Question regarding supply levels in the USA

[Andrew Brown]

In the current version of CHS, daily supply generation is reduced from about 40,000 per day to about 26,000 per day. In a playtest that I ran of CHS 1.02 the game went to early 1945, but the Allies never got past Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands, which was in the red supply-wise. There was a reasonable amount of supplies still in the USA, but not anywhere near the 999999 vaules that can build up at the United States base. This compares to another test I ran of scenario 115 (scenario 15 converted to my map), in which the Allies were on Iwo Jima by that time (at least).

My impression from this test is that the Americans are under-supplied in the late war in the current CHS scenario.

The daily supply levels were reduced to cut down on the abundance of supplies that the Allies received early in the war. It seems that this reduction may be affecting them later in the game, however. Because the USA should not be short of supplies in the mid to late war, I would prefer to err on the side of oversupply rather than undersupply, so I have been trying to ome up with a way to simulate a lack of early war abundance, but the reverse late war.

The possible options are:

• Just add the 14,000 supplies back again. This is the simplest solution, but it puts us back to the same early war overabundance.
• Add "reinforcement" bases that appear during the game, each one with additional daily supplies and fuel. This seems to work, but the bases can still be accessed before they appear on the map, by clicking on the hex where they will appear, and fuel and supplies will build up in these bases from the first turn as well, which would have to be taken into account.
• Add large amounts of damaged resources to the Mainland US bases, say 1,000 each, that will be repaired over the course of 3 years, providing a gradually increasing amount of supplies at the same time. This will result in an eventual huge oversupply of resource points, but if the Allies are not short of resources already then this is no big deal. This can also be partly offset by slashing the extsting resource pool at the start of the game.

There is also the possibility of leaving things as they are, or only increasing the amount of daily supplies and fuel slightly. However in my view it would be prudent to reverse most, if not all, of the US supply reduction to prevent them running short later in the game, which would be a historic travesty.

The daily supply generation in India is also reduced in CHS (by about 50%), but I think that this should probably be left alone (in the playtest the British did not seem to be suffering a supply shortage even with this reduction).

Each possible solution has its drawbacks. I am very interested to hear what any CHS players and contributors, or anyone who is interested, thinks about this.

Thanks,
Andrew

[DuckofTindalos]

I'd personally prefer the third option. In my view, that would come the closest to simulating the avalanche effect of a gradually expanding US war economy.

[m10bob]

IMHO the 3rd option you mentioned may be the best method,(no historic precedent but it might represent abstractly the confusion and time to "build up" right after the initial shock.
Please remember that right after Pearl Harbor, America was probably 97% united right till VE day,( revisionists be damned).
School children were dragging their wagons behind them to collect all sorts of nylons, tires, tin cans, etc, and none of this was initiated by the government per se.
This was indeed the extent to which the "arsenal of democracy" went to war in a big way.
America, (the U.S.) was eventually arming or feeding every Allied nation involved, to one extent or another).
To this day, SPAM is one of the favorite foods of Hawaii, and is even in some restaurants there![;)]

[Mifune]

Once again hats off to Andrew. with his constant improvements. Your third option is interesting and probably best reflects accuracy.

[Captain Cruft]

Option 3 has a problem in that it would consume 1,000,000 supplies repairing each 1,000 Resource factory.

Repairing Resources is rarely worth it, however they came to be damaged. It always takes 1,000 days to get your money back. This has been discussed before.

I still think the reduced supply is enough. An AI test is not hugely useful since it sends loads of stuff all over the place in an illogical and random manner. It also generates a lot of useless air activity.

Remember that when you capture a base you get the enemy's supplies including all those held by the LCUs ...

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Option 3 has a problem in that it would consume 1,000,000 supplies repairing each 1,000 Resource factory.

Repairing Resources is rarely worth it, however they came to be damaged. It always takes 1,000 days to get your money back. This has been discussed before.

Do you mean that it takes 1,000 supply points to fix one resource point?

Andrew

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown
Do you mean that it takes 1,000 supply points to fix one resource point?

I just ran a test and Captain Cruft is right - it does take 1000 supply points to fix one resource centre. I didn't realise it took that much. Because of this, my third option above will have to be modified:

Option 3: Add 1000 damaged resources at six or so bases in the mainland USA, and add 6000 additional daily supply, giving no net change to the starting supply level. After 3 or so years the resources will be repaired and supply output will be at the same levels as in the stock scenarios (i.e. before it was reduced in CHS). This is currently my preferred option, but I am still interested in the opinions of others.

Andrew

[Herrbear]

I favor option 3 as well.

[bradfordkay]

With the new fix, Andrew, I think that your option three is the way to go. When you first mentioned it, I was wondering about the need to use supplies to repair resource points but I failed to question it openly. I'm glad someone else did.

