Supply lines
Military units and territories must maintain a connection back to a source of supply; cut the line and units suffer attrition, reduced effectiveness, or collapse. Hearts of Iron IV and Company of Heroes model supply as a spatial constraint on warfare: you can't just push units anywhere, you must maintain the logistical tail behind them. Designers use supply lines to make territory and geography strategically meaningful, to create maneuver-based gameplay (encirclement and interdiction become war-winning tactics), to prevent unrealistic overextension, and to reward planning over brute force. Key decisions: how supply propagates (range from depots, road/rail networks, or abstract zones), the penalty for being cut off (gradual attrition versus immediate collapse), how supply lines can be attacked or defended, and legibility (players must see their supply state clearly). Pitfall: supply modeling that's opaque or micromanagement-heavy becomes a chore that frustrates rather than deepens — the interesting version makes supply a readable strategic layer where cutting the enemy's lines is a satisfying, decisive maneuver, not an accounting exercise. In territory-control designs this becomes explicit connection-tracing: regions must trace an unbroken friendly path back to a supply source or suffer attrition and combat penalties, making encirclement a first-class tactic.
- Dev effort: Medium
- Timing: Real-time or turn-based
- Common in: wargame, grand-strategy, rts
Seen in
- Hearts of Iron IV
- Company of Heroes