Sieges and supply

[hidde]

After taking Serbia urgent business elsewhere had Cetinje remain besieged. Something similar happened with Lemberg on the eastern front.
Should they really stay on half supply indefinitely?
In Serbia it should perhaps take a ship in the hex adjacent to the fort and in Russia to move the front about the distance showed in the picture
but then both should eventually suffer more than halved supply I feel.

On another subject; efficiency for enemy units is shown in the stats. Wouldn't it be better to only have the coloured number on the unit shown?
At least in MP and on harder difficulty.

[stockwellpete]

I think there needs to be a time limit on half supply for cut off and besieged cities and forts. Maybe six months, with each winter month counting as two months - and then the unit would get the dreaded red spot indicating "out of supply". The only major siege in WW1 that I have come across is the Turkish siege of Kut, which ended after 5 months in April 1916. I am not sure if there were any other sieges of this length.

[Amaranthus]

Agreed, there is a clear need for a mechanic to cut-off supply to a city and have it eventually switch to out-of-supply. Stockwellpete's suggestion of 6 months (3 in winter) seems reasonable.

[Umeu]

not reasonable at all, fortresses were designed, stocked and supplied in a way to make sure they could stay operational for a long time, definitely much longer than 6 months (or even 3 in winter). however, i do agree that there needs to be a representation of a unit that is cut off from the rest of the world but is still operational, perhaps even a lower repair rate (1 max per turn). and going out of supplies (or resupplying) should be more gradual, but i wrote something about that a way back so wont repeat it here.

[stockwellpete]

The thing about these hexes though is that they represent a city and the immediate countryside around, not just the forts that have been built to protect the city. So to be cut off and surrounded for a long period would cause severe dislocation to the local economy and eventual collapse.

I am not quite sure how this could be measured though - one way is to say that players have to reduce these surrounded settlements by massing troops against them, using artillery to begin the assault, as the game requires us to do now; another way is to introduce some penalties for supply and effectiveness until starvation forces the city and forts to surrender.