hardcore supply rules

[olivier34]

Forgot were I have red how to edit a scenario to have the DC1 supply rules instead of the more simple ones of DC2. Liquidsky, if you read me, I know that you have the answer [:D]

[LiquidSky]

The RuleVar is 887. Set it to 0 from 1


Open up game.
Choose scenario.
Press Edit button.
Press Seting (sic) button. (At top of third column, left hand upper corner).
There is a scrollable list in a box called Property Sheets.....click on the 4th entry named: RuleVars.
At the bottom is a list in a box called RuleVar Groups.
Pick the third one down named: Supply.

At the Very bottom of the big listbox on the right is number 887) Enable High HQ Supply/AutoReinf EASY rules which means no HARDCORE chain of HQ's just high and the others (1=yes, 0=no) = 0


Click on it to highlight it, and press the Change Rule Value button at the bottom.
In the Give Value textbox, type 1 and hit OK

Notice in the RuleVar window it now says '= 1' at the end.

Press the button named Map, second from the top on the far upper left.
Save game (under a new name is probably best. Say Hardcore Trappen, or Case XXX. [:D]

We noticed in our game that the russians run out of supply way too easily, so in the event code 25) under Supply & Reinf called CAMP+SMALL Soviet Supply I changed line 9) from a 3 to a 4 so that the soviets go from getting 3/4 total supply every turn to full 4/4 supply. I should add, that we used Free Setup, which meant we had the no soviet supply bug on the first turn.

Even though the soviets have lots of supply in our game, he still runs into supply issues from placement of HQ's. The supply just doesnt flow very far after you get off the road/rail net, and it definetly has trouble when you cross a river for the Russians.

As well, we notice that if you want a unit to grow from replacement points, it is better to have it attached directly to Stavka/OKH and on priority, then leaving it in the army/Corp HQ command, and setting priority. Without the hardcore rules, you didnt have to worry about it.

Oh yes, and make sure your aircraft are all attached to OKH/STAVKA, or occasionally airplane replacements will be caught in an HQ, and you will be unable to move it.

Other then that, we really enjoy the HARDCORE rules, as it does open up some tactics such as blowing bridges to cut supply off to a bridgehead.

[olivier34]

Thanks Liquidsky. I will test it and share what I see in this thread.

[wallas]

I much prefer the hardcore supply rules but be advised Russian players this will make things MUCH harder for you. The silver lining is come the winter if you live the germans will have a hrder time of things using it.

[Vic]

@liquidsky,

Could you eleborate a bit on why you think the rule887=0 is worse for the Soviets than the vanilla rule887=1 setting? since rule887=0 only affects the calculation of supply AP needed to reach a unit and does not change any actual consumption or request ammounts...

would be interested to hear.

best,
Vic

[LiquidSky]

Here is a short primer on using the Hardcore supply rules:

I click on OKH, then hit the supply layer button (after the zoom buttons, looks like a jerry can).

It lights up the map in an ugly shade of green (mostly). The colour represents the level of supply the hex will receive on the supply phase. Green means 100%.
If you click on a hex, it will tell you the AP cost the supply will spend to get to that hex (from OKH, as that is the HQ I have selected)...and show you a red arrow path the supply will take. I click on my 1st Panzer Army and read that it costs 18AP/250AP for supply to reach it.

I turn off the supply layer.

Now I click on the 1st Panzer Army, and hit the supply layer button. Note that it starts out right away at 18AP/250AP for the supplies that already traveled from OKH to itself.

Now I click on the XIV Panzer Korp, attached to the 1st Panzer Army and note that it costs 45AP for supply to reach it...thats 18 for OKH->1st Panzer Army and (calculated) 27AP from 1st Panzer Army->XIV Korp. Supply appears to cost 3AP per road hex travelled and 15 for traveling over Plains+Fields.

I click on XIV Panzer Korp and whaddyaknow! It starts at 45AP/250AP. WHat this tells me is that I don't have to click on higher HQ's to see how my units supply will fair for being in different terrain...however, I will have to position my HQ's carefully. Its good to keep the Army HQ's on a Rail hex (or road attached to Rail)...then along a road if you can for the Korp HQ...then let the units fend for themselves from that HQ.

