Easy Logistics: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"An Army marches on its stomach."''|'''[[Napoleon Bonaparte]]''', explaining how important logistics are.}}

 

 

 

 

In its milder form a kind of [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality|acceptable break from reality]], but often abused to make fantastic scenarios take place in ostensibly realistic settings. However, at least some of listed aversions prove that "deficit management" game is not only inherent in any logistics model worthy of being named so, but also can make interesting challenges in itself.

 

 

 

{{examples}}

 

* Averted in ''[[An Entry With a Bang]]!''. GDI forces ran low on supplies after the battle to take Port Krin. Also, one of the key meta-arguments in having GDI go for a standardised equipment loadout is to ease supply lines.

* ''[[Travels Through Azeroth and Outland]]'' spends some time describing just how all these far-flung settlements (often in very inhospitable environments) get the supplies that they need.

 

* Averted hard in [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''Fox'' series; for instance, in ''Fox and Empire'', when the Northland forces lose supplies, they have to "forage" (rob peasants) or hunt, which slows their travel speed to a crawl. Fortunately there's a lightly guarded Imperial supply train being sent north...

 

 

 

 

* In ''[[Civilization]] IV'', all units have infinite amounts of whatever, but the player is required to pay money to support the units after a certain point; when invading other civilizations, the units also incur a supply line cost. However, units are still supported even if a certain resource is gone - such as vehicles working indefinitely if the player loses control of all their oil resources. Planes are mainly based in cities, forts, and carriers; they go out and do their missions and immediately return to their base.

** ''[[Civilization]] II'' handled it a bit more realistically. Units were paid for in shields (the production stat, it's hammers in Civ IV) representing the material needs of the unit, paid for by the city that produced the unit. The city supporting said unit could be changed and certain goverment types allowed for a certain number of free units per city (despotism allowed 1, monarchy allowed 3, and fundementalism allowed a wopping 10 and troops that cost 0 shields.

** However, ''[[Civilization]] V'' averts this by having two different kinds of logistics penalties. If you have more units than a supply number based on your population, all of your production slows down. If you have 3 units of Iron, and 5 units that use Iron, all of the Iron units take a combat penalty until you have more Iron or less Iron based units.

* Semi-averted in ''[[Master of Magic]]''. Resources are generalized, but normal troops need ''two'': Gold and Food. Upkeeping enchantments and summoned units eats Mana which you also need for spellcasting and research. Juggling all 3, city production and armies all at once while dealing with opponents can be hard. But how the food gets to the armies that are outside cities and nowhere near any type of (nonexistent) supply lines is never addressed. E.g. a dragon turtle can sit in the middle of the ocean for the entire game as long as you are producing sufficient food and gold to pay for its upkeep.

* ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'' partially averts this by requiring you to purchase levels of "fleet logistics" upgrades to train more capital ship crews and raise your fleet capacity. However, the number of available crews is not reduced when a capital ship is lost, and the material and income penalty yo upay in upkeep for a huge fleet is not reduced when your fleet is annihilated.

* At first, this was the case for the ''[[Space Empires]]'' series. You have construction points for building things, and resupply stations for your ships. As the series progressed, the resources were split, and so were the ship supplies. In the fifth game, there are three kinds of resources, along with general ship supplies and ordnance for the weapons.

 

** Also done on a gameplay level, where the player can find these ammo crates scattered about. The crates contain an infinite supply of ammunition for whatever weapon the player happens to be carrying.

* Played straight in modern Warfare 3, in which {{spoiler|after the chemical attacks across Europe, the Russian Army overruns most of Western Europe in the matter of a day. Handwaved by saving that the chemical attacks took down defenses well enough to allow this.}}

** During the period of time they were cut off without resupply the Marines on Guadacanal fed themselves largely with captured enemy stockpiles of rations. No reason you can't be doing the same thing with German ammo.

 

* Logistics in ''[[EVE Online]]'' is a major part of managing a successful corporation or alliance, especially in outlaw space. Raw materials need to be extracted and refined, starbases consume fuel and supplies, taxes and rents need to be paid, ammo is expended, capital ships need fuel for their jump drives and spare ships and other equipment need to be manually hauled to replace losses. While this [[Time Management Game|keeps industrialists busy]], it also provides ample targets for enemies looking for something expensive to shoot, and disruption of supply lines is a viable tactic to undermine combat readiness.

 

* One of the mildest and most common forms of this is how units in [[RTS]] games usually have [[Bottomless Magazines|unlimited ammo]], fuel and food and are exempt from fatigue. This is an entirely justifiable simplification to reduce micromanagement that usually is not commented upon, but is sometimes handwaved, like in the ''[[Command & Conquer]]'' games, by claiming that [[Applied Phlebotinum]] or magic or somesuch eliminates the need for resupply on the battlefield.

* Slightly dealt with inside ''[[Dawn of War]] 2'' - more units ''do'' hurt your resource income. Though you still gain resources for ''capturing points'', for whatever probably-not-realistic reason, making it likely that this was put in to help players who were currently behind their opponent(s).

* Averted in the [[Hegemony Series]]. You'll need to keep track of where your food's going, and if your army has none, don't expect it to last too long in combat.

