Supply

[nirvana]

Can anyone explain how i do this?

I found this section of the manual pretty poor compared to the rest of it. Im new to these games so some of the terminology and acroynms used baffled me a little. I also couldn't see a tutorial that covered it ?

Anyway, i asked someone to play a PBEM game to dive in the deep end and learn the hard way, but when i suggested Simple supply, he said it was cheating..odd, but i guess i need to learn the game solo and not expect others to spoon feed em i guess.

So after a few hours of messing about i realised that by having to build what seems like endless supply trucks my army is not even half the size of when im playing without supply, and im now starting to find having to drag trucks around in the same squares (hexes?) as my troops to be mind numbing after an hour, and i end up forgetting to do it. I can live with having to remember to make them each turn, but is there some other way to "attach" them to one of my armies, instead of manually moving 100+ trucks around the map?

Also, how many are needed? At the moment im making about 33% supply, research and units, and am struggling to get anywhere, even on the easiest level.

Sorry for all the stupid questions, the editor of my magazine sent me here to ask them so he could stop my incessant knocking at his office whilst he was writing it up [:-] Sorry if this is in the manual, but i kinda get a bit sleepy reading a 100 pages PDF file on my computer when im not 100% sure what its talking about [8D]


Also a slightly obscure question. Im no history buff, but im sure i remember the Japanese hitting the US pretty hard at pearl harbour, now in a few games i have played as Germany, and Japan. Well it seems to hurt Japan a hell of a lot more than it does the US. Not sure if the AI isnt sophisticated enough for this maybe? The AI seems to get to that stage, doing fairly decently, and promptly loses half its fleet dashing them on Pearl Harbour. Any tips, is it possible i can send over some of my subs to help, unless its a random thing?

[Scott_WAR]

Cheating, LOL. Thats pretty funny he would consider a game option cheating. Now if one side was using simple supply, and the other were using advanced that would be different.

If you want to play a game with simple supply rules, find an opponenet who is a little more willing to compromise on the rules. I play with simple supply, for now anyway, but I havent played PBEM yet. And as soon as I am certain I have a good grip on the game I will start using advanced supply. But thats the important point, I will use advanced supply when I am ready, and I would suggest you play with the rules you feel comfortable with. Its about having fun after all.

As for the pearl harbor question, Japan should get a surprise attack modifier, but currently isnt. The first patch is supposed to fix that.

[Awac835]

Remember you can use shift to move all of the supply from one zone to another. It would also have been nice if you could just have been able do hold down the mouse button, while the supply would transfere, but its a rule in matrixgames that mouse tapping is a must.

[Reiryc]

So after a few hours of messing about i realised that by having to build what seems like endless supply trucks my army is not even half the size of when im playing without supply, and im now starting to find having to drag trucks around in the same squares (hexes?) as my troops to be mind numbing after an hour, and i end up forgetting to do it.

You shouldn't have to drag trucks all the time, but it can help to free up the strain on your rail net.

You can move units without having trucks in the same space but you need to make sure you have the railroads in that territory and railroads connecting to that territory repaired. This will allow you to draw supplies from a 'pool' of supplies that is created when you make trucks. The supplies are shipped over the rail net to your units. However, one must take into consideration that this means you'll have less rail capacity to move units to reinforce the front lines with.

So try to bring some trucks as it eases the burden on your rail net, but you don't have to bring them all.

Plus, if you're moving trucks, use the 'move all' button that looks like 4 green circles stacked on top of each other when you left click on a stack of units. Should be right below the blue rail movement arrow. This will make it so you don't have to move each and every truck. After moving trucks, make sure to unclick this feature before you move something else so you don't accidentally move a stack of tanks or infantry rather than just one.

Also, how many are needed? At the moment im making about 33% supply, research and units, and am struggling to get anywhere, even on the easiest level.

Honestly, too vague to answer as there isn't a 'set' amount that's needed. It depends on the situation and nation you are playing.

Things to consider are the railroads and factories cost 5 supplies for each repair made. It takes 2 repairs to make them functional for a total of 10 supply trucks needed to repair one railroad or one factory.

