Supplies in the time of Romans

[Philo32b]

I hesitate to say anything because the game is so beautiful as it is and I am sure it will prove to be quite enjoyable. But AGEOD has shown that it was willing to change the fundamentals with different titles and there could be an opportunity to explore new strategies in this title with some changes. The point is that supply in AJE may not be completely historically accurate. From the pre-ordered copy it looks like supply is done the same as RoP, with supply lines of communication back to cities or depots. But from what I understood, in the age of Roman legions there was no necessity to have supply lines. For example, in the introduction to Oxford Univ. Press' 1997 translation of Julius Caesar's _The Civil War_, John Carter says:

[INDENT]A Roman army needed no "lines of communication" back to any base or HQ. It was a self-sufficient organism, providing it could go on finding food and water as it went. This was why Caesar was able to march away into Thessaly after his defeat at Dyrrachium, and still face Pompey on more or less equal terms (ignoring his disadvantage in numbers). It did not matter that he was "cut off" from Brundisium, or Larisa, or the coast of Epirus, or any other place at all. The locality of Pharsalus had no particular strategic significance--the battle simply took place when both generals, at last, desired it (xl).[/INDENT]

Roman armies were basically marching villages, able to hunt and gather food, and manufacture supplies and arms, on the road.

It is possible that the game would be more enjoyable with lines of communication, but it might be a nice diversion if they were taken out, such as how BoA2 was a diversion from lines of communication. With BoA2 new strategies needed to be developed, which made it interesting. What if lines of communication were also removed from AJE (and also the need to pull supply from anything other than the land around)? It might be an interesting change. Perhaps an army could restore its supplies only if sitting still, and perhaps control of the zone would influence supply gathering.

I can tell I will absolutely love the game as it is, with lines of communication and all. (And maybe John Carter is not the expert on military logistics he presumes to be.) I just wanted to let you know of the opportunity for a potentially interesting twist of strategy (for a patch down the road, of course.)

[lycortas2]

Carter is an extremely badly source as he is an idiot and you are taking his statement out of context. For a short time an army could live off the land in an inhabited area like Macedonia where the supplies could be requisitioned and paid for later but ancient armies did not hunt and gather food for 60,000 men. You cannot.

Even if you have maybe 5,000 men and are trying to forage it would slow your march speed to a few miles per day.
Rome had created an extremely efficient supply service for their army because it needed it and because the supplies were coming in the army could outmarch any other army. As an example the Romans calculated exactly how far oxen drawn wagons could travel and still provide positive supply. Sea supply was used as often as possible as it was much more efficient.

Watch taking anything in a book by Julius Caesar seriously; he was writing for the home audience not for historians.

Mike

[gekkoguy82]

I thought the supply system was basically that used in WIA...at least that's what had been mentioned previously.

[Person of Interest]

From reading the manual and playing around with the pre-order copy it appears that supply is done quite a bit differently in AJE from RoP. There aren't really any supply lines and supplies are not "pushed forward" along it from some Depot of City. The armies in AJE only draw supplies from the area they occupy or any adjacent area. The Wagons allow for a bit of flexibility and help in barren areas but generally the player will not want to take a large army into a region that is desolate or at a minimum they will be forced to quickly move on to greener pastures. A Roman army in AJE carries about two months of supply with it and with careful management should be quite self sufficient. This seems to rather accurately reflect my understanding of how the Romans supplied their armies. A game can't accurately depict such things as logistics in detail of course but AGEOD did rework the supply system to more accurately reflect the differences between ancient logistical support and modern.

[vorkosigan]

This is a quite controversial and therefore interesting topic

A few sources for those interested:

The Logistics of the Roman Army At War (264 BC - 235 AD)
J. P. Roth

Hunger and the Sword: Warfare and Food Supply in Roman Republican Wars
P. Erdkamp

Both are from the late 90's, and that I think is a long time ago, and both sort of agree with the Roman State being able to keep a supply chain by subcontracting to the "private sector" the transportation of grain, foodstuffs and weapons/armor to armies overseas or along major river lines. This makes a lot of sense to explain how were possible the campaings which brought to a happy - for Rome - conclusion of the Second Punic War. In the Late Republic, the Marian Reforms covered the notion of supply trains as well as legionnaires being able to haul an important part of the supplies they needed (the Marius' Mules).

