True. Okay then, looks good. I also assume that the bombing would occur before combat.
Limited Supply
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I had an idea for how to reduce the silliness of having large tank armies in Yakutsk and Chinghai without completely banning them or making huge Mongolian armies appear out of nowhere due to “treaty violations.”
At the start of the combat move phase, all land units and air units must attempt to trace a line of supply to a friendly factory. Any given line of supply can run either by land or by sea, but not both.
A supply line running over land can stretch across up to 4 territories for infantry and/or artillery, and across up to 3 territories for all other units. This represents the greater difficulty of supplying fuel and spare parts to motorized units. The line must include your friendly factory, and the units you want to supply, as well as all territories in between them. For example, East Germany -> Poland -> East Poland -> Belarus would be a 4-territory supply line, so Germany can supply infantry in Belarus using the East German factory as long as Germany also controls Poland and East Poland. If the Allies have gained control of either half of Poland, or if Germany had tanks in Belarus instead of infantry, then the German units would have to trace some other supply line (e.g. to a German-controlled factory in Leningrad) or else be out of supply.
A supply line running over sea can stretch across up to 5 sea zones, and must run directly from the territory in which you have units to your factory. This means that units in an inland territory can never be supplied by sea, and it means that you may not shift over into an adjacent land territory in order to use its coastline. A sea zone with an enemy warship or submarine cannot be used to trace supply. Similarly, you may not trace supply through a canal (e.g. Suez Canal) unless you own all of the territories needed to pass through the canal.
Planes on carriers are automatically in supply, and all ships are also automatically in supply. Units in the same territory as your factory are likewise automatically in supply.
If you fail to trace a valid line of supply to a territory you control, you must place an “out of supply” marker on that territory. All units attacking out of a territory that is out of supply get -1 attack; this penalty applies even if the territory you are attacking would be in supply or would reconnect your supply lines. All units defending in a territory that is out of supply get -1 defense. All units moving out of a territory that is out of supply get -1 movement. If this would reduce a unit’s speed to 0, it can still move 1 space, but only during the non-combat phase. Similarly, if a territory is out of supply, units may only load onto transports from that territory or unload from transports into that territory during the non-combat phase.
A unit that leaves an out-of-supply territory and moves into a supplied territory will defend at its normal strength.
If you conquer a territory that was out of supply, immediately remove the out-of-supply marker; your opponent’s supply problems do not affect you. Likewise, if you conquer a territory that will be out of supply for you, do not add an out-of-supply marker yet – you do not have to add that marker until the start of your next combat phase.
At the start of your next combat phase, remove any out-of-supply markers in territories that are now receiving supply. All of the penalties from being out of supply are immediately cancelled. Of course, if the territory is still out of supply, then you should leave the out-of-supply marker in place. The only two times when you can adjust a territory’s supply are when you (a) conquer that territory, or (b) start your own combat phase. Otherwise, you should ignore any changes in your supply situation.
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@argothair So thinking through amphibious invasions… is it that unblockaded sea zones could be counted like land territories (e.g. Infantry separated from an friendly IC by two Sea Zones would be in supply, but not Tanks in the same tt? Or is it that sea zones “count as zero” in the counting of distance to the IC, as long as some unblockaded path, however circuitous, can be traced through them?
If the former, which seems more likely, what about island-hopping/amphibious invasions far from home? Amphibious invasions are expensive enough already without penalizing the attacking units… maybe there’s a role for Bases and/or transports as ‘support/logistics’ absractions?
I could imagine naval Transports as an abstracted logistics unit that can keep a number of units in supply even far from factories (in addition to maintaining an unbroken SZ link) - but maybe you have to leave the transports insitu at the of a “shuck”, representing points of supply disembarkation (which would then be vulnerable)? Overland, maybe this makes viable some kind of truck/freight unit that could stand in the gap and extend lines (but would themselves be vulnerable)?
Without some kind of logistics mitigation this penalizes the US and Germany (if they stretch for Moscow) in addition to Japan and the infamous JTDM.
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@vodot You could totally play with transports and trucks as logistics units, but it would add a second layer of complexity above and beyond the one I’m proposing. It depends on just how interested your gaming group is in supply issues, I guess. I suspect most of the people who like supply that much are playing different wargames altogether, but I’d be very happy to be proved wrong.
If you want rules along the lines you suggested, I’d say trucks cost $4, have 0 attack, 1 defense, and 2 moves, and each truck can supply up to 4 units in its own territory. Each transport automatically supplies up to 2 units total of any type(s) in any territor(ies) adjacent to the transport’s current sea zone. If you play with the transports as logistics pieces, then I would say count sea zones against the normal limits on the length of the supply chain, i.e., tracing supply through a sea zone is just as ‘expensive’ as tracing supply through a land zone. Otherwise, I’d say tracing supply through sea zones is free.
