Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: mavraamides

ORIGINAL: bjfagan

I was going to post something about this. So basically there is no longer a point to cutting off cities. This goes against all strategy plans ever used. Historically Leningrad was starving to death and barely survived when the lake froze over. I have had Leningrad cut off and there are no Soviet unit or hexes within 10 or so hexes from Leningrad, hence no possible way to supply it even over a frozen lake.

I would think that in order for cities to supply so units there should be a link between two or three cities or the off map connection for the Soviets. Even if London or Berlin where cut off they could not supply troops for very long.

To be fair, didn't Leningrad hold out for 900 days more or less?

You are correct, but only because the Soviet front lines were not far away. The railhead near Tikhvin allowed supplies to be dropped off and transported via boat to Leningrad (and by truck once the lake froze over). There is no way the city could have survived if the Germans had pushed further inland and capture the ports and railheads used to send supplies to the city.

Yes, we noticed this also. Abstract game or not, it needs tweaking.

I agree that isolated cities shouldnt have full supply.
Several good points is discussed. I like it simpe so I would like only basic supply if a city was isolated and limited resupply and/or replacments.
Air supply should be able to increase the supply level but maybe only partial.

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

One thing to think about though, is air supply should allow some level of reinforcement. Not full recovery but a way to get at least some replacements in would then make for a nice small air campaign over the pocket area.

Jim

The scale is too big for that to be considered imho. Since we are talking Corp sized units and a two week time period.

Air supply is already modeled in the game and works fairly well. It is very expensive to use, requires air transport and can be interdicted. So to supply several cut off corps holding a small pocket around a city via air would be only partially possible, expensive and difficult (as it should be). So IMO the focus can be on making the level of supply provided by the cut off cities, themselves, more realistic (reduced in some way).

The issue is mostly coding these ideas depending how it is done.

Some ways of doing things require algorithms that have to explore a lot of the map many times. This would slow the turns down between actions a lot. When I say a lot I mean like 10x longer.

Alvaro,

Sorry to post this here but since we are discussing supply I figured it would be a good place. It seems that ports are coded to provide supply no matter if there is a connection via sea hexes to a valid supply source. Is this correct?

After taking Leningrad, the Kronstad naval base hex stayed in supply with its unit and ships for many turns never appearing to suffer any loss due to lack of supplies. Also, my Italians have had their merchant marine wiped out but still manage to supply units at the different ports around the Med. So I was curious how the system determines if a port is able to receive the supplies it then distributes.

ORIGINAL: mavraamides

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

A possible simple solution to this is yes give them full supply, but allow no replacements if a supply source city is not able to trace supply to another supply source city. That way units still fight well but attrition over many combats will allow a reduction of the pocket over time thus you still need to earn the victory via combats.

Jim

I really like this idea. Simple and effective. Supply yes. Reinforcements no. Eventually, they will have to lose.

Yes good idea.

ORIGINAL: bjfagan

Alvaro,

Sorry to post this here but since we are discussing supply I figured it would be a good place. It seems that ports are coded to provide supply no matter if there is a connection via sea hexes to a valid supply source. Is this correct?

After taking Leningrad, the Kronstad naval base hex stayed in supply with its unit and ships for many turns never appearing to suffer any loss due to lack of supplies. Also, my Italians have had their merchant marine wiped out but still manage to supply units at the different ports around the Med. So I was curious how the system determines if a port is able to receive the supplies it then distributes.

Good place to bring it up. Seems like I missed this aspect. I will put it on my bug list.

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

The issue is mostly coding these ideas depending how it is done.

Some ways of doing things require algorithms that have to explore a lot of the map many times. This would slow the turns down between actions a lot. When I say a lot I mean like 10x longer.

Agree with this comment. World in Flames supply calculations could take up to 5-10 minutes depending on computer speed. The developer has re-written this coding several times to get the calculations done to a more reasonable level (which he has been able to do).

A human can glance at a map and pretty quickly see who should be in/out of supply. But an AI has to look at every hex between a unit and a supply source. Plus start over if the original path is blocked. And repeat tracing paths until it determines there is no path.

This supply path has to go over water between ports as well. So a supply path for the computer can get get very complicated very fast. Not to mention the bugs that can occur lol.

But still something needs to be done about cut off cities providing supply.

One suggestion would be just to check the six hexes around a city for blocking terrain, ZOC or unit present? if all these conditions are met the city does not provide supply. As soon as one hex is found with none of the above it stops looking.

For a port city to blocked from supply, the above would still apply plus one additional check of the port being damaged or not. You could even add the level of the port not damaged provides a less amount of supply.

These suggestions might keep the processing time down and provide a reasonable solution to the issue.

Good suggestions.

How about a map supply level based upon the number of resource supply centers in the cut off area.

One supply source equals one map supply level. 9 or more in the grouping equals 9 map supply.

I would also like to see strategic bombing being able to reduce map supply levels which recover 1 level per turn.

Upon further thought, to make things even speeder, you would only need to check cities with a unit in them. This would even further reduce the amount of checking that would be needed since most of the cities on the may will be vacant most of the time.

Thanks for all the ideas. I will consider what the best option is.

It's quite simple - a supply source should be connected to another unless it's the Capital of a nation. (ie Berlin, Moscow, London, etc).
That includes minor nations.

Good discussion/input in the thread!

Looking forward to how you resolve/update things Alvaro! In the game you managed to keep to include many things/variables but in simple ways that doesn't add lots of overhead (convoys/trade)....

Any updates on this supply issue yet?