can always build forts later.
This sort of thing - being selective - means you can run everything in the black. As you repair up this or that, you may find you can then turn on others, as suggested. But you don't have to go down to only two building up. Play with it.

[TulliusDetritus]

El Cid Again, yes, I am already doing that [8D]

My system.

From West Coast:
- Ressources to Panama => and then to New Orleans.
- Supplies to Hawaii, Alaska, Australia and New Zealand.
- Fuel to Alaska, Central/South Pacific, Kangoorooland & Kiwiland.
- Oil to Australia and New Zealand (I forgot this one).

From New Orleans:
- Oil to Panama => and then to West Coast.
- Supplies to Panama => and then to West Coast

In Australia
- Convoys load ressources in Perth (no overland movement) and unload in Melbourne.
- Some cargo ships load ressources in New Caledonia and unload in Melbourne.
- The convoys wich arrive in Australia from the West Coast (with troops, air units) unload AND then load ressources in Melbourne => to West Coast => and then to New Orleans.
- Ressources to Kiwiland.

Middle East (Muscat and Aden)
- Oil to India and Australia.
- Supplies to India and Australia.
Ressources are quite negligible here.

Recife (30k supplies per month):
- convoys to Panama => and then to West Coast

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
The US did NOT have unlimited resources, and found (for example) problems like steel production critical: it is hard to change it fast, and you always need more than you produce - it can do widely different things - and you can only do one thing with any batch of steel. Steel is the most valuable strategic commodoty other than petroleum, and you can use it to frame factories, build bridges or railroads, build vehicles or ships, build artillery or other weapons, and a host of other widely different things. The US had to decide what to do, what not? It was not able to do everything it could dream up all at one time - and there is a lot of detail history about how priorities were sorted out. See for one example The Two Ocean Navy - about building the fleet.

You are absolutely right that even the USA did not have enough of everything to do everything it wanted to do. Or reccognize just exactly what priority should be given to what product (witness the LST shortage). But America had more of almost everything available than anyone else, and came to grips rapidly with the allocation process..., including allocating resources early to build new, larger, and specialized plants to improve production overall. Most of the plants that built our A/C and tanks were empty fields in 1940-41. Couple that to the large unused factory capacity left over from the depression and it's easy to see how half of the entire world's production was coming from the US by War's end.

Not having as much supply as you want on the West Coast in 1942-43 is reasonable..., not having enough to ship and build/repair isn't. But it sounds as if you've come to the same conclusion.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Andrew Brown did this first with the CHS, leaving the resource and oil centers on the west coast in a largely "damaged" state to simulate the time it took to build up US industry to a total war footing. The only time these locations go "into the pink" is when a player starts loading huge amounts of supply or fuel for shipment to points west without regard to the incoming amount of supply. To me this works quite well...

As I recall, the suggestion was simply do do what Andrew did writ large. So the economy grows for years instead of for a matter of weeks or months. It does seem to work quite well. So do a number of "micro economies." Some work much better if you supply what they are missing. Some work no matter what you do or don't do.

Incorrect. The US economy takes about 2 years to be fully productive in CHS. Not weeks or months. This is achieved through the provision of large numbers of damaged oil and resource centres, which can gradually be repaired throughout the first two years of the game. This results in a much lower amount of supplies being available on the US West Coast at the start of the game, gradually increasing throughout 1942 and 1943.

Andrew

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again
The US did NOT have unlimited resources, and found (for example) problems like steel production critical: it is hard to change it fast, and you always need more than you produce - it can do widely different things - and you can only do one thing with any batch of steel. Steel is the most valuable strategic commodoty other than petroleum, and you can use it to frame factories, build bridges or railroads, build vehicles or ships, build artillery or other weapons, and a host of other widely different things. The US had to decide what to do, what not? It was not able to do everything it could dream up all at one time - and there is a lot of detail history about how priorities were sorted out. See for one example The Two Ocean Navy - about building the fleet.

You are absolutely right that even the USA did not have enough of everything to do everything it wanted to do. Or reccognize just exactly what priority should be given to what product (witness the LST shortage). But America had more of almost everything available than anyone else, and came to grips rapidly with the allocation process..., including allocating resources early to build new, larger, and specialized plants to improve production overall. Most of the plants that built our A/C and tanks were empty fields in 1940-41. Couple that to the large unused factory capacity left over from the depression and it's easy to see how half of the entire world's production was coming from the US by War's end.

Not having as much supply as you want on the West Coast in 1942-43 is reasonable..., not having enough to ship and build/repair isn't. But it sounds as if you've come to the same conclusion.

There is enough supply to conduct all repairs and ship out some. The amount available for shipping out increases as the weeks and months wear on. I don't know where you get the idea that there isn't enough supply to conduct the repairs.