Union Stuff....

[mjmooneywi]

Ok some quick questions.
1)Do more than one naval engineer in a port speed construction up more?
2)Is Portsmouth NH the only Naval shipyard that does not get a dedicated Naval Engineer so you have to build it?
3) Shall I wait for the CSA to declare Arizona before I go after Tucson?
4) What does a 'Maxed Out" blockade box look like..how many of each ship (I know its out there somewhere could not find it)?
5) Should I max out blue water blockade before going brown water?

Thanks

[ArmChairGeneral]

1.) I highly doubt it though I have not tested it. Special abilities with the same icon do not stack in any case that I can think of, and two naval engineers would both have the same ability icon.

2.) Not sure, but naval engineers are usually not worth building in terms of bang-for-the-buck in my experience anyway. You just don't get that much out of them, and you start with a lot already. Just build ships in ports where you already have engineers, and spend the engineer money on another artillery piece.

4 & 5) Unless I am mistaken, the blueblock % has a diminishing return, so it costs more and more to get to the higher blockade %s, so at a certain point you would get more ROI from a brownblock. Brownblocks are pretty sweet: depending on the port you get a flat percentage to the overall blockade, and you directly reduce production in the blockaded region by a large percentage (can't recall the number offhand, 50%?). It also doesn't take that many ships to establish a brownblock, and on rivers you can use gunboats. They have some drawbacks, though. You may have to take some hits from bombardment to get in there to blockade, often from multiple forts. You have to keep them supplied manually (although they can stay on station for a long time) and since they are close to enemy ports and not in an off-map-box, they can be attacked by enemy fleets. Finally they take a LOT more attention to manage since for the blueblock you can pretty much just dump ships into the box and forget about them for the rest of the game. Find a way to mitigate these problems and brownblocks are very strong.

As an aside, I personally recommend staying away from messing around too much with naval building if you are a beginning player (not that I'm saying you are). The game is not won or lost there, so it won't make that big of a difference in outcomes, and there is a fairly high overhead in terms of mechanics and tactics you have to learn to make the naval game pay off. The learning curve is already pretty steep, no sense adding to it right from the start. Plus, all the money that doesn't get spent on the navy can be put into a bigger army, which helps win more battles, which is what wins the game.

[Durk]

I absolutely agree with ArmChairGeneral that the naval game is an additional level of steep learning, but as I am fascinated by the naval war in the American Civil War, it can also be rewarding to learn how this game models it very well. There is a lot of application of your historical knowledge in game play.
Additional naval engineers do not help.
There a lots of naval yards without Naval Engineers. However, you have plenty of ports with naval engineers there is not a need to build more engineers.
There is no advantage in waiting for the CSA to declare Arizona as CSA territory before your own advance. There is a bit of an advantage in preempting this CSA decision, if you can.
Brown water blockades are what make a real difference. If you follow the Anaconda Plan and locate Union bases in safe regions to resupply your blockading force, this management focus can be worth your time. But do play with the maximum player involvement setting in Naval Handling to reap a benefit. Get and maintain a fleet which matches the port requirement for blockade for all the major ports. If you can blockade minor ports too, that is a bonus.
It does pay to put some fast frigate, perhaps armored, in the shipping box to protect your own shipping.
The blockade boxes, Gulf and Atlantic, benefit from some higher numbers, but you increasing get a diminishing return. So a 20 to 30 percent factor is fine.

[Gray Fox]

Some players like to create a huge Union fleet. I'm not one of them.

I divide up the Blockade Squadrons that you are given between the two blockade boxes. If a squadron needs a few extra ships to reach max strength, then I'll leave it in a port to fill out with replacement chits first. That's all the blockaders I use. If you set them to green/green, then they can stay on station for years. I don't want to sink runners, I want to constantly reduce the amount of cash the CSA gets. Eventually, these still damage runners as well.

Other than the James River, I don't brown water blockade. Build an army and win the war. Anything else is just stalling. Good luck!

[Captain_Orso]

8<
2)Is Portsmouth NH the only Naval shipyard that does not get a dedicated Naval Engineer so you have to build it?

Why, what would that bring you?

If you don't know of an advantage in doing something, don't invest in doing it.

3) Shall I wait for the CSA to declare Arizona before I go after Tucson?

Again, why?

I know of no reason why taking Tucson at any time during the game would be disadvantageous. Do you?

4) What does a 'Maxed Out" blockade box look like..how many of each ship (I know its out there somewhere could not find it)?

I don't think there actually is any such thing, but the cost and effort would not be worth the value at any rate. I have seen it up to 100%, which only reduces CSA production in the coastal cities by 50%. but IIRC I've seen screenshots with more than 100%.

5) Should I max out blue water blockade before going brown water?

If you could easily BWB a major coastal city, why would you not do that? You can BWB Richmond either from the James River directly in front of the city, or from Hampton Roads, which is the Distant-Blockade region for Richmond.

You do not need blockade fleets to BWB. Put a bunch of gunboats in Hampton Roads and be happy. To BWB you generally need 8 combat elements; a tool-tip of the water region will tell you what you need.

Concentrate on what you know will work, and stop trying to imagine secret tricks and hidden trapdoors. If you're not sure, think of a Reality-Argument™, that will probably be pretty close to how it works in the game.

[Cardinal Ape]

3) Shall I wait for the CSA to declare Arizona before I go after Tucson?

