User avatar
pgr
General of the Army
Posts: 669
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2014 9:33 pm
Location: Paris France (by way of Wyoming)

Blockade Stratigy

Wed Nov 16, 2016 7:36 pm

I am coming back to CWII after a bit of a break, and decided to sit down and think about blockading a bit. I've always had a bit of a haphazard approach to the blockade (stuff the blockade box) so I decided to take a look again at the wonderful blockade post http://ageod-forum.com/. I have come to the conclusion that getting to a blockade % of 100 could be a lot simpler and resource efficient than most people think.

Blockade points come from two sources, naval units in the blockade box (which has diminishing returns) and brown water blockades of key ports which add fixed values to the blockade (plus ports that take away blockade points if unblocked) . The surprising thing is that there are 101 blockade% up for grabs in the brown water blockade, and 9 of them account for 63%. Of the 9, 8 of the also contain all of the -16% blockade points that comes from unblocked ports. So a brown water blockade of these select ports gives a net 79% to the blockade.

So here is my port rundown (X ports are already blockaded thanks to Forts held by the union in 61):
Iberville, LA (New Orleans) : 16 (-5) (net 21)
Charleston, SC (Charleston) : 8 (-3) (net 11)
New Hanover, NC (Wilmington) : 8 (-2) (net 10)
Matagorda, TX (Matagorda) : 7 (-1) (net 8)
Chatham, GA (Savannah) : 6 (-1) (net 7)
Norfolk, VA (Norfolk) : 5 (-2) (net 7) X
Mobile, AL (Mobile) : 5 (-1) (net 6)
Galveston, TX (Galveston) : 5
Escambia, FL (Pensacola) : 3 (-1) (net 4) X

Now its players choice on how to eliminate these ports, but I wouldn't imagine you need more than 1 or 2 blockade flotillas plus 2-3 amphibious divisions to capture key forts.

My approach would be the following: keep all blockade flotillas that spawned in the blockade boxes there and don't add any more (that should give you a base 25-35% blockade score). Send the first new blockading squadron to Matagorda, which has no protecting fort, and blockade it. Create two divisions and take forts Jackson and St-P to cover NO, which should bring you to the end of 61 (and a blockade score of 55% to 65%). In the new year take your gulf divisions and take the forts around Mobile, and Galveston (raising your blockade score to 66-76%), and create a new division to take the fort outside of Savannah (bringing up your score to the 73-84% range). This would leave you, in early 62 with Wilmington and Charleston as the only big 2 left. Fort busting would be effective against both, or alternately you could refer to the list in the blockade system explained post and blockade the various 2-3 point ports. You could also stuff the blockade box to get the final 15-25% needed to get to 100.

Of course this is all just theory at the moment (although I am sort of play testing at the moment), so I would appreciate any feedback and thoughts. If I understand correctly, the blockade impacts all the production (except for conscripts) from all of the production structures in a CSA port city (not just the harbor), though it would be nice to have some verification of that. In addition I wonder if there is a stacking effect if the global blockade % is 100 and a port is directly blockaded (as in -50% production from the global value + a 50% penalty from being brown water blockaded). I'm not a frequent CSA player, but any testimonials from CSA players who have suffered a strong union blockade would be appreciated.

User avatar
Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
Posts: 619
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Thu Nov 17, 2016 12:37 am

Hey, pgr, there was a pretty meaty discussion on the topic in the thread: http://www.ageod-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=331&t=43186 I had some data tables in there but the new forum seems to have broken them..

I'd agree that getting a decent blockade in place without heavy investment is fairly easy. Though, it is also really easy to go overboard on such a goal.

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to milk every aspect of the blockade, but after a certain point the returns are just not worth it. The CSA simply does not make enough cash; A standard CSA economy that has not lost any ground will lose less than a dollar per blockade percentage point.

The blue water blockade % only effects city cash income. A brown water blockade will effect the cities cash and WS production.

It is possible to induce brown water blockades on many coastal cities without using ships. This can be done by seizing specific forts that impose control on waterways, ie Fort Monroe blocking Richmond. A weird quirk on the map board is that New Orleans can only be brown-blocked with fort control (there is a harbor exit point into a lake that cannot be entered by any ships.)

