A suggestion - Supply Lines

[Rex Germanius]

Throughout history, battles, campaigns and wars were won or lost based on the supply situation: Tannenberg, Dyrrhachium, ect. Yet, lines of communication have never been properly represented in the Total War series. Vanilla Rome completely ignored the subject, EB toyed with the idea but none really reflect reality.

A simple way to fix this is too institute "invisible" supply lines that follow the paths of roads. In order for an army to be supplied, there must be an unbroken connection of roads between the army and friendly territory plus armies near the coast can be resupplied by fleets. An enemy force can cut off the army by positioning itself on a road, separating them from supply zones. Out-of-supply armies should suffer attrition based on the forage ability of the commander, the season and terrain.

Fist of all, supply lines deepen the strategic aspect of the game and increases realism. Guerrilla warfare becomes a viable option as inferior or outnumbered armies can use asymmetric tactics to reduce their foe. Finally, a TW game will actually deserve the "Total" in the title.

Thoughts?

[Outlawed]

I've always thought about this actually. Connecting roads to the closest major settlement, else, if its a small village or town or something, it shouldn't be able to supply the army. CA would have to think up and implement a correlation between army size/nearest settlement to be able to supply your army or not.

[cygnus_darkstar]

On the contrary, lines of supply were not terribly important until the industrial era. Pretty much every army up until the World Wars was supplied 80%+ from the field, at least after the first few weeks of a campaign. By far the most important thing needed by pre-industrial armies was food, something that didn't ship terribly well until recent advances (canning, etc). Admittedly, this hardly prevented generals from worrying about their lines being cut but it generally had more to do with lines of retreat rather than supply issues. This doesn't need any special mechanism to model it in game, however, as if an enemy army is standing on the road back to the nearest friendly city it prevents your retreat as a matter of course.

A forage mechanism, on the other hand, would be very interesting. The way to do it would be to give armies a sort of grace period depending on how many supplies they carry with them. After that they are dependent on the abundance of food/fodder in the region around them. If it's the Italian peninsula they're golden, if it's Nubia they're in serious trouble.

For more info on the very interesting history of military logistics, I strongly recommend Supplying War by Martin van Creveld. The book is excellently researched and contains none of van Creveld's increasingly common and ridiculous anti-Clausewitzism.

[jaca42]

On the contrary, lines of supply were not terribly important until the industrial era. Pretty much every army up until the World Wars was supplied 80%+ from the field, at least after the first few weeks of a campaign. By far the most important thing needed by pre-industrial armies was food, something that didn't ship terribly well until recent advances (canning, etc). Admittedly, this hardly prevented generals from worrying about their lines being cut but it generally had more to do with lines of retreat rather than supply issues. This doesn't need any special mechanism to model it in game, however, as if an enemy army is standing on the road back to the nearest friendly city it prevents your retreat as a matter of course.

A forage mechanism, on the other hand, would be very interesting. The way to do it would be to give armies a sort of grace period depending on how many supplies they carry with them. After that they are dependent on the abundance of food/fodder in the region around them. If it's the Italian peninsula they're golden, if it's Nubia they're in serious trouble.

For more info on the very interesting history of military logistics, I strongly recommend Supplying War by Martin van Creveld. The book is excellently researched and contains none of van Creveld's increasingly common and ridiculous anti-Clausewitzism.

Now this would be pure awesome!

[Outlawed]

On the contrary, lines of supply were not terribly important until the industrial era. Pretty much every army up until the World Wars was supplied 80%+ from the field, at least after the first few weeks of a campaign. By far the most important thing needed by pre-industrial armies was food, something that didn't ship terribly well until recent advances (canning, etc). Admittedly, this hardly prevented generals from worrying about their lines being cut but it generally had more to do with lines of retreat rather than supply issues. This doesn't need any special mechanism to model it in game, however, as if an enemy army is standing on the road back to the nearest friendly city it prevents your retreat as a matter of course.

A forage mechanism, on the other hand, would be very interesting. The way to do it would be to give armies a sort of grace period depending on how many supplies they carry with them. After that they are dependent on the abundance of food/fodder in the region around them. If it's the Italian peninsula they're golden, if it's Nubia they're in serious trouble.

For more info on the very interesting history of military logistics, I strongly recommend Supplying War by Martin van Creveld. The book is excellently researched and contains none of van Creveld's increasingly common and ridiculous anti-Clausewitzism.

It is true that the Romans in particular, and I'm not sure about others, carried their own supplies of food with them. Each was given some 1-2 kilos of grain if I'm not mistaken that was deducted from their pay. But sometimes the army's food carts would not be present, and the legionaries would be asked to carry their own food. But seeing as the Roman military was pretty much a machine, it was rare for this to happen.

