Supply from Ports with No Connection to Anything

[davschroed]

Italy Ports.JPG (145.1 KiB) Viewed 1016 times

The German units seem to be drawing full supply for months by only controlling Crotone and Civitavechia. The control no other ports in the Med. And haven't for months.

I think this is a major bug.

Or am I missing something?

[Nirosi]

Hard to say with the colors, but is Toulon not German?

[MagicMissile]

Hard to say with the colors, but is Toulon not German?

Might be but even so am I wrong if I say that ports always give supply? It is a big simplification but I think that is how it works. You can do supply interdiction so not very much should come into those ports but yes the units will be in supply forever. Hopefully this will change in WP2 somehow.

/MM

[davschroed]

The issue is that the ports have no "source" of supply. There is nothing being sent to them. At this point Allied and Russian units are all over Germany. The units in Italy were isolated and bypassed months earlier.

The fix would be that there is no supply at a port if it is not connected by a merchant pipeline to another port that is in turn connected to a source of supply (usually a manufacturing center).

The same problem exists in Warplan Pacific, where I just played the China land campaign of 37-39. Nationalist Chinese units were surrounded around Foochow, which had no connection to anything else. But because Foochow is a port, the Chinese units within range suffered no "out of supply" effects. They weren't even marginally degraded.

[davschroed]

Warplan Germany Oct42.JPG (536.4 KiB) Viewed 963 times

Just to show, the Germans have no supply going to Med. Here is north of Italy. France never fell, so Toulon shows French control.

[Nirosi]

Hard to say with the colors, but is Toulon not German?

Might be but even so am I wrong if I say that ports always give supply? It is a big simplification but I think that is how it works. You can do supply interdiction so not very much should come into those ports but yes the units will be in supply forever. Hopefully this will change in WP2 somehow.

/MM

No I just assumed that Toulon might have been connected to a supply source in Germany and then by sea to Italy. But with the last picture and clarification posted that is obviously not the case. So either ports always give supply as you say, or German supply can get through Gibraltar. Both scenarios are... annoying indeed.

[stjeand]

I believe the ports in Europe are over simplified and just have supply whether they connect to a port or not.

I remember that Russia could lose all the ports in the Baltic but still have Riga surrounded and it would be in supply, even though no shipping can get there as the Baltic is mined out to Murmansk.

To resolve this...
There would be quite a few other things to consider and hopefully they will be addressed in WP2.

For example...say that Italy has fallen to the Allies and the only port held by the Axis are African ports and one port in over by Yugoslavia which is a level 1 Dubrovnik. And that port does connect to Germany via rail.
Lets say the Axis own Bengazi and Tobruk...

SHOULD a level 1 port be able to supply a level 6 and level 4 port fully?

Nope. There is no way that level one port could get enough shipping in and out to supply that.

So those ports should revert to a single level 1 port.

Add to that...Germany would have no Merchant Marines in the Med...so could they perform any supply?

[ncc1701e]

An event like this perhaps?

Once Italy has surrendered. All ports in the med are out of order for Axis.

[davschroed]

I have even been able to use German shipping in the Med while Italy is still neutral. I think that German shipping should never be allowed in the Med, unless, say, they (or their allies) control Gibraltar and France (at a minimum).

I can see Germans using amphib capability in the Med, as you could say that such "shipping" could be broken down and transported by rail to a port for assembly, but merchant shipping is obviously different.

Still, in all, this is a very good game system.

[AlvaroSousa]

Making a supply system that checks everything, everywhere, all the time was difficult. SC3 also has a similar system of supply.

WP2 will be better.

[davschroed]

As a fellow game designer (Der Weltkrieg series - WW1 boardgames) I applaud your efforts. This is a good game, there are just some minor issues, so I understand.

But rather than having to check everything, the port should stop being a supply source if it has no connections to a supply source. Hopefully something you can adjust for WP2.

[MagicMissile]

Making a supply system that checks everything, everywhere, all the time was difficult. SC3 also has a similar system of supply.

WP2 will be better.

I bought computer World in Flames on day one like 13 years ago. It took the programmer, who really has put in a huge effort to try and make the game playable, literally years to make all the supply calculations function properly so I do understand the difficulty. I dont mind a more simplistic approach but hopefully WP2 will be a little bit more advanced compared to WP.

/MM

[stjeand]

As a fellow game designer (Der Weltkrieg series - WW1 boardgames) I applaud your efforts. This is a good game, there are just some minor issues, so I understand.

But rather than having to check everything, the port should stop being a supply source if it has no connections to a supply source. Hopefully something you can adjust for WP2.

That is the issue as Al stated...there are SO many possibilities to connect supply checking them all requires to much CPU in the current game version which is why WP2 is being worked on. New engine will make things easier.


Honestly it rarely happens but there are times the Allies get an advantage too.

I have had the Russians holding a City in Germany with no connection to anywhere and they still have supply.
Or Mumansk has supply when it is the only Russian port in the game and cut from Moscow.

[AlvaroSousa]

To check a connection for a human is easy. We almost instantly do it. But when you break down that process it is use taking a broad spectrum view of the map, finding recognizable patterns, then path finding to the end point.

We can do it for one area and extrapolate for other units in the area easily.

A computer has to do it for all ports, all paths, all units. As mentioned above that takes CPU power. But already in WP2 I have added more front loaded data maps for which the computer does less work and temporarily stored the data for the turn.

Still deciding how to implement a better automatic system with some human controls without forcing the player to micro manage.

[ncc1701e]

If we had real convoys carrying real supplies and if it was up to the player to do the logistics, the computer would have nothing to do.

[sveint]

Historically isolated port cities held out for a long time (in some cases). I don't see the problem.

[stjeand]

Perhaps an isolated port would lose supply over time?

Say it is a level 5 port. Turn one out of supply it is a 5...then turn two it is a 4 and so on until it is out.

That would make sense as they normally had extra supplies in the city due to receiving and shipping of supplies.

Then again it could be a nightmare to program but would be more realistic.
Would force blockades to take time...not just show up for 2 weeks and the units are weaker.

[davschroed]

Seems that WP already can calculate if a space has full rail supply. It would be a "9" on the supply map. A port would only have to check for other ports on the same sea/ocean that were "9" supply. So it seems to me anyway.

You could also end port supply if there is no merchant shipping available on that body of water (in this case, Italy has surrendered, so no more Italian merchant fleet, so no port to port supply for Axis in Med).

As for ports "holding out", such as Brest and Lorient historically, both had significant stockpiles as they were fortress complexes. Same for Sevastopol. But there was/should be degradation of the garrison's capability, especially its mobility.

[generalfdog]

In the pacific it is easy you can just fully blockade them, in Europe it is tougher and being able to fully blockade all ports in Europe might be bad as it could make Axis operations in NA near impossible

[AlvaroSousa]

There is always a balance between realism, hindsight, exploitation, ease of use, and fun.

Some of the issues that come up are rare instances of situations.