I agree with Person of Interest: the mechanics in place in AJE seem to reflect pretty accurately Roman logistics - as in what most scholars agree with That is, either live off the land - and kiss goodbye to mobility - or live off baggage trains. Or operate with well established LOS's (the manual mentions cities, ports and depots) on Section 10.2 of the manual:

Each turn, supply points (both General Supply and Ammunition) are produced and stored in friendly-controlled
cities, ports, fortifications, and depots. Supplies are produced and distributed on the first day of each game turn
and generated solely in basic or full SC increments The number of full or basic SCs produced by a structure depends
primarily on the level of the structure, but other factors modify that number

I can't see the Roman legions living off the land during Traianus campaign against the Dacians, or the ill-fated Julianus campaign against the Sassanids, two hundred years later, nor without operating supported by good supply bases in their rear (Panonia, Palmyra). As I said before, an earlier example - and the first time the Romans had to deal with such a problem - was in the Second Punic War, especially during the early part of the campaign in Spain - until the Iberian tribes started to go over the Roman side, opening up lines of communication to the sea ports - and Africa.

[yellow ribbon]

even living of the land demands some mobility, the romans had own scouting troops which took care of that. they avoided to cross regions twice in a summer, and if no mobility was given, they even ate the grass from the ground, as other armies did 17-1900 years alter from time to time

most food&bev. was transported ON_MAN, means the legion had to carry it itself, while the extra weapon, personal belongings/spoils of war, additional (large weapons per centur.) weapons, entrenchment equipment, tents etc were in the wagon train/thousands of slaves which accompanied the legions

Its no secret, yes,

- the f&B in the personal packages are dominant, not the supply wagons

- you have to stay in a region or you dont get resupplied

- yes, either you need a city or a high level depot to refill large troops/armies or even supply wagons, anything else will be too slow (the "old" supply system)

My opinion as a tester and long years player of their games, independent of WHAT kind of system you have, you need always too many supply wagons to support casual players or people who dont get the system (even after years)

also, i figure, its a strange discussion that many will ask maybe for different supply system, but dont play it with historical attrition and thus higher expenditures.
for balance its needed you can cope one of both, replacements problems or supply problems (thereby replacements) without much problems, otherwise frustration would be to large for many players just getting into AGEOD style of games

***************

PS:

yes, same i read, the supply in predefined places, including winterquarters, was private business. often enough the stuff however never reached the battlefields edges, or too late

but do you know that even the public grain distribution in Rome was for many years.
members holding the cursus honorem had to buy/gather the tribute in provinces, transport it on their own costs to Rome and distribute it on their own costs. that happened for Romans considered manual labor in agriculture (slaves) for that cheap. that gaining profits from growing wheat in Italy was thought as not possible.
for wine and olive oil, it is historically known that it came from Italy itself, and we are talking about a lot of oil

[vorkosigan]

I've been reading over the years more about military history of the Roman Republic and Empire than civil history. That thing you write about the public grain distribution system is quite interesting.

Regarding supply wagons. From my experience with AGEOD games, players will tend to build a lot of supply wagons to keep an ahistorical tempo of operations (and here I include myself). I must say I have never tried this against a human player, but one way of steamrolling the AI is to establish a two tiered logistic echelon, moving back and forward from the frontlines supply wagons, thus maximizing supply (and doing a heck of micromanagement). This is particularly true of AACW with the Union: it is an industrial society - and is modeled as such in the game - and it has the means to produce a LOT of supply wagons. Against a CSA human player this might indeed not so easy to do: especially if he uses cavalry deep into the rear of Union main armies.

[Sir Garnet]

years player of their games, independent of WHAT kind of system you have, you need always too many supply wagons to support casual players or people who dont get the system (even after years)

Which to me fits well the historical difference between logistics systems with different degrees of command attention, efficiency, and corruption. I hope in AJE those chains of wagon trains are easily lootable.

[Philo32b]

Despite my ignorance I am glad that I made the OP as some of the posts have been very interesting and eye opening.

What made me think that supply in AJE was like RoP was when you hit '2' or the supply overlay button, a popup at the top of screen flashes, "Regions were supply can pass through." However, after reviewing the manual in more detail it does indeed look much more like BoA2 for supply.