Supply Model

[Kerensky]

So apparently:

Regarding this one, I checked the code, and the question is not if replacements should give you proper supply, but if supply itself is adequate? As it stands now, ground units only get half supply when you hit Supply button, unless they are positioned in a city. So, getting the same amount with replacements looks like a perfectly logical thing.

This is something I remember from original Panzer General, but honestly it's something I loathed. Especially on units with low ammo totals, such as a KV-2 with 3 shots.
In my opinion, this type of game play mechanic is too old and should be updated. There should definitely be a penalty for trying to resupply or reinforce near enemy units, and (once again) I think Panzer General 2's update to this mechanic is far superior.

If you hit reinforce anywhere, or supply anywhere, granted there are no adjacent enemy units, you gain 100% fuel and ammunition.
The only exception to this was desert/sand terrain, which I believe is pretty important to maintaining the essence of how warfare was like in theaters such as North Africa.

Not receiving full supply when hitting the supply button causes a host of game play issues.
1. Discourages defenses positions that are not located on city hexes. I remember there was some discussion around here of trying to move combat away from overcrowded victory hexes, those same lessons apply here.
Offense, if they want to supply fully have the following options:
Move to a city, then resupply. Takes two turns.
Resupply, then resupply again. Also takes two turns.

Defense, however, does not have the first option. If they take the luxury to abandon their entrenchment to move to a city, it raises the question, why was that city empty in the first place? Shouldn't there already be someone there slowly entrenching? So what, you move him out and ruin his entrenchment too? No, as a defensive unit, you will have to take the second option, just resupply twice. Problem is you aren't going to have that luxury either. Odds are your defensive unit, if in need of supply, has at least one hostile adjacent unit. Further penalize your supply by that factor. The model is overly punishing for defensive units.

2. Artificially slows down game play.
You guys obviously want to modernize the game and speed up game play, for example unlinking fire and move was a great step towards that end. This encouraged faster and much more flexible game play over the original Panzer General mechanic of binary unit actions, all used or all ready. The idea of needing 2 turns, 3 for units with odd numbered ammunition totals, takes away from the speed of game play.

3. Counter-intuitive.
It's not a 'supply' button, it's a 'half supply round down' button. This bugged me a lot during replays of the beta campaign. I'd have a infantry units make a few attacks. Their ammo and strength both depleted. It only took a single turn to raise them from 3 to 10 again, but then I found they run out of ammo again after only two more turns. So my original 10/10 with 5 ammo took 4 or 5 turns to become 3/10 and 0 ammo (1 or 0 defensive actions), but now that same unit becomes 8/10 with 0 ammo in 1 or 2 turns (1 or 0 defensive actions). The two strengths are clearly linked. You wouldn't want to attack with a 1 strength unit with 20 ammo, or attack with a 12 strength unit with 1 ammo, as a general rule with rare exceptions. So you have a reinforcement button that brings a unit to full strength, but you do not have a button that brings a unit to fully supply.
The supply button only becomes a full supply button when you get the other half from being in a city. How often is that a luxury? I pointed out how defense simply doesn't have that luxury of choosing where to resupply, but offense has the similar problem.

Normally, when trying to advance quickly, I use wounded 'mop up' units to capture vacant city tiles. Why? Because I use the movement of full strength units to continue advancing to their full potential, not stopping short in an arbitrary hex the game tells me is important. In this supply model, it makes a little bit of sense, because if you use your wounded unit to capture the city, they then become ready to be fully supplied and reinforced.

It sounds good, but unfortunately that's not the reality. The reality is that unit strength not ammo reserves dictate what available unit is used to capture city hexes. As long as you put 1 strength in an empty city, you get it, that's what it boils down to. Often enough, my weak strength units do not really need ammo. The pioneer who just fought a battle that resulted in 6/7 casualties on both sides, but only used 1 ammo to achieve that result is an example of this. Infantry like this are perfect for using their turn to occupy vacant city hexes. Another problem is artillery units. Unless I'm mistaken, you went back to the original PG model of Artillery not being able to capture city hexes. Well... of all the units in your arsenal, who is likely to use the most ammunition, but take the least amount of damage in return? The one guy who you can't use to capture a city, and thus benefit from getting full instead of half supply in a single turn. So you use an infantry to take the city, then next turn you put your artillery unit there and supply it and spend two turns. Or just half supply the artillery unit twice. Feels like an artificial way to slow down the game play.


At the very least, if you intend to use this supply model, make it painfully obvious for people, because it is by no means intuitive. The best example of this is: You hit the reinforcement button, you get full reinforcements. You hit the supply button, nope sorry you don't get fully supply.
Ways to make it painfully obvious:
1. Library should cite where units receive full or reduced supply.
2. Mouse over on supply button should be similar to reinforcement. X -> Y where X is current ammo and Y is ammo amount if you hit supply button. Additionally, there should be a display of Z, where Z is the current unit's total ammo capacity, to allow people quick and easy reference in making their decision.
a. "If my unit gains 4 ammo, but has a max of ten, I gain enough ammo for four turns when I spend one turn." Might be worth doing.
b. "If my unit gains 1 ammo, but has a max of twenty." Definitely not worth doing.
c. "If my unit gains 2 ammo, but has a max of three." Possibly worth doing.
3. Floating text.

If you click the supply button, the text appears on top of the unit, floats up, and disappears.

By the way, combat could probably use floating text like this, in addition to graphics/animation. All you have right now are the sound cues, but the sound cues are not linked to who is getting shot/doing the shooting, they just play.

