British Convoys To Nowhere?

[Kriegsspieler]

Although I have said in a couple of places that I really like the design of this game's logistical system, I do think it has some oddities that might call for further refinement.

The one that is on my mind at the moment is the requirement that the Brits send supplies all over the map in the South Pacific, even to many ports that have no units on them at all. In fact, if you remove that one garrison unit that begins the game on Tonga and ship it to India, as I do when playing the Allies, then there's not a single British or unit of any kind within 3000 or 4000 miles of the South Pacific. Yet the supply convoys are there and cannot be canceled. Yes, they can be suspended, but suspending convoys in an area does not permit the player to redeploy the escorts that seem to be permanently glued to them.

So why have convoys that appear to serve no purpose and why make them impossible to cancel? As anyone who has played the game knows, this comes at a moment when the need to conserve merchant marine assets is especially dire, given that the Allies have no comfort margin for having any convoys sunk. One imagines that there's some game-balance purpose here, for example to represent on the map the need to supply AUS and NZ units, and to give Japanese subs something to shoot at. But wouldn't it be a more elegant solution to give some convoys to AUS and NZ in their starting setups and then make it possible for the US and the UK to gift those counties new merchant marine assets as the need arises? I realize that the game currently has no mechanism to make this possible, but I offer it as an idea for something to implement down the road.

EDIT: Sorry, one additional observation: Last turn I have created convoys going from the USA to AUS, UK, and NZ, and yet my Build screen shows no US convoys in use. The "Convoys" screen does snow active USA convoys activity in the South Pacific, so why are no merchant marine assets being used?

2nd Edit: Ok, now I am convinced there's a bug here. As reported above, I created supply convoys from the USA to the UK, NZ, CAN, and AUS. (The route from the USA to the UK appears to run off-map, which is fine.) However, the other routes do not function at all if the USA and UK have suspended ANY of their convoy routes. Obviously I am excluding here the relevant South Pacific route, which remained open. If the USA restores all possible convoy routes but the UK does not, there is no effect. Still no supply to CAN, AUS and NZ. However, if the UK restores its South Pacific route, then the USA supply routes do function. I can supply a save, if you want to try this yourself.

[*Lava*]

Can you give us a screen shot of your US convoys?

[Kriegsspieler]

Is this what you wanted to see?

[ncc1701e]

The one that is on my mind at the moment is the requirement that the Brits send supplies all over the map in the South Pacific, even to many ports that have no units on them at all. In fact, if you remove that one garrison unit that begins the game on Tonga and ship it to India, as I do when playing the Allies, then there's not a single British or unit of any kind within 3000 or 4000 miles of the South Pacific. Yet the supply convoys are there and cannot be canceled. Yes, they can be suspended, but suspending convoys in an area does not permit the player to redeploy the escorts that seem to be permanently glued to them.

For me, the unit is Tonga should be a New Zealand one not an UK one:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 3&t=382388

[ncc1701e]

2nd Edit: Ok, now I am convinced there's a bug here. As reported above, I created supply convoys from the USA to the UK, NZ, CAN, and AUS. (The route from the USA to the UK appears to run off-map, which is fine.) However, the other routes do not function at all if the USA and UK have suspended ANY of their convoy routes. Obviously I am excluding here the relevant South Pacific route, which remained open. If the USA restores all possible convoy routes but the UK does not, there is no effect. Still no supply to CAN, AUS and NZ. However, if the UK restores its South Pacific route, then the USA supply routes do function. I can supply a save, if you want to try this yourself.

According to your screenshot, you are sending from USA:

19 + 2 to Australia
11 to Canada
23 to UK
10 + 1 to New Zealand

As such, a total of 66 (Production and Oil) points.

But, still according to your screenshot, USA has only 43 MM.

The way I understand it, if you close the South Pacific route for UK ships, they won't compensate the 43 MM to reach 66 MM to supply everything.

[Kriegsspieler]

No, I don't think so. Supplies sent to the UK ARE getting through in the situation described in the screenshot. It would be reasonable for them to do so, since the Atlantic convoy routes cannot be interdicted by Japan.

Also, as I noted above, the Build screen showed no convoys in use at all, not a shortage.

And I still want to know why the UK is sending convoys to South Pacific islands that are completely unoccupied.

