Transports & other navy combat ships

[Aslan Stark]

Hi everyone,

So i just unlocked new transports: medical ship, troop transports and the ocean liner

1. Can anyone tell me what ocean liners do? If we were able to build and put them in trading boxes as to show our citizens using them that would be cool
2. how can a ocean liner style troop transport have less cargo space then a regular transport?


Also i have unlocked torpedos and minelayers:

1. I am not sure the workings of minelayers compared to harbor defense sqaudrons


P.S i know i am beating a dead horse with a stick but I really hate the fact i lose VC points for scuttling ironclads in 1894......

[loki100]

Hospital ships are the best of this bunch - they act like land hospitals in terms of cohesion recovery.

I think the ocean liner is faster - so good for emergency moves of small groups of units, but other than that its a bit of a flavour unit.

Minelayers are pretty useless, there is a small advantage to the harbour defense units if you want a brown water home defense fleet. Unfortunately I've forgotten what this was. I've built a couple of small fleets on this basis to operate at key overseas ports.

Subs much the same - not least as the early ones are not allowed into the shipping boxes, they might get better with the very late game techs.

Re scuttling. I think this is a mechanism you either like or hate. If you really don't like, amend the unit descriptor or award yourself VC to compensate. I do. To me it reflects the sort of irrational press coverage that still dominates military discusions. You can see the headline in the bonkers right wing newspaper of your particular nation - 'money wasted', 'why oh why was this ever built', 'the nation left undefended' etc etc. That is what the VP loss represents to me. I'm going through the painful process of slowly scrapping my 1870s-1880s fleet, in part to clear up slots for the post 1900 stuff and in part as they are a drain on my coal stocks.

Its painful as I am on the cusp of perhaps managing a clear victory by game end or not - so all lost prestige causes deep distress

[Jonathan Pollard]

I'm going through the painful process of slowly scrapping my 1870s-1880s fleet, in part to clear up slots for the post 1900 stuff and in part as they are a drain on my coal stocks.

This is one question I was interested in having answered, the question of whether coal-burning ships use coal if they stay inactive in port or only if they go out to sea. The rules imply that after ships refuel they won't drain your coal stocks until they refuel again, but maybe you found out through experience that this is not the case.

[loki100]

This is one question I was interested in having answered, the question of whether coal-burning ships use coal if they stay inactive in port or only if they go out to sea. The rules imply that after ships refuel they won't drain your coal stocks until they refuel again, but maybe you found out through experience that this is not the case.

I'm completely sure there is a default charge - as you increase your navy that message of coal usage goes up. I think there is a movement charge as well. When I was rescuing my army from its sunbathing tour of the Aegean, even as the Huns and Vandals drove on Rome, I'm sure that the amount shown was higher. I'll try some tests and see which version is correct.

[Jim-NC]

From my experience, the more ships in port, the more coal you "use" for supplying. If you send your fleets out (even 1 region), the amount of coal drops dramatically, but then they start taking hits. As Britain in the CIE Redux, I am currently spending approximately 120 coal each turn my fleets are in port. If I take my 2 largest, and move them out, my coal usage drops to 100-105 per turn. Thus it seems that even in port, the ships burn coal.

[loki100]

From my experience, the more ships in port, the more coal you "use" for supplying. If you send your fleets out (even 1 region), the amount of coal drops dramatically, but then they start taking hits. As Britain in the CIE Redux, I am currently spending approximately 120 coal each turn my fleets are in port. If I take my 2 largest, and move them out, my coal usage drops to 100-105 per turn. Thus it seems that even in port, the ships burn coal.

this is right. When my entire fleet is in port I was using 135 per turn, I've put about 60% out to sea and usage has dropped to 111. I'll return it all to port and see if it jumps for a period (replenish stocks). This of course makes sense, what that message says is how much coal is being diverted to your navy, not how much is your navy using ... clearly its not drawing on stocks when sailing around Corsica.

edit - on returning them to port, usage has jumped to 141 for a few turns, which implies them replenishing their stocks after cruising around Corsica.

I've never looked at this systemically before, but its pretty neat and logical.

[Christophe.Barot]

In my experience warships (not sail ones sure) use coal when they are IN PORT, but not at sea - of course at sea they get hits due to bad weather, lose cohesion and use supply, so you have to keep them back in port after some time

in my Russian endgame, peace time, I sortied my fleet just to spare coal consumption - coal was no longer available in the world market, and, in spite of my huge production, my consumptuion was even hugest, and sortying my fleet and sparing 40 coal or so made a huge difference

(yes, I know, a Russian powerhouse, but you should see Germany after micromanagement - nothing to do with that, AI will micromanage less, there is nothing you can do short of cheating in her favour - my concern is rather that AI build very little modern ships, or even not at all ... Russian navy came second in the world, and likely first in terms of modern ships)