HoI3 – The Supply System

The basic principle of the supply system in Hearts of Iron 3 is, at heart, quite simple. Every distinct,
connected collection of provinces under the control of the same alliance has one province that is
considered the Supply Source. This is the capital city in the home area and a port in all other areas.
When supplies are produced, they are proportionally injected directly into the core provinces that
have IC in your home area. Supplies and fuel then propagate through the provinces by the following
algorithm:
1) Units in provinces consume the amount of supplies and fuel they need from the amount
available in their province. (If there is not enough, the units start going ”out-of-supply”.)
2) Starting with the provinces furthest from the Supply Source, all provinces try to draw the
total amount of supplies and fuel required from surrounding provinces, first asking the
province(s) closest to the Supply Source. The amount required is the sum of supplies and
fuel needed by units in the province and the amount asked for by neighboring provinces.
3) Surplus supplies and fuel in provinces are drawn back towards the Supply Source.
So far so good, but there are two main factors complicating the system. First, the level of
Infrastructure in a province puts a cap on the amount of supplies and fuel that can pass through each
day. This can make it difficult to supply large armies in areas with poor Infrastructure, or past
Infrastructure bottlenecks. Secondly, there is a ”tax” on supplies and fuel each time they are drawn
to a neighboring province. This means that the further away from the Supply Source your units are,
the more expensive they are to supply, and the greater strain they will put on your Infrastructure.

Supplies from Allies

If your units (this also applies to expeditionary forces you have sent) are in an area that has an allied
province as Supply Source, they are effectively drawing supplies from that country, which could put
a huge strain on their industry. What happens in this situation is that an automatic supply trade is
created between you and your ally, where you are giving them the amount on supplies and fuel that
your troops are drawing from them. Unfortunately, this trade is invisible and does not require a
supply convoy, meaning it is safe from enemy predation. Hopefully, a better solution will be found
down the road.

Supply Convoys
Supply convoys require an amount of transports proportional to the length of the route in order to
operate at max capacity. Max capacity is determined by the port size in the end province only.
Provided it has enough transports, the convoy will operate at needed capacity, pumping in as much
supplies and fuel as needed in the area, but limited by what the receiving port can handle.

If the troops in the area need more supplies than the Supply Source port can convoy in, additional
convoys can be set up to other ports in the area. However, it is important to remember that the area
still only has one Supply Source. This means that supplies from secondary ports might curve back
towards the Supply Source on their path to the units that actually need them. This is quirky, but
should not pose much of a problem.
Why not trace direct Paths?
People often ask for a supply system where each unit traces its own path to the nearest sufficient
supply depot, and then pull supplies from it. This would be more accurate and would avoid the
quirks of the HoI3 system. However, it would also be tremendously costly in terms of CPU use, and
would make the game completely unplayable. (In computer science, the problem is known as the
”bottleneck travelling salesman problem”.)