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@argothair totally hear you wrt complexity, so then just examining the simpler version… Since every power has coastal ICs that are rarely if ever fully blockaded… if SZs count as zero, then wouldn’t almost every unit be in perpetual supply, as long as it was adjacent (or adjacent +1, for inf and art) to a coastal TT?
Supply in that scenario only seems to affect Siberia and China - the only places where deeply landlocked TTs exist - and maybe that is exactly the point.
sorry for the constant editing.
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@vodot Well, it may be easier than you’d think to set up a naval blockade. If you’re on an island like Borneo, and your enemies put a sub or a destroyer in that island’s sea zone, then your land forces and planes on that island are now out of supply. If you’re the Italians and you’re fighting in Italian East Africa and the British control even half of the Suez, you are likely out of supply.
But, yes, the primary goal is to reduce players’ ability to move huge tank stacks through the jungle mountains of western China and the arctic swamps of Siberia.
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@argothair said in [Limited Supply](/forums
But, yes, the primary goal is to reduce players’ ability to move huge tank stacks through the jungle mountains of western China and the arctic swamps of Siberia.
Ha ha ha been there and took care of that !
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@argothair said in Limited Supply:
@vodot Well, it may be easier than you’d think to set up a naval blockade. If you’re on an island like Borneo, and your enemies put a sub or a destroyer in that island’s sea zone, then your land forces and planes on that island are now out of supply. If you’re the Italians and you’re fighting in Italian East Africa and the British control even half of the Suez, you are likely out of supply.
But, yes, the primary goal is to reduce players’ ability to move huge tank stacks through the jungle mountains of western China and the arctic swamps of Siberia.
Well, taking the Italian East Africa question, if I’m understanding correctly, what stops them from tracing supply around the Cape instead and up to the Med from the west? To truly cutoff the Italians in Africa, Britain would have to block both Gibraltar and Suez - and the Italians are one of the easier powers to ‘blockade’ (imagine trying to cut British, US, or Japanese sea supply lines). Again, this could all be totally fine, it’s simply a consideration.
Taking the Borneo question, this raises the question of timing: are island defenders always out of supply in virtue of the fact that an invasion fleet must “blockade” the island in the course of invading it? That seems wrong; island defenders that began a turn in supply should probably repulse invasions at full strength, no? (An aside: this makes me think about how much more interesting it would be to have islands between sea zones, rather than enveloped by them… as you and I have discussed before)
In land operations, however, this does seem right - defenders more broadly probably should become OOS the moment their supply lines are cut (even over a single combat phase) to simulate rapid envelopments etc. (and also just to simplify accounting). Same question applies for attackers: some attacking units which begin a turn OOS might suddenly become supplied again as combats are resolved, so that they are in supply when their own combat is conducted. It seems logical that they should combat move with an OOS penalty, yet fight at full strength if they are in supply again when their combat begins.
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@vodot Good questions. It’s possible this system needs one more rule – something like, “You can trace supply through up to 5 sea zones at no charge.” That way if you have to take the long way around South Africa (as either the British or the Italians) you will likely be out of supply.
As far as when to check supply, I would say for simplicity’s sake, you only check it at the start of your own combat phase. You put an out of supply marker in any territories you control that are out of supply, and then your units on those territories remain out of supply until your next combat phase begins. If you conquer an enemy territory that was out of supply for them, then of course you remove their out of supply marker when you remove their control marker.
That way for invasions of, e.g., Borneo you are not automatically out of supply just because your enemy brought a destroyer along with their transport; they would have to send the destroyer or sub or whatever a turn before they plan to invade in order to put you out of supply.
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@Argothair I think this accomplishes what you’re after (hampering any isolated, thousand-mile armored thrusts through the Siberian/Chinese wilderness). The combat move is the right place, because that’s where the consequences of being OOS matter most.
These rules would also be relatively simple to extend with either dedicated logistics units like transports and trucks, or with some kind of payment system by which that logistics is abstracted - so you can take those tanks through the wilderness/fleet across the ocean… if you pay the price by either investing in vulnerable logistics units to support/accompany them or by paying 1IPC per attacking/moving mechanized unit, or something.
Regarding SZ lines, maybe every 2-3 SZ should count as one land TT, or something, rather than 5-for-free? That might force amphibious invasions to eschew 1inf 1tnk combinations for 1inf 1art for the extended range (maybe naval bases could play here as well). This should also help prevent the ‘sidestep’ cases I am thinking of where a force might be able to trace supply by pathing “sideways” a TT or two on land before switching over to SZs to dodge a blockade of the obvious logical shortest route.
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@vodot Thanks! I made some edits to the original post based on our discussion. I hear you that it is important to avoid unreasonable “side-stepping” of blockades, but trying to count up fractional territories is way more bookkeeping work than I want to assign. Instead, I give players the choice of using either a land supply line or a sea supply line, but not both.
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