Yes, you should. Its been a while, but I seem to recall that if the Union takes the region before the Arizona event then they will lose out on the NM gained from taking the objective city away from the opponent. Granted, 1NM is not that big of a deal.

[vicberg]

I like to push down the West coast asap, build supply wagons and get a chain of supply from Los Angeles down into New Mexico. This resolves pretty much all supply issues in the far west. 1 NM doesn't matter.

[GraniteStater]

Some players like to create a huge Union fleet. I'm not one of them.

I divide up the Blockade Squadrons that you are given between the two blockade boxes. If a squadron needs a few extra ships to reach max strength, then I'll leave it in a port to fill out with replacement chits first. That's all the blockaders I use. If you set them to green/green, then they can stay on station for years. I don't want to sink runners, I want to constantly reduce the amount of cash the CSA gets. Eventually, these still damage runners as well.

Other than the James River, I don't brown water blockade. Build an army and win the war. Anything else is just stalling. Good luck!

And some of us like to try different things. There's more than one way to skin a cat and you and I have had this discussion before.

To the OP: the first big difference is, are you playing the AI or a human? The AI on LT and COL gets certain advantages that a human doesn't; on the other hand, a human is much more wily and, IMHO, tougher to beat.

From my experiences in AACW and CW2 PbeMs, I evolved what I call HiTech Union with a Real Navy. This is, essentially, buffing up with all the support elements and putting a strong blockade on. I used this in two recent PbeMs. It seems to work; at least viable. Caveats - it takes a long time to put the hurt on the CSA wallet (and build your Navy) - you might not be starting big offensives until 1863. Secondly, I would be building more of a River fleet(s) next time.

There's a synopsis of recent games by me below.

[GraniteStater]

Put a bunch of gunboats in Hampton Roads and be happy.

You'll be unhappy against a human, if you try blocking up close with gunnies. Brigs are quick to build and relatively cheap, even for the CSA, if he wants to spare the shekels. Once the Brig hits the water, it's bye-bye gunboats.

[Wraith]

Why bother with gunboats at all? All I see them do is sink gloriously when instead I could have timber/cottonclads for nearly the same cost and time with, what, nearly triple the combat power?

[vicberg]

And some of us like to try different things. There's more than one way to skin a cat and you and I have had this discussion before.

To the OP: the first big difference is, are you playing the AI or a human? The AI on LT and COL gets certain advantages that a human doesn't; on the other hand, a human is much more wily and, IMHO, tougher to beat.

From my experiences in AACW and CW2 PbeMs, I evolved what I call HiTech Union with a Real Navy. This is, essentially, buffing up with all the support elements and putting a strong blockade on. I used this in two recent PbeMs. It seems to work; at least viable. Caveats - it takes a long time to put the hurt on the CSA wallet (and build your Navy) - you might not be starting big offensives until 1863. Secondly, I would be building more of a River fleet(s) next time.

There's a synopsis of recent games by me below.

Only if your CSA player obliges and doesn't come after you in the East. An aggressive CSA in the East and you are going to wish you didn't build all those boats.

[GraniteStater]

No regrets, none at all. See my last thread about my game with havi. havi is not shy and retiring at all, he is quite aggressive. fiddlers25 had kicked me out of Alexandria, but I had HF; havi had HF, but I had NoVA in strength. Any kind of a decent Union player can keep the CSA honest in the East. That's all you need to do - by the time I had to quit against havi, I had taken Charleston, i. e., outflanked the East and I wasn't seeing any large formations in the neighborhood. fiddlers25 had ceded the MO theater, essentially, I was approaching Little Rock.

I don't want to repeat the whole thread, but it works, it's viable. The idea is not to knock yourself out against entrenchments, but put the squeeze on the CSA financially. This takes quite a bit of time and investment and patience. My NM was OK, good enough, far from good, but good enough. As I was forced to abandon both games, I was starting to gain advantages. Now the Union advances against CSA formations that can't freshen up as fast as they might otherwise. Never forget the Union Replacement rate is half that of the CSA. Even against greater numbers, a CSA defender can hold on to a position with confidence. The Union can get 3:2, 2:1; 3:1 is more difficult and you almost certainly can't get 3:1 against an entire CSA Army, the numbers aren't there. Throw in very rapid defensive MTSG and terrain - it can be very difficult to prise CSA formations out of their trenches. Then, if you have bad losses - NM starts to plummet.

Reducing his $$ income by a third or more is not inconsiderable. From what I saw, it is a viable strategy and it can work.

Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

[vicberg]

It's a very good long term play. Not knocking it at all. I prefer Richmond. All efforts on building troop to takes Richmond and the rest to stretch CSA forces elsewhere. One of the nice things about this game is the varied styles of play.

[GraniteStater]

Some side benefits to a big navy:

* Already available if FI goes south.
* G2, intelligence along the coast and rivers.
* Naval invasions.
* Landing Sailors.
* Get the CSA player reacting to you.

I built perhaps a tad too much on the blue water/brown blockade squadrons. I would build a bigger river fleet next time.

The other component is HiTech: support units to the max, whittle down some inherent CSA advantages. Also, of course, almost needless to say...

lots and lots and lots of artillery.

[havi]

oy Billy the Yank, Fancy try again? I do think Mr.Stonewall has something still up his sleeve for you.

[GraniteStater]

Love to, but can't. Thanks, anyway, havi.