New supply rules in Russia cripple Axis play

[havoc1371]

I am aware of the supply issues in North Africa. What I am commenting on is the fact that supply is much worse now in the game than it used to be. Are you saying no changes have been made to the supply system in the game? Because it seems horrible now compared to when I started playing the game.

[BillRunacre]

Not in the sense that it would change supply from being ok to awful, though one restriction since release that does make a difference to air units is that they only receive supply from HQs if they are attached to that HQ, otherwise

This change means that those wishing to deploy lots of the Luftwaffe in North Africa now have to send more HQs too.

[BillRunacre]

You may find mdsmall's summary of the supply rules useful and that can be found here:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 4#p4739484

Does anything jump out at you as being the cause?

[havoc1371]

It seems to me that the supply mechanics are exactly the same in World at War as they are in War in Europe, despite the difference in scale of the map. If there are differences, what are they? My issue with supply isn't the just he mechanics, its whatever change was made in past updates that made it much more difficult for the Axis to operate. Now just about everything requires two HQ's to perform with sufficient supply. Germans overran Greece in 24 days with forces grouped under the 12th Army, including Crete. In this game, I need two HQ's to properly support an attack into Greece, or face being low supply and unable to beat the Greeks. I took me four turns to capture Athens because of the poor supply with one HQ. So it seems to me in altering the game to make it tougher on supply, mainly effecting the Axis's ability to conduct operations, has skewed the game far away from historical performance of Army Group headquarters, if one cannot perform comparatively to one in WW2.

Another example of game scale is the basic airborne range is the same despite the range of other air being greater in War in Europe. Why was airborne kept the same as World at War? In World at War, I can drop German airborne into Greece to seize the southern port from Italy. In War in Europe, because of the greater scale, they cannot reach. This is the issue with scaling up a map without scaling up abilities to match. It made a disparity between the games in unit supply and abilities.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Havoc1371,

To clarify your last points/concerns, War in Europe was designed and released before World at War.

In terms or ranges and scales between the two games, while there is merit to the thought that the ranges of units should adjust accordingly to scale between the two games, we ended up treating the games as entirely separate from each other when testing and finalizing the design, and just went with whichever unit statistics (range etc) that felt appropriate per game.

In the end this sometimes meant some differentiations, or some values being the same, but again if they stayed the same it was only due to it feeling appropriate for game play on a per game basis and nothing really more than that.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[BillRunacre]

It seems to me that the supply mechanics are exactly the same in World at War as they are in War in Europe, despite the difference in scale of the map. If there are differences, what are they? My issue with supply isn't the just he mechanics, its whatever change was made in past updates that made it much more difficult for the Axis to operate. Now just about everything requires two HQ's to perform with sufficient supply.

Both our WW2 games and also our WWI game do use the same supply rules, this keeps things consistent so that someone who is familiar with one will be able to easily take up one of the other games.

In terms of changes, there is nothing I can think of that would penalize the Axis apart from the one to make it so that only aircraft commanded by an HQ will receive supply from that HQ.

It is often best, at least in areas of low supply, to have one HQ either adjacent to a port or in a resource, as then (providing the enemy are not interdicting either in any way) its receiving supply level will be as high as possible, and this in turn maximizes its supply distribution value.

[archmache]

I would watch some YouTubers on how to play Axis. you can look up duedman on YouTube. Essentially as Axis you will always be playing with "low supply" its just the nature of the game but does not necessarily hurt the Axis. the '39 scenario is balanced extremely well imo.

[havoc1371]

It seems to me that the supply mechanics are exactly the same in World at War as they are in War in Europe, despite the difference in scale of the map. If there are differences, what are they? My issue with supply isn't the just he mechanics, its whatever change was made in past updates that made it much more difficult for the Axis to operate. Now just about everything requires two HQ's to perform with sufficient supply.

Both our WW2 games and also our WWI game do use the same supply rules, this keeps things consistent so that someone who is familiar with one will be able to easily take up one of the other games.

In terms of changes, there is nothing I can think of that would penalize the Axis apart from the one to make it so that only aircraft commanded by an HQ will receive supply from that HQ.

It is often best, at least in areas of low supply, to have one HQ either adjacent to a port or in a resource, as then (providing the enemy are not interdicting either in any way) its receiving supply level will be as high as possible, and this in turn maximizes its supply distribution value.

Keeping the same supply values in War in Europe is a huge disadvantage to the Axis IMO. They are acting offensively for the first couple of years of the game, so having a greater distance because of the scale, they have to work with poor supply, or spend quite a bit of their budget building extra HQ's to try to extend their supply reach. Allies are mostly on the defensive and falling back on their supply. I've played this for a few years now, but only noticed in the last six months (after a break in playing) that supply for the Axis went to hell. So if supply was fine when I initially played, what happened to the supply that I am finding it to be so bad that it requires two HQ's to have decent supply? Granted supply in Russia is historically bad, but that doesn't explain my different experience with supply now, as opposed to over a year ago, when I don't remember having to stack up my Axis HQ's to keep my units in at least 5 supply.

[havoc1371]

I would watch some YouTubers on how to play Axis. you can look up duedman on YouTube. Essentially as Axis you will always be playing with "low supply" its just the nature of the game but does not necessarily hurt the Axis. the '39 scenario is balanced extremely well imo.

Thanks, but I know how to play, and have been playing for years. I am trying to understand why the supply system seems so crippled as compared to when I played regularly more than a year ago. I didn't need to have a HQ in a supporting role of a forward HQ to make progress as the Axis then. Why now? Yes, I know to place HQ's on cities and towns and rail lines to boost supply, and I check my current and next turn possible supply.

[archmache]

Ah ok - I have only been playing the past 8 months or so I guess any changes that occurred before I am unaware of. Maybe you can pull up old patch notes to see what the supply change was? The only guess I can think of is the scorched earth policy - captured soviet towns start with lower supply (i.e. if you capture a town it has to build to 5/8 from 1 (or whatever it is) as opposed to saying at full strength when captured.