Supply Help

[kickthedead]

Hello All,

I just got my copy after discovering this game (a little late) and I absolutely love it!

My question is regarding the supply system. I have been playing the end of the tutorial as well as another game just to get a feel for things. I have an army I have been supplying with troops from various conquered provinces. The problem is now they seem to starve and get diseased everywhere they go. I looked through the manual (a bit, I'm still trying to read the whole thing). I found that supply is based on the province and that you can increase it slightly by building a fortress? I have built a few fortresses along the way, and even in the province my troops are in, and they are still starving. I think I have a rather small army, the AI player has well over 250 troops in the province next too mine, and I only have about 110.

Sorry for wall of text. Is there any insight anyone can share on how to keep your army supplied? Is the problem unrest in the provinces I have taken on the way?

[Endoperez]

Provinces with little population can't support large armies. Disease isn't instant, so few turns of starving won't doom your whole army. Commanders also can't get disease from starvation.

Nature mages produce some supplies, and there are Nature items that produse supplies. Miscellanous Endless Bag of Wine and Enormous Cauldron of Broth, Earth/Nature Summer Sword, perhaps some others I can't remember ATM.

The AI is very bad about keeping its armies from starving, so his big army is probably starving and suffering from it even worse than you.

[Edratman]

There are 3 forgable items for supplies, the summer sword (100), the bag of wine (50) and enourmous broth cauldron (100). All require nature. The saving grace of this is that indy nature mages are usually abundent. You may have to empower one to level 2, to get the wine bag. Forging the rose (+1 N)with the level 2 mage will get you the ability to make the cauldron. The summer sword requires N2 and E1, which if you don't have in your nation mages, will probably require an indy enchantress.

Also most recruitable mages and priests give a small supply boost, about 10. This is a tough way to feed your armies.

[NTJedi]

kickthedead said:
Sorry for wall of text. Is there any insight anyone can share on how to keep your army supplied? Is the problem unrest in the provinces I have taken on the way?

Endoperez said:
The AI is very bad about keeping its armies from starving, so his big army is probably starving and suffering from it even worse than you.

If you're playing against only human players then you'll need to be careful marching armies into wasteland or swamp provinces. With time you'll be more accurate on what size army to send. Later in the game you can build items which provide extra supplies to the troops.

If you're playing games which include some AI opponents you should increase the supply setting to 275 or 300... otherwise the AI will be weaker. Increasing the supply setting will also keep the independents healthy if a random event drops off a batch of barbarians. A random barbarian, vampire, troglodyte, etc, evet can be good for independent provinces as it will make them stronger... unless supplies are low.

[thejeff]

Edratman said:
Also most recruitable mages and priests give a small supply boost, about 10. This is a tough way to feed your armies.

I wouldn't say most. It's 5 or 10 supply bonus (Can't remember which), per level of nature magic.

There are probably some commanders who get special bonuses/penalties as well, but that's the default.

[MaxWilson]

Unrest is not the problem. Did you notice that a province lists the amount of supplies available in the top left bar as well as the amount of supplies used? Look at all of the provinces in your empire to get a feel for how much supply is available in various provinces, and compare that to supplies used. That won't actually help you (much) in invading enemy lands because you don't know the stats for a province until you conquer it (unless you have national spies like Man and Machaka do) but it will give you an idea why you don't want to move a large army into a wasteland for a month.

If you're already in enemy lands and find yourself starving, you may choose to stop and pillage. It gives you (a little) gold and some temporary supplies (to let you make another attack without being starving at the time). I'm not sure what the formula is for how much of each you get so I don't actually know if it's a good idea. The big problem with starvation is morale so if your army is tough enough you may choose to let them starve. The big problem with long-term, repeated starvation is disease which is a different story, but if you're just 20% over on supply usage or something starvation isn't a huge problem.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

kickthedead said:
...I think I have a rather small army, the AI player has well over 250 troops in the province next too mine, and I only have about 110.

Who are you playing as? Larger troops (you can see unit size by clicking on their HP) eat more, so if you are playing a giant race for example, you may be consuming ~400 supply, and if you are in unfavorable ground, or have Death scale, or BOTH, you may only get 100-200 or in extreme cases even less supply available.

And yes, make sure you look up by the stats of the province, the last line says "Supply: XXX Supply Used: XXX", and that can tell you how far over the limit you are. Once you get the hang of it, you'll only start to starve now and then, moving into a swamp or waste. Just move back out that turn, and if they don't starve again, there's no permanent damage.