[generalfdog]

the supply convoys don't use mm

[Kriegsspieler]

But the issue here isn't port supply. It's resources that are being sent to Allies to boost their own production, and those do use merchant marine assets.

[generalfdog]

Guess I don't know what you a talking about then, supply routes don't use mm and resource convoys can be turned off and on, the escorts need to be removed with the arrows before you cancel the route, they aren't "permanently glued" they could be escorts of another nationality in which case you would have to go to that nationalities convoy screen

[Kriegsspieler]

I don't know how much better I could explain it. I set up the convoys to send resources to the USA's allies (CAN, NZ, AUS) as described in the original post. If I then also close the sea areas that the USA doesn't have active convoys in, as shown in the image, those convoys don't go. That is shown by the merchant marine usage numbers on the Build screen. However, if I reopen the British convoys to the South Pacific, even the Brits don't have anything to send there, then the USA's convoys do go.

[ncc1701e]

Could you post the screenshot of US and UK convoy when you have the problem? Just would like to understand.

And the screens of what you do to solve it.

Thanks

[Kriegsspieler]

It would take multiple images to describe what can be done easily in a few sentences. So here goes --

I've tested this whole thing further, and this is what I have found. Let's say the US creates resource convoys that go to CAN, AUS, and NZ. The ability of those convoys to operate depends on whether the UK has its convoys to the South Pacific running or they have been suspended. If the UK is operating in the South Pacific, then everything goes through. If not, then they don't. This can be seen on the Build screen, where it is easy to to see the difference in production capacity of the countries that are targeted for aid from the USA. I have tested this several times, and the result is always the same.

Why should the ability of the USA to send resource convoys through the South Pacific depend on whether the UK is running convoys there? To me, that looks like a bug.

I might also point out that resource transfers between the USA and Canada should not require use of convoys or merchant marine assets. To make them depend on the identical mechanism as convoys to AUS, for example, makes no sense. Along the same lines, transfers between the USA and UK should not be subject to interdiction by Japan. If you want, you could put in a factor to represent German interdiction in 1941 and early 1942, but really those transfers should be invulnerable to Japanese action.

[ncc1701e]

Thanks, I am reproducing now. This is indeed linked to the UK South Pacific convoy route even if nothing is indicated to be used in the interface. This is strange.

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convoy.JPG (98.25 KiB) Viewed 709 times

[generalfdog]

I am obviously not the game designer but if I had to guess I would say it is because Australia and New Zealand are British minors

[ago1000]

Reply to:
"Sorry, one additional observation: Last turn I have created convoys going from the USA to AUS, UK, and NZ, and yet my Build screen shows no US convoys in use. The "Convoys" screen does snow active USA convoys activity in the South Pacific, so why are no merchant marine assets being used?"

The issue you're are describing here may be caused by the fact AUS, CAN, NZ are UK minors, so MMs from UK (if available-Those Nations getting supplies must provide MMs first) would be used to transport material. If you close that convoy route, UK MMs cannot transport the supplies to their minor. Simply put, USA shipping supplies to Canada would require the UK convoy route South Pacific connecting US to Canada to be "turned on" so UK MMs can move the supplies. The US would only provide the MMs if UK didn't have enough MMs.

+1 generalfdog
I just saw your post. I would agree.

[Kriegsspieler]

That's an interesting observation, and you may well be right. If that's the case, though, I believe there is a case for changing things down the road. CAN, AUS and NZ certainly were British minors in a political sense, but their economies were being supported by the US, as indeed was the UK's. The game should reflect that without weird effects iike requiring that the US's convoys in the Pacific be "enabled" by the UK also running convoys.

[AlvaroSousa]

Convoys are very difficult to do. I tried to keep it as simple as possible for players so they don't have to chase down what port where. As is the code is very complex and I don't want to mess with it causing a minor disturbance in its delicate balance.

Now that I know coding better WP2 should have a better convoy system to work with.

[Kriegsspieler]

Don't get me wrong -- I think the basic system for handling convoys is terrific. I have long advocated for Paradox to do something similar with HOI -- namely, to take submarines "off-map," so to speak, so that the strategic warfare part of the game, involving shipment of resources and supplies wouldn't get mucked up with more conventional naval warfare. That's what you have essentially done here with convoy routes, and it's a good mechanism. It resembles the use of those "strategic warfare" boxes that used to be pretty standard in WWII games, back before there were computers to mess things up!

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. I look forward to the new and improved version!