[Captain Cruft]

It takes 1,000 supplies to repair one point of anything. Japanese players know this all too well

The revised idea sounds OK. I think the auto-supply should come in at the bases where the repairing Resources are (1,000 per base). That will give 12,000 extra supplies per day once the repairing is finished and between 6 and 5,994 extra per day while repairing, going up at a rate of 6 per day. Full activation time would be somewhere around September 1944.

If you wanted to bring "full activation" forward you would need to add the feature to more bases but with less Resources at each. For example 10 x 600 would bring activation date forward a year to Sep 1943 approx. Or 8 x 800 (6,400 total) would put you somewhere around Apr 1944.

--
Frankly I am amazed that the supplies at the delayed bases do not leak. That they are on the map at all though mitigates against them IMHO. Why add to the confusion levels?

[Captain Cruft]

I also think that using this mechanism you could afford to reduce the starting stocks and auto-supply at other bases quite considerably. Start out poor but get gradually richer each day

[Buck Beach]

I too think your modified #3 would be good.

Buck

[treespider]

IMO There is no sense in adding damaged resources to bases and then adding the additional supply to repair those resources. Players could just turn off the repair and receive the additonal supply free and clear. This would the require a house rule...

So if any change would require a house rule...Why not just keep the original supply levels and play with a house rule limiting the amount of supply that can shipped out in any given month or week...of course this would require bookkeeping.

Or position the supply "on the east coast" ...or ....

Other options would be to determine how much shipping was actually utilized by the US...was the limiter supplies or shipping?

Is part of the problem caused by the essentially unlimited port capacity that is available in the game allowing a large number of vessels to load simultaneously...perhaps a house rulle could be instituted limiting the number of ships that could be loaded at a particular port on a particular day...

Anyhow just some thoughts from the peanut gallery...

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: treespider

IMO There is no sense in adding damaged resources to bases and then adding the additional supply to repair those resources. Players could just turn off the repair and receive the additonal supply free and clear. This would the require a house rule...

So if any change would require a house rule...Why not just keep the original supply levels and play with a house rule limiting the amount of supply that can shipped out in any given month or week...of course this would require bookkeeping.

Or position the supply "on the east coast" ...or ....

Other options would be to determine how much shipping was actually utilized by the US...was the limiter supplies or shipping?

Is part of the problem caused by the essentially unlimited port capacity that is available in the game allowing a large number of vessels to load simultaneously...perhaps a house rulle could be instituted limiting the number of ships that could be loaded at a particular port on a particular day...

Anyhow just some thoughts from the peanut gallery...

Are you saying you think damaged resource point generates supply ? I don't think that is the case, but if you have repeatable test, I'd like to see it.

[Captain Cruft]

ORIGINAL: treespider
IMO There is no sense in adding damaged resources to bases and then adding the additional supply to repair those resources. Players could just turn off the repair and receive the additonal supply free and clear. This would the require a house rule...

You're right. Dang it let's just re-write the game

[Sharkosaurus rex]

I have a good idea.

Make a new base in front of San Francisco that is an island. Give it nearly all the supply regeneration you want within the limits of your design. Give this island a port of 4 (1). This way it can only load at the level 4 port for the whole war. It won't matter how many ships dock at the same time they can only load at a slower rate!!! (You can make the port a 4(2) if you want and the Allies could upgrade it in 1943- the Japs will know if it has been upgraded too early.) Give the base 7 a/f so there isn't any wasteage. Because it is an island excess supplies won't be railed to other bases. Only one hex from SF so shouldn't interfere too much with other traffic. You can give other USA west coast sites a lower amount of supply to keep them going- but the main thing is the island has a serious loading restriction. Eventually all the on-map AK and Aps will be usin the new base. And Indian Ocean traffic might stop in favour of the USA supply port.

PS- It would only be used for supplies not re-inforcement loadings and is too small to repair much - so you won't have to worry about that.

Hope this might help.

[treespider]

Are you saying you think damaged resource point generates supply ? I don't think that is the case, but if you have repeatable test, I'd like to see it.

No what I believe AB suggested was that he was going to add extra daily supply for the US to use to repair the extra damage resource points.

On the very first resource point I repair i will have to spend 1000 supply points. I won't see a return on this 1000 supply point investment until 3/4 of the way through 1944. A resource point generates 365 supply points a year...to replace the 1000 supply points I spend to repair a resource point will take 1000 days for that resource point to replace. In addition you can only repair 1 resource point per base per day...so the game would be practically over by the time I saw a return on the 300th point I repaired.

That is why people never repair resource points as the Japanese.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: treespider
No what I believe AB suggested was that he was going to add extra daily supply for the US to use to repair the extra damage resource points.

Correct.