But trying to state that the Romans foraged for food while campaigning is ludicrous. They hunted sometimes, but for the most part they carried their own cooking gear and baked their own bread while on campaign. And I think when the food ran out, the general had to have more either bought locally, or shipped from somewhere. (Mostly would have been grain and cheese probably)

[Ichon]

I am all for supplies being in TW games in some way but the best idea I've heard so far is simply increasing cost with distance for how TW games work due to time scale. The issue with roads is that most of the time roads go directly to a city or capture point not very far away and by the time of turn end an invading army is halfway to the target and when the defenders move to sit on the road there is only 1 turn of lost supplies before a target which provides supplies is captured. As much interesting as supply lines and cutting them might be with the time scale of most TW games it is not making sense.

[ray243]

A forage mechanism would be awesome. A forage mechanism would allow the defending party to adopt a scorched earth policy.

If you want to replay Hannibal's invasion of Italy as the Romans, then having a forage mechanism would allow a player to employ the Fabian strategy.

[AzureNight]

Yeah, an army should have a supply meter. Raiding a farming village for instance should fill that up and that army will be safe for a turn (or more I guess). Good thinking with the forage mechanic, and like ray243 says, it would allow for scorched-earth tactics and a Fabian strategy when dealing with defeat against Hannibal.

[Ichon]

Forage would be interesting... could reduce cost of upkeep for an army while hurting economy of the occupied province. Defenders doing scorched earth would greatly ruin their own province and takes several turns to recover but what would be the effects? Slow down enemy or attrition and raise expense of the faction paying that army or some combination? Because often due to the size of the provinces it would have to greatly impact army movement to be effective.

[Shigawire]

The OP only needs to search these forums to find exhaustive ideas for supply lines, attrition, foraging etc.. and how to implement in a Total War game.
I've written such an idea myself.

And foraging bringing 80% of the supplies is nonsense. For a Roman legion required 1 commeatus to be fed and supplied for 1 campaign season. That's from March to Winter.
1 Commeatus was the entire supply chain, including the granaries, harbor, forward operating base and the train.

Foraging would be used to alleviate hunger, to maintain a minimum level of sustenance, and that's about it. Though in the beginning Hannibal foraged a lot, it wasn't foraging which sustained Hannibal's army for 16 years in Italy.

[ray243]

Foraging would be used to alleviate hunger, to maintain a minimum level of sustenance, and that's about it. Though in the beginning Hannibal foraged a lot, it wasn't foraging which sustained Hannibal's army for 16 years in Italy.

Well, the need for foraging essentially dictate the path the invading army is heading towards. There is a reason why Hannibal set up camp at Cannae. The huge amount of supplies at Cannae drives Hannibal to capture the region, and the Romans responded in kind.

Look up Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army by Donalds Engels. It is a very interesting look at the campaign of Alexander the Great.

In game wise, foraging would be extremely useful option for a player who is trying to trade space for time if he is going against a bigger Empire.

If the AI can employ a scorched earth policy against a human player, it would make the campaign a lot more interesting. Right now, any TW player have yet to encounter huge difficulties trying to invade an Empire.

The only defence the AI have against a player that is invading their lands is to throw more and more troops at the player. However, because the AI is so weak compared to an average TW gamer, a human player will simply steam roll the AI's Empire.

Imagine a scenario where the lack of proper planning cost a human player can lose his army in the middle of a desert due to starvation like what happened to Julian and his invasion of Persia. Won't that be rather interesting and challenging for a human player? Much better than destroying one enemy stack at a time.

Furthermore, supplies points and depot can be the hugely contested region where both armies are heading towards. This reduce the occurrence of aimless armies marching around the campaign map without a specific goal. The AI in this scenario would be more able to plan its marching routes because it knows where to head towards.

The AI can constantly head towards all the provinces and regions that have a huge abundance of supplies, and consume them to fed its armies. This would drive the player to protect those provinces that provides supplies for his armies. This can turn the campaign map into a game of chess, where players and AI understood the strategic locations and the need to capture those regions before the other party.

Both sides would seek to deny space for the enemy while gaining advantage for himself.

[cygnus_darkstar]

After doing some more research, it seems that the Legion were supplied a lot like early-mid 19th century armies. When invading they would build up a huge stock of food at the border where they were planning to penetrate. On the offensive, the army would quickly outrun its supply lines and switch to locally sourced supplies (what I, and van Creveld, mean by forage; not just having the men pick berries and go hunting). Once they were stopped by a major battle or laying siege to something, the supply train would catch up by establishing 1) a large tactical depot near the army and 2) a string of small guarded depots between the border and the tactical depot. A contiguous supply line would be set up while the army was stationary, but as soon as it went back on the offensive it would be primarily locally supplied again (the legions moved at a rate of at least 10 mi/day and it is not feasible to extend a contiguous supply chain that quickly. Not until the invention of trucks, at least).

This was an amazing achievement, I must add. Even WWI armies routinely outran their supply chains when on the offensive. It wasn't until the truck that it became possible to do so (if you want the most important reason WWII and WWI differed it was the invention of trucks, not tanks) It is also one no other kingdom or empire of the time could have managed. Hannibal likely loaded up his army with as many supplies as they could carry in Iberia before crossing the Alps but it is most unlikely he had anything like an actual supply line feeding him. There's a reason his army suffered such wastage on the crossing. Once he made his way into Italy though, it was all local again. That's a good model for most of the other armies of the period. It leaves us in a pickle as to whether to include supply in the game, though, because only the Romans seem to have had a highly developed supply system.

