The games supply system is trash

[SuperKyle]

I know some HoI4 nerd is going to comment and critique me on some random thing I didnt think of, but I played Germany at the lowest speed, micromanaged everything I could, did a historical run so far with minimal losses (I think I lost 80k men total before the invasion of Russia, sank 400+ allied ships losing 20 of my own, and shot down ~2k allied aircraft over britain).

I invaded Russia with a priority on the Caucuses/Stalingrad with Leningrad as a secondary objective. By Oct 1941 I literally couldnt advance anymore (I'm maybe 50 miles from stalingrad and have half of the caucuses) ALL of my units are out of supply - and have been, for MONTHS. Im trying to rapidly expand railroads and supply depots in the east, but theres nothing pre-emptive I could have done differently. Russia is simply too big to cover the distances needed in 1 campaign, therefore at some point you have to stop and wait until the next season I guess? Or am I permanently screwed because I'd have to have premium railroads and supply depots everywhere inside of Russia before continuing?

Reason why the game sucks? 0.00 hourly recovery rate. You heard that right. For the last SEVENTY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DAYS not a SINGLE one of my units has gained 1 point of organization. I have been micromanaging a defensive line in order to not lose ground. This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ retarded. The game is slanted against you by making supply in Russia an impossibility by all except the most hardcore of nerds, and I tried micromanaging my run on the lowest speed and im an average HOI4 player (~500-1000 hours)?

[bri]

There's a reason for the old "never start a land war in Russia" saying...

[Drax]

And yet people have killed Russia with Germany within 10 minutes this patch...
"Reason why the game sucks? I suck, and anybody who doesn't suck is a NERD."

Since apparently using your brain is 'nerdy', how about starting simple and putting less divisions in Russia? Crazy, I know. Then when you upgrade the railroads, you can put MORE divisions in Russia. WOW. Having more divisions means nothing if they're out of supply thus out of org and are taking heavy losses. You're just making your front weaker.

If you want to get a little bit more complicated. Use your airforce. CAS alone can kill the Russian army for you. Plus you can bomb their railroads to worsen their supply.

Then if you want to play competently, micromanage competently and encircle their divisions. Kill off their army instead of pushing them into areas of low supply and losing your own.

Like, you're whining about having to use strategy in a strategy game. Wanna not be a stupid NERD. Go play COD or something. Something that's an FPS where you don't have to think much. If you honestly have 500-1000 hours (bit weird how you can be 500hrs unsure of your playtime considering steam literally tells you) and can't win as the easiest nation in the game, I REALLY wouldn't be trying to critique game mechanics, and I'd start by looking up guides on youtube.

Whining about supply mechanics as South Africa doing CK2? Fair enough. Whining about supply mechanics as Germany, against the nation the supply mechanics were designed around? Maybe not.

[Chozer]

Originally posted by SuperKyle:

I know some HoI4 nerd is going to comment and critique me on some random thing I didnt think of, but I played Germany at the lowest speed, micromanaged everything I could, did a historical run so far with minimal losses (I think I lost 80k men total before the invasion of Russia, sank 400+ allied ships losing 20 of my own, and shot down ~2k allied aircraft over britain).

I invaded Russia with a priority on the Caucuses/Stalingrad with Leningrad as a secondary objective. By Oct 1941 I literally couldnt advance anymore (I'm maybe 50 miles from stalingrad and have half of the caucuses) ALL of my units are out of supply - and have been, for MONTHS. Im trying to rapidly expand railroads and supply depots in the east, but theres nothing pre-emptive I could have done differently. Russia is simply too big to cover the distances needed in 1 campaign, therefore at some point you have to stop and wait until the next season I guess? Or am I permanently screwed because I'd have to have premium railroads and supply depots everywhere inside of Russia before continuing?

Reason why the game sucks? 0.00 hourly recovery rate. You heard that right. For the last SEVENTY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DAYS not a SINGLE one of my units has gained 1 point of organization. I have been micromanaging a defensive line in order to not lose ground. This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ retarded. The game is slanted against you by making supply in Russia an impossibility by all except the most hardcore of nerds, and I tried micromanaging my run on the lowest speed and im an average HOI4 player (~500-1000 hours)?

hitler to his generals 1944 be like

[Maximus]

you can send screenshots so we can find out what you're doing wrong. there's so many things that can go wrong:
1. russian airforce could be bombing your supply related buildings. or they could be destroying your trains
2. you might not have enough trains
3.. you might not be using motorized logistics or not enough trucks stockpiles.
4. you're using high width infantry or just too many divisions in general.
5. you are fighting in states that you either dont have fully control of, or their railways are damaged

