What exactly does a supply unit?

[DanNeely]

The limitations of the current system are the main reason why I'm opposed to letting bonus's from supply units stack. Given the opportunity people absolutely would pile all their supply units into a single area generating a massive local spike in supply. Since supply limitations are a control on the maximum sustained limit for combat and the maximum distance that attackers can advance from their supply points this would be an invitation to break the balance in every existing scenario with multiple supply units.

If TOAW were to switch to a tonnage based supply system, reworking supply units in a way that would allow them to potentially stack effects without breaking the system (after a certain point all you've done is to suck the depot dry) might be feasible. I don't however ever expect to see such a change made though because it would be a lot of work for a game whose development appears to be running on a shoestring and it couldn't be added as a dropin replacement for the original system (any attempt to generate automatic default tonnages for existing scenarios would end up breaking at least some of them because there's no easy way to differentiate between scenarios where combat is occurring continuously over the whole front and ones where significant portions are static at any given time); meaning that it would be necessary to carry both supply models forward adding a major complexity penalty to both ongoing development and to the games learning curve.

As an aside, for medium complexity scenarios tonnage based limits can be approximated by having events adjust the overall level as additional potential supply sources and consumers are added. A recently AARed DDay scenario did this with the supply going up each time an additional port was captured and down each time an additional division was deployed to France. In the current system that, combined with sub100% supply points for locations where supply levels are much lower than the main front is probably the best that is feasible without a major scenario breaking rework of the engine.

[Cabido]

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

The limitations of the current system are the main reason why I'm opposed to letting bonus's from supply units stack. Given the opportunity people absolutely would pile all their supply units into a single area generating a massive local spike in supply. Since supply limitations are a control on the maximum sustained limit for combat and the maximum distance that attackers can advance from their supply points this would be an invitation to break the balance in every existing scenario with multiple supply units.

I thought of that possibility and that's why I suggested to make it optional. All existing scenarios would be set to "cumulative off" as default (unless altered to work with it on).

If the designer wants to use the cumulative option for newly designed scenarios, the number of units available would be controlled by him and the designer could set supply source levels to a level not sufficient to carry operations effectively without a boost by supply units. Players would have to choose between sacrificing some points on the front in order to reinforce others. Designed accordingly, there would be absolutely no problem of abuse. Setting lower levels of supply for the supply sources would make players get sub-optimal supply in most of the map if they concentrate all supply units in one point. That's not unrealistic; in real life, one can generate a massive local spike at one point at the expense of other points. That's just management. It would increase the need for pre-planning, since supply reallocation would take some time.

If the designer wants to precisely set the supply level at each point on the map, not allowing concentration, he'll just turn off this option, returning to default.

Suppose the original formula for a supply unit used half the value of the supply radius (which is as good a value as any other), then the present full supply radius would behave as two cumulative supply units stacked. If the game used two supply radius as a basis, we would have the effect of four "half supply radius" units stacked and any of those values is arbitrary, after all. It's true that any such change could break some scenarios, but that's why any change to TOAW must be set as an option. For new scenarios, designers would be able to control any undesirable effect, as with any other aspect of the game.

If TOAW were to switch to a tonnage based supply system, reworking supply units in a way that would allow them to potentially stack effects without breaking the system (after a certain point all you've done is to suck the depot dry) might be feasible. I don't however ever expect to see such a change made though because it would be a lot of work for a game whose development appears to be running on a shoestring and it couldn't be added as a dropin replacement for the original system (any attempt to generate automatic default tonnages for existing scenarios would end up breaking at least some of them because there's no easy way to differentiate between scenarios where combat is occurring continuously over the whole front and ones where significant portions are static at any given time); meaning that it would be necessary to carry both supply models forward adding a major complexity penalty to both ongoing development and to the games learning curve.

As an aside, for medium complexity scenarios tonnage based limits can be approximated by having events adjust the overall level as additional potential supply sources and consumers are added. A recently AARed DDay scenario did this with the supply going up each time an additional port was captured and down each time an additional division was deployed to France. In the current system that, combined with sub100% supply points for locations where supply levels are much lower than the main front is probably the best that is feasible without a major scenario breaking rework of the engine.

A tonnage based supply system would be nice, but I also think it would be too much work involved when there are other priorities. It doesn't bother me the system as it is now; I just think that the option for the cumulative effect could bring some supply management aspects to the game, which I think would be very interesting, considering that the scenarios would be designed to use it properly.