Slitherine

I have been reading about supply system but haven’t found what effects will be applied on units without it?

Effects combat effectiveness.

So your strength is reduced.

Razz1 wrote:Effects combat effectiveness.

So your strength is reduced.

No effects on unit movement?

The supply is affecting both, combat and movement abilities of units.

doomtrader wrote:The supply is affecting both, combat and movement abilities of units.

Do you have automatic elimination of unsupplied units at the end of player turn (like Third Reich game has) or after certain number of turns or some similar rule?

No, unsupplied unit is almost not able to fight and to move, but this is an enemy's work to destroy it.
There are always some chikens to catch or potatos to steal, but there is no ammo around, so the units are able to survive without the supply but are not able to resist enemy for too long.

doomtrader wrote:No, unsupplied unit is almost not able to fight and to move, but this is an enemy's work to destroy it.
There are always some chikens to catch or potatos to steal, but there is no ammo around, so the units are able to survive without the supply but are not able to resist enemy for too long.

Reason why I have been asking is exactly what you have answered. I have over 30 year’s experience in playing strategy games of any kind (Turn Based, RTS, mixed, like Total War serial etc.) and have seen games with this solution and it is wrong, to my opinion. Do you ask yourself what will happen if player don’t want to destroy this unsupplied units? Like games I have played, you will have many stupid situations where some enemy units will stay (camping ) on enemy territory during whole game. In one game (I will not name it) Norway, for instance, was constant point where this was the case. Allied player have tried invasion and failed. He has retreated unit into mountain hex and run out of supply (unit was not enabled to attack and move). Axis player has decided to leave this unit and unit stayed there until end of the game. LOL, very stupid situation. I hope you have some smarter solution for this.

Unit without supplies can move one hex per turn, so this kind of unit is still a threat as it is possible that the owner will move it to the undefended city and will start to drain supplies from there then.
So I think this solution is good, as it demands from both sides to take some actions regarding this unit.

Also the unit that is cut off can try to move to the coast and get some supplies transported by the sea (if fleet is presented), also owner of that unit can try to move some tact bombers to provide supply to this unit by air.

doomtrader wrote:Unit without supplies can move one hex per turn, so this kind of unit is still a threat as it is possible that the owner will move it to the undefended city and will start to drain supplies from there then.
So I think this solution is good, as it demands from both sides to take some actions regarding this unit.

Also the unit that is cut off can try to move to the coast and get some supplies transported by the sea (if fleet is presented), also owner of that unit can try to move some tact bombers to provide supply to this unit by air.

These options should be enough but still, are you sure that you will not have certain unreal situations where unsupplied units will stuck in middle of nowhere (in Russian endless territory, for instance)? One situation, again from one existing game, is coming to my mind: In Russia, Axis player with main force encircled a few corps unit and decided to ignore it, but because of 1 hex movement ability, he put garrison units in adjacent hexes to have them in ZOC. ZOC rule in this situation does not allow unsupplied unit to move at all. It nullifying 1 hex movement option. Plus, Axis player will not attack because garrison units are too weak to defeat corps units. On other side Russian player, also, decided to not attack in suicide missions and because of Axis air superiority he can’t move bombers to provide supply. And now you have very strange situation where unit are camping near each other and do nothing for whole game. Is it possible to have similar situations in your game and do you have any solution for it?

ZOC does not exclude one hex movement rule.

doomtrader wrote:ZOC does not exclude one hex movement rule.

Very good. But normally, it has effects on unit movement?

The problem with enemy units just dying off because of no supply is this. Every pocket that was made in any war had to be cleaned out by the poor bloody infantry, even if it was to just disarm them so they didn't turn into partisans.

In a short scenario where you are only attacking one country or a few and have a limited time to do so then bypassing and forgetting about enemy units is fine.

If you are playing the entire war than the surrounded units should not just dissapear. You as the attacker will be forced to use some of your troops to wipe out the pockets and so be more close to the reality of the situation.

vveedd wrote:

doomtrader wrote:ZOC does not exclude one hex movement rule.

Very good. But normally, it has effects on unit movement?

Yes, of course. Moving withing enemy ZOC costs additional movement points.

antony wrote:The problem with enemy units just dying off because of no supply is this. Every pocket that was made in any war had to be cleaned out by the poor bloody infantry, even if it was to just disarm them so they didn't turn into partisans.

In a short scenario where you are only attacking one country or a few and have a limited time to do so then bypassing and forgetting about enemy units is fine.

If you are playing the entire war than the surrounded units should not just dissapear. You as the attacker will be forced to use some of your troops to wipe out the pockets and so be more close to the reality of the situation.

