War Supplies during first year

[kwhitehead]

I know there is another thread discussing this but it went into more general areas. I wanted to focus on 1861 in particular and how War Supplies affect things.

As the Union I have found I can raise money and recruits very easy but I can't turn them into Units because I have no War Supplies (WS) available. The Union starts with an apparent initial injection of WS on the first turn but after that the amount used exceeds production every turn through most of 1861.

What little WS you have is needed for keeping your railroads and river transports out of the lower third with little or nothing left for raising troops or even replacements. The only thing I seem to be able to afford to build is militia which takes no WS. You certainly can't afford regulars and especially Army HQ and ships.

My first question is "What is using up the WS?" There is nothing in the manual to indicate what is the sink using over 190 WS a turn by July regardless of whether you build nothing.

The second question of course is "How can you increase WS?" What things do you actually control that will either increae WS production or reduce this 190 point outflow?

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[kwhitehead]

The great bulk of reinforcement units arriving during 1861, arrive only partially built. These units require Replacement points to build up and in turn Replacement points require War Supplies. No doubt, you are building Replacement chits to keep up with this demand. After 1862 Early March, there is not such a drain on the replacement point system (caused by building up reinforcments), except for those units which have managed to be damaged in battle and you should start seeing a surplus

Are these some type of automatic cost? I have spent a number of turns not building anything of any type to see if this 190+ expediture ever decreased and it didn't. I no when you build replacements on the screen it costs but if you don't it would seem the ones already built would get used up then the cost would stop. I tracked the WS per turn negative costs from Early July through September. It never varied from being -192 each turn. I stopped building anything including transports, replacements and reinforcements to see if it would change. It was constant at -192 until Early Sep turn when it changed to -193.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Major Tom]

Gray -

Those are some interesting numbers.

I know you'll want to derive these yourself, but for comparison here are my results from a test game.

April 1861 campaign.
CSA
No actions -- not even taking Norfolk or buying replacements.

Commodity balances at start of early March 1862:

$2420
930 conscript points
1333 WSu

Results should vary slighty based on which events occur, but not by a lot.

Per turn earnings as of March 1862:

$111
31 conscripts
59 WSu.

There's a hidden event that fires on turn 2 and turn 9 that seems to randomly add some $ and WSu to different states. In this test game, turn 2 increased per turn $ earnings from 35 to 44 and WSu from 39 to 44. On turn 9 $ earnings went from 107 to 111 and WSu earnings went from 57 to 59. In a different test game these numbers were slightly different.

It looks like the earned amounts far exceed what your totals show as the starting forces for the 1862 campaign, especially when you consider that CSA could get another 300 or so conscript points in 1861 just from volunteers.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[kwhitehead]

kwhitehead:

I was not able to duplicate the "drain" on War supplies that you referred to in your first post above. If possible, zip, up the saved files and post them here and I'll take a look at them.

Save from Early September attached.

[Major Tom]

Gray -

I think your produciton numbers for CSA must be "plain vanilla," not counting any events. But the scripted events add a substantial amount to CSA balances, especially the events that fire on May 1 and June 1 1861.

Here's a rundown of my totals including events:

Dollars
$150 at start, early April, 1861
$35 produced on turn 1
Turn 2 “hidden” event adds +$9/per turn
+$75 on turn 2 (scripted event)
+$75 on turn 5 (scripted event)
+$50 on turn 7, unknown event
$44 produced per turn, turns 2-6 = $220
Turn 7 hidden event adds +63/turn from Virginia.
$107 produced per turn, turns 7-8 = $214
Turn 9 “hidden” event adds +$4/per turn
$111 produced per turn, turns 9-22 = $1554
+$5 on turn 18, “Blockade Runner Arrives”
+$5 on turn 20, “Blockade Runner Arrives”
+$50 on turn 21, unknown event
$2433 TOTAL BALANCE, TURN 22

Conscripts
50 at start, early April, 1861
+50 on turn 2 (scripted event)
+75 on turn 5 (scripted event)
+30 produced per turn, turns 1-10 = 300
+25 on turn 7, unknown event.
+29 to pool, +1 per turn, “Kentucky Secedes” event, turn 11
+29 on turn 12, unknown event.
+31 produced per turn, turns 11-22 = 372
916 Total balance at end of February 1862.
930 TOTAL CONSCRIPT BALANCE, TURN 22
889 Balance excluding effect of Kentucky.

War Supply
40 at start, early April, 1861
+39 produced on turn 1
Turn 2 “hidden” event adds +5/per turn
+10 on turn 2 (scripted event)
+15 on turn 5 (scripted event)
+44 produced on turn 2
+13/turn, Josiah George’s Steel Mill event, turn 3.
+57 produced per turn on turns 3-8 = 342
+2 per turn, starting turn 9, “hidden” event.
+59 produced per turn on turns 9-22 = 826
+10 on turn 11, “Kentucky Secedes”
+5 on turn 11 “Supply Steamer Captured”
+1 on turn 18, “Blockade Runner Arrives”
+1 on turn 20, “Blockade Runner Arrives”
1333 TOTAL WS BALANCE, TURN 22
1316 excluding Kentucky, Supply Steamer, and blockade runner events.

