Who's afraid of the Big Bad Harbor Forts?

[Cardinal Ape]

Ya, brownblocking is pretty nice. One thing I have to test, but I suspect is true, is that a city making halved production from a brownblock also further reduces its money income a second time from the blueblock.

Do remember that taking coastal forts will force a brownblock on the city it used to protect via event. Taking one of the New Orleans forts is incredibly effective since it will also add 20% to the blockade % as well as hurting the city itself.

______

I tried messing around with this feature of using emplaced artillery to reduce/increase the number of ships required to blockade a port; it is interesting.. I can't say I fully understand it..

I'm fairly sure that the +4, -4 can only kick in once. I couldn't get it higher or lower. In theory, if it could kick in more than once, then Charleston should require 24 ships to blockade it, no? It would be an extra 12 from the three adjacent forts and another four from Charleston's own artillery added to the base of eight for a total of 24.

Maybe it is a good thing that it only kicks in once or some punk might do something crazy like building even more forts around Charleston bay in an attempt to increase the requirement to 36 ships. Yup, that punk was me and it didn't work.

A strange thing I was able to do was to use an infantry unit that had a range of four to affect the required number of ships to blockade with. It worked.

[GraniteStater]

I am pretty convinced that brownblocking is superior to blueblocking. You directly affect production in the blockaded region(s), and depending on which harbor it is you also add to the overall blockade % affecting all enemy harbors. On top of this you derive some direct military benefits (intel obviously, but others as well) simply from the forward position. Yes, you run the risk of suffering expensive to replace hits, but forts don't deal that much damage relative to the size of a blockade squadron, especially considering you have some chance of avoiding the bombardment altogether. Brownblocks need relatively small fleets compared to an equivalent effect achieved via blueblocking, depending on what you are blockading, and can often be established using cheaper ships like gunboats and brigs (although then hits become a bigger problem).

Absent sandbox testing showing that the average hits incurred is a greater cost than the effect you get, I am inclined to think that direct Union blockades of cities like Charleston and Savannah are more effective than putting the same fleet into the blockade box.

Thanks for the statements. For the record, I just add brigs to the Box Blocks and some doo-dads. My main builds are BFs and brigs and TPs. You'll need about eight BlkSqdns, give or take, more or less. I don't build seagoing ironclads or the armored frigates, or any frigates.

Also, the Ursine Captain had a real good suggestion: Naval Engineers. One for Atlantic City (build a Depot there, too) and one for the rivers. Maybe some for Pickens and Monroe.

[Straight Arrow]

[quote="Cardinal Ape"]Do remember that taking coastal forts will force a brownblock on the city it used to protect via event. Taking one of the New Orleans forts is incredibly effective since it will also add 20% to the blockade % as well as hurting the city itself.QUOTE]


In the light of this, why try to defend key harbor forts?

Would it not make more sense for the CSA to destroy them?

When a fort is defended by a standard garrison, the Federals have the ability to swoop down and easily take it.

Razing a harbor fort would prevent a cheap blockade and rob the North of an excellent base.

What say you?

[ArmChairGeneral]

Strait Arrow,

That sounds like it makes sense. You can only get the emplaced artillery bonus to blockade size once, so extra forts won't help in tiles with multiples. You lose out on potential extra bombardments of blockaders or passing ships, but as discussed these aren't huge for an unreinforced fort and don't happen that often anyway. Since you don't have the resources to defend all of them, it makes sense to trim the extras so you can concentrate your defenses on the ones you keep, and deny the rest to the enemy by destroying them. I am pretty sure razing cost VPs, but so what, you would lose the same VPs if they were captured, and there are a lot of other VPs out there to make up for it.

[Cardinal Ape]

Destroying the coastal forts is a great idea. Sadly, the distant blockade events don't require artillery or any unit to be present in the region. Nor does it even require the fort itself! The only thing that matters is control of the region.

I'd say the distant blockade events are flawed. They really ought to require something more than a plot of land with a planted flag..

[Straight Arrow]

I've been playing around with this idea of the CSA destroying the sea coast, harbor fort system and here's what I have come up so far:

A fort must be destroyed by a unit that is inside the structure and not in a stack that contains any locked units. The process takes 15 days. Anchorages associated with forts are not destroyed. Troops inside the fort appear in the now empty area. Locked troops remain locked. But, as they have artillery, the old garrison will rapidly dig entrenchments and will still be able to bombard passing ships.



