Hearts of Iron 2 - why are my dudes starving?

[fatty]

I'm posting this here because I can't be assed to create an account on Paradox and I know some people here play this game.

Playing a really fun campaign as the U.S. Germany proceeded as usual and invaded Poland in '39 - but WWII didn't fire. I suspect this was because I had cozied up to Germany with a high influence, but at any rate they got Poland and just stopped. Japan did Pearl Harbor in February 1942. I lost a lot of my navy but I eventually snagged Taiwan and springboarded from there to the Home Islands by 1944. A short campaign through Korea and China finished up that war in 1945 with Japan as my puppet.

Now, imagining that the Holocaust has been going on etc etc, it seemed prudent to liberate Poland. I declared war on Germany in 1946 - they started on the historical WWII track, smashing through the Ardennes and seizing a sizable chunk of France in a few weeks.

With the Maginot Line still intact and manned, my crafty plan was to land in Belgium, make a quick jaunt south to hook up with the Line, and thus cut off almost the entire German army in France from the Fatherland. The landings in Ghent went flawlessly - 50 divisions of my most experienced troops, crack soldiers highly seasoned from the Pacific theatre, went ashore and spread out through Belgium, liberating most of that country in a few days.

Now here's the problem: my entire army in Belgium is now unsupplied. My ultra Pershing tanks with 4 experience stars are at a standstill without oil. The entire region is red in supply mapmode. Why is this happening? They have access to friendly ports (Ghent and whatever is to the right of it), the sealane is secure (I have a flotilla standing right outside the harbour), I have tonnes of oil and supplies to spare, all my sliders are in the white, my TC is not overloaded... I am using autoconvoys but it seems as though I can't select Ghent as a destination for a convoy...

How do I supply my men? If this can't be fixed within a few days of gametime I am going to have to withdraw :nope:

PS: I'm using Doomsday 1.3a

[TteFAboB]

Did the provinces went back to Belgium or are they yours? If they went back to Belgium and you're standing over Belgian territory then you need to suck on Belgian supply & oil and not your own. The controller of the province supplies the divisions inside it, his own and allied. I suppose that's why you can't set up a convoy for Ghent: it's not your port, it's a Belgian province. Maybe years and more years in Congo left them without either as they may've kept some army divisions but not the industry to supply them.

Pick the saved-game and try setting a trade agreement with Belgium. Supplies and Oil for something or nothing. Or use the "Open Negotiations" and try giving them thousands of supplies and oil at once.

[fatty]

I see what you are saying, yes they did go to Belgium. I tried your advice and noted a resource stockpile in Ghent which was present when my troops were in supply and vanished when they were not. Unfortunately it seems like my forces suck up the resources faster than I'm allowed to make the trade deals.

I'll reload to a few weeks earlier and try to land directly in Germany instead so that the provinces will be mine and I can supply them directly.

Thanks for your swift and helpful reply, TteFAboB. Drinks on fatty :()1:

[TteFAboB]

You don't really have to ditch your save-game. You can switch the provinces with a little patience by editing the save-game file. I guess I should've said this before. Doh. :damn:

*Let's say you land in Ghent succesfully.
*Save the game.
*Open the game console by pressing F12.
*Type "showid" in the console without quotes.
*Hover your mouse over the Ghent province and keep it on top of it. At the lower right corner of the screen the ID number of the province is being displayed. Write that number down.
*Quit the game.
*Find the save game in Windows Explorer (doomsday\scenarios\savegames\name of your savegame.eug) and open it with notepad (better back it up).
*Press Ctrl+F or open the search box through the menus.
*Type "tag = USA" without quotes and press search. You will find alot of results in "relation" lines but you want the one right after "country = {", like this:

country = {
tag = USA

*With this specific "tag = USA" highlighted press CTRL+F again and search for the first "controlled" result, without quotes. This will bring you to the USA's list of controlled provinces. Add the province ID number you wrote down previously at the end of the list. Now you control this province.
*But since you and Belgium can't control it at the same time, you need to remove Belgian control from Belgium's list.
*So here we go again, by searching for "tag = BEL" find the line

country = {
tag = BEL

then search for "controlled" without quotes and you'll find Belgium's list of controlled provinces. Remove the province ID number from the list, save the file and fire up the game.

Two things may happen, I don't really know: with a province in your hands you can start supplying your army with your own convoys. Once you move and start capturing other provinces, they might fall to your control as you're attacking from a controlled province. If they do get liberated back to Belgium I think your troops will still be linked to supply as long as they disembarked in the province you control. Or this won't work at all for one reason or the other.

Do you still have that save-game? I'd sure like to try this and see if it works. It's ridiculous to have to land in Germany because of a stupid "bug".

[fatty]

It worked! Although the surrounding provinces belonged to Belgium, having Ghent as USA supplied my guys in Europe quite well. I can appreciate and understand the logistic difficulties in supplying an invasion force of about one million men plus tanks, aircraft, etc but it is a little dumb that I couldn't keep even one division supplied.

[TteFAboB]

Great. :up:

[Tikigod]

How is expansion? Is it any good? any mods for Hearts of Iron in general?

[fatty]

How is expansion? Is it any good? any mods for Hearts of Iron in general?

I never really played it without the expansion so I can't comment too much. In the game's state as I am playing it, it can be very fun but there are many small frustrations. I'm not sure why the geniuses at Paradox have not yet figured out a better way to handle grouping and distributed large numbers of units. Some aspects of naval combat seem broken to me (carriers, submarines) but I have no actual facts to back that up and it's just how I feel. The intelligence aspect is kind of cool - countries will spy on each other - yet I have to wonder why Japan's tech teams were being sabotaged by China, its own puppet....

This game is pretty much the only thing in town for modelling an entire world conflict in any serious depth, but it still needs some work. I would like to see a better diplomacy/foreign policy model - something more advanced than just "influence country." The diplomacy in Galactic Civilizations II is the best I have seen in any kind of grand strategy. In that game, states (well, galactic empires) react logically to things like the size of your military, your economic capacity, etc. Huge militaristic empires will push you around if you are weak and try to extort money from you by threatening war, it's really clever.

Something else I wish they would adjust is tricky to explain... but the way ownership of provinces is determined/changed needs some thought. After I liberated the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviets liberated Poland, I ended up with a sole U.S.-owned province right in the middle (I think at Breslau?). I can't give this province away to Poland or Germany because they are not in my alliance, and I can't invite them to my alliance because I am not the leader of the alliance, and I can't leave the alliance because I am currently at war with Hungary, which will never be over because Hungary is surrounded by neutral countries which won't allow me to fly my bombers or transports over.

You probably know all this already, so back on track. I have played the C.O.R.E. mod a little bit. It adds a LOT of stuff to the game - radically changed tech tree among others. Really it was almost too much for me to swallow as I'm still learning my way so I switched back to stock. But if you have gotten bored with HOI2 give this one a look - though be warned it's a bit buggy at this point I am told.