[Major Tom]

Also, the CSA starts the game with 4 free squadrons of blockade runners. WHile in the blockade boxes, those squadrons will each return a combined total of 4 $+WSu per turn.

Considering time needed to resupply and repair damage, plus time at sea, you should still get at least a dozen turns of production out of each of them during the 22-turn period, for a combined total of almost 200 $+WSu. Considering that these are an asset that are on hand at start, their potential earnings ought to be part of any estimate of CSA cumulative production for the period.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Major Tom]

Your total balance is incorrect since you added some things more than once.

Sorry - my numbers do add up, I just presented them in a confusing way. Maybe this will show it better:

Ignoring my descriptions of the events, here's how it adds up:

[B]Normal Production:[/B]40 at start, early April, 1861
+39 produced on turn 1 (normal production)
+44 produced on turn 2 (normal production increased)
+57 produced per turn on turns 3-8 (normal production) = 342
+59 produced per turn on turns 9-22 (normal production) = 826
Total from normal production: 39+44+342+826 = 1251

Events Adding to Normal per/turn Production:
+5 per turn starting on turn 2.
+13/turn, Josiah George’s Steel Mill event, turn 3.
+2 per turn, starting turn 9

Single Events adding to Pool:
+40 = pool at start
+10 on turn 2 (scripted event)
+15 on turn 5 (scripted event)
+10 on turn 11, “Kentucky Secedes”
+5 on turn 11 “Supply Steamer Captured”
+1 on turn 18, “Blockade Runner Arrives”
+1 on turn 20, “Blockade Runner Arrives”
TOTAL ADDED TO POOL: +82

Normal Production + Events: 1251 + 82 = 1333

I agree Kentucky secession should be ignored, and the little sutuff like Steamers and Blockade Runners don't add up to much.

Have you also considered rail and river pools? They start at 75/20 in the April 1861 campaign, but will lose 3% per turn. Those events on May 1 and June 1 also add to the rail and river pools, but not enough to make up for that 3% loss over time. By Feb 1862, with normal losses and not counting possible event related losses, rail would be down to around 60 and river down to 9. In the 1862 campaign they start at 100/20. So you should factor in 4 levels of investment in rail and 2 in river, which would eat up some money and WSu.

[Major Tom]

Okay, you're right, I double counted by 40 -- counting the starting WSu as normal production and as an event.

SHould be 1251, plus events. Main events are the 10 and 15 added on May 1 and June 1.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[kwhitehead]

Well, I opened up your saved game and it was relatively easy to spot the source of your "War Supply" sink. It's costing you -193 War Supplies each turn for Industrialization.

That was the information I was looking for. I suspected it was the cause and was getting ready to start a new scenario with no industrialization to see how things changed. The Economy screen says there is a cost but didn't indicate it was a per turn cost.


Major Tom, the AI was handling the CSA. How were you able to get to the numbers you listed? Is there a log file showing all this?

[Major Tom]

I'm not counting the (at start) pools in the per turn accumulation, but admittedly I did not think to account for the difference in the Rail/River pools. I'll make that adjustment to those relative Campaign scenario spread sheets and will have to make some slight balance adjustments in post #4 above.

I take back what I said about double counting the 40 at start. I was mistaken about being mistaken They weren't part of my 1251 count for normal production either.

So it actually sounds like our numbers agree? 1251 for normal production, plus 30 WSu from events, plus whatever the diff for river/rail comes out to. Not interested in factoring in an estimated return on the free blockade runners CSA starts with in 1861? They wouldn't be likely to sit in port for 22 turns.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Major Tom]

Gray is probably doing this like a pro -- looking through the scenario and event files and adding everything up. I did it the hard way, by playing a game with an inactive AI and in which I did nothing, and then meticulously recording any changes to $, conscripts, and WSu. My method showed several unexplained events that add to the totals without any accompanying message in the message box. A couple of these - the May 1 and June 1 events, I've found in the scenario setup file. Others I have no explanation for.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Major Tom]

Very interesting data. I'm curious to see the USA totals when you have them.

[Major Tom]

Kinda correct... LOL... I did the per turn additional resource accounting in much the same way that you did. It's the (at start) resources that requires me to look thru not only the scenario setup (script) files, but also some (.inc) files which are actually compiled into the final scenario file and which have to be accounted for also. (Examples Kentucky.inc, CSAMilitia.inc, and USAMilitia.inc)
\.