I click on a few units, noting that my SS over the river (on the road) with the blown bridge use a total of 116AP/250AP to be supplied, and the SS division off the road needs 128AP/250AP to be supplied.

On the supply step, the amount of supply the unit will actually receive (out of the amount requested) will be 100% if it is less then 100APs, 75% if more then 100, half if more then 150aps, and finally 25% if more then 200. Probably none if more then 250.

Some movement costs for supply:

German Korp.Army HQ, in clear weather:

Rail hex: 1 AP
Road hex: 3AP
Clear hex: 15AP
Low hills: 40AP
Marsh: 35AP
Forest: 30AP
Major River: 90AP or 75AP + cost of terrain
Minor River: 50AP + Cost of terrain
Forest Mountain: ~25AP ( I seem to get a slightly different number depending on what type of hex the supply moves out of previously)

The costs for OKH are much more generous...like 50 hexes per AP along a rail...and so on..

[LiquidSky]

The way the hardcore supply rules work, is you need to trace from your unit back to the Army, from the Army back to the Front, and from the Front back to Stavka. The armies usually have 6 or 7 armies attached, covering say 7 hexes for easy math. That means the Army HQ can be (at most) adjacent to three of those hexes, with the wings being 2 hexes away. Those units will suffer more from the Hardcore rule then from drawing direct from Stavka. And the odds are you will have units as far away as 5 hexes from your Army HQ.

But that is not all! That assumes that the Front HQ is stacked with that army...if the Front has only 3 armies attached, then two of those armies will probably be 5 hexes away (about) on each side. So they will suffer an additional loss (although perhaps not that much as they use road/rail mostly).

Now I realize that both sides use the same rules for supply movement, however, the germans have more HQ's per division, so they can diffuse their supply more efficiently.

Also, the costs for supply to move from STAVKA is cheaper then to move from a Front or Army HQ...which means that it is easier to supply the units on the front. So you can spread your units out more and not worry so much about your Army HQ's since the supply flows directly from STAVKA who pays a cheaper price for moving it.

Now, I know that this also applies to the Germans....both sides are using the same rule, but the effect is there are some areas on the map that the Russians cannot supply effectively (especially over a river), if they are a couple of hexes away from their HQ. Essentially this rule will hurt the side that has to spread out more then the one that can concentrate.

In a sense rule 887 does change the supply consumption, because it makes the cost rise over 100 (or 150, or 200) because of extra costs in distance.

This is not a complaint. This is an observation, and I would argue that it works well in game and needs no change. In fact, for people who don't want to worry about supply, they can play with the default rules...and find that they dont have to worry (much) about it, as I notice even far flung areas in the caucaus can be in good supply from Stavka.

[LiquidSky]

Actually, a good rule of thumb when placing your HQ's is to click on the Front/Army HQ, choose supply layer...then click on each of the units that you want to supply for a particular Army/Corp. Notice the line of arrows. Try to place your HQ on or close to the hex that gets the majority of those arrows (for all those units) and you will have optimally placed your Army/Corp HQ. If for some reason the path diverges wildly for each end of your line of units, then you will either have to make a choice on which should get the better supply, or place one of the offending sides with a different HQ

[Vic]

@liquid,

thanks for elaborating a bit. it seems its functioning as I intended

best,
Vic

[Redmarkus5]

I haven't tried this setting yet, but my instincts tell me that the map needs a few more roads to avoid having an a-historical limit on the available axes of advance. Once the Soviet player has become accustomed to this setting, won't it be much easier for him to predict your line of advance?

[LiquidSky]

Not really...the main problem I think my opponent was suffering from was misplacing his HQ's. The most extreme case was when he had his Front HQ on the other side of a river from his Army HQ...so Stavka had to send supply to the Front (over the river)...the Front sent it back to the Army HQ (over the same river) to the unit in the city (back over the river).

