Matrix Games Forums

First let me say I love this game. It is the most interesting and fun computer game I've ever had. This thread is serious but only a very tiny criticism of the game. Does anyone ever buy mostly horses instead of trucks? It seems to me that trucks are too low cost compared to horses. After all, the German Army that conquered most of Europe and that it took most of the world years to defeat was a horse powered army. When the Wehrmacht invaded Russia they did so with over 600,000 horses. Only the panzer divisions were primarily motor powered. Only the American army came near to being fully motor driven, and the British thanks to the Americans. The Germans simply did not have the industry to turn out enough trucks. The Russians rode into Berlin on American trucks but produced few of their own.

So it seems to me that there should be some overall incentive in the game towards horses. That is, that trucks should be much more expensive to produce. Now in random scenarios the sides are generic so this would affect all sides, but it should. If you want to fully motorize your forces you should be forced to give up buying other important things. As it is the trucks are so cheap it is easy to fully motorize any army.

That said, the game is wonderful in the elegance of its design of supply and transport, realistic but not so overdone you drown in the details (those who play War in the Pacific are a peculiar species, but then isn't everyone who isn't like me peculiar?).

ORIGINAL: miral

First let me say I love this game. It is the most interesting and fun computer game I've ever had. This thread is serious but only a very tiny criticism of the game. Does anyone ever buy mostly horses instead of trucks? It seems to me that trucks are too low cost compared to horses. After all, the German Army that conquered most of Europe and that it took most of the world years to defeat was a horse powered army. When the Wehrmacht invaded Russia they did so with over 600,000 horses. Only the panzer divisions were primarily motor powered. Only the American army came near to being fully motor driven, and the British thanks to the Americans. The Germans simply did not have the industry to turn out enough trucks. The Russians rode into Berlin on American trucks but produced few of their own.

So it seems to me that there should be some overall incentive in the game towards horses. That is, that trucks should be much more expensive to produce. Now in random scenarios the sides are generic so this would affect all sides, but it should. If you want to fully motorize your forces you should be forced to give up buying other important things. As it is the trucks are so cheap it is easy to fully motorize any army.

That said, the game is wonderful in the elegance of its design of supply and transport, realistic but not so overdone you drown in the details (those who play War in the Pacific are a peculiar species, but then isn't everyone who isn't like me peculiar?).

I never really thought about this, but you may be right...or it may be that we're not building our units as strong as they could be. It may not be a matter of the trucks being cheap, but just a matter of player's choice...as an experiment, try a PBEM game and use only horses...you'll have much more resources to purchase fighting units and when you face your fully motorized opponent, you may beat him! I don't know enough about economics, etc., but maybe the Germans just didn't want to use their resources on trucks?

the germans wanted trucks and tanks in large amounts and they had the ability to build them aswell, they lacked however fuel making them close to useless. Instead they researched and built rockets even though they where close to useless.  

I think miral has a point. In the game a horse cost 200 and a truck costs 1000 build points (5X) but a horse only carries 200 LandCap while a truck carries 2000 Landcap (10X). Plus the horse is slower moving....

I always use horses in the beginning of a random game, when trucks are too expensive, and later in heavily wooded or mountaineous areas. But apart from these two occasions, mostly trucks.

 I prefer the trucks cause of the speed. But in rough terrain I always go with horse.
I will say one thing though, Compared with the horse the trucks are definitely supply hogs. So your giving up strength for speed.
 Maybe its not so unrealistic. The Germans could have built more trucks and halftracks, but they would have had to give strength to do it. Like fewer tanks, planes, 88's, or anything that would need to be manufactured.
 Seems logical anyway.[8|]

In history, as in science, one discussion leads to other lines of thought. Here it is discussed if the Germans used horses out of necessity (lack of oil) or choice. I must disagree that it was lack of oil. Until 1944 the Germans were not critically short of oil. They chose to use horses rather than invest in the huge industrial committment it would have taken to motorize all their armies.

Now, I think the reason for that is this. It is a curious, but seldom commented on fact, that the Germans suffered from many of the same mind sets that ruined the Japanese war effort; victory disease, the raising of the attack to a kind of religion ('I attack, therefore I exist' as one wag of an historian put it) trying to do too much over too great an area with too little, an endless double or nothing offensive chance taking and A CONSISTENT UNDER VALUING OF A COHERENT AND STRONG LOGICSTICAL SYSTEM. The Germans had these flaws to a lesser extent than the Japanese but they certainly had them. And they seem to be inherent to the German system of war; you will find them in many of Germany's wars over the past few centuries. The Gemans, like the Japanese, launched their offensives on too slender a logistical basis, hoping that they would capture enemy supplies, underestimating the difficulty of converting the Russian rail gauge, not having any winter clothing in store ect. I think this matter of a horse drawn army is another example of this. Trucks are not glamorous weapon systems like tanks or dive bombers so they didn't have much priority in the German military mind. And, if they didn't have the oil to motorize more than the thrity or so panzer divisions in their army of over 200 divisions, what were they doing attacking a nation the size of Russia? Victory disease.