Gray - I'm thinking you might have missed some of the odd events that add to the totals if you were looking only at the line in the ledger that showed the expected addition for the turn. Where I was able to see te effect of events was by comparing the expected net in the ledger with the actual starting amount the following turn. There are a lot of unexpected and unexplained additions to all three accounts -- things that aren't displlayed in the message screen. I'm sure you can locate these in the various event files, but I could only find some of them. Especially with the conscripts pool, there were a number of unexplained additions. Since I'm not a modder, I'm not all that conversant with those database files.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Major Tom]

I'll double check for those later tonight, but they can only "add" to the amounts already tallied in each category and since I'm primarily interested in War Supply amounts, it will only add to an already perceived possible oversupply in this particular category. If you look carefully, the Militia/Volunteers were charged 1 WSu each (instead of 0 WSu) in those spreadsheets to see the effect on the totals. The current overabundance of War supply suggests that the posted concerns over the 1 WSu charge for Militia/Volunteers was blown way out of proportion. As a result, the only thing left of any concern with that particular change is the possible effect on the AI it might have. The quick/dirty tests that I've performed suggests that that is not a large concern either, but I need to do some more thorough testing before I come to a final conclusion.[/url]

I had not noticed that you added the hypothical 1 WSu to the cost of militia units. I agree with your main point...the data definitely show that a 1 WSu cost for militia would not prevent the CSA of April 1861 from building up to the level of the start of the 1862 scenario. Assuming that the starting and reinforcement forces fo the 1861 scenario are historically correct, and the 1862 scenario forces are correct (I'm betting they are, given the historicity of everything about this game), then it looks like the CSA is building up an over-abundance of war supply. Charging 1 WSu for militia would offset this to some degree.

Just one thing though -- a pretty large amount of all three commodities are used up providing necessary replacements to build units up to full strength in 1861. Especially heavy artillery and supply unit, if you choose to make the investment. Of course this is partly offset by free replacement chits, which I know you haven't accounted for yet

You could factor all of that in but it would be a big job. If all you're looking to do is prove your thesis, I think you've already done it without the necessity of more data collection.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[Major Tom]

Although, possibly not enough, if you look at the April 1861 spreadsheet, near the bottom of the CSA entries, you will see additional entries for Replacement points provided in the reinforcement events.

Right. I did not notice that.

So, if you're counting the free replacement chits toward the balances, you really should subtract the amount of those that are used up just in bringing units up to full strength. That sounds like it would be a real pain, so I would suggest ignoring it and not counting those free replacement chits at all.

[Major Tom]

Gray - We may have both underestimated the cost of bringing understrength units up to full strength.

Some time ago, I tracked the usage of replacement chits in 1861 so I could optimize my purchases of replacements. I ran three test games against passive AI, with no actions that could cause replacement chits to be used. This way I was able to track just what was being used by the free units in 1861.

As you know, there's a random factor in whether a replacement chit will be used up when bringing an understrength unit up to full strength. That is, unless there's an entire missing element being replaced, in which case a chit is definitely used.

I tracked the replacement chit usage for every type of element, and also how many of those were going to replace missing elements versus topping off understrength elements.

Based on three test games, replacement chits were used with a total value of $750, 430 conscripts, and 181 WSu. Subtracting out the chits that were used to replace full elements, just the amount used for topping off understrength units was $564, 270 conscripts, and 147 WSu.

This far exceeds the value of the free replacement chits given in the game. I think given the magnitude of the numbers, they have to be taken into acocunt.

I'm attaching my data.

[Gray_Lensman]

deleted

[77NY]

So, if you're counting the free replacement chits toward the balances, you really should subtract the amount of those that are used up just in bringing units up to full strength. That sounds like it would be a real pain, so I would suggest ignoring it and not counting those free replacement chits at all.

Very interesting/instructive thread, guys. Thank you both for your efforts in this.

Just wondering whether you guys are also factoring in the cost of maintaining a certain % (10%?) replacements reserve in addition to the freebie chits already built in?

So depending on how the replacement issue gets sorted out with Pocus's input, maybe your unit build calculations should actually be more like Cost*1.1?

[Major Tom]

Very interesting/instructive thread, guys. Thank you both for your efforts in this.

Just wondering whether you guys are also factoring in the cost of maintaining a certain % (10%?) replacements reserve in addition to the freebie chits already built in?

So depending on how the replacement issue gets sorted out with Pocus's input, maybe your unit build calculations should actually be more like Cost*1.1?

Please don't give me any credit for the work Gray is doing -- all I'm doing is sharing my data, he's the one working on improving the game. I gather this data for my own selfish reasons -- to better understand how the game works, so that I can play it better.

But I would guess that Gray is not going to concern himself with the "need" to keep replacements in reserve, since that's more of a personal preference than a required investment.

For myself --once the intitial burst of replacement activity is over, by September 1861, I never keep that many replacements in reserve, usually just one of each type plus some extra infantry.