I actually thought at the time the problem was that German supply flowed better then Russian, but they use the same rules.

What Hardcore supply does do is make bridges important. Very important. You cannot advance very far over a river without you supply running out


As for the axes of advance, they are well telgraphed ahead of time already..they are Voronezh, Millerowo and Rostov. After that it will be Stalingrad. The axis will deviate from them at their own peril.

[Redmarkus5]

Well, the objectives are well telegraphed (although I have succeeded in saving enough PP to play the 'ignore' cards more than once), but there's a lot of room on the map to alter the approach you take towards some of those objectives if you are allowed to advance across open space. If you are tied to the existing DCCB on-map road net, I think you'll find it limiting in an a-historical way and after a few PBEM games it will become clear that you have very few options.

Let's not forget the widespread use of engineer bridges and new military log or dirt roads which were regularly built within the timescale of the game to support an advance. Also, there were MANY more important towns and roads (even cities) present in 1942 than the map displays, so much of the historical road/rail network, bridges, etc. in DCCB is 'virtual' at present.

I do like the idea of the hardcore rules, I am just saying that IMO an expansion to the road net and the addition of more bridges would enhance it even further and make for an even more realistic game experience.

[olivier34]

Just followed your instruction and found a few mistakes. Thanks again. [;)]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



The RuleVar is 887. Set it to 0 from 1


Open up game.
Choose scenario.
Press Edit button.
Press Seting (sic) button. (At top of third column, left hand upper corner).
There is a scrollable list in a box called Property Sheets.....click on the 4th entry named: RuleVars.
At the bottom is a list in a box called RuleVar Groups.
Pick the third one down named: Supply.

At the Very bottom of the big listbox on the right is number 887) Enable High HQ Supply/AutoReinf EASY rules which means no HARDCORE chain of HQ's just high and the others (1=yes, 0=no) = 0

=1

Click on it to highlight it, and press the Change Rule Value button at the bottom.
In the Give Value textbox, type 1 and hit OK

type 0 and hit OK

Notice in the RuleVar window it now says '= 1' at the end.

it now says '=0'

Press the button named Map, second from the top on the far upper left.
Save game (under a new name is probably best. Say Hardcore Trappen, or Case XXX. [:D]

We noticed in our game that the russians run out of supply way too easily, so in the event code 25) under Supply & Reinf called CAMP+SMALL Soviet Supply I changed line 9) from a 3 to a 4 so that the soviets go from getting 3/4 total supply every turn to full 4/4 supply. I should add, that we used Free Setup, which meant we had the no soviet supply bug on the first turn.

Even though the soviets have lots of supply in our game, he still runs into supply issues from placement of HQ's. The supply just doesnt flow very far after you get off the road/rail net, and it definetly has trouble when you cross a river for the Russians.

As well, we notice that if you want a unit to grow from replacement points, it is better to have it attached directly to Stavka/OKH and on priority, then leaving it in the army/Corp HQ command, and setting priority. Without the hardcore rules, you didnt have to worry about it.

Oh yes, and make sure your aircraft are all attached to OKH/STAVKA, or occasionally airplane replacements will be caught in an HQ, and you will be unable to move it.

Other then that, we really enjoy the HARDCORE rules, as it does open up some tactics such as blowing bridges to cut supply off to a bridgehead.

[LiquidSky]

Ahhh..your right. I was looking at my mod game which already has it set to 0, and was thinking that was the default. My apologies.

To reiterate: 0 is hardcore supply, 1 is easy supply.

[LiquidSky]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

Well, the objectives are well telegraphed (although I have succeeded in saving enough PP to play the 'ignore' cards more than once), but there's a lot of room on the map to alter the approach you take towards some of those objectives if you are allowed to advance across open space. If you are tied to the existing DCCB on-map road net, I think you'll find it limiting in an a-historical way and after a few PBEM games it will become clear that you have very few options.