[Pinch Cactus]

1. retreat to a defensible line

2. Click the destroy infrastructure button on all the states you are abandoning.

3. Russia retakes states with even terribler supply and loses all its guns

4. Russia fixes infra. while you shore up supply lines

5. Counter attack into tired russian divs and take their newly repaired infra for yourself.

I ran into this issue when I forgot that my army needed guns when I tried an Italian Barbarossa. Got to Moscow and took Stalingrad for a day before I had to let the front collapse and retreat to the borders of what used to be Romania to save the war

[SuperKyle]

Originally posted by Drax:

And yet people have killed Russia with Germany within 10 minutes this patch...
"Reason why the game sucks? I suck, and anybody who doesn't suck is a NERD."

Since apparently using your brain is 'nerdy', how about starting simple and putting less divisions in Russia? Crazy, I know. Then when you upgrade the railroads, you can put MORE divisions in Russia. WOW. Having more divisions means nothing if they're out of supply thus out of org and are taking heavy losses. You're just making your front weaker.

If you want to get a little bit more complicated. Use your airforce. CAS alone can kill the Russian army for you. Plus you can bomb their railroads to worsen their supply.

Then if you want to play competently, micromanage competently and encircle their divisions. Kill off their army instead of pushing them into areas of low supply and losing your own.

Like, you're whining about having to use strategy in a strategy game. Wanna not be a stupid NERD. Go play COD or something. Something that's an FPS where you don't have to think much. If you honestly have 500-1000 hours (bit weird how you can be 500hrs unsure of your playtime considering steam literally tells you) and can't win as the easiest nation in the game, I REALLY wouldn't be trying to critique game mechanics, and I'd start by looking up guides on youtube.

Whining about supply mechanics as South Africa doing CK2? Fair enough. Whining about supply mechanics as Germany, against the nation the supply mechanics were designed around? Maybe not.

I gave exact quotes on my competency pre-barbarossa so the fact you use so many misconceptions in this post is like mind boggling to me. I'm winning the air war in barbarossa. I have FW 190 maxed out. They stand no chance in the air.

I micromanaged and wiped out 65 divisions west of kiev. That happened too.

If you think doing both those things and attacking with roughly the same amount of men Germany attacked the USSR with in 1941 results in your entire army being unable to move by October 1 1941 west of Leningrad or Moscow then you can take your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game and shove it up your presumptuous ass. It's not a good system. It's not like I attacked with 4 million men. This games supply system is highly unrealistic, youre telling me a wehrmacht with 2 million men cant move after standing in place Oct 1 - Jan 1st 1942 against a far weaker USSR opponent (because I encirlced 65-75 divisions during barbarossa and annihalated them) just because "SUPPLY WAS HARD DURING WW2 OK?"

Like ♥♥♥♥ you dude.

[SuperKyle]

Originally posted by Maximus:

you can send screenshots so we can find out what you're doing wrong. there's so many things that can go wrong:
1. russian airforce could be bombing your supply related buildings. or they could be destroying your trains
2. you might not have enough trains
3.. you might not be using motorized logistics or not enough trucks stockpiles.
4. you're using high width infantry or just too many divisions in general.
5. you are fighting in states that you either dont have fully control of, or their railways are damaged

1.) I have dominance in the air.
2.) I have 400+ stockpiled trains.
3.) I have 5,000 trucks stockpiled
4.) Using 20 width infantry, maybe 1.5-1.8 million men.
5.) This is the only issue. But I held the line static for 3 months (Oct 1st - Jan 1942) and i'm seeing zero improvement. Literally 0 org gain across the board. It's not budging. I don't have stalingrad, moscow, or leningrad, but i'm in Estonia, in the middle of the caucuses (i took crimea as well) and i'm maybe 100 miles west of Smolensk otherwise.

[SuperKyle]

Googled it since Drax wanted to be a smart-ass and basically the answer is: you have to manually tell your supply depots to use trucks instead of calvary (I have 5,000 trucks stockpiled that were doing nothing the entire war). Great. I lost 50+ hours micromanaging this playthrough only to have it ruined because I didnt know a button existed that is hard to find normally. And this is superior over the old system of upgrading infastructure how exactly? because trains are cool? stupid and over-complicated.