[Rudankort]

Your arguments for full resupply sound logical, especially second and third. I don't think existing rules place defender in a too bad position, as long as you are not blocked by enemy units, half-supply is good enough for defense, and when you ARE blocked, it does not matter any more how much supply you get. But I agree that existing scheme is not intuitive and slows down game pace. And also, on the first glance I don't see any strong arguments against full resupply.

[boredatwork]

And also, on the first glance I don't see any strong arguments against full resupply.

The only argument against full resupply would be arguably it made some scenarios feel more "real". Specifically trying for a Major Victory in Moscow or Ardennes where for the first half of the game your forces would have good supply to drive the initial advance deep, however in the latter half your advance was slowed to a crawl and it became a desparate battle to get enough units forward to take out the final objective in time.

Frustrating? Perhaps, but also IMO realistic and satisfying. If you make it too easy to resupply it defeats the purpose of having a supply system at all.

- I could live with 1 click=full supply.

- I would preffer though the original PG model - it can be turned off afterall.

As an improvement/compromise I would also suggest either

- a fixed rate resupply - ie you get 4(?) units of ammo or your max capacity - whichever is smaller which would address the KV-2, SIG issue OR

- Full resupply on Ammo but only partial resupply on fuel - that ensures units keep fighting but still get the shuffling forward desparation in certain scenarios.


Lastly I suppose you could give multiple options as no one system would satisfy everyone.

[Rudankort]

I agree that in some scenarios like Moscow half supply slows down your advance, but this is exactly what Kerensky was talking about as "slow down the pace of the game". In other words, you can have 21 turns and resupply 2 turns, or you can have 20 turns and resupply in one turn, and the effect will be similar, but the pace of the game will be increased.

I think that existing supply system leaves something to be desired as far as attacker is concerned. For defender it gives some real tactical implications (you can deplete defender's fuel/ammo by strategic bombers, mass attacks etc., and then exploit that), but for attacker it all boils down to the need to hit supply from time to time. I'm still thinking about some alterbative ideas, and the best idea so far would be to use resource pool for fuel and ammo which you would use to resupply your troops. Then it is no longer as easy as hitting supply, and you will have think if you really want so many planes (which consume fuel fast), or you better keep some in reserve etc. Supply pool would be used only in a few selected scenarios where supply situation was difficult (like North Africa or Moscow). This would really give some special flavour to such scens.

[comradep]

Would it be possible to link the extent of supply to the terrain type or weather? Say: desert hexes or snow/mud weather=half supply. The rest=full supply.

Timetables are often rather tricky with PG games, as you're essentially fighting against the decisive victory/overwhelming victory turn limit. Half supply would make the game unnecessarily difficult in terms of supplies.

[boredatwork]

I agree that in some scenarios like Moscow half supply slows down your advance, but this is exactly what Kerensky was talking about as "slow down the pace of the game". In other words, you can have 21 turns and resupply 2 turns, or you can have 20 turns and resupply in one turn, and the effect will be similar, but the pace of the game will be increased.

Half supply would make the game unnecessarily difficult in terms of supplies.

"Slowing down the pace of the game" is exactly what logistics are supposed to do by adding difficult choices - do I let the enemy entrench on his new defensive line while I stop for several turns and let my units resupply or do I half supply now and try and bounce the line and risk being caught short and immobile if I'm unsuccessful.

TBH I see starting fuel and ammo as stockpiled stores prior to an offensive - unless you're prepared to stall the offensive for several turns to allow your logistic tail to catch up you should be continually short of supplies by the end of it.

Again if supply is just "hit this button once per scenario only if you haven't added replacements" what is the point of having logistics at all?

[comradep]

Generally speaking, I would find it difficult to believe that during any of the battles in the game, forces on either side spend more than 1 full day waiting for supplies. They're all fairly short battles.

[Kerensky]

From my experience in the second stage of the beta, offense is going to need every possible advantage they can get to maintain any kind of momentum.
We haven't even seen the true masters of unit swarms, the Russians.

I say 100% supply so long as:
1. No enemy forces are near by.
2. Unit is not in horrible terrain: sand/desert and possibly mud/snow.

[Kerensky]

Game is still set to half supply, even for sitting on top of a city hex.
Looking at some of the future units, I dread having to try and use something like a 3 ammo IS 2 or a 2 ammo Wurfrahmen. I can't imagine what use, or fun, it is to: Take two turns to shoot. One turn to reload. One turn to shoot. One turn to reload. One turn to shoot. This assuming you never get attacked or invoke defensive fire.

I adore the little Wurfrahmen, it's such a cool unit. But 2 ammo reserve, and each turn spent supplying only gives it one ammo? I'd never ever use it.

[Razz1]

Actually the supply model is not bad if you extend the number of turns for each scenario. As of now offense runs out of ammo and there are allot of useless units to buy because they run out of ammo fast and take too long to supply and getinto action.

So basically any unit that is 3 or less ammo is a one time offensive unit. Shoot once, defend once, then run to the hills to resupply. And then that takes two turns so units are useless.

[heinrich]

It´s funny to read these things because xitax and me had a similar discussion about the supply model. I don´t know were we are right now exactly but the supply model should not be modified too hard. Supply rules should follow reinforcement rules most widely. So full or half with or without enemy. Nothing complicated because of the well known "KISS" principle. The terrain modification would be miss the point completely because the fields are reflecting a general condition of the terrain. I think it´s a mistake to assume, that every sand or dessert field is partial impassable. Maybe a street modification but nothing more.