CSA depot building

[gchristie]

As the CSA I am having difficulty building depots using river transports. I've tried building depots at Island 10, Columbus and Paducah, but each time the "build depot" button is grayed out. I'm using version 1.13b with quick fix 5.

I've enough transports and loyalty, per the wiki:

"Building a depot

To build a depot, you must satisfy the following conditions:

* The region must contain either 2 undamaged supply wagon units or 2 undamaged transport ship units.
* You must have at least 50% control of the region where it's going to be built

Note that the 2 units are consumed when building the depot. "

Is there something about those towns that prevent building a depot with river transports?

I can post game files if necessary, but I'm assuming I'm overlooking something in the game design .

Any helpful advice is much appreciated.

[77NY]

As the CSA I am having difficulty building depots using river transports. I've tried building depots at Island 10, Columbus and Paducah, but each time the "build depot" button is grayed out. I'm using version 1.13b with quick fix 5.

I've enough transports and loyalty, per the wiki:

"Building a depot

To build a depot, you must satisfy the following conditions:

* The region must contain either 2 undamaged supply wagon units or 2 undamaged transport ship units.
* You must have at least 50% control of the region where it's going to be built

Note that the 2 units are consumed when building the depot. "

Is there something about those towns that prevent building a depot with river transports?

I can post game files if necessary, but I'm assuming I'm overlooking something in the game design .

Any helpful advice is much appreciated.

Are you trying to use those two stupid permanently 2/5 transports? Does Columbus have a harbor?

[gchristie]

77NY,

Thanks for the reply.

I haven't built any southern river transports yet, so I guess they are the "stupid 2/5 transports." Why are they stupid and what does 2/5 mean? Both squadrons each have two elements of transports apiece for a total of 4 elements. And they are at full cohesion with no red in the elements so I assume they are full of supplies.

I don't recall if Columbus has a harbor, the ships can enter Columbus, but I'm pretty sure Paducah does and I can't build there either.

Perhaps the "at start" transports are the problem, so I will try building two new ones and see if they work.

I also realized that I made a mistake in my post, you need at least 50% military control, not loyalty, to build a depot (but I have over 50% MC in all three places.)

Much obliged.

[77NY]

77NY,

Thanks for the reply.

I haven't built any southern river transports yet, so I guess they are the "stupid 2/5 transports." Why are they stupid and what does 2/5 mean? Both squadrons each have two elements of transports apiece for a total of 4 elements. And they are at full cohesion with no red in the elements so I assume they are full of supplies.

I don't recall if Columbus has a harbor, the ships can enter Columbus, but I'm pretty sure Paducah does and I can't build there either.

Perhaps the "at start" transports are the problem, so I will try building two new ones and see if they work.

I also realized that I made a mistake in my post, you need at least 50% military control, not loyalty, to build a depot (but I have over 50% MC in all three places.)

Much obliged.

"Stupid" because they frustrated me for a few games until I realized they never, never build up to 5/5 health.

I should be more careful calling things "stupid" because, knowing this crowd, there is probably a scrupulously historical reason why a couple permanently-partial transports were created.

That's your problem. You also get two 5/5 full transports to start (or that unlock by summer 61) that should work. As you noted in your first post, transports and wagons need to be at full health to build a depot.

I asked about the harbors b/c I'm not sure if the transports can build a depot in non-harbor regions, but wagons can.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[77NY]

The "starting" low element transports are not "stupid". They start that way because that's the original starting strength of the unit historically. Unfortunately, the game itself can't replace missing elements of Naval units at this time.

Currently by game design, there is no such thing as naval replacement factors. Instead naval units are rebuilt by assessing a proportional cost when the units are in a port. Since there are no "naval replacements" the original unit's element makeup is the "static" definition of the unit and it can't build up any further. In some cases you can combine units, though I'm not exactly sure which combinations work.

Land units by contrast are rebuilt by generic replacement units that you can purchase on the replacement screen, thus their original makeup though not complete can be built back up by the expenditure of these replacement units and recently the capability to replace completely missing elements was added to the game by allowing for the expenditure of a complete replacement unit (something the naval units do not have as mentioned above). I suspect that if or until the naval units have a sort of replacement unit system designed for them that they will not be able to build/rebuild completely missing elements.

edit> I should add here that the requirement of 2 supply units to build a depot will be changing in a near future update to be a requirement of 4 supply elements instead... This means you count the number elements instead of the number of units. River transports costs have been tweaked up slightly to compensate for this. Though cheap, if you factor in their ability to be converted to depots, their costs had to be at least the same as Ocean transports.

Gray, this is why I tried to back off my original "stupid" comment.

No, you are absolutely right. The two partial CSA transport units are not "stupid." They are, IMO, "of limited practical value to the CSA." How's that?

Seriously, thanks for the explanation. I was also wondering about some of the free brigs that start with an 8/15 value and never increase. That explains it. I'll try combining and see what happens.

[Redeemer]

[quote="77NY"]
No, you are absolutely right. The two partial CSA transport units are not "stupid." They are, IMO, "of limited practical value to the CSA." How's that?
QUOTE]

The two half strength units can be combined.

[gchristie]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[77NY]

The two half strength units can be combined.

Are you messing with me, Redeemer?

How can fleet units combine?

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Redeemer]

Like Gray says. You can also bring the less than full strength USA blockade fleets up to 8 elements this way. I think there are two, maybe three, that you can add elements to. You select the units to be combined then hit "Ctrl" and "c" together.