Test Results of Over-Stacking Supply Implications

[KenchiSulla]

They are not using up the supplies, they are pushing it in the sea because there is no freaking room!
I like it, keep it...

[Bradley7735]

I'm going to weigh in on this topic. I totally agree with WITPQS.

I like the implementation. It's a great idea and implemented well by the devs. But, it's too steep.

What's the purpose of it? Is it to limit defensive stacking, or to limit offensive overwhelming? Right now, it serves the defender best.

example: You put exactly or close to exactly 6,000 men on an atoll. You don't pay extra supply. Now, opponent wants to invade. they need around 12k men to take it without too much of a problem. The opponent (one on the offensive) is the one who pays the price for the implementation. He's having to unload gobs and gobs of supply to keep his troops alive.

So, if the implementation is to slow down, or make it more difficult, to island hop, then it's WAD. If the implementation is to stop gaminess of stacking 50k troops on Tarawa so it's impossible to invade, then it's not WAD. (ok,ok, I know no one is putting 50k troops on Tarawa, but I'm sure they're putting 6k there. Making it as hard as possible for the opponent to take it back.)

Another way of putting it, is: If the difficulty is massive (short term), then the attacker will be hard pressed. If the difficulty is moderate (long term), then the defender will be hard pressed.

If the supply expenditure was toned down (say 10 times, instead of 56 times), then it would relieve the strain of the one week period of invasion, but still put the long term pressure on over stacking definsively.

finally, I want to restate that I agree with witpqs. I love the feature. I'm glad it's there. I'll continue to love the game if nothing is changed. But, I would like to see the effects toned down slightly. (emphasis on slightly.)

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

They are not using up the supplies, they are pushing it in the sea because there is no freaking room!
I like it, keep it...

[:D]

+1, as they say.

[CaptBeefheart]

My earlier remark was somewhat flippant, but the reality is you can take these atolls with a Mar Div and tank bn, and then evac the Marines posthaste. Atolls either fall right away or they don't, so there's really no need to spend more than a couple of days hoovering the supplies. Personally, I don't think it's out of whack or a gamebreaker or anything.

Cheers,
CC

[Sardaukar]

Indeed.

It's good thing and prevents defender overstacking the atolls etc., since defender would have to pay the penalty continuously. Attacker can always come with extra supplies, since he needs that only for few days. If you are still there after a week, you are doing something wrong.

[Andy Mac]

I wrote the spec for this and its working as designed

And yes if you have 12,000 men on an atoll attacking it and the defender has 6,000 men then exactly where would you store the offloaded supplies - ah yes they are in the water ammo food drinking water !!!

The original spec for atolls had them at 4k but I was persuaded that without more fragmentation of units it wasnt possible to be that historic - i.e. we are already 50% more than I wanted before testing and Brady persuaded me that as each atoll was defacto defended by bespoke garrisons which a player cannot recreate in game I had to allow some wriggle room

Atolls just werent big enough assault troops must be supplied from the sea and the more troops you have ashore the less room you have to work with and the harder it is to keep up logistics

Best advice take it on day 1 or 2 or give up reload and pull out

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

I wrote the spec for this and its working as designed

And yes if you have 12,000 men on an atoll attacking it and the defender has 6,000 men then exactly where would you store the offloaded supplies - ah yes they are in the water ammo food drinking water !!!

The original spec for atolls had them at 4k but I was persuaded that without more fragmentation of units it wasnt possible to be that historic - i.e. we are already 50% more than I wanted before testing and Brady persuaded me that as each atoll was defacto defended by bespoke garrisons which a player cannot recreate in game I had to allow some wriggle room

Atolls just werent big enough assault troops must be supplied from the sea and the more troops you have ashore the less room you have to work with and the harder it is to keep up logistics

Best advice take it on day 1 or 2 or give up reload and pull out

Andy,

Thank you very much for posting. As I mentioned above checking this with you guys was 25% of why I posted this. The other 75% was that I was so surprised by the extreme nature of it that it made sense lots of people would be similarly caught if not forewarned.

[8D]

[morganbj]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Ok you are right that these results are extreme. And on first glance it also looked far off to me.

But when trying to take into account what the overstacking penalty really is an abstraction for I started to consider the following:

Supplies is not equal to "food".
Its basically an abstraction of everything that keeps a force operational.
The stacking limits are (IIRC) chosen to simulate how many troops are able to populate an atoll considering usual troop density.

If troop numbers get beyond this limit it is thought to be neccesary to
- artificially increase landmass to enably rear area troops to operate
- set up additional complex protections/fortifications to limit the exposure of too crowded units

Without overstacking the natural landmass of the atoll would suffice, if you overstack it doesn´t.

I am not really decided on this but wouldn´t even a 9000% increase in cost, based on the above points, be reasonable?

No.

A 9000% increase?

[crsutton]

Well, it is a little out of whack. 30,000 marines to take a well defended and prepped atoll is not out of line. And, all of the supplies they take would not just be dumped off on shore but kept on ships off shore as well. Perhaps a better solution is to sharply limit the amount of supples that can be landed on an atoll. If anyone wanted to keep 30,000 men on a small island, he would then have to keep a ready fleet of merchants on line to provide for them and allow the troops to draw from them, with the accepted risk of having to protect your transports. Pull your transports out to avoid the enemy and your troops start to go through the limted supply very fast, but still a few days worth. Just a thought.

[bigred]

Not to be gross but just dealing with the filth created by 50k men in such a small space would ultimately end up in serious disease problems.

No joke. Today there is a training ground in the USA used for live fire month after month for the past 25 years. The human waste associated w/ the site got to a point where a soldier could not walk w/out stepping in s---. so today we have porta-pots discreatly located to the rear of the firing area.