Has the supply issue from ToW been fixed for this release?

[jjdenver]

Hi,

I bought and played ToW some but the terrible supply system put me off of it after completing my first PBEM game.

I posted this on another forum and will copy it here. Is this fixed in the new release?

"As for ToW and the pacific version. If they'd fix the land supply system (which is very very harsh currently and is biased in favor of the allies purely based on turn order and when supply is resolved), I'd probably go for the game easier, and would definitely spend more time playing the euro or full world version.

IIIRC, currently the way that land supply works is that it's resolved at the beginning of each turn. So in effect allies get to move after being cut off while axis don't.

So it's
BEGIN TURN
FIGURE SUPPLY
AXIS MOVE
ALLIED MOVE
END TURN

So you can see if the Germans during their turn cut off a French unit, the french unit takes its turn as if in supply still. If however a French unit cuts off a German unit during its turn, the Germans next move is made as if out of supply. It's very wonky and just plain wrong to have asymmetric supply calculation this way.

To make it even worse, most games have a gradual degradation of combat power and/or movement if out of supply, oft-times only offensive combat power is degraded and not much effect on defensive.

In the ToW game, the unit is instantly frozen in place or nearly in place with I think only 1 movement point (most units get far far more MP's in the game, 1 will get you not even 1 hex in a lot of cases I think), and a 10 combat power unit is instantly reduced to 0 or 1 combat power (IIRC).

So you could have a German panzer corp of say 4 panzer divisions drive into France and a small French unit cuts their supply on the French turn. On the German next move there is no chance to fight the way out of the tenuous pocket - instead all 4 panzer divisions are unable to move, or can only move 1 hex, and have no combat power to even get 1-1 odds on any adjacent units. During the French turn they are smashed up by any sort of unit in the neighborhood. All of this when turns are only (IIRC) 2 weeks.

If the reverse happens the French armored divisions could have a turn without supply effects to fight their way out.

The fact that supply is lopsided like this, and the fact that supply is so extremely over the top harsh just kills that game for me.

If a Stalingrad happened in that game the trapped German units would take exactly 2 weeks to completely mop up. No matter the size of the pocket any cut off Axis units can be almost instantly eliminated and they don't get a move to escape either. So the entire game as the Axis is spent trying to cover every single gap in your line to make sure a couple of motorized British or Soviet divisions don't scoot through the gap and cut off half your forces in the theater.

A great game is brought low by just poor supply design. Too harsh, too silly."

[gwgardner]

I believe those concerns were address in a ToW patch. Check it out again. Example, units cut off no longer suffer immediate loss of effectiveness, making it possible to reopen supply lines on a later turn.

The issue of supply being determined at the beginning of the turn was changed to. My memory is failing me right now, but in the current patch level of ToW you don't see that effect of turn sequence on various countries. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but in recent games I've played of ToW it has not been an issue.

[doomtrader]

Gary, you are right.

[jjdenver]

That's great news. Thanks. I'll download the patch and try it out then go update my post on that forum to mention that it's fixed. Great news..

EDIT: I just downloaded the patch and tried this out. It works _much_ better now. Movement and combat gradually degrade for units OOS. Great fix.