On blockades and what is a 'unit'?

[Candew]

Hello All,

I am sorry if this topic has been beaten to death, but I am trying to get my head around this, so please bear with me

The blockade boxes I understand. They are straight forward. I also understand that blockade squadrons are the best to use for blockading coastal cities. So good so far. I also understand that you need to blockade all entrance points to the harbour of the city you wish to blockade. Again, fully understood.

Now for where I am completely confused:

Does one blockade squadron represent one unit for blockading purposes? Example: 4 blockade squadrons in one fleet = 4 units?

I assumed as much, however, taking Wilmington, for example. It's harbour has two entrance points, each requiring 4 'units' to effectively blockade the port. I have placed one fleet made up of 4 blockade sqaurdron's in each of the designated entrance points.

Now when I hover over the two sea areas, that prior to having the fleets in them stated that '4 units are required to blockade this entrance' it now states that I now require 2 'combat units' to blockade.

To recap: What constitutes a 'unit' for blockade purposes? What make up of squadron/fleets? leure:

[Rafiki]

1 unit equals 1 counter, so a blockade squadron counts as much as a brig.

This is why I tend to use brigs to flesh out my brown-water blockade fleets and allocate all the blockade squadrons to the blockade boxes, where their size actually matters.

[Le Ricain]

Hello All,

I am sorry if this topic has been beaten to death, but I am trying to get my head around this, so please bear with me

The blockade boxes I understand. They are straight forward. I also understand that blockade squadrons are the best to use for blockading coastal cities. So good so far. I also understand that you need to blockade all entrance points to the harbour of the city you wish to blockade. Again, fully understood.

Now for where I am completely confused:

Does one blockade squadron represent one unit for blockading purposes? Example: 4 blockade squadrons in one fleet = 4 units?

I assumed as much, however, taking Wilmington, for example. It's harbour has two entrance points, each requiring 4 'units' to effectively blockade the port. I have placed one fleet made up of 4 blockade sqaurdron's in each of the designated entrance points.

Now when I hover over the two sea areas, that prior to having the fleets in them stated that '4 units are required to blockade this entrance' it now states that I now require 2 'combat units' to blockade.

To recap: What constitutes a 'unit' for blockade purposes? What make up of squadron/fleets? leure:

The base case for blockading a port is four units. A unit can be a frigate unit, a brig unit, an ironclad unit or even a blockade sqn unit. The actual requirement for blockading can be increased or decreased by two depending upon friendly forts (-2), enemy forts (+2) or enemy artillery units (+2).

[Candew]

1 unit equals 1 counter, so a blockade squadron counts as much as a brig.

This is why I tend to use brigs to flesh out my brown-water blockade fleets and allocate all the blockade squadrons to the blockade boxes, where their size actually matters.

Ok, so for brown-water blockade fleets, I should be using 'combat' units (brigs as they are cheap) rather then dedicated blockade squadrons and save those for the dedicated blockade boxes.

What constitutes a good make-up for a brown-water blockade fleet?

Is this kind of detail with respect to brown-water blockades in the manual?

[Candew]

The base case for blockading a port is four units. A unit can be a frigate unit, a brig unit, an ironclad unit or even a blockade sqn unit. The actual requirement for blockading can be increased or decreased by two depending upon friendly forts (-2), enemy forts (2) or enemy artillery units (+2).

Ahh, ok. Now this is making more sense! I didn't know this factoid and I am sure I missed it in the manual.

Thank you for the clarification and thank you Rafiki for your points as well. This has cleared up alot of my confusion.

[Rafiki]

I don't think it's very well covered in the manual; I had to ask here myself when I was wondering about it.

A good make-up? For me, it depends on whether or not the fleet expects to see combat and/or provide fire support for land forces. If so, there are more frigates and ironclads in the force. If not, it gets filled with brigs if I have enough ships to choose.

[Candew]

I don't think it's very well covered in the manual; I had to ask here myself when I was wondering about it.

A good make-up? For me, it depends on whether or not the fleet expects to see combat and/or provide fire support for land forces. If so, there are more frigates and ironclads in the force. If not, it gets filled with brigs if I have enough ships to choose.

Thank you once again!

[Mike]

I use individual ships (frigates & Brigs) for blockading ports, blockade squadrons for escorting transports and blockade boxes, and ironclads for bombardments or blockading ports I suspect there is an Reb ironclad in.

[blackbellamy]

so for blockading port purposes a unit containing 1 brig is just as effective as a blockade squadron unit with 6(8?) ships?

[Mike]

so for blockading port purposes a unit containing 1 brig is just as effective as a blockade squadron unit with 6(8?) ships?

That's how I understand it. I've read somewhere that that will be modified at some future point.

[Wilhammer]

I am very successfully dealing with the Rebs in Virginia using lots of Monitors - the Union runs out of conscripts faster than Cash, so buying Ironclads is about forced on you.


All the ports in Va are blockaded, and the Rebs can cross no rivers, thus insuring that Richmond is cut off in two directions, at least, and that the immediate availability of supplies is cut in half.

Meanwhile, I am doing the same thing in Tenn/Kentucky - Ironclads sure make it a lot easier to take out the Rebs in Kentucky, once Ft. Henry/Donnelson falls, which happened kind of by accident, and was held by a mad rush of Riverine Transports packed with whatever forces I happened to have to load into them.

AMOF, Runyan should be back from his Vacation now, so I think I'll send him a move tonight.

[runyan99]

so for blockading port purposes a unit containing 1 brig is just as effective as a blockade squadron unit with 6(8?) ships?

It would make a lot more sense if the blockade function counted elements, not units.

[Rafiki]

No argument from me on that Could also use blockade value, though that would make it a bit more obscure again, I think.

I think Pocus said he might look at this at some point, but given the length of the list of such things and that Pocus has some well-deserved vacation coming up, we'll just have to be patient.

[Pocus]

yes planned... I will publish 1.06 today (focusing on AI), then on august I think I will do a mixed interface/gameplay patch (for interface, a filter showing or removing locked units is asked regularly eg. For gameplay, this blockade rule can benefits from some upgrading).

[runyan99]

Bump.

I'd still like to see this implemented.