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Griswel, I have never used auto convoy and do not find (after the first two turns or so) handling my suppies to be ornerous. Typically I will set up maybe three or four new convoys every turn, and disband worn ones at the same time. We are talking about five minutes per turn, on average. This allows me better control on where my supplies go.

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Griswel, I have never used auto convoy and do not find (after the first two turns or so) handling my suppies to be ornerous. Typically I will set up maybe three or four new convoys every turn, and disband worn ones at the same time. We are talking about five minutes per turn, on average. This allows me better control on where my supplies go.

Much as it may seem strange to some of us number crunchers, a lot of folks seem to use the automatic convoy routine. There is also a fair sized group that uses computer control of areas.

There are 3 types of WitP'rs ... not enough detail, just right and too much ... these options help out the too much crowd which is probably a larger percentage of folks then many people realize.

It was an oversight on the part of the testers to not check these (because none of us actually use them).

Frag, don't confuse detail and micromanagement.

Having a correct TOE for every unit involved in the Invasion of Iwo Jima is detail
Having to remember to create and send convoys to backwater bases that have little to no chance of invasion to prevent their garrisons from running out of toilet paper is micromanagement.

Surprisingly, some players would rather deal with the former instead of the latter.

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Griswel, I have never used auto convoy and do not find (after the first two turns or so) handling my suppies to be ornerous. Typically I will set up maybe three or four new convoys every turn, and disband worn ones at the same time. We are talking about five minutes per turn, on average. This allows me better control on where my supplies go.

Good. I don't mind extra effort at the start, or when things change, but every turn was off-putting. OK, I mind a little, but not enough to keep me away.

Griswel, have you ever tried continuous supply convoys?

Form a normal convoy of supply transports, set the destination then click on where it says Human Control.

It will change to CS: destination.

From that point onwards, it will load supplies, go there, unload, come home and repeat.

Only thing you need to watch out for is damage levels as it will run for the rest of the game.

Give it a try ... might be to your liking.

One side effect is I changed some/most of the convoys from AC to human control but they don't care, they'll go to whatever port I send them too but a turn after ordered to load up either resources or oil they're off and running for Osaka (naturally empty), seems you need to disband them completely and reform convoys [:(].
I found the AI handled AC in an acceptable manner. It's pathing was hosed up but when you're playing Japan you don't need to worry too much about enemy airbases for the first portion of the war.
A mild fix (so that it works again) would be nice, 100% fix will probably never happen and that's okay, I already got my money's worth out of this game.

Just my opinion
Kelly

Mr Frag
I seem to recall that the CS sysytem will not work for resources and oil, when playing Japan, is this likley to change under new versions?

I seem to recall that the CS sysytem will not work for resources and oil, when playing Japan, is this likley to change under new versions?

No, it is for supplys/fuel only

I have never had an issue with convoys taking up too much time when playing Japan, since there are so few convoys actualy needed. I look at convoys about once a week, and start one from Osaka to Singapore and one from Osaka to Truk. The smaller AKs and TKs are at Singapore and Truk to get supplies to the forward bases. Meanwhile, I operate some smaller TKs and AKs out of Manila in big convoys to retrieve resources, and the supply convoy to Singapore stops at Manila to take resources back to Japan.

This is much superior to what the AC system used run for me, because AC sent empty tankers from Japan to come back full of oil, and sent tankers with fuel to maybe the exact same port and then brought them back empty. At the start of the war Japan has the shipping to support this, but the fuel wastage is enormous.

As the Alies the convoy system is even easier, since you don't have to worry about moving resources. Great big monster humongo convoys sail from SF to Brisbane via Canton I (with do not unload) every week or two, a six-ship+escort CS to Pearl Harbor, an even smaller on to Anchorage, and some small AKs and TKs in the "hub" ports to deliver to the local bases, and you are set.

Once you have a "system" convoys take only a fraction of the time that operations do - and take, in fact, less time than it used to take to track down the AC convoys to make sure that they were not doing anything incredibly boneheaded.

ORIGINAL: grumbler

AC sent empty tankers from Japan to come back full of oil, and sent tankers with fuel to maybe the exact same port and then brought them back empty.

Japan was notoriously inept regarding the efficient use of their merchant fleet. They devided it in pools for the Army, the Navy and the War Economy, with each pool doing its own dispatching without much regard for the eventual needs of the other branches. Led to much waste of shipping space, e.g. the Army used a ship to bring supplies from A to B and let it return empty, while a day later the economic branch sent an empty ship from A to B to pick up resources - wich could have brought back by the ship belonging to the Army pool, if only they had cooperated. So WitP is dead on track here [:D].

I have never used auto-convoys when playing Allies, but I've started a game as Japanese and I wish the auto-convoys would work at least for shipping resources and oil to Japan - it takes time and effort to micromanage this aspect of the game. I have the suspicion that the 'broken' auto-convoy is not a bug but a player balance feature - as Allies you don't need to care about moving resources but you are more and more occupied with managing hundreds of carriers, battleships, cruisers etc. entering the game as reinforcements. As Japanese player, you don't get many new ships, so in order to keep the Japanese player occupied on about the same level as the Allied player, they gave him the 'manual resource convoy management task' [:'(].