Overall, I personally like to try to get the big industrial cities of New Orleans and Charleston brown blocked as soon as possible. Most of the time I do this by taking their outlying forts. I lean more towards the idea that hurting their early WS income will hurt more than the lost cash. Sure, the CSA might still be able to build all their infantry without a problem, maybe even artillery, but after that they shouldn't have anything left for railroad investments. Big multi-corp rail movements can win games, or rather, not being able to respond to such a movement can lose games.

In my opinion, the best way for the Union to pursue an economic victory is to take New Orleans as soon as possible. If you can get it before '62 and hold it, its pretty much game over. Once the Union event to increase loyalty fires, the Union will make more from New Orleans than the CSA did, this amounts to about a 70$ swing. It also guts about a third of the CSA WS production, potentially more if the CSA invested in the early option to improve their coastal industry.

The last PBEM game I played, I had New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, and Vicksburg by mid '62. I had the blockade % at 70 using only starting ships. My opponent said he was making less than 165$ per turn. I was making around 400$ per turn, and that's before shipping and the sale of excess WS. When we compared incomes and I realized I was getting almost as many conscripts per turn as the CSA was getting cash.... Before I knew the numbers I felt pleased with myself for delivering a sound ass-kicking, after I learned the numbers I felt like I was beating up on a man in a wheelchair, very shitty.

User avatar
Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
Posts: 619
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Thu Nov 17, 2016 2:28 am

I tried to repair the tables in the old thread. Apparently tables aren't a thing here anymore... So I ended up just doing a copy&paste into a Steam guide.

Here is a link to the table, one doesn't need Steam to view it: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=801038704

User avatar
pgr
General of the Army
Posts: 669
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2014 9:33 pm
Location: Paris France (by way of Wyoming)

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Thu Nov 17, 2016 8:48 am

Nice table and thanks for the comments! Are you sure that the Blue Water Blockade only impacts $ production? The Blockade explained post makes it should like it should be all port production except conscripts.

In any event, any cost effective blockade seems to require a brown water blockade of key ports (with NO being the monster!) that should give a monster benefit.

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Thu Nov 17, 2016 12:44 pm

Some time ago, to check specifically the affects of the blockade on income, I created a scenario with only 4 cities on the map, Richmond, Williamsburg, Washington and Annapolis. I also created two special structures, a Mega-Bank, which per definition produced $100 per turn and a Mega-IronWorks, which produce 100 WSU per turn. Richmond and Washington got one of each.

Image

First off, cities themselves do not produce any money. Only structures in the cities produce money.

Playing around with different numbers of blockade flotillas in the Blockade Boxes and Brown Water Blockading, I could confirm that money and WSU production are directly affected by blockading.

The strangest thing I discovered was that the Mega-Banks and Mega-IronWorks, although their structure definition files state that their output was 100 money and WSU respectively, were actually producing $750 and 150 WSU :blink: . And I have no idea why.

User avatar
PhilThib
Posts: 13705
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:21 pm
Location: Meylan (France)

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Thu Nov 17, 2016 2:31 pm

I believe the output is modified by the NM level...Pocus secret recipe :cwboy:

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Thu Nov 17, 2016 4:54 pm

I'm aware that the NM modifies income; positively if NM is above 100; negatively if NM is below 100. In my test scenario NM is 100, and there are no events to change it, nor am I doing anything which might change it.

At any rate, a 750% bonus to money income ... :blink:

User avatar
Gray Fox
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1583
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:48 pm
Location: Englewood, OH

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Thu Nov 17, 2016 5:03 pm

Here is a synopsis of my original counter thesis for not expanding the blockade.

By whatever means the Union player can enforce additional blockade points over what can be done with the starting/free ships, this effort only deprives the CSA player of cash and perhaps 1 CC and 1 WS per brown blockaded city. The CSA can raise taxes/sell bonds/print money and use Regional Decision Cards to off-set any NM/VP/inflation produced by this for a net effect of zero. The CSA has X amount of cash, Y number of Conscript Companies and Z amount of WS each turn and no amount of blockade will take away enough cash to change that. The net effect is the Union has more ships in the blockade or troops tied down in coastal forts and fewer Divisions for the actual war effort. The CSA has the same number of Divisions as before. So, the difference between the land forces of the CSA and those the Union has left for battle get a shift in favor of the CSA. Hurray for the South!

