Yet Another Newbie With a Supply Question

[lordhoff]

I learned a lot from my search but one thing didn't seem to be there: will an isolated unit surrender at some point?

I ask this because, in my first attempt at the game, as CP, some French corps broke through and were sealed up behind the lines. I had a continuous line from the neutral Italian border to the sea in northern France but they stayed there for more then a year.

I was playing poorly anyway as I expected I would and they were only a minor nuisance but it seems they would have been a bit hungry after a year in the open. Anyway, I ended the game when a line of British corps showed up between turns all the way from Aras to Verdun where a breakthrough had occurred. I'm not sure what happened - had to be something with sea transport I suppose - and I'm not sure how they moved over unfriendly ground without expending any APs but I was sure that the CP had just lost. [:D]

I'm trying the TE now.

[ILCK]

Yes, units out of supply will surrender but no they don't surrender when you expect- they are also supposed to loose readiness. I've had the same year-long effect on units I've cut off. If there is a city or fortress in the hex they can, apparently, live forever behind enemy lines.

The supply effect is a big weakness in the game. Cutting off enemy units was a major goal of armies but in the game being cut off doesn't have the effect it would in real-life. Since these isolated units can mess with my supply, my rail movement, and take AP's to reduce if I get tired of them lingering they can be an issue and god forbid you cut off a stack with an HQ or Cav because then it cost you more to cover them than it would have to kill them.

[EdinHouston]

on the one hand, units cut off behind enemy lines sometimes last a lot longer than you think they would. If there is no city, they disappear relatively quickly but if there is a city they can survive for a long time. If they are connected to two cities they can last a year or more.

on the other hand, if there is no HQ stacked with those units, and no cavalry to advance into enemy-controlled hexes, they are absolutely useless. They can not attack, or even move, and the enemy can bypass them and ignore them with impunity, no need to surround them or keep units next to them or anything. It doesnt matter if they are a stack of 4 full-strength corps of 'A' quality, they are useless. Which isnt exactly realistic either. So it does balance out.

[Sewerlobster]

ORIGINAL: EdinHouston
They can not attack, or even move, and the enemy can bypass them and ignore them with impunity, no need to surround them or keep units next to them or anything. It doesnt matter if they are a stack of 4 full-strength corps of 'A' quality, they are useless.

But you do suffer the morale effects if they are occupying one of your cities. Basically it's an abstraction of a seige.

[ILCK]

ORIGINAL: EdinHouston

on the one hand, units cut off behind enemy lines sometimes last a lot longer than you think they would. If there is no city, they disappear relatively quickly but if there is a city they can survive for a long time. If they are connected to two cities they can last a year or more.

on the other hand, if there is no HQ stacked with those units, and no cavalry to advance into enemy-controlled hexes, they are absolutely useless. They can not attack, or even move, and the enemy can bypass them and ignore them with impunity, no need to surround them or keep units next to them or anything. It doesnt matter if they are a stack of 4 full-strength corps of 'A' quality, they are useless. Which isnt exactly realistic either. So it does balance out.

To your first point, that should change. We are not talking about a band of guerillias here. You are talking about a corps, 20,000+ men just living off the land? Really? For a year? Even with a city, so what? It isn't like the army can go to the grocery store for long. WWI armies required trainloads of supplies each week, most of that food so if you argue every city has a supply depot that won't last. Even if you imagine they were going all 30 Years War and foraging that won't last long either. There is no way they should have more than 4 months of existence once they've been cut off unless they are garrisons in fortresses and even there Premsyl only lasted 6 months IIRC before they ran out of supplies.

[lordhoff]

quote:

ORIGINAL: EdinHouston

on the one hand, units cut off behind enemy lines sometimes last a lot longer than you think they would. If there is no city, they disappear relatively quickly but if there is a city they can survive for a long time. If they are connected to two cities they can last a year or more.

on the other hand, if there is no HQ stacked with those units, and no cavalry to advance into enemy-controlled hexes, they are absolutely useless. They can not attack, or even move, and the enemy can bypass them and ignore them with impunity, no need to surround them or keep units next to them or anything. It doesnt matter if they are a stack of 4 full-strength corps of 'A' quality, they are useless. Which isnt exactly realistic either. So it does balance out.



To your first point, that should change. We are not talking about a band of guerillias here. You are talking about a corps, 20,000+ men just living off the land? Really? For a year? Even with a city, so what? It isn't like the army can go to the grocery store for long. WWI armies required trainloads of supplies each week, most of that food so if you argue every city has a supply depot that won't last. Even if you imagine they were going all 30 Years War and foraging that won't last long either. There is no way they should have more than 4 months of existence once they've been cut off unless they are garrisons in fortresses and even there Premsyl only lasted 6 months IIRC before they ran out of supplies.


Yes, I agree. Even if they don't do anything, they can be in the way and it does take away from the realism. Were they in cities? I'm actually not sure because this was my first play thru and I was more interested in learning how the game plays then in details. It is not readily apparent since one has to either remember it was a city, pass the curser over the hex (then it just reads "town hex", not the name of the city), or turn off the corps on the map for a second. I didn't consider the loss of morale issue - no wonder the AI made no attempt to free them. That is another reason it should change. If, say, after a year a breakthrough does free them, troops that have been sitting for a year can be quickly brought up to strength, readiness seems to recover quickly, and be in a position to exploit the hole when they should be building bridges for my army.

Been enjoying the game anyway, though.

[Naskra]

An isolated HQ will never surrender.

[vinnie71]

ORIGINAL: Naskra

An isolated HQ will never surrender.

Didn't know that. So one has to overrun it all the same.

Well sometimes in what I call the Great (and almost always the only big) Encirclement around Warsaw at the begining of the war, some of the forces vanish while others remain there for some time. Does this mean that there is a HQ with them? I make it a point of taking Lodz so as not to provide them with a supply source. So could it be that it is the HQ which keeps the units going? Or maybe they are drawing resources from the food hex in the vicinity?

[FrankHunter]

Every city has a supply value. So, when isolated some units will disappear quickly because they don't have access to city supply. Others will not see a severe degrading of strength until the city has exhausted its supplies. Some cities can hold out for a long time (Paris, Przemsyl etc).

The first thing to go when isolated is readiness so even after a couple of turns it becomes relatively easy to destroy isolated units as their readiness should drop to less than 3 and have no ability to stand up to full-readiness well-supplied troops.

[Lascar]

Did the latest patch change the rule where units in a isolated city that eventually are eliminated due to lack of supply the city control goes to the opposing side without having to expend a HQ point to occupy it? For example, in a current game Russian units isolated in Warsaw for several turns eventually dissolved leaving Warsaw empty but still showing a Russian control flag.

[hjaco]

For clarification there still are a russian HQ in that city. Don't know if that qualifies as a unit[&:]

[Lascar]

That is an issue I once raised. Isolated HQs can remain indefinitely behind enemy lines out of supply. It would seem reasonable that there should be a limit for how long they can remain in that state.

[FrankHunter]

Lascar, hard for me to remember without looking it up in the code but I'll take a stab, I thought we had decided that only non-city terrain changed control, that cities had to be actually occupied?

As for the HQs, the reason is because adding a byte to track that would change the data footprint and render saved games and PBEM games unplayable. If I decide to change that footprint (and I might) I will fix the isolated HQ thing.