Let's not forget the widespread use of engineer bridges and new military log or dirt roads which were regularly built within the timescale of the game to support an advance. Also, there were MANY more important towns and roads (even cities) present in 1942 than the map displays, so much of the historical road/rail network, bridges, etc. in DCCB is 'virtual' at present.

I do like the idea of the hardcore rules, I am just saying that IMO an expansion to the road net and the addition of more bridges would enhance it even further and make for an even more realistic game experience.

I agree 100% that we should be able to build bridges. The russians especially where adept at popping them up wherever they needed them. And with the rather harsh drop in supply over rivers, it would be nice. Although in practice, I havent had too much trouble crossing Major Rivers and clearing bridgeheads as the Germans wherever I wanted to do so.

I think I will see if there is a way for me to set a bridge in the event code..then I could either tie it to a card (so you can set one bridge per turn) or maybe (dboutful) to the engineers.

I also agree that there are a lot more towns and such on the map, but lets look at the big picture.

It is a trivial cost to get supply to a railhead: say 5Ap's. If there is no road, then you will be in perfect supply for 6 clear hexes...or 60 KM. You will be in great supply for another 3 clear hexes (90 KM). Anything farther and you have to really be defensive, or hope supply is getting closer.

But when I look at the map, it is very rare for any clear hex to be farther then 2 hexes from a road. A notable exception is in front of Voronezh and north of Rostov where you can be 4 hexes from a road, and in low hills to boot. But even then, I didnt have as much problem with supply as my opponent did because he had a river to worry about.

So if we assume that a unit will be no more then 2 hexes from an HQ (over open space) and that HQ draws supply down the road to a railhead then you can be over 20 hexes away and be in perfect supply. Which is 200 km. So I feel I am not restricted at all in anyway to advancing over open space in any direction I want.

What does restrict my supply, though, is rivers. When I make a bridgehead over a major river, I am probably only in perfect supply on the other side of the river, and perhaps one more hex away from it...after 4 hexes, I probably only have enough supply to defend. But if a card can allow you to put down a bridge (if you own both sides of the river) then you can turn a river crossing into a bridgehead into a major push.

One other thing that restricts me is that not every corp HQ can be close to the Army HQ....If I have three corps per Army, then probably only the middle corp is in 'best' supply. The two wings will have extra hexes the supply has to travel over. But this really means is I cannot attack everywhere, but have to attack along an axis.

[olivier34]

I have open the Uranus scenario with the hardcore supply rules on.
1st panzer is at 11 AP/250...I have not seen a real problem on the axis side. Most of the units are receiving 100% of supply.
For the soviet side, it is quiet different. TCF is at 88 AP/250, NCF at 57 AP/250. The south front suffer some problem of supply as it is with the default supply rules but in some part of the front the situation is very different.
Exemple : 13th mechanised corps with default supply rules : 110 AP/250

[olivier34]

13th Mechanized corps with hardcore supply rules. The supply flows from the army HQ (57th). 154 AP/250, to the 13th 199AP/250...the HQ is in the open not on a road.

[olivier34]

And finally if I move a little north the 57th army HQ, on a road...with hardcore supply rules on we get this. Less than 150 aps for the 13th motorised. I spent an hour to compare both systems. I am not sure that the hardcore supply system will prevent us to run in the open space. Sounds the same to me but I may be wrong...

[Redmarkus5]

We agree on most points, especially the need for bridge building.

However, the small number of roads does mean that the defender can hold onto just one road hex and totally mess up the advance of an entire Army. This distorts the game unrealistically IMO and gets players focused on the wrong types of move.

It's fine if you pocket the enemy and cut his supply, but just driving for a single road junction to effect a defeat or a major slow down in a game of this scale is a sign that some adjustments to the map are needed.

[Redmarkus5]

But what happens if the Axis come from the north and south and cut one hex of each road, but without creating an actual pocket? There's a good chance that supply will dry up for those Soviet units, whereas in reality they would have been receiving supply along the rest of the road net which is not shown on the map. Or does the supply still flow across the open hexes? Maybe I don't properly understand how hardcore supply works... I thought that it would make the road net and bridges even more important than they are now.