AI advantage

[davebob]

After completing a large encirclement of several hundred ai infantry in mountainous terrain, the enemy supply didn't seem affected after several turns. Being somewhat new I was not in the habit of checking f5 for the supply condition. When I did ,I discovered the ai was receiving supply from a port 12 hexes away. No port on its receiving end. On capture of said port later,no ships were found either. OK,until I can design a superior game ai (never happen) I am not one to whine about ai advantage; however, I believe a list of those advantages could add to the enjoyment of the game, perhaps in a sticky thread ?

[ironduke1955]

Encirclement normally means the units are deprived of a source of supply, a port is a source of supply.
Regular transportation of supply does not require transport assets like ships trains or road transport,
the transport is presumed to exist via a normal national transit system you cannot degrade that transport system,
its always considered to be there (perhaps that may need looking at)
and of course if the units are encircled with a HQ with a large amount of supply with the HQ it will be quite a while before lack of supply kicks in.

You can manually transfer supply using road rail or sea assets assigned to HQ's, but generally these are used to manually move troops strategically. Rather than rely on troops being deposited from production centers directly to HQ's, again this requires no transport assets.

[Ostwindflak]

Ironduke1955, just curious as you seem to have a handle on this topic. I was under the impression that any port, shipyard, or city on the water that is shipping supplies to an overland HQ or units could be bombed to the point of being "knocked out" and that would hinder the amount of supply going to the receiving units. Is that wrong?

[Josh]

Encircled cut off AI units in hills and mountains can take up to ten turns or so before their readiness levels decreases. You'll need serious Artillery to bomb them into suppression. I haven't looked at AI supply lines in a long time, I mean is it even possible to do that? You sure you haven't checked your own supply lines? All I know is that when faced with a large AI unit in hills/mountains I go for encirclement and certainly not for a headon assault. Cut them off, blast away with your tubes all the time, wait as long as you need before the readiness level drops significantly (as in below 10%) and attack from multiple angles. On open ground (plains etc) it takes less time for the encirclement to kick in the readiness loss effect.

@ Ostwindflak, I think the answer to that would be yes. Same with the readiness levels fighters get when stationed at a damaged city/airport.

[ernieschwitz]

ORIGINAL: Ostwindflak
Ironduke1955, just curious as you seem to have a handle on this topic. I was under the impression that any port, shipyard, or city on the water that is shipping supplies to an overland HQ or units could be bombed to the point of being "knocked out" and that would hinder the amount of supply going to the receiving units. Is that wrong?

From own experience, I can answer that you CAN damage a port or any other location that can function as a port, to the point that it does not function. What that point is, I cannot say... Maybe Ironduke has some better grasp of that...

[ironduke1955]

Well I am presuming that the port is within the encircled area, if its not then there is no way that it can provide supply, Davebob did not mention the condition of the port I am assuming its not damaged,
also that the Port has no other port to send supplies to the encircled port, requiring a HQ located in the sending and receiving ports. My idea on this is that
1)davebob means city on the coast, that has the ability to produce supply,
and if it is just a port the other option was that that the HQ has surplus supply in which case it will be able to sustain the encircled units for several turns. The surrounded units are infantry they have a low supply demand.
My experience of large scale encirclements is that the defender always last longer than you anticipated because a town or HQ is within the encircled area, a HQ can carry unlimited amounts of supply if you have a HQ with surrounded units,
then you could be in for a long wait before the readiness of the units degrades.

[davebob]

The supply provider is indeed a city on the coast,not just a port. It is in full health. The surrounded units have no city or port within the surrounded area.with the cursor on the seacoast city, pressing f5 shows all coastal hexes at 100% supply,including those coastal hexes within the surrounded area. With the cursor on a surrounded unit, f5 displays a red dotted line/arrow originating from the coastal city,across the sea, to the surrounded unit. I assume this to be its supply source. What I think this shows, is that the ai does not require a port, or coastal city to receive supply over the sea.Also, when I captured the coastal city,casualty list did not display an enemy HQ, or any cargo ships. The supply state in the surrounded area went to 0%.

[ironduke1955]

This might be helpful.

tm.asp?m=1723339

Nice look at the supply overlay, 4.1.2 looks like it may answer your question, in that the AI controls a port and also coastal hexes within the encircled area, we all know that supply could be dropped of on the coast even if there was no port.

Thanks to Zook8

[davebob]

OK then,after rererereading the various supply and invasion threads, I think I got it. The ai does not use ports because it doesn't really need to considering its large production advantage.The relationship between ap to deliver supply and actual supply confused me. Guess I was still playing PT where supply delivery was represented with actual ships and trucks.
Guess I'll throw some rifles around em and wait til they eat all their beans. Thank for the help.

[aaatoysandmore]

Perhaps there is an unseen airfield near the port and supplies are being "dropped" in. You have to knock out the port to get the airfield that is unseen. [:'(]

[davebob]

After cleaning out the area of enemy, I found no ports or airfields. In fact, I have never seen the ai build either one. Since the ai apparently receives no supply rule advantage (that I know of ) I can only assume that the units which were large,within heavy mtn ranges, and large rivers, across the sea, stockpiled enough supply to allow them to remain at 100 ap for several turns in 0 supply areas. They were easy to deal with once their supply began to run out. Harder, were the two stacks of heavy artillery who were able to wrestle their guns 8-10 of them, plus plenty of supply, up onto high mountains.they rained heavy shells for several turns on my approaching green mtn infantry. Without actually knowing the math involved, I would have bet the amount of supply they needed would have rendered them immobile.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: davebob

After cleaning out the area of enemy, I found no ports or airfields. In fact, I have never seen the ai build either one. Since the ai apparently receives no supply rule advantage (that I know of ) I can only assume that the units which were large,within heavy mtn ranges, and large rivers, across the sea, stockpiled enough supply to allow them to remain at 100 ap for several turns in 0 supply areas. They were easy to deal with once their supply began to run out. Harder, were the two stacks of heavy artillery who were able to wrestle their guns 8-10 of them, plus plenty of supply, up onto high mountains.they rained heavy shells for several turns on my approaching green mtn infantry. Without actually knowing the math involved, I would have bet the amount of supply they needed would have rendered them immobile.

Well I think you might be finding out what I believe to be the case. The AI game is just absurd. Instead of improving it, they simply gave it freebies and passes to the point it's not really a game any longer.

[ernieschwitz]

As a modder, I have only seen one scenario, where supplies did not matter for the AI. That is Tom Webers (Twebers) axis and allies mod, that came with AT:WW2. The rest use supplies normally.