A Naval Question

[bk6583]

As has been pointed out on these forums you never stop learning and you never run out of questions. When playing Athena as the Union she didn't seem to pay a lot of attention to the naval game, particularly regarding blockade runners. My human opponent however is paying attention to it and as the CSA has been flooding both blockade boxes with blocakade runners. I proceeded to produce two fleets comprised of frigates (for their detection ability) and steam frigates (for added firepower), coupled with a naval leader. I sent each one to the two blocakde boxes respectively. Well after five turns I managed to engage in combat once with one blockade runner, inflicting 3, count'em 3 hits and receiving one in return. Am I just wasting resources and effort trying to go after blocade runners in this manner? I know that going after the ports with naval and ground forces is the long term answer to shutting down CSA trade, but I was hoping to hit my opponent on the open ocean as well.

[Longshanks]

no, you're not.

Your forces will add to the blockade total (see the bottom of both boxes) over time. This affects CSA income.

Your forces at sea need to be O/O to attack, and that burns cohesion up fast (it's next to impossible in the winter). So, have TWO sets of rotating fleets if you're serious about this.

Also, go for blockade ships and block the brown water ports - or better, just invade and take them!

The combo of these two can reduce CSA imports by 75-85% within 6 months - if you can keep it going.

[Jim-NC]

The engagement in the blockade boxes is abstracted. You may go months without inflicting a hit, and then hit the same fleet twice in 1 turn.

Generally speaking, you almost never sink blockade runners. You don't do enough damage to sink them, and they are able to sneak back to port from the box. (The rare exception is if you get lucky enough to hit the same fleet twice). You could try to have fleets set in offensive in the regions his runners must sail through to get repaired/resupplied. This is easier to manage than having ships in the blockade boxes on offensive. But you still have to catch them.

Good Luck.

[Captain_Orso]

One clarification and one comment.

Firstly, your posture and RoE are NOT taken into account in the Boxes, neither Blockade nor Shipping. So if your frigates are in one of the Blockade Boxes searching for fugitive Blockade-Runners, leave them on the Defensive posture Blue/x(what-ever). This will maintain their cohesion the longest. If you are searching for them in open-waters, then you will have to be on Offensive/Attack (O/O) -- no, kids, those are not breastesses .

The chance of actually catching a Blockade-Runner if both your frigates and the BR have high cohesion, is rather small. Once the BR's cohesion starts to drop through Time-At-See and the affects of weather their cohesion will drop and they will become much more likely to be caught and the chances of them getting smacked pretty hard is greater because they will not be able to withdraw from a battle as easily.

The the major tip to both sides is to keep your shipping in top shape.

On A Side Note
Ship-repairs cost an equal percent of their damage to their purchasing cost. So if a brig that costs $12k and 10WS and has 10 HitPoints takes 5 hits, goes back to harbor, is repaired, goes back to blockade running, takes another 5 hits and is repaired again, the owner will have paid the same amount for repairs as if the brig were actually sunk and subsequently replaced. The only thing that you do not have to pay for during repairs is fresh crew-members. These are a free-bee for what ever reason.

You do not have to leave your ships in harbor long enough to get them completely repaired and once the crew has recovered their cohesion they will perform equally as well on the damaged ship as on an undamaged ship; they just won't have the same number of guns and hits making them weaker in combat, but equally as good on evading combat, which is what you want.

I generally leave my brigs at the docks only long enough for the crew to recover and then sail them back out so that they start bringing in money and WS again as quickly as possible. Remember, as long as they are not in the Blockade-Boxes, they are not earning their keep

[Ethan]

A really good clarification, Captain_Orso!

One never stop learning things about naval affairs...

Regards!