Transport Loading Question

[joerock22]

In a current game, my Russian corps in Sevastopol was reduced to 2 steps. The fortress was reduced to 0 production in the process, but the port was completely healthy. I was unable to evacuate the corps by transport, which would make sense if I had zero supply. But here an adjacent naval unit was supplying the corps with 1 supply. So even though I had a healthy port and some supply, I was still unable to load the corps onto a transport. Instead I had to leave them there to die.

Is this normal? If so, can someone please explain the reasoning behind this rule? It doesn't make sense to me that a unit with some supply will be unable to evacuate using an undamaged port.

[Cybvep]

I think that I had a similar problem on Sardinia. It was caused by the destruction of the city's PPs.

[GogTheMild]

So what happens with a port city which doesn't have any PPs to start with? (Like Canakkale or Cartagena.)

[pk867]

Ports as I understand have an inherit strength of ten. When the port receives damage the damage it reduces port capacity, and if transports may load.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I have checked the code for this. To be able to use a port to transport you need to be in supply level 3 or higher. The port will provide supply level 3 or higher IF the internal strength of the city hex is 2 or higher (10 max). This means that if you bombard the city down to red color then it has internal strength 0 or 1 and then it won't be able to transport units from the city.

So strategic bombardment of a city is probably a good idea if you want to prevent evacuation from that city. Lots of battles in a city will wear down the city's internal strength and reduce the supply from the city and also the transport capacity.

The damage to the port itself doesn't matter when it comes to being able to transport.

It could be possible to alter the code so we instead check the damage to the port for supply purposes. That means the port won't give supply level 3 or higher if the port internal strength is 0 or 1. By doing so you need to bombard the port to reduce the supply from the city instead of bombarding the city itself. That contradicts the other rule where non-port cities lose supply level dependent upon strategic bombardment damage.

We added some time ago the ability to bombard cties providing supply so if they're isolated you can lower the supply level. E. g. Leningrad can be bombarded to reduce the supply level so the city can be captured. It only works if the city is isolated. If not it will receive supply from other cities instead.

[Cybvep]

The damage to the port itself doesn't matter when it comes to being able to transport.

This is very counter-intuitive.

I'm not advocating immediate changes to the game, though. It's food for thought ATM. IMO the supply rule works fine (Leningrad's fate shouldn't be dependant on its port at all, as it wasn't IRL - after all, the route through Denmark was blocked and after the city was encircled, it could only be supplied by air or through Lake Ladoga), but in case of transports it would be more logical if it was the port level which determined whether embarkation is possible.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

The drop in supply after strategic bombardment was added way before port bombardment. So use of port was linked to the damage to the city. This was done because players would bombard the city for PP loss as well. It was later we added the functionality that the repair capacity of the port is dependent upon the damage of the port itself. Ports became damaged from either bombardment of enemy capture of the city. That simulates the evacuating power doing what they can to make the port facilities unusable.

One could argue that strategic bombardment of a city also affects the port. One could code so both the city strength and the attached port strength drop from strategic bombardment. I'm a bit afraid to make such a change in case it introduces a bug somewhere or an unwanted side effect.

So I think we do best by leaving things as is.