[Shigawire]

In the beginning, the Greeks and Carthaginians were better able to field a supply and siege train. Romans were first subjected to the Carthaginians' supply trains, which were inspired by Greeks. And when the Romans were deep in the Roman-Macedonian war, during the siege of Echinus, P. Sulpicius Galba was left dumbstruck by the Macedonian supply train. This was approx 210 BCE. 20 years later, the Romans emulated precisely these mechanics, and the first Roman use of siege towers was documented (190 BCE).

[Petroniu]

@OP: If only...

[Condottiere 40K]

Makes scorched earth and looting suddenly look like viable options.

An organized army backed up by an empire will probably have minimal logistic concerns. A small city state with an ambitious tyrant is going to have problems.

[cygnus_darkstar]

Ah yes, silly me. I forgot about the Diadochii. And very correct that in the early game (300-150 BC), the Roman system had not yet been developed. I suppose that makes it more likely that CA will implement some sort of logistics systems, since the Diadochii+Rome are probably the most important factions. In that sense a tech tree seems appropriate but should be much slowed down from the one in, say, ETW.

In terms of implementation, how about generalizing the Roman 3-tier system of Strategic, Operational, and Tactical depots to all factions. Tactical depots can be constructed without operational ones which can be constructed without strategic ones, but having each additional level higher constructed adds to overall supply throughput (can't go straight from tactical to strategic, though). Strategic depots would be very large structures that can only be constructed in settlements of "large town" size or greater (maybe even go higher than that). In real life, these were responsible for collecting and collating a certain amount of a grain-producing region's output into a military store. An operational depot can be constructed in any settlement inside territory you possess, and will be the link from the big strategic depots to the tactical ones in the field. Tactical depots can also be constructed in any settlement you own; it only takes one turn to build but there must be a military presence in the settlement. To use a modern term, these are basically the "railhead" of the supply system. Between the operational and tactical depot, as well as between the tactical depot and the current location of the army, you can build small guarded field depots similar to the way watchtowers are constructed.

This way when the army moves quickly on the offensive, it outruns the fairly small radius of the tactical/guarded depots (unless you move very slowly) and you will have to use local supplies. If you stop for more than a turn it should be possible to build enough extender depots to get you back in centralized supply. Maybe there could be a map view showing you the state of supply lines. If an enemy army grabs a depot, then it can loot it for however much the army can carry (supplies should have a weight that slows down the army's movements, though). The tech could start with tactical depots that facilitate local supply operations, then operational depots that let you make a true "supply line," and finish with Strategic depots that let you hugely accelerate how quickly you fill up the operational depot(s) you built for next year's campaign.

Now that I think about it, there may be an even simpler way of doing it.
1) Army on territory controlled by its faction = in supply.
2) Territories in which one of your units has stayed for more than one turn without a battle (excepting sallying forces from a besieged settlement) count as your territory.
3) Army on enemy controlled territory = out of supply, local supplies only (insert forage system here).

[Rex Germanius]

Now that I think about it, there may be an even simpler way of doing it.
1) Army on territory controlled by its faction = in supply.
2) Territories in which one of your units has stayed for more than one turn without a battle (excepting sallying forces from a besieged settlement) count as your territory.
3) Army on enemy controlled territory = out of supply, local supplies only (insert forage system here).

More or less, a summary description of the EB logistics system.

- Tech upgrades -

"Greek siege tactics" P. Sulpicius Galba was impressed when he first witnessed Macedon's siege train. 20 years later in 190 BC, the Romans had copied the Macedon siege model, and for the first time started constructing their own siege towers and machinery for the assaults.
-Reduce supply usage by 10%
-Allow construction of siege towers before assault
-Sapping
-etc
(can be broken down into separate techs)

Operational Supply base
-Moving forward the supply line's anchor. This can be as little as a day's march from the Army.
Increases supply line range. Return your army here to become 70% supplied
You are till vulnerable. if the enemy hits this, your army will suffer a great morale drop.
Maintaining this should cost money per turn. Extending a campaign into deep territory should be expensive.

I strongly oppose tech trees in the Total War series. Instead, supply organisation techniques can be obtained from traits, retinue and "observing" superior methods in other armies(perhaps triggering traits/retinue.)

[Shigawire]

I strongly oppose tech trees in the Total War series. Instead, supply organisation techniques can be obtained from traits, retinue and "observing" superior methods in other armies(perhaps triggering traits/retinue.)

I'm not married to the idea of tech trees. I agree it would be much better to have a totally dynamic tech-tree based entirely on "exposure."

[Rex Germanius]

I'm not married to the idea of tech trees. I agree it would be much better to have a totally dynamic tech-tree based entirely on "exposure."

Or new abilities could be unlocked based on character actions that lead to chance discoveries. Most research was haphazard at best and serendipity played an integral role in development.

[ray243]

More or less, a summary description of the EB logistics system.

EB system have its limits though. While there is penalties bonus, the actual army size still stays the same.