[Freelancer]

Originally posted by SuperKyle:

Googled it since Drax wanted to be a smart-ass and basically the answer is: you have to manually tell your supply depots to use trucks instead of calvary (I have 5,000 trucks stockpiled that were doing nothing the entire war). Great. I lost 50+ hours micromanaging this playthrough only to have it ruined because I didnt know a button existed that is hard to find normally. And this is superior over the old system of upgrading infastructure how exactly? because trains are cool? stupid and over-complicated.

First, take a chill pill. Second, it is better precisely because of the reasons you're complaining about: it forces you to value the importance of railroads and supply hubs in any war.

Yes, it's more complicated and ultimately more frustrating but that's the point, you're not meant to easily support millions and millions of men and machines without having some sort of logistical planning. It's not a perfect system, sure as there should be some balance changes like decreasing the cost of supply hubs so that they don't take a long time to construct. But overall it's a much better system than the simplistic "infrastructure + connection to capital" system as it now turns logistics into something that matters.

[Maximus]

Originally posted by SuperKyle:

Googled it since Drax wanted to be a smart-ass and basically the answer is: you have to manually tell your supply depots to use trucks instead of calvary (I have 5,000 trucks stockpiled that were doing nothing the entire war). Great. I lost 50+ hours micromanaging this playthrough only to have it ruined because I didnt know a button existed that is hard to find normally. And this is superior over the old system of upgrading infastructure how exactly? because trains are cool? stupid and over-complicated.

nothing complicated about pressing a singular button on either a general, fieldmarshal, or supply depot to set them to use motorized logstics. you dont even need to manually tell your supply depots to do it, you can just tell your field marshals and generals to set all their hubs to motorized by clicking on the horse icon next to their face on the top left.

the new system is more fun, because it allows more supply to bad regions if you can manage it correctly, and allows bad supply in regions if you mismanage. pre-update, you never saw any supply issues on the eastern front, and 50% of the time even china-japan didnt suffer supply issues. now you actually need to fight along side rivers, railroads, capturing depots, etc as historical and its more fun gameplay-wise. instead of hurr durr battleplan or micro encirclements, you're focusing on capturing strong raillines and bridges

[Trev]

you are completely correct, logistics and strategy have no place in a ww2 strategy game

[General WVPM]

irl both sides were short on supply at stalingrad.

Ingame you can build hubs, press f4 put the hub on truck mode. Alternatively use your airforce to drop supplies.

[Bourgeois Conformist]

Historically, the Wehrmacht ran out of gas (figuratively and literally) due to

- poor roads and overstretched supply lines,

- the Russians sabotaging and destroying anything the Germans could have used,

- a lack of motorization (although it could be argued, that a horse-drawn coach had greater mobility on the Russian dirt/mud roads than a truck),

- the dazzling number of spare parts that needed to be delivered due to the German love of variety (in honesty, this was more out of necessity to field an army that could actually invade the USSR) when it came to vehicle models and variants (which is also an interesting aspect of logistics, the Germans would have had a much easier time if they'd only used Stug III and PzIV as armour and not fiddled around much except for major upgrades such as upgunning the Pz IV),

- to some extent war weariness (Think "The vastness of Russia consumes us")

- the necessity to occupy half of Europe while fighting a war in North Africa, the Atlantic and defending against Allied air raids on Germany itself

- and perhaps most importantly, the resistance of the Russians to the German invaders


So all things considered, I believe the game let's Germany off the hook quite easily, as capitulating the USSR within a year without use of cheese is very possible.

[kingarthur772]

The bad supply Lines you have in Asia, Russia, Africa and similar. The farer you get to the East and South you will see it. In the West Countrys with good Railroads [like Germany, USA, UK] you wont have Problems with Supply. Only the Trains get Shoot or Bombed.

The best example you see directly 1937 to 1941 in the War between China and Japan. Makes no difference you let play AI or play yourself. You won´t win to December 1941 in China like it was in the Versions 1.00 to 1.10.full with and without all DLCs.

Now that looks very differnt, dosen´t matter which Country you play [Russia, China, Japan, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, France incl. his Colonys etc.].

The cool thing is you have to change your Playstile. There you can´t rush anymore only forward. You have to wait for Supplys from the big Points, which get after the Rails transportet with Horse- / Foot-Transports or Trucks, while you repair / hold or both your Terretory-Wins.

That makes the Game more historic. And more will come to block the only Rush & Win-Tactic, which could be used in the old C&C-Series.

[Ersatz]

Yes, the supply system is inherently broken due to supply flowing from the capital which is braindead. Play another 4x game - preferably not Paradox