In all events, the humble, or mighty, horse is an important indication of and raises questions about, some of the fundamental weaknesses of the German military mind, and system. See Robert Citino's books on the German military from 30 years war through WWII. He investigates these weaknesses in depth.

Sorry, got too far away from the game. Trucks do use more supply but does anyone have a problem with too little supply? I have yet to find myself having to make desperate choices between supplies and weapons. Also, perhaps the horses consume too little supplies. The problem with using animals in war has always been that a very large part of their carrying capacity has to be used to carry the fodder to feed them. For all the problems of mechanical carriers trucks are a far more efficient way to move supplies that are horses or mules. Again, I don't think the Germans had real oil problems until 1944, when the Rumanian fields were lost and the Americans finally figured out that the refineries were the real bottleneck of the German war production that should be relentlessly bombed. Of course, the Germans were never rolling in oil, like the Americans, but I can't think of any big fight before 1944 that they lost primarily because they ran out of oil (save North Africa, where sea power entered into supplying their ground forces).

I agree with everything you said.
Except for the choice of supply over weapon delima. there are a lot scenarios in the game where I absolutly need and want more replacments for my armyies but can't produce what I need cause of all the production I'm using for supplies.
try Playing Europe 1939 or Russia 41'.
It's different than playing a Random game. often in a random game you are capturing more production cities as your Army is growing and never get to that point where you have to make tough decisions.

Well, I don't know ... if it were summer now, I could see horses about 100 meters from here browsing on a feedlot. Somehow I live in the imagination that you can put a horse on a piece of grassland and it will feed itself. That is, if there aren't more horses than pieces of grassland, of course. But this is something a truck can't do, it can't fuel itself. From this point of view, a low supply need for horses should be justified, shouldn't it?

Hm the horse supply advantage is not so great neither imho.
If you use them for landcap transport, 10 horses = 2000 transport capacity = 1 truck. Supply need for both is 10.

Only for transporting artillery the horses have a small advantage. There 2 horses can transport as much as 1 truck. So 2 vs. 10 supply.
Lets say you have 30 artillery units, then you save 120 supply. Thats an additional 60 infantry or a couple of tanks you can supply. Does not really seem worth it to me.

Maybe a third resource, fuel could be introduced.

ORIGINAL: xBoroNx

Hm the horse supply advantage is not so great neither imho.
If you use them for landcap transport, 10 horses = 2000 transport capacity = 1 truck. Supply need for both is 10.

Only for transporting artillery the horses have a small advantage. There 2 horses can transport as much as 1 truck. So 2 vs. 10 supply.
Lets say you have 30 artillery units, then you save 120 supply. Thats an additional 60 infantry or a couple of tanks you can supply. Does not really seem worth it to me.

Maybe a third resource, fuel could be introduced.

The truck wins hands down when you consider tranport capacity. But you really only need transport capacity at your HQ.
Now carrying capacity is where the Horse wins out big time on supplies. That can be used to move any ground units not just artillery.

So I did some research.
 Using the starting position of Russia 41 as an example, I calculated the total number of trucks needed to motorize the entire german army(not including HQ's).
-It was 161 trucks...using 1610 supplies...or 322 horses using 322 supplies.
-The difference being 1288 supplies.
-1288 is enough supplies to support 644 sub formations of Rifflemen
-Or 80.5 subs of light tanks.
-Or 161 subs of artillery
You get the point...
I'll still take the trucks though. Speed is worth its weight in gold.

I left out infantry on purpose. They need 30 ap on plains/roads, horses 25 on plains and 20 on roads. Only for artillery with 50 ap on plains and 40 on roads the horses are an interesting choice imho.
But infantry moves ~3 hexes far without horses and 4 hexes with horses and 10 hexes with trucks if there is a road.

Good replies all. Sorry to take so long to comment but I only have internet access once or twice a week. The point about needing much supply in large games is well made. I have played only random games with a few sides and in these there is never a lack of supplies. Now, if I was trying to conquer or defend Russia!

My original point was mostly historical. Except for the US no nation had the resources to produce trucks in vast amounts and keep up large production of other war materials. That is, no nation chose to make this a priority. No doubt the Germans or the Russians could have done so had they been willing to sacrifice greater production of tanks, planes ect. Of course the German war effort was very poorly organized (so much for the myth of the super efficient German). Those who have played the historical scenarios will know. Is this fact reflected in these scenarios. That is, if you play anyone except the US and make large numbers of trucks does this seriously impact the production of other weapon systems?