Im no history buff, but im sure i remember the Japanese hitting the US pretty hard at pearl harbour, now in a few games i have played as Germany, and Japan. Well it seems to hurt Japan a hell of a lot more than it does the US

As was mentioned, this is a known bug with the surprise attack bonus japan should get and is being fixed in a patch.

[TheHellPatrol]

[:D]Some people said War In The Pacific was complicated LOL, a couple days and i was well on my way to grasping the concept. WAW on the other hand has eluded me as i keep thinking i know what i'm doing only to find out a few turns later i being greatly out-produced or i didn't plan production at all like i thought i did. Add supply and the equation grows exponentially, back to the manual and hope to retain the information[;)].

[dobeln]

You can also turn on advanced supply + autosupply, which moves the little trucks for you automatically when you need em. (You can still move manually if you wish, of course.) Oh yes - holding down shift or clicking the stack icon makes supply moving a lot faster! In fact, I think the supply system is one of the greatest things about this game!

Game on!

[Awac835]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Reiryc

You can move units without having trucks in the same space but you need to make sure you have the railroads in that territory and railroads connecting to that territory repaired. This will allow you to draw supplies from a 'pool' of supplies that is created when you make trucks. The supplies are shipped over the rail net to your units. However, one must take into consideration that this means you'll have less rail capacity to move units to reinforce the front lines with.

So try to bring some trucks as it eases the burden on your rail net, but you don't have to bring them all.
______________________________

This pool you talk about, is that only when you have auto supply on?

When you click a unit the bar to the right appears, i it have the button that says supply unit and then task you with selecting a area to supply from. How do this work. If i have a chain of supply ships, that trace back to enland, where i have supplys and i then send out my ligt cruiser and park it in a area next to the supply ships, in the next turn it will be out of supply. If i then use the supply button and say it should supply from england nothing happens. Should it not transport the supply from england to the supply ship and then take it from there if i have the transport capacity for it, becouse it works if i do it manualy and then use the supply button on the supply ship. But it would just make it a whole lot easier if it worked with simply pressing enlgand if i had the supply chain. Is this a bug or do it work as intented.

Otherwise how do you supply ships far out on the ocean. You can't load ships with supply and then move them, so you have to get the chain of supply ships and then manualy click all the supply out to the ships. It end up being one big click fest, much like Rise OF Nations.

Anyway i like the supply in the game, it makes it alot more fun when its in and you can run out and stuff. But the system just seem to be very hard to manipulate.

[QBeam]

I concur with the fellow who said the supply system is one of the best things about the game. Giving 10,000 guys rifles is all it takes to make an infantry division (well, a Russian infantry division, anyway), but it's something else entirely to get it DO something. That takes thousands of tons of food, water, ammunition, fuel for the trucks or food for the horses (even leg infantry units need trucks, wagons, or something to move all that stuff around, even if the guys walk), spare parts for the trucks, and so on. Most of the old wargames with counters and hexes encourage irrationally high levels of activity with your units because they can move around and fight for free. In the real world, it took more industrial effort to supply an infantry division for a week of combat than it does to form the unit. Tank units aren't far behind that. (It takes a lot to build 300 tanks, but you wouldn't believe how fast they burn through fuel, treads, and spare parts. You can only drive the things for 100 miles or so before they break down from something or other, on average, and those are the good ones.)

All of which is by way of saying that having to buy supply is a good thing. I do prefer the autosupply rule, because I also agree that having to move all that supply around manually isn't.

Regarding Pearl Harbor, other people have noted that it's less effective than it's supposed to be because of the missing surprise effects. I just thought it was worth mentioning that, in truth, the Pearl Harbor attack was really not very effective. The U.S. losses are almost always overstated, because it is said that the Japanese "sank" 6 battleships. Technically true, three ships that were resting on the bottom at the end of Dec. 7 were kicking Japanese booty at Leyte Gulf. So in game terms, half the battleships that were "sunk" were actually just damaged. In this game, an historical result would be to destroy one Heavy Surface, damage three more, plus a Light Surface. (Based on the number of Heavy Surface in the game, I figure one unit is a Battleship division, plus a cruiser division or a battlecruiser).

