Early expansion: supply base or truck stations

[Jorge_Stanbury]

I have this supply problem, and I know with unlimited resources it is very easily fixed, but since I am in the early game, I have to optimize it with minimal investment

As you can see from this map, I want to expand to the south west, which is far away/ outside my 3 city logistical network. Last turn got paved roads tech. I also inherited a rather sinuous, non optimal dirt road highway, which I extended south west

I want to expand south west, build a new zone a new city in the yellow hex. And I want to know what is the most optimal way of doing so
should I build a truck station at the end of the current supply line (red hex?) or would it be better to build a supply base?
it seems that all or most of the trucks are going to the east, as this is where the economy is

[Jdane]

Should you build a new truck base, it would be in my opinion better to do so where you want your new city to be.

As for a supply base, you would probably want to build it in the last hex before the efficiency of your trucks starts diminishing - i.e. before more than 100 truck action points have been spent.

In you situation I would rather upgrade the capital's truck station, and then consider building a supply base if that is not enough to get a truck station built at the colony's location.

I might want to build a road going from the crossroads leading to Soberstein to the red hex road, then block off the southern roads, in order to only have two branches going from the SHQ: one going to Tournus through Soberstein, the other going to the colony, but that's just me.

[zgrssd]

I would put in a dedicated road between the SHQ and Point Red.
Right now traffic in that direction has to go a giant detour north or south/east, easily adding +50% to the distance. And the terrain seems entirely flat, so low cost.

But even with that, the distance is extreme. If Point Yellow also had a truckstop and there was a supply base in the middle (around Point Red, needs new measurements as you can cheaply upgrade parts of the roads to paved), you may have a acceptable connection. But I am very tempted to just put a stop on Point Red as well.
It will be hard to even get enough trailing points into point Yellow to build a truckstop there.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

thanks a lot, I think I definitively needed more trucks; with the SHQ base at level 2 truck I have more trucks to spare

and if I keep paving the road west, I might not even need to build an intermediate supply base,

this is how it is looking now

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury

thanks a lot, I think I definitively needed more trucks; with the SHQ base at level 2 truck I have more trucks to spare

and if I keep paving the road west, I might not even need to build an intermediate supply base,

this is how it is looking now

Until a beta actually makes Upgrading Dirt to Paved cheaper or you got IP to spare, you should perhaps upgrade only the cheap plains part.

I think I see 9 hexes of Paved road, 14 of Dirt road. With that distance, it might even be hard for the full capacity parts of two truck stops to meet. Depending on the game version it is 5/10 or 7/10 AP. And truck stops only got like 95+5per level.
A supply base in the middle, could exctend the full range capacity range until almost the other end. But a additional truckstop in the middle may be unavoidable.

[zgrssd]

Let us do some math. I am asuming you build the paved road all the way to the forrest edge

SHQ side:
105 Truck AP right now. I count 9 Hexes paved road, you can for cheap expand that to 13.
13*7AP = 91 AP lost just on the Paved road path
1 addtional Hex of dirt road, and the decline starts
While some trailing Capacity should still hit point Yellow, this is not soemthing you should ever rely on.

Point Yellow Side:
100 TruckAP
9 Hexes of Dirt road until the forest edge
9*10 AP = 90 AP
1 extra hex of paved road and it too will start to decline
His remaining Capacity will trail off over the paved road and likely never hit the SHQ.

Overall:
The full capacity parts of Piont Yellow and the SHQ truckstop will meet.
- On a global scale, the Point yellow side is the weak half. So for high load on this road, it is way more likely to create the bottlenecked half
- However if the SHQ has to direct a lot of capacity east (towards Soberstein and Turnus), the SHQ part may actually become the lower half part
- If you want to put a supply base, put it at the end of the AP range for the SHQ part. It will very likely always have the higher capacity. So any Hex you can expand it's full capacity will help you. I am unsure about the math, but with a decent supply base and road the full capacity part of the SHQ may even hit Point Yellow

[Jorge_Stanbury]

thanks a lot, really helpful

in the end, I was able to build the base at point "yellow", without the need of supply bases, that said, there was really low to no traffic because I signed peace with all regimes nearby


I also ended with severe bottlenecks on the eastern side; I only made it green after building a rail line going from SHQ to Tournus (with stations on each of 3 cities). I am still struggling with how to fix bottlenecks, where to find what is the issue, or understanding the traffic sign logs