 

* Semi-averted in [[Mega Drive]] game ''[[Desert Strike]]''. Your Helicopter can run out of fuel, and will crash if fuel isn't kept topped up, and can only carry a limited amount of ammo, picking up more than maximum makes it go to waste. However, you can only get repairs at a landing zone, if you've got passengers on board, and the repairmen will only fix one sixth of your helicopters hit points per person. So if you land with five hundred of damage, but only two people, you have to continue onwards with half your health still missing. It's as if the rest of the air force wants you to fail.

** If I recall correctly this got a handwave somewhere- your missions are assumed to be time critical, so they'll do what repairs they can while you're on the ground anyway, but once your passengers are unloaded you need to take off again straight away. Which still doesn't make much sense if you're about to explode, but at least they tried.

 

* The ''[[X (video game)|X-Universe]]'' series averts this, hard. Your ships ''will'' run out of ammunition for their cannons, they ''will'' run out of energy for their jump drives, and they ''will'' run out of Mosquito anti-missile munitions. Fighters docked to carriers will sustain losses, and you will need to buy more or order damaged fighters to repair a shipyard—manually ([[Game Mod|unless you download a script to do it all for you]]).

** This isn't even played fully straight with energy weapons. Each ship has only so much energy available for weapons to fire at full force, and the ship can only replenish that energy so quickly, though a ship can continue to fire at a fraction of the speed when the energy runs out. And as each cannon and cannon type have separate power draws, on some of the smaller ships this turns into a game of how much firepower a pilot can load onto a ship without sapping the energy dry in one burst.

* Averted in the ''Caesar'' games with buildings that require raw materials or labour. Raw materials are distributed by handcarts that must be pushed through your streets and each building only generates one cart. This means that importing more than one type of raw material (olives, timber, iron ore, etc.) can lead to production buildings standing idle most of the time. Also, the random paths taken by service providers can easily deprive a house of things it needs to maintain its status for no apparent reason.

 

* Sort-of averted by ''[[Theme Park (video game)|Theme Park]]'', which on higher complexity levels requires the player to buy stock for their shops.

** [[I Take Offense to That Last One|The training weapons are optional.]]

 

* Averted in the ''[[Total War]]'' series of games, when bringing the game to the real-time portion (ie. starting a battle). Your troops can get easily tired if moving any faster than marching speed (and if you march too much, too), including cavalry. All projectile weapons have ammunition limits (Archers have limited arrows and backup knives, certain infantry units can throw javelins before closing in with swords, etc.)

** Also averted in the strategic part of the game, where all units have an upkeep cost to be paid each turn, symbolizing the need to pay, equip and feed the men. No actual supply lines to manage, though.

* ''Emperor of The Fading Suns'' has a partial case. Even when it's off, the actual location of cargo matters only in 3 cases: when moving it to another planet (by actually loading into a landed spaceship; though it's one type of goods per cargo slot, the amount in each "box" is unlimited) or sell it to the Guild (by moving the crates to Agora), or it can be captured (thus emergency stockpiles in well-defended places may help to build more defending units and avoid starvation if production sites are captured or damaged - in part exactly because blockade is impossible). Otherwise goods quietly accumulate at production sites and are instantly drained by consuming buildings (and units, in case of food). Moreover, if you lack goods to build an unit, you don't even need to click at Agora - just press "Build" despite red text, and you get a proposal to purchase the exact necessary amount of resources then and there. Unit upkeep food is used up the same way. Ammo and food aren't counted, only static per-turn upkeep. The "Global Warehouse" option enables the same connection across ''all'' planets (but it's "uncool"). Money are always global and teleporting, and don't even appear in caches. Air units do "run out of fuel" and crash if they finish the second turn in a row not in a city or a carrier (naval carriers "pick them up" automatically); they don't crash when inside other transports, so in emergency you can pick them up with a lander, but this doesn't reset "fuel", so after the next end-of-turn outside a safe location they'll crash.

 

* Averted, unsurprisingly, in the promotional game ''[[Red Cross]]: Emergency Response Unit''. Supplies are limited, and while more are airdropped during the course of each level, if you're found to be wasting them (using up base supplies instead of the ones you already have in the field) then you lose points. There's also a Reality Check button you can hit, which explains in detail how the actual situations have been simplified to make the game remotely playable.

 

* Subverted in ''[[Mercenaries]]: Playground of Destruction''. Supplies and vehicles can be ordered and are usually airdropped. If there is heavy enemy anti-air defense in the area, the planes and helicopters carrying your supplies can be shot down, which will usually destroy your supplies.

** Subverted further in ''Mercenaries 2.'' You even need to supply your own fuel for air drops and missile strikes. You do not, however, have to pay any fuel for your helicopter guy to ''pick up'' any fuel canisters, though.

* Simultaneously averted and played straight in ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'', which puts the player in a Manhattan being fought over by the US military and an outbreak of a zombie virus. Although any military hardware that's stolen has limited ammunition, whether it's a tank or a helicopter or an assault rifle, the military never runs out of these things. Underscoring the silliness of this is that the game keeps tabs on the dollar value of any damage inflicted during an engagement with the military. It's downright simple to rack up trillions of dollars in damage, but somehow the money and materiel keeps flowing in.

 

{{reflist}}