[nirvana]

Thanks for the replies, it seems a bit clearer now. I think for now i will stick to using Advanced supply, but i found the auto-supply rule that moves them to where needed is a better option for now.

As far as i can make out, if a land unit is connected by rail to a city or zone with supply, it will be considered in supply correct? If so, if a Sub unit out in the atlantic somewhere uses its torpedoe supply up, and i move it onto a tile containing a transport, will it be resupplied? Assuming the tranport is connected by other transports back to one of my port towns which has the supply trucks in? (Sorry at work at the moment, and dont have the time to test this one out.)

Thanks for the explanation on Pearl Harbour, i wasnt expecting a total slaughter of the US, but was expecting something a bit more profound than losing what i did, and when playing as the Germans was kinda hoping the americans would be kept busy with japan for a little bit whilst i tried to keep the bloody russians away from Berlin for a bit longer.


Ok a few more gerneal questions!

As Germany after a lot of trial and error, and reading in the manual about politically locked countries, i tend to start of by taking out Holland straight off, and them moving my tanks into paris so they can enjoy some nice wine and food on the Seine

Next turn i found that taking Yugoslavia unlocks a few other countries for me (i forget which at the mo)

Its generally down there from here, i tried moving on and taking Spain and Gibralter, but it seemed the effort that took really wasn't worth it, so i then tried taking England, and found it fell very easily.

I guess my priorities are to defend Italy, as if they fall once, they fall for good as far as i can tell, i have given up the idea of controlling the sea's at all, the english fleets are just too vast for me to do it, and my Subs seem fairly innefective usually.

So should i be concentrating on Russia? I have had a few fun games fighting them, but generally start ok by pushing up to moscow, only to be forced back into German soil, and once the Americans and English come on the West, its only a matter of time until they are pushing for Berlin on the West too.

Also is it best to control Japan as well as Germany, as it seems they dont do anything i want, and seem to struggle with getting more than a one or two area foot hold on the Chinese coast, and have a habit of attacking somewhere in the pacific that brings the US into play before im anywhere ready for them.

When i capture a country (say France) with a factory, i only get the options of using it to make Supply and Research, is there someway to repair it that im missing so they can pump out a few more tanks for me?

Lastly, are the N.African lands a lost cause? i spent one game trying to defend them, but it seems a lost cause really, as it leaves me too weak in europe.

[Reiryc]

As far as i can make out, if a land unit is connected by rail to a city or zone with supply, it will be considered in supply correct? If so, if a Sub unit out in the atlantic somewhere uses its torpedoe supply up, and i move it onto a tile containing a transport, will it be resupplied?

You'll need to supply the sub by hitting the barrels looking icon. That will give it more torpedoes.

As far as i can make out, if a land unit is connected by rail to a city or zone with supply, it will be considered in supply correct?

Yes, assuming you built enough supply trucks as well to keep the units in supply. When you have auto supply enabled, as you do, then one supply will be sent everywhere that trains are functioning to be in supply.

So should i be concentrating on Russia?

Yes. I recommend doing everything you can to attack them either in sp 41 or sum 41 with japan also attacking them in the east.

Your goal is to get 70 total factory/resource points and russia is the best easiest way to do it imo.

Also is it best to control Japan as well as Germany

Yes, I think it's best to control both for your first few wins. Then try winning with just playing one or the other to increase challenge. [:)]

When i capture a country (say France) with a factory, i only get the options of using it to make Supply and Research, is there someway to repair it that im missing so they can pump out a few more tanks for me?

All you can do is supply and research. Which if you think about it, makes sense as a conquered country probably wouldn't supply the manpower to man those tanks or planes. But you can always force them to do work in a factory. [;)]

Lastly, are the N.African lands a lost cause? i spent one game trying to defend them, but it seems a lost cause really, as it leaves me too weak in europe.

It's a side show. It's good to keep the allies honest in this area but don't put too much down there imo.