Supply when cut off

[El Condoro]

In a current game against Ktonos, who is an excellent opponent, cutting me up, a British corps landed in northern Italy and has been moving from town to town with impunity, completely cut off from its own lines. Unless I were to surround it, this corps makes me feel like Fabius watching Hannibal destroying towns on the Italian peninsula in the Second Punic War! At least Hannibal could pillage the towns for supplies but where is this WW2 corps getting its supply from in hostile territory?

Long, short - shouldn't units be penalised more when they are cut off, even if they are near a settlement?

[Sugar]

Action points used to move are already depending on supply: 0 supply = 1 ap, 2-4 supply = 2-3 ap, 5 or more supply = full ap iirc.

The supply a ressource provides is affected by combat and/or "scorched earth" (which doesn't occur in Italy), but the ports will also provide lots of supply.

Landings of single units are therefore a pain in the neck, especially considering the amount of troops needed to destroy them; better to guard key cities with prefaraby the cheapest units

[El Condoro]

That's what I thought, so shouldn't there be more of a penalty for corps and army-sized commando raids? Something akin to the attrition/desertion losses that occur now but harsher (2-3 points per turn). To me, it seems very strange having these units operating behind enemy lines in WW2. SF units are different, of course.

[Sugar]

If there weren't other opportunities to counter these tactics perhaps, but there are plenty of them. I´d prefer to provide more garrisons to all the coastal nations or to reduce their costs, simply because the costs for those guerilla tactics are low compared to the possible damage, in case of Italy and GB especially to the economy and national morale.

Haven't said that, in general I`d prefer at first to try different counterstrategies before complaining about specifical aspects of the game. Both sides have got those opportunities and face the same issues.

[El Condoro]

Perhaps more or cheaper garrisons would help. There is a lot of difference between complaining and making suggestions in good faith, too. If there are examples of WW2 corps and armies operating behind enemy lines (Stalingrad would support my thoughts, I think!), then this becomes a non-issue but I don't know of any and am just interested to know if the game can be improved (a very subjective word, I know). In a recent game, my opponent cut me up by blocking supply and then destroying my forces - this is how I imagine it should work, even if I had a local town to pillage.

[Sugar]

I wouldn't take the names of units in this game as hints of their real size, they don't fit at all., and compared to the map size there are far too few units imho.

Doesn't really matter if you call it complaining or suggesting, demanding or suggesting changes is dangerous in case it's influencing balancing, and the latter is the most important task of this game. Sadly not every change is an improvement.

The perception is also highly depending on the side you're playing and the style your opponent uses, it`s therefore recommended to gather plentyfull experience before judging. In case your facing other/additional issues just ask what to do about, you'll usually find help in this community.

[TheBattlefield]

ORIGINAL: El Condoro

...a British corps landed in northern Italy and has been moving from town to town with impunity, completely cut off from its own lines. Unless I were to surround it, this corps makes me feel like Fabius watching Hannibal destroying towns on the Italian peninsula in the Second Punic War! At least Hannibal could pillage the towns for supplies but where is this WW2 corps getting its supply from in hostile territory?

Long, short - shouldn't units be penalised more when they are cut off, even if they are near a settlement?

I have to agree with Sugar in this matter.

You determine a strategy of your opponent perceived as "unrealistic in terms of historical events" and suggest that this should be stopped with a modified game mechanic. Why?

Obviously, it is the result of your strategic decisions to leave the Northern Italian cities unguarded, to give up or lose control of air and sea, and not to provide adequate reserves for immediate response. I suspect that even the historic Western Allies, under these circumstances, would have caused chaos in Italy with appropriate force.

I am glad that the preservation of the fragile game balance has always taken precedence over a technical avoidance of strategies that explicitly do not suspect the "exploitation" of errors in the unit behavior or supply system.

[BillRunacre]

Hi

The following new rules were introduced in the recent v1.16 patch that might have some bearing on this discussion:

1) Zero supply units, HQs excluded, automatically lose 1 strength point per turn if and only if they are at least one hex beyond traceable supply (this is in addition to attrition rules when its adjacent to enemy front line units, so the actual loss can be greater per turn).

2) Defending units at 0 supply will receive 50% more damage from a successful attack against them.


So if the unit that has landed has no supply, it won't last long. If it captures somewhere with supply it will probably have a maximum supply value of 3, which keeps it alive but doesn't keep it in condition to fight anything of any significance.

I'm not sure there's much more we can do as these rules have to apply in all situations, and some recent feedback even suggests we may have taken some of our penalties against low supply units a bit too far.

Bill

[El Condoro]

Units without supply are certainly easy to kill, which is good IMO. I think it's probably best to leave things as they are and I'll try to put more emphasis on garrisons. In the game in question, I was shuttling the limited garrisons I could afford around the map like crazy (like firefighters) - I just didn't have enough!

[Gilber]

I understand El-Condoro,

These units, which are almost certainly sacrificed, which disembark and move from city to city without taking care of their own survival, are very effective, but I don't find that very realistic.

It would be a commando raid, a quick action at the end of which we would withdraw, I understand. It is the suicidal (but effective in the game) side that I think is a problem.

[MVokt]

I think that as long as there is a captured enemy sea port, units advancing deep into enemy territory is OK. Sea port wold allow for the continuous supply of the landed forces in terms of ammo, equipment, etc.

Another question is when the landing occurs in a coastal town without a sea port. Theoretically, here there wouldn't be a possibility of a continuous supplying of the landed forces and so, in terms of ammo for example, landed units would soon run out of ammo. The fact that you capture an enemy city may mean that you can get supply of food and water from that city via pillage but no ammo. Only a direct connection with the main supply source would guarantee the supply of ammo.

[El Condoro]

I agree about the ports. In the example, the unit was 3 or 4 hexes away from the nearest friendly port.

[BillRunacre]

The existence of a port in friendly hands will make a difference, as from that the unit (if adjacent to the port) could receive a maximum supply of 5.

Without it, in this situation, the maximum from most enemy resources will be 3.