Port cities supply

[rocketman71]

I have put a siege on Odessa which is completely cut of and has units, but no garrison units. Yet it seems like they get full supplies every turn because no matter how much I attack they have more or less full action points every turn. I can't break them. Are port cities automatically supplied?

[Philippeatbay]

Not automatically, but to cut Odessa off from supply you'd have to capture all the other Black Sea ports first.

[Erzac]

A heavily fortified Odessa can be a tough nut to crack, but it's not impervious. Assign theater artillery on the besieging army, wait for ammunition stockpiles to build up, and make the attack with as full readiness as you can(~90 or more), with all attacking units under the same army HQ. Don't go much over the stacking limit either. Should you have more besieging troops than the stacking would allow, keep them in reserve, and send them in the next turn while the previous wave recovers.

It might take a couple of attacks, but it will eventually succeed.

[rocketman71]

ORIGINAL: Philippe at bay

Not automatically, but to cut Odessa off from supply you'd have to capture all the other Black Sea ports first.

That wasn't in the manual was it?

[Philippeatbay]

Not sure. I remember Cameron talking about it when he made Sukhumi a source of naval supply so that it wouldn't be too easy to take Odessa and Sevastopol by siege. If it was after beta, it should be in the patch notes (or possibly in the Manual errata).

[rocketman71]

It is in the manual errata: "Minor coastal cities (grey dot) don’t receive supply by sea (Baltic or Black seas). Major port cities (red dot) do and are able to support limited pockets of troops provided they can trace a supply route back to the port."
Still a bit vague what "limited pockets of troops" means.

[lancer]

Hi Rocketboy,

If you turn on the supply layer (button down the bottom - jerrycan icon) you can see the level of supply reaching the city. Moving outwards from, for instance, an isolated Odessa, is going to see a rapidly diminishing supply situation. This will vary depending on the circumstances on the ground (do you have control of the rail link running out of Odessa or is the supply having to move cross country in mud conditions, etc.) but in general terms you shouldn't expect vast quantities of supply to reach a cut-off city and provide adequate support to vast numbers of nearby units.

If you visualise a movie showing desparate merchant ships running the gauntlet into a surrounded Trobruk or Malta you've probably got a good a mental picture as any of the situation.

Cheers,
Cameron