On the very first resource point I repair i will have to spend 1000 supply points. I won't see a return on this 1000 supply point investment until 3/4 of the way through 1944. A resource point generates 365 supply points a year...to replace the 1000 supply points I spend to repair a resource point will take 1000 days for that resource point to replace. In addition you can only repair 1 resource point per base per day...so the game would be practically over by the time I saw a return on the 300th point I repaired.

That is why people never repair resource points as the Japanese.

I see your point, but I disagree. Firstly, each resource generates 1.25 supply points per turn, not 1. That means that a repaired resource will pay back its repair cost in 800 days, not 1000. That is a significant difference in a game that can last almost 1600 turns. In fact it means that, over the entire game, a repaired resource pays back about twice its repair cost.

On top of that, the additional supplies will be available in the second half of the game, when the Allies really need it. As far as I can tell, the USA does not have an immediate supply shortage at the start of the game, even with the reductions already applied in CHS. If we give the USA several thousand additional daily supply points for the repair of damaged resources, the Allied could choose to stockpile the supply instead, but I believe the only advantage is just that - it allows a larger initial stockpile. This would provide an advantage in the mid part of the game, but as the number of Allied units continues to grow the long term supply deficit will begin to show. From 1944 onwards the USA would be quite a bit worse off without the additional supplies being generated by the repaired resources, in my opinion.

So the player would be getting a temporary advantage in the mid-game for the cost of a larger penalty from then onwards.

Adding 1000 damaged resources to a base doesn't work for the reason you mention - the payoff is too slow. But if we add up to 700 resources, then there is enough time for a supply profit to be made. Even better would be to add staggered amounts to different bases, so that the repairs are not all completed at the same time (which would give a sudden flood of supply points no longer allocated to base repair).

For example, if damaged resources are added to all 9 US mainland bases, ranging from 700 down to 460 in steps of 30, then the total number of damaged resources is 5,220. If repaired they will generate 6,525 supply points per turn. The first base, with 460 damaged resources, will be fully repaired by February 1943. If we give the USA 6,000 or so additional daily supply, then if they invest all of that in resource repair, they will be 3000 supplies per day worse off than the current US supply level in CHS (since 9,000 per day is spent repairing resources). By the end of 1943 all of the reosurces would have been repaired, and the US supply level will now be 13,500 points better off than the current level in CHS. On average, each repaired resource will provide 1.6 supply points for each supply point spent on fixing it, over the course of the game.

In addition to the repaired resources generating more supplies as the game progresses, from February 1943 through to October 1943, the USA will have 1000 extra daily supply points available each month as each base completes its repairs.

Of course a short sighted player can elect not to repair the resources at all. If so, they get a short term benifit but a significant long term deficit. Cynical players might say "I won't get that far in a game anyway, so why bother", which is a problem, but as I mention above the real benifit of not repairing the resources would really be in the mid-game anyway, I think.

Even in this worst case scenario, the Allied player is still 6-7,000 supply points wors off than the stock scenarios, and will remain this way for the entire game.

Furthermore - if we don't do something like this then the Allied AI seems to become more or less crippled from the mid-game onwards, and I don't think we should leave CHS in that state.

I still think the idea is worth considering.

Andrew

[akdreemer]

Andrew, I still think that manipulating the amount of cargo carried by AK's would do the job, or at least should be considered as part of the overall "solution" . As I had stated previously gradually increasing the cargo carrying capacity of AK's through scheduled refits will acheive the same results and represents the ability of the US to better manage the trasportation aspect of logistics.

[treespider]

For example, if damaged resources are added to all 9 US mainland bases, ranging from 700 down to 460 in steps of 30, then the total number of damaged resources is 5,220. If repaired they will generate 6,525 supply points per turn. The first base, with 460 damaged resources, will be fully repaired by February 1943. If we give the USA 6,000 or so additional daily supply, then if they invest all of that in resource repair, they will be 3000 supplies per day worse off than the current US supply level in CHS (since 9,000 per day is spent repairing resources). By the end of 1943 all of the reosurces would have been repaired, and the US supply level will now be 13,500 points better off than the current level in CHS. On average, each repaired resource will provide 1.6 supply points for each supply point spent on fixing it, over the course of the game.

The 5,220 damaged resources take 5,220,000 supply points to repair. I just did a spread in excel...

Even with the 1.25 supply points generated per turn The resources would only generate c. 2,644,244 supply points (+/-10 depending on rounding) during the first 700 turns as the resource points are repaired based on 9 seperate bases ranging from 460-700 in 30 point intervals) burned. You still don't break even on the 5,220,000 investment until c December 10, 1944.

Even if you give all 9 bases 700 damaged resources ....you still don't break even on the investment until November 17, 1944.

I agree that in the end the US will be generating more supply than they will need...however in 1943 and 1944 they will still be at a deficit if they elect to to repair the bases...so why repair if you don't receive the benfit and go into the black until nearly 1945.