If a single average Union Division can take one coastal fort and then the next, then of course the CSA can use a single average Division to retake the coastal fort. I mean, the war started when Beau took a Union coastal fort. If you want to take and hold coastal forts or cities, then you have to garrison them too. If the CSA player can't rail in a concentrated force to defeat each disconnected, piecemeal fort/port defense, then I must have slept through strategy 101. The CSA can and should immediately create a creditable threat to D.C. in 1861 to force early Union strategy to meet and beat this threat. That should dominate Union plans for 1861 and much of '62.

That's still my two cents worth.

User avatar
pgr
General of the Army
Posts: 669
Joined: Fri Jan 24, 2014 9:33 pm
Location: Paris France (by way of Wyoming)

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Thu Nov 17, 2016 7:42 pm

Well fox, my logic was based around how to best use the stuff given. There really isn't much of a need to create new stuff. Besides some of these key ports are somewhat remote. NO for example, you only need to take Ft Jackson or St Phillip to get the blockade, and both of those locations are not the simplest places to rail into.

As for the payoff, Ape's little spreadsheet is nice work on the money issue.

User avatar
Gray Fox
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1583
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:48 pm
Location: Englewood, OH

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Fri Nov 18, 2016 12:13 am

Reiterating from the links, the CSA can raise X number of Divisions with the amount of cash, CCs and WS it generates normally. The Union ups the blockade and takes away more cash. So the CSA sells bond/raises taxes/prints money and just uses RGDs to off-set any NM/VP/inflation this might cause. The CSA then still raises X number of Divisions. The CSA doesn't otherwise need to do this for cash, because the bottleneck is CCs and more directly WS, which the blockade doesn't really affect.

The swamps around NO work both ways. The Union might not see the CSA force coming until its a turn or two away. If you have a reaction force standing by to move out in a turn's notice, then they are always static at a port waiting to react and are not available for operations elsewhere.

Look at both sides of the situation.

User avatar
Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
Posts: 619
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Fri Nov 18, 2016 12:40 am

Captain_Orso wrote:First off, cities themselves do not produce any money. Only structures in the cities produce money.

Playing around with different numbers of blockade flotillas in the Blockade Boxes and Brown Water Blockading, I could confirm that money and WSU production are directly affected by blockading.

The strangest thing I discovered was that the Mega-Banks and Mega-IronWorks, although their structure definition files state that their output was 100 money and WSU respectively, were actually producing $750 and 150 WSU :blink: . And I have no idea why.


D'oh, not sure how I missed WS being effected by the blockade %, must have used numbers to small to see the difference. My bad.

I took a look at both capitals, their building production doesn't add up right, not even close. Is there some sort of off map production? Your massive amount of money in Richmond seems to imply there is a multiplier on all production in the capital regions. Both capitals seem to have resources coming out of thin air. Its odd.



Also, if it wasn't mentioned before; Both brown water blockades and the blue water blockade % work in conjunction together.

User avatar
Gray Fox
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1583
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:48 pm
Location: Englewood, OH

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Fri Nov 18, 2016 1:31 am

FYI, in pgr's OP, Norfolk and the James river cities do not remain blockaded.

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Bombard_and_Blockade

"bloAdjFriendlyFort = -4 // brown water blockade, bonus given by adjacent fort
bloAdjEnemyFort = 4 // same, for an enemy fort (malus)"

Once an artillery battery in Norfolk is entrenched sufficiently, the region and the river can no longer be blockaded by Fort Monroe or a Union fleet or even both together. Attempts to brown water blockade other ports may suffer this same fate. So the entire max blockade effort may be of no use against anyone who just entrenches counter batteries of 6-lbers on nearby regions.

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Fri Nov 18, 2016 11:40 am

Cardinal Ape wrote:
Captain_Orso wrote:First off, cities themselves do not produce any money. Only structures in the cities produce money.

Playing around with different numbers of blockade flotillas in the Blockade Boxes and Brown Water Blockading, I could confirm that money and WSU production are directly affected by blockading.

