Manual:Supply

From AACWWiki

Supply is divided into two categories: general supply (such as food, water, clothing, etc.) and ammunition. They are tracked separately but follow the same rules. Armies and fleets need general supply each turn to keep operating while ammunition is only used during battles.

Many units normally carry two turns worth of general supply and enough ammunition to last for two battles. They will try to replenish their stockpile each turn. Hover your mouse over a forces cauldron or cannonballs icon to check how much general supply and ammunition it carries.

Contents 1 Out of Supply Penalties 2 Supply Sources 3 Supply Distribution 4 Rail, river & sea transport 5 Depots 6 Supply Wagons 7 Naval Units 8 Foraging

Out of Supply Penalties

Units lacking general supply will start taking hits and lose cohesion. They also incur a moderate combat penalty. Units lacking ammunition will incur a severe combat penalty.

Note: Supply is absolutely critical to military operations, as starvation, desertion and disease take a great toll on units.

Supply Sources

The basic amounts generated are as follows:

Structure	General supply/level	Ammunition/level
City	8	2
Depot	4	1
Harbor	4	1
Fort or stockade	2	0
Indian village	1	0

This is further modified by:

• Investment
• Loyalty: Production is multiplied by [loyalty + 50 %]. For instance, if a region is completely loyal to your side (100% loyalty) production in the region will be multiplied by 1.5.
• National morale
• Blockade

You can check the total general supply generated in a region with its tooltip.

Supply Distribution

Each structure and unit in the game will “pull” a certain amount of supply each turn. This occurs during the hosting phase. Supply sources will strive to distribute their supply surplus to nearby structures and units that need it. This will trigger a chain reaction, with supply being forwarded from one structure to another until it reaches the farthest units/structures. This process is automated and conducted in three consecutive “push” steps taking many parameters into account.

The amount of supply that can transit through a structure is roughly proportional to its production capacity (see above) and the distance covered by your abstracted supply columns during each step can range from one to five regions depending on:

• Terrain
• Weather
• Enemy presence
• Rail transport
• River transport
• Sea transport

You can directly check on the map how much general supply/ammunition is stockpiled and where by using the supply filter. Note: Isolated units – such as units under siege – will begin to suffer from starvation when their general supply reserves are depleted.

Rail, river & sea transport

Each turn, the steamboats and trains left unused during the movement phase will be available for supply distribution. These will be used to transport supply over friendly river or rail lines. However, enemy forts and fleets along a river line block supply transport past their position.

Note: Controlling rivers and (to a lesser extent) railroads are strategically important, as they allow you to transport great quantities of supply and men compared to overland supply paths using roads.

The USA also has the option to transport supply by sea to coastal areas and ports. The transport capacity depends on the number of transport ships allocated to the “world shipping” box and is displayed on the transport assets panel at the top of the map.

Example: Union shipping allows long distance supply transport, for example from New York to New Orleans. The process is automated and will strive to augment the supply of needy ports and coastal depots by transporting any excess supply in the Northern harbors to where it is needed.

Depots

Depots are very useful in optimizing your supply lines. You can build them in critical locations such as supply bottlenecks or remote areas lacking other structures. These will then act as transit points in order to bridge gaps in your supply lines, extend the reach of your supply network and increase supply throughput. A depot will attract and then push forward more supplies than Level 1-14 cities.

Note 1: Building a depot network every three to five regions is highly recommended.

Note 2: Depots are tempting targets for enemy raiders and should be adequately protected.

Supply Wagons

Supply wagons are special units which act as moving supply stockpiles and thus provide you with limited direct control over supply. They fill up during the supply distribution phase. Supply wagons allow you to keep selected forces supplied, even if they operate far from their supply bases. However, this will only last until they become empty and need to be resupplied themselves from a regular supply source.

Wagons tend to slow down the force they accompany and cannot be used by naval units.

Supply wagons also have the following additional benefits:

• They provide a +10% fire bonus during battles (provided they have some ammo left)
• They protect units from bad weather effects by trading hits for supply

A supply wagon or transport ship is able to supply any land unit with both General Supply and Ammunition if it is in the same or an adjacent region.

Note: If you have too many depleted supply wagons near the front, you can move them back by train to rear areas stockpiles so they get replenished. This is the manual means that players have to control precisely where they want supply, most of the micro-management burden being taken by the automated supply distribution phase.

Naval Units

Fleets at sea can replenish general supply from adjacent land regions with a stockpile, but they can only replenish ammunition in ports. Naval transport units can also be used to manually transport general supply for troops located in adjacent coastal regions, similar to supply wagons.

Note: Any naval transport unit in the union shipping box will also help shuffling supply to coastal regions.

Foraging

Out of supply units located in an enemy region have a chance of finding enough subsistence to momentarily avoid the penalties due to lack of general supply. This depends on the terrain and civilization Level of the region, as well as the time of the year. A leader with the “forage” special ability also improves his force’s chances. One at a time, each out of supply sub-unit will make a test to see if it finds enough supply.

However as soon as a single test is failed, the region is considered to have been looted, as shown by the icon, and will not provide any more supply until it recovers, which happens during the harvesting season.

Technical Note: The supply calculations use sophisticated pathfinding algorithms that can takes between 5 and 30 seconds, depending of scenario size and your computer CPU power.