I'm looking for the downside here; would the following hold true? Ammo production would drop, entrenched defending forces would be forced to retreat much easier, some existing garrisons would be stranded in areas that no longer had a supply source, and perhaps worst of all, this is gamey to the max and totally unhistorical.

On the upside: you no longer have to worry about defending the area and can concentrate forces where they count, cites would not be easily blockaded by captured forts, the Federals would no longer have targets that yield a secure and cheaply defended costal base, and perhaps most important of all, the Union would not have captured a point that pulls supply. They will now be forced to create a supply network from scratch by building a depot or capturing a size 3+, coastal city.

What say you?

[GraniteStater]

You're one sneaky son of a gun...

[Cardinal Ape]

I've been playing around with this idea of the CSA destroying the sea coast, harbor fort system and here's what I have come up so far:

A fort must be destroyed by a unit that is inside the structure and not in a stack that contains any locked units. The process takes 15 days. Anchorages associated with forts are not destroyed. Troops inside the fort appear in the now empty area. Locked troops remain locked. But, as they have artillery, the old garrison will rapidly dig entrenchments and will still be able to bombard passing ships.

You don't need to be inside a fort destroy it. When I tried it the troops inside the now destroyed fort kept their entrenchment level despite losing the fort.

I'm looking for the downside here; would the following hold true? Ammo production would drop, entrenched defending forces would be forced to retreat much easier, some existing garrisons would be stranded in areas that no longer had a supply source, and perhaps worst of all, this is gamey to the max and totally unhistorical.

On the upside: you no longer have to worry about defending the area and can concentrate forces where they count, cites would not be easily blockaded by captured forts, the Federals would no longer have targets that yield a secure and cheaply defended costal base, and perhaps most important of all, the Union would not have captured a point that pulls supply. They will now be forced to create a supply network from scratch by building a depot or capturing a size 3+, coastal city.

What say you?

The main downside that comes to mind is that without the forts the Union can blockade you with ships more easily. But since ships are really expensive that may not be a bad thing. New Orleans can not be blockaded with ships - maybe it's forts are the best targets for your plan.

The supply issue could delay the Union, but not by much. One can build flatboats in just about any captured port. They can even be built in the ports of destroyed coastal forts.. It looks funny, tents and cannon balls floating on water..


I do feel this strategy has potential. However, the lack of requirements in the distant blockade events seriously hinders its effectiveness. If the Union had to rebuild the fort in order to induce a blockade then you would be in business. Against the AI this might work; Athena may not view empty regions as viable targets. Against a human a house rule could go a long way to bring this bad event back to reality. Maybe something like, 'The Union must use due diligence to rebuild any destroyed coastal fort if they intend to affect the blockade with it. Either rebuild the fort or vacate the region.'

If that was the case, I'm not sure I would be willing to rebuild those forts. Maybe for New Orleans and Charleston, but most likely not for any lesser port.

[vicberg]

Why not change the values that forts are worth for blockading rather than extensive strategy for denying the Union forts

bloAdjFriendlyFort = -4 // brown water blockade, bonus given by adjacent fort
bloAdjEnemyFort = 4 // same, for an enemy fort (malus)
bloMinSUToBlockade = 8 // Nb of SoL elements needed or pts given by a fort to blockade a zone

Reduce bloAdjFriendlyFort down a notch and that resolves at lot of this.

[Cardinal Ape]

I tend to shy away from mods because I only play PBEM. Getting both player's mods synced up can be a pain. I'd much rather see the changes in a patch.

But if anyone else would like a modification to the distant blockades, speak up and I can provide one. It would be a few minute operation. Should just be a quick find and replace, add a line or two to check for a fort structure and piece of artillery.

[Straight Arrow]

In a current pbem, I'm trying out having the CSA destroy chunks of the sea coast, harbor fort system.

I'll let you all know how it goes; a report to follow.

What do you suggest that I look for?

[DrPostman]

See how it effects your income.

[ArmChairGeneral]

What (if any) garrisons starve out?

[Straight Arrow]

See how it effects your income.

Will do, but what is the best way to check effects on income?

Is it through watching for changes in the total city income shown through the tool tip? This is what I've done in the past. Or, is it done by checking all the production changes in coastal cities structures?

Come to think of it, do the figures shown on production structures cards ever physically change? If not, is the actual value a hidden figure and calculated by multiplying the base structure value by the blockade percentage?

Hum, is there a better way to calculate income change?




And, yes. I'll keep an eye on the garrison supply status

[ArmChairGeneral]

Forts shouldn't affect income in and of themselves, since the only thing they produce is GS and Ammo (and not very much at that). Cardinal Ape, do you mean the income overall assuming that the sea region in question gets blockaded? I.e. the difference to the income between having the fort vs not having the fort during a blockade? If so, then the effect on income should be the same either way, since brownblocking doesn't scale with fleet size: a port is either brownblocked or not. Only the number of ships needed to establish the blockade would change between having a fort or not if I understand everything correctly. The only time you would see a relative drop in income would be if the blockade fleet wouldn't have been large enough to blockade but then becomes large enough without your fort. This couldn't happen unless you were deleting the only fort in the region, since the effect is not cumulative, so remaining forts with artillery would still affect the # of ships needed.

I am increasingly thinking that though the idea is clever, the only thing you gain is that if the enemy were to take the region after you razed the fort that they would have to wait for entrenchments to build up before they could establish the blockade. (And they might not even need to do that, since it sounds like possession of the region (with artillery) might be enough to distant blockade no matter whether the force could fire on passing ships or not.) The harboremains intact, and they can build a depot cheap (flatboats) so it's not like you are denying them a supply head.

If the distant blockade is established whether the fort is there or not, you might as well leave the fort in place. If you knew it was going to fall anyway you would be just as well off simply putting your troops in the region in passive posture to give them the best chance of escaping before they could be seiged into surrendering NM. They might still get killed and give the enemy NM, but they would at least have a chance to get away or at least not cost NM if they were destroyed. (Split the coastal/fort guns into a separate stack so the garrison can get away better than with the artillery in tow. The guns might still get captured, but they might in an assault too.) No matter what, the result would be equal or better than a straight surrender.)

If you thought you had a decent chance of counterattacking then it might make sense to deny the fort to them so they wouldn't have it when you try to kick them out.

[ArmChairGeneral]

The best way to track changes n income (or any other resource) is via the regions tab in the ledger. The numbers reported there are the modified numbers accounting for loyalty and NM. The structure view only tells you the base numbers, not the modified ones. I doubt structure view would reflect the effects of a blockade, but the ledger definitely does.

[Cardinal Ape]

06/09 Epidemics have struck your advisors in the Mid-West Department.

Ya, the city production and income is the right place to check for blue-block losses. Region list for brown-blocks.

When I was thinking about the coastal forts from a Union perspective I came to the conclusion that is was a 'game' I would be happy to play, because Fort Monroe:
As the Union, if I captured coastal forts for any easy blockade and the CSA was willing to fight for them - or blow them up - it would required them to send forces onto islands. Islands like Fort Monroe. With my sickness I actually sound a bit like Admiral Akbar right now so I must say, "Its a trap!"

If you can't achieve your goal with a few cheap units then it may not be worth the risk of getting trapped on an island by the Federal fleet.

[hanny1]

You want facts? The entire industrial production of the South in 1860 was one-third of New York (the state). There's a little old river mill in Rollinsford, NH, about five miles from me, that produced 1/4 of all blankets for the US Army in the war. That's one mill in one small town in New Hampshire.

Thats not a fact, thats invented fiction.

I guess the devs are busy with WoN.

What i would like is a more detailed economic model, i can make options of RR and industry suckup manpower to dilute theat industry works without people to produce it,but it would be better,if the devs went into more detail.

Using 1860 census n( $ value of all manufacturing production value) here is the breakdown of the CSA States manufacturing output. iE a reflection on at start WSU output.

VA 33%
TX 4%
Tenn 12%
SC 5%
NC 11%
Miss 4%
La 10%
Ga 11%
FL 1%
ALA 7&
ARK 2%

This total output is slighltly less than the border states value. Ie the WSU of the Border States is equal to all CSA.

CSA has 15% of the national total, the Border States 17%, Ohio 17% Mass 16%, NY 13%,NJ 10% the rest the remainder.

IF only heavy Industry is counted ( ie rolled iron, bar and sheet plate, railroad lines etc) IE RR locomatives 19 built in the CSA in 1860 can only be built in the below listed States, the USA built 244.

VA 68%
Tenn 22%
GA 6%
NC 4%#

A map with more emphasis on important regions, the VA theatre is too small, while there is vast areas of map that serve next to no purpose.
The Salmon Falls Manufacturing Company, in what is now Rollinsford, won a government contract to produce 30,000 blankets per year from 63 onwards, so its 90,000 blankets ( 170k reciepts from Government for the same) means you *think* the Union Armed forces used under 100k blankets in the war, oh btw the majority went to the Navy not the Army who had 2/3 rds of output.

Shelby Foote: "The North fought that war with one arm tied behind its back. Harvard students were sculling on the Charles in 1864. If the South had won more victories - and I mean a lot more - the North would have taken that other arm out. They really had no chance to win that war."

When he used the term shoddy,a new word for poor workmanship, he was reffering in part, to the blankets produced for Union service, which was made from captured CS cotton of poor quality and turned into blankets in NH mills.

[GraniteStater]

Thats not a fact, thats invented fiction.

I truly don't care for this characterization, sir. I don't make things up to make points. FYI, I have read that statement about the comparison to NY State, and others very similar to it, in more than a few sources.

I just heard it stated once in a documentary that Rollinsford did that. If you're up on the Salmon Falls Mfg. Co., well, good.

The New York quote concerns industrial production, not selling cotton. The southern 'industrial base' was small, at best. There are ample facts and figures on the subject - the only real contribution to US GDP in the antebellum South was the sale of agricultural goods.

That's a fact.

[hanny1]

Thats not a fact, thats invented fiction.

I truly don't care for this characterization, sir. I don't make things up to make points. FYI, I have read that statement about the comparison to NY State, and others very similar to it, in more than a few sources.

Except that you made up everything, your correct. Cite me any work that contains anything like what you claim, you cant because itsa big fat invention.

I just heard it stated once in a documentary that Rollinsford did that. If you're up on the Salmon Falls Mfg. Co., well, good.

The New York quote concerns industrial production, not selling cotton. The southern 'industrial base' was small, at best. There are ample facts and figures on the subject - the only real contribution to US GDP in the antebellum South was the sale of agricultural goods.

NY quote is factually incorrect, it contradicts every book and historical record that exists, ie you made it up.Manufactures of the United States in 1860, Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census, Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1865), whichdata shows that NYS did not equal the CS manfuctering output.

That's a fact.

That word, fact, does not mean what you think it means.

[GraniteStater]

From your rather discourteous addresses in a history thread (and this is not a history thread, any extended discussions should be in that forum, not here), I see that you are politeness-challenged.

If you wish to go to the other forum, I'll do my best to point out to you that the southern slave-holding states were industrially challenged, by leaps and bounds. Other than that, good luck, because you might need it with the mods if you keep this up.

[hanny1]

From your rather discourteous addresses in a history thread (and this is not a history thread, any extended discussions should be in that forum, not here), I see that you are politeness-challenged.

You cast the first insult i meerly replied in kind,ie dont start what you cant finish.
If you want polite, be polite. I can do both, but your unfamilrity with history and law willsadly mean your posts content will for some time be factually wrong.

If you wish to go to the other forum, I'll do my best to point out to you that the southern slave-holding states were industrially challenged, by leaps and bounds. Other than that, good luck, because you might need it with the mods if you keep this up.

You have had that chance and failled in spades, its the usual resposnse of those whose invented history being counterd with fatcs thats the problem, you get upset, ive read enough of your invented history for the time being.

[GraniteStater]

For the record, I'm not the one who cast aspersions on someone else's learning, educational background, etc.

Now, enough. We don't conduct ourselves like this around here.

[hanny1]

For the record, I'm not the one who cast aspersions on someone else's learning, educational background, etc.

Now, enough. We don't conduct ourselves like this around here.

For the record, i made no aspirsions. I flat out pointed out when and why you invented stuff and passed it off as fact. You have done this since you joined, so its how you do it around here.

[GraniteStater]

To dignify your asservations with any more replies would be unwise. Something about disputing with...

EDIT: Changed my mind. I'm tired of, in effect, being called a liar. I am lodging a complaint.

[vicberg]

Xanax Time! It's a game and not a very good one in terms of play balance at that. This isn't a history lesson. I'll read books for that.

Create a historical game and no one will play it and it's my belief that very few people are really playing this. Certainly not to the level of War in the Pacific, which has been around for a decade, still has a very very large following with 20+ AARs going at any given time. Why WITP? Because they focused on creating a good game. They didn't focus on historical details. Other's have created even more a-historical mods in WITP that are quite popular. Japan, even in stock game has a chance to last to 45, even with marginal play. CSA can only last until 1865 with expert play and marginal play by the Union.

Historical facts are secondary to game play and unless I'm on the wrong forum, this is game?

[GraniteStater]

Yes, this is the main forum, about CW2, the game. Now, some historical points will come up, but there's a separate forum for discussing the history of the War of the Rebellion.