Need help with Supply System.

[Ac3s]

Ive read the manual about the Supply System, but its still way too complicated for me to understand.

Few questions:
-I have an army stationed in Jerusalem but each turn I am now getting the same message that local food supplies are exhausted and I need to give the land a few turns to replenish, so my guess is that 1 army in that desert region cannot be sustained.
But I have an enemy down south so removing that army is not an option, so I should build a Supply Complex in Antioch?

-But if I build a Supply Complex in Antioch, will that Supply Complex gather food from across my entire empire and then ship it off to the army in Jerusalem, or will the army in Jerusalem exclusively use the local food supplies from the Antioch region?
To expand further on this, if I were to place 3 armies in the Jerusalem region like that, will that mean that over time they will strip the food supplies from Antioch completely empty?
Or do I need to build Supply Complexes in every single regions to connect all regions to each other, will this create an empire food supply instead of just one region food supply?

I'm really hoping there is a way to focus the food from my entire empire and distribute it evenly across all my armies without certain regions becoming completely barren of food supplies.

[pyccos]

are you using the supply unit with your army? for it to regen the food supply there needs to be no army in the area. go raid your enemy to keep the defensive line there and make some extra $$

[Garbad]

Scroll your mouse over the food supply in Jerusalem and you can see how much supply is produced/used each turn. Remember during summer in deserts nothnig is produced.

You can get supply in one of several ways. From easiest to hardest (guessing):

- create a fleet with a supply ship, make it hug the shore besides Jeru, move your army just west of jeru. It should be close enough for supply by sea.
- do the same with a land army and a baggage chain
- build a supply depot, grain storage, or similar building that can reach that far (note it still won't go through during summer because blockage)

If that doesn't make sense or doesn't work let me know.

[gornoviceanu]

I'm guessing it's a Seleucid campaign? If i were you I'd build a supply complex in Mesopotamia and make that province a huge farming one.

Supply depots can supply armies up to across 3 regions so it should be close enough.

Having farms will increase your supply production so a farming province with supply depot is a natural move.

Also, I think that summer won't affect Mesopotamia but I'm not sure on that.

[Ac3s]

So lets say I build a Supply Depot in Mesopotamia, will the army in Jerusalem decrease the available food supply from Mesopotamia? And what happens when all the food from Mesopotamia is gone because too many armies are draining it?
If I were to build a second Supply Depot in another farm rich region that is within 3 regions from Mesopotamia, will these two Supply Depots become connected with each other?

I'm trying to understand how food gets distributed and if it is even possible to make a network with all the supply buildings, will Depots connect to each other, will Harbors connect to each other?
If one of my fleets with a supply ships docks in a region that has no food supplies left, will it still get food supplies (transferred from another nearby harbor), are these harbors connected, do they form a network?

[Dresden]

I recommend reading the manual, it describes operational and strategic depots.

[Ac3s]

The manual says nothing about where all the food comes from, what happens when the food is depleted, or even if food gets distributed between all regions, or even if those regions are connected with each other through harbors and supply depots.
Too many unknowns, the Supply system itself is already hard enough for me to even grasp and the manual is not making it any easier, which is why I'm asking questions on the forum hoping someone would be kind enough to explain it all in a more...understandable manner.

[Dresden]

If by food you mean supplies, they are from farms, etc. If a region has maximum, it can export it to a supply depot in a capital. We are changing the building effects to read the exact output in the next update rather than descriptive text.

[Ac3s]

In the manual it says:

Supply Line Requirements:
-Region containing the strategic depot not out of local supplies.
-Positive global food value.

This is just confusing now.

If my army has a supply line to a nearby Supply Depot (lets say that is Antioch), will that army get its food from ONLY the Antioch region, effectively decreasing the overall Antioch supply abilities, or will my army get food from the entire empire (global food value) ?

Will Antioch with a Supply depot be able to sustain as many armies as possible as long as my Global Food Value remain positive, or will Antioch with a Supply Depot only be able to supply armies until the local regio's food supplies run out?


Or let me ask it in another way, if I build tons of farms in regions all over my empire but I only build one supply depot in one region, will that supply depot receive all the food from all the farms over the entire empire, or will that depot only receive food from that one region?

[Dresden]

Global food is not the same as supplies, they are separate systems effectively. You can find the supply value of an individual region by hovering over the food number in that region breakdown, simply because we had to edit the UI in some way.

The global food system of the game is not the same as that system. They interact but the food of a faction does not directly provide supplies.

Supply depots receive supplies from that province, supply producing buildings produce supplies for their regions/province only. The global food number is another thing entirely.

[Ac3s]

Okay thanks, that explains it a bit, but still this brings me to the next question that the manual never even mentions:

If I have a depot in Region A and another depot in Region B and I setup one of my armies with a supply line, lets say that Region A is closest so the supply line will connect to that first.
But once Region A runs out of supplies, will the supply line to my army now change to get supplies from Region B automatically?

Or are both the Supply Depots from Region A and Region B connected to each other, do they maybe share a common "supply pool", or in other words, will Region B indirectly supply to Region A which will then supply my Army through the original supply line?

[gornoviceanu]

I think the supply pool is common. Big I THINK there though

Anyway, you're a loooooooooong way off to be draining Mesopotamia of supplies with your troops. I don't think I ever managed to out "eat" a supply / farm / 4x province template.

[Ac3s]

Dresden, if your reading this then you should make it so that allies and sapatries don't damage your farms or deplete your supplies like crazy when moving over your land.
I'm playing as Seleucids and I have 3 sapatries to my east, now Rome made war with me and all the armies of my sapatries are moving west to Rome over my territory, literally destroying every single farm and cattle ranch over an area stretching from Mesopotamia to Turkey.

Its not funny...

[gornoviceanu]

I'm not sure, do Satrapies involve military access? If not, just cancel the military access in the diplomacy screen.

[Ac3s]

I don't think military access changes anything, ally or enemy army, they all deplete your supplies and damage your farms just the same.

Luckily the buildings do auto repair over time and now Persia (my sapatrie) has 6 armies sitting on the west shore of Turkey, I think there is a flaw in the original game since hes not moving hes armies over the Greece sea, so it might be good that supplies gets depleted after all since hes armies are slowly getting damaged.
I just hope hes idle armies there will eventually disappear completely.

[KAM 2150]

When you cancel military access those armies will simply move away from your territory. That is what gornoviceanu wanted to tell you.

[Ac3s]

Thanks, but you cannot cancel military access from a sapatry, I only wish I could...

[CyberianK]

So I think I understand the supply system and I have a good supply situation everywhere now. Local storage is always full and the local production is fine too.

What is strange though is that I have DISEASE in my armies very very often and I don't get why that happens.

EDIT: and the manual does not exactly explain how the supply ships work.