The supply truck issue

[Fred98]

I am an experienced player of TAO2

The screenshot below, is the start of a turn. No Russian units have moved so far.

There is no air interdiction by the enemy.

Why are the Soviet troops on the right, out of supply?

[Preon]

I'll second that question. (It's one of my five)

[Rob Gjessing]

They are not out of supply? I assume you are talking about the Russian troops on the extreme right? What makes you think they are out of supply?

They have green dots on them - which tells you that they are in supply, and they are on what looks like a green hex. Clearly they are in supply.

Its just that they are NOT supplied by the supply truck you have active. If you select the supply truck which is nearest to them you will probably see that that supply trucks radius include those units.

Eitherway, you shouldnt select supply trucks to see if a unit is in supply for this turn.. a supply truck radius will only give you an indication of what will be supplied next turn.

The correct way to do it is to turn the supplied hexes overlay on.. which you have done. Which shows out of supply hexes as Red, and in supply ones as green.

[Fred98]

Look closely. The units of the 3rd and 16th armoured units are on RED hexes. The units have grey dots.

In TAO2 these units would have been IN supply. In KP they are OUT of supply. I can't fathom why they are out of supply.

Quote: >>Eitherway, you shouldnt select supply trucks to see if a unit is in supply for this turn.. a supply truck radius will only give you an indication of what will be supplied next turn.>>> Unquote

But at the END of the last turn, this too was the exact position.

I have seen this issue many times. This is a MAJOR change from TAO2. It is now IMPOSSIBLE to determine whether a unit will be in or out of supply at the START of the next turn.

[Adam Parker]

Hi Joe. Basically you may have gathered that supply truck radius is movement point dependant. The greyed units in your pic, being in an enemy ZOC face higher MP’s to reach them and the true penalty of course, is guided by the formula 1+ the number of steps in the enemy's hex.

Looking at that stack of Wiking exerting the ZOC, I'd estimate that the hex those Russians are holding is quite costly to enter. A wiking unit is usually 4 steps by memory and there look to be 3 of them stacked.

The way you can guage the likelihood of being in supply next turn is not to use the toggle you’ve active but to invoke the Supply Truck toggle with its multi colored overlay. Hexes indicated Green and Blue have a high likelihood of being supplied next turn.

IOW move your supply unit closer to these units now, preferably to a road and check the Supply Truck prediction toggle - you may just have increased their chance of supply. Sometimes however, being somewhat close to a unit is still not close enough. This is why air interdiction can completely mess up the best laid offensive plans in KP too.

Does this help?

Adam.

[BrubakerII]

Joe there is a very simple explanation why those units are out of supply. Because a supply truck did not have a radius proijecting into those hexes in the last turn.

The radius (green arrows) you see projecting from the truck in the turn you have pictured is showing you what hexes will be supplied NEXT turn, not this one.

Hexes supplied this turn (ie. shaded green, not red) are based on where the supply truck radius projected in the last turn.


Compare your picture reprinted below with my dodgy altered one next to it. The second (dodgy) one shows approx what the truck radius (green arrows) would have looked like in the previous turn, leading the current turn to have its hexes shaded as they are. Savvy?



Your picture shows that in the next turn your truck will supply that red area to the north of it as well as the line of tanks you are querying.

Hope this helps.

[BrubakerII]

I have just read a little more on what you have written. You say that truck has not moved since the previous turn. Presuming that the weather hasn't changed (thereby altering supply resistance from the truck to the edge of the world), then something HAS changed. I believe you when you say that there was no interdiction but are you can you claim that everywhere in this turn? For instance, maybe in the last turn the truck had to trace back through some thirty hexes or so to get to a supply edge? This would obviously have an affect on the resistance hence supply.

I find it useful to learn to see the map as a road netowork. This is vital because you then start to see natural areas of attack (and dwefence) based on who it will choke an opponenets supply network. A clever german player can use of combination of techniques to stranglke a russian quite easily.

When playing, force youself to use the truck supply button a lot. Use it in conjunction with the remove unit function. After a while the units nearly become secondary to the road network.

In fact, when playing, I am not lying when I say that I try to 'massage' groups of units along supply routes, with all else being secondary. Any attack I make that takes units more than 3 hexes away from a road I think carefully of, and plan where there next supply is likley to come from etc.

[Fred98]

Yes Brubaker is correct.

His "dodgy" diagram shows where the supply radius ended at the end of the last turn. Just before the turn ended, I moved the units forward 1 hex into the red hexes.

So thats the explanation!

As for the road network, I too look at it every turn. Supply trucks and the heavy artillery never leave the road network.

Generally I only alllow infantry to leave the road network but of course it depends upon the situation

[Rahvyn]

I have found though, even with heavy artillary, when you are in a thaw, and on a road, at least 15 hexes behind the front lines, your heavy artillary can still be out of commission, by sitting on a red hex, without supply trucks near.

[Adam Parker]

Yes, the consideration of movement costs is crucial and severely inhibits a wide spread offensive once the mud arrives.