It is a theme about I have been discussing with many game developers for many years. In general there are two groups with different opinion – first like yours (against automatic elimination of unsupplied units), second like mine (for automatic elimination of unsupplied units). Each side has a few very good points, one of it is what you have said and one of mine is: what is your explanation for many surrender events in real World War 2? This was the case, especially in early days of operation Barbarossa when whole Russian armies have surrendered to Axis. Course of these events was almost always the same; German army encircled enemy units and when they run out of ammo, food or supply in general, they decided to surrender. In many cases there was no need to wipe them out. To simulate these events in game you need to have automatic elimination rule. The most important factor how to use this rule is another game part/rule which depend on it, and this is what time period is representing by one game turn. If one game turn is one year season like in Third Reich game then automatic elimination rule should be applied at the end of player turn, if game turn is one month or one week or less, automatic elimination rule should be applied gradually across certain numbers of turns.

Maybe I didn't make my thoughts clear.

As you said in the real war German units would surround the pocket and then there would be a surrender. It would take time to disarm and gather the prisoners and also deal with any diehards. The panzer divisions in Russia would sometimes be used to help crush a pocket.

I agree completely with your statement about games with seasonal turns.

What a lot of games are doing now even with only very short turns, in time of days, is that the opposing units disappear on the next turn after being cut off. What this does is not force the attacking player to bother about a one million man pocket and just continue with their attack against other enemy forces.

Wastelands hits a happy medium with how they work it. If an enemy force is in a city it is still supplied until it is destroyed ala Leningrad. If an enemy force is surrounded without being in a city it slowly dies but can still disrupt supply routes.

So in essence we agree but I still believe that there should be some kind of time penalty on the attackers units to simulate the whole surrender process. It would of course be much easier to implement this in a bordgame compared to a computer one.

antony wrote: So in essence we agree but I still believe that there should be some kind of time penalty on the attackers units to simulate the whole surrender process. It would of course be much easier to implement this in a bordgame compared to a computer one.

I agree that we agree

And for time penalty for attacker, in games with daily, weekly, monthly or similar less seasonal turns I am suggesting automatic elimination rule applied gradually across certain numbers of turns (as I have already mentioned above). The main point is that every game should have some kind of automatic elimination of unsupplied units rule. Unfortunately, if I am correct, Time of Fury game does not have it.

Doesn't the attack on unsupplied, unable to fight units simulate taking defenders as POW? Attackers must spent some action points on that. Even unsupplied and surrounded units must surrender to somebody. In this case, low level infantry units are enough.

doomtrader wrote:Doesn't the attack on unsupplied, unable to fight units simulate taking defenders as POW? Attackers must spent some action points on that. Even unsupplied and surrounded units must surrender to somebody. In this case, low level infantry units are enough.

No, to my opinion, attack on unsupplied units can’t simulate negotiations about terms of surrender, disarming and taking POWs. These are peaceful actions and in your case attack is what it is – attack. In attack you can cause causalities on both sides. But we are talking now too many in details like lawyers.

Automatic elimination of unsupplied units rule has one more advance – it gives much more benefits to player’s encircling tactics and players we will use it much more and this, furthermore, gives more realistic look to game. Without it, players will use less these tactics regardless current benefits because they still have to spare some units to destroy it.

Well we do agree somewhat but not all the way.

There were plenty of encirclements in Russia where the Russians kept fighting and were known at times to eat bark for days.

My point, which I don't think I've gotten across well, is that if you just have the defenders disappear after one or 10 turns you will not be forced to deal with them either in time or casualties or both.

Let's say your tanks cut off a bunch of Russians. Now if the player knows that they are just going to die in X turns he can go right ahead and keep using the same troops in the same turn or the next.

To bring game rules to history you have to have some penalty on the attackers troops. Otherwise once you've encircled a group you might depending on the rules be able to encircle another group.

So you know where I'm coming from I do not play wargames as games. I'll try to stay as close as possible to history and will ignore rules that let me do unhistorical things.

antony wrote:Well we do agree somewhat but not all the way.

There were plenty of encirclements in Russia where the Russians kept fighting and were known at times to eat bark for days.

My point, which I don't think I've gotten across well, is that if you just have the defenders disappear after one or 10 turns you will not be forced to deal with them either in time or casualties or both.

Let's say your tanks cut off a bunch of Russians. Now if the player knows that they are just going to die in X turns he can go right ahead and keep using the same troops in the same turn or the next.

To bring game rules to history you have to have some penalty on the attackers troops. Otherwise once you've encircled a group you might depending on the rules be able to encircle another group.

So you know where I'm coming from I do not play wargames as games. I'll try to stay as close as possible to history and will ignore rules that let me do unhistorical things.

I respect you opinion and I agree that we disagree in certain points . Player can ignore encircled units without supply but in certain numbers of remaining turns for unsupplied units these units can make lots of damage and, perhaps, may take some supply source and become full active and ready, so it is questionable is it worth it to just leave them without any military present nearby. Automatic elimination at the end is very useful rule in certain situations I have mentioned above where one or more unit can stay on some place in the middle of enemy territory during whole game. This situation is to my humble opinion much more unrealistic .

I am big fan of automatic elimination rule because I am big fan of Third Reich game, where this rule works perfectly.