The strangest thing I discovered was that the Mega-Banks and Mega-IronWorks, although their structure definition files state that their output was 100 money and WSU respectively, were actually producing $750 and 150 WSU :blink: . And I have no idea why.


D'oh, not sure how I missed WS being effected by the blockade %, must have used numbers to small to see the difference. My bad.

I took a look at both capitals, their building production doesn't add up right, not even close. Is there some sort of off map production? Your massive amount of money in Richmond seems to imply there is a multiplier on all production in the capital regions. Both capitals seem to have resources coming out of thin air. Its odd.



Also, if it wasn't mentioned before; Both brown water blockades and the blue water blockade % work in conjunction together.


The thing with finding out what is produced where, and why is difficult, if not practically impossible in general.

As far as I can tell, the Regions list <F8> does tell you the correct Money, WSU, and CC production, but I know of no way to 'dump' that list to a file. Also, it does not tell you anything about a reduction in production from blockading or any other variations from NM for example. One would have to analyze changed from turn to turn and asses why there are there.

Actually I am fairly certain that the production statistics are coded into the .hst file, otherwise the game would have no way of presenting them after starting the game again and loading a scenario, but I have no idea on how to decode them. It may be fairly simple if you know where and how to look, but I don't know where and how.

GS and Ammo only have their stock piles listed in the Regions list, but to discover their actual production, you need to have Debugging and Supply Verbosity turned on, and then you have to read through the '!HostLog.txt' after each turn. Log files are overwritten each time the game is started, and if you don't restart the game after each turn, Supply and Ammo production is not recorded properly, so after each turn you must quit the game, and collect all the log files, before restarting the game.

From my test scenario with only Washington, Annapolis, Richmond, and Williamsburg, this is what the relevant !HostLog.txt file section looks like:

10:52:41 (Reporting) Starting CheckSupplyProduction
10:52:41 (Reporting)
10:52:41 (Reporting) Dumping initial supply stocks before production
10:52:41 (Reporting) 212 Anne Arundel, MD (Annapolis - USA): 357 / 752 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 216 Prince George, MD (Washington DC - USA): 2178 / 1083 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 244 Williamsburg, VA (Williamsburg - CSA): 171 / 532 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 255 Richmond, VA (Richmond - CSA): 3318 / 1380 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting)
10:52:41 (Reporting) Dumping initial supply stocks after production
10:52:41 (Reporting) 212 Anne Arundel, MD (Annapolis - USA): 379 / 760 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 216 Prince George, MD (Washington DC - USA): 2235 / 1086 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 244 Williamsburg, VA (Williamsburg - CSA): 193 / 540 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 255 Richmond, VA (Richmond - CSA): 3420 / 1383 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) Ending CheckSupplyProduction
10:52:41 (Reporting) Time from CheckAdvSupplyProduction to MakeAdvSupplyDistribution : 1 ms
10:52:41 (Reporting) Starting MakeSupplyDistribution
10:52:41 (Reporting) 20 Gen. Supply 212 Anne Arundel, MD > 1001403 LantBlock1
10:52:41 (Reporting) 168 Gen. Supply 212 Anne Arundel, MD > 1001402 GulfBlock1
10:52:41 (Reporting) 22 Gen. Supply 216 Prince George, MD > 1001402 GulfBlock1
10:52:41 (Reporting)
10:52:41 (Reporting) Dumping supply stocks after Repartition # 1
10:52:41 (Reporting) 212 Anne Arundel, MD (Annapolis - USA): 191 / 760 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 216 Prince George, MD (Washington DC - USA): 2213 / 1086 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 244 Williamsburg, VA (Williamsburg - CSA): 193 / 540 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 255 Richmond, VA (Richmond - CSA): 3420 / 1383 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting)
10:52:41 (Reporting) Dumping supply stocks after Repartition # 2
10:52:41 (Reporting) 212 Anne Arundel, MD (Annapolis - USA): 191 / 760 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 216 Prince George, MD (Washington DC - USA): 2213 / 1086 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 244 Williamsburg, VA (Williamsburg - CSA): 193 / 540 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 255 Richmond, VA (Richmond - CSA): 3420 / 1383 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting)
10:52:41 (Reporting) Dumping supply stocks after Repartition # 3
10:52:41 (Reporting) 212