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jchastain -> RE: Strategic Supply and Supply (1/28/2007 2:52:50 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Gil R.
In the case of a gun with an upkeep of $1-4S, that means that every turn it uses up 1 Money AND four levels of supply for that unit.
As for caissons, if the logistics staff of the container has a Fair or better rating and brigades in the container have a total Strategic Supply of 10, or if the logistics staff of the container is Poor or worse and the brigades in the container have a total Strategic Supply of 20, they get their very own caisson. Moreover, if the container has a Good or better logistics rating and at least 20 total levels of Strategic Supply, then it starts with 2 caissons. (It used to be 15/30 instead of 10/20 but we changed it late in development, but didn't change the manual.)
Let me also chime in that logistics officers of a container also work to even the supply of attached units. So, a division will not have one brigade with a supply level of 8 and another with a supply level of 3. (This only happens within the container that brigades are attached to directly, so an army will not "smooth" supply status across attached corps.)
What this means is when you buy a gun with an upkeep of 4S, it is essentially reducing the supply level of other units in the same container. That is why you want to spread your good weapons around. If you put all your best units in one division and give them all great weapons, their supply will quickly fall. If, on the other hand, you spread them out and give them all good weapons, then the impact of that will be spread across all the other units in their division.
Example...
Let us assume you have a division with 2 infantry brigades, 1 cavalry brigade and 1 artillery brigade. The infantry both have minie rifles, the Cav has burnside carbs and the art has a 6 pd gun. This division has a starting supply of 7, a normal commander (no bonuses or penalties), is on low supply priority, and moves 2 provinces during the turn but remains in rail supply.
OK, moving 2 provinces will reduce supply of each brigade by 2. The 6 pd guns will reduce the art supply by an addional 3. So, the inf and cav would be at 5 while the art would be at 2. Being in rail supply increases supply for each unit by 2 and being in low supply increases it another 1. So, the inf and cav are increased to 8 and the art is now at 5. The division will now average supply, (8 + 8 + 8 + 5) / 4 = 7.25 each. So, supply ends pretty much where it started.
The next turn, let's assume we buy spencer carbs for the cav and an enfield rifle for one of the inf brigades. If we repeat that last turn...
Moving 2 provinces reduces each by 2. The art is still reduced by 3. But now the inf is also reduced by 2 and the cav is reduced by a whopping 6. After we add back in the resupply, the inf are at 8 and 6, the cav at 2 and the art at 5. When we average those, the division supply level is now (8 + 6 + 2 + 5) / 4 = 5.25. That's a reduction of 2 supply for the entire division!
If I sit still and do not move, supply would not decrease (though it would not increase either). If I move the division, I could increase to high supply priority - that would replace those 2 lost supply... but at a cost.
Sopport cost for this division before the weapon upgrades at low supply priority is .5 money and .25 horses for the division, .25 money for each infantry brigade, .25 money and .5 horses for the cav brigade, and .5 iron for the art brigade + 1 money for each brigade since it is at low supply priority. So, looking only at money, the total support cost would be:
Money .5 + .25 * 2 + .25 + 1 * 4 = 5.25 which rounds up to 6 money
When I upgraded the weapons, I added an additional 1 money for the cav's carbs. But when I took it up to high supply priority, I added an addition 3 money per brigade (and 1 labor per brigade). So, those two additional expenses would take support for this division up to 19 money for the turn. Keep in mind, that's just to pay off the additional supply usage for those weapon upgrades.
Now, let's say that we add two more infantry with minie rifles to this division instead of increasing the supply priority. That gives us two more units with a supply level of 8 to average in. So, the supply level with these two new units would be (8 + 8 + 8 + 6 + 2 + 5) / 6 = 6.17. That made up half the difference! So now, this division can be at normal supply instead of high to keep the same supply level. Even paying the supply cost of the two new units, the support cost is .5 + .25 * 4 + .25 + 2 * 6 = 13.75 + 1 for the carb = 14.75 or 15 money. More than 6 to be sure, but 4 less for 6 brigades than the 19 I needed for high supply for 4 brigades.
Anyway, hopefully that helped instead of just confused people. But the bottom line is pretty much to spread your very expensive weapons throughout different divisions and try to keep those divisions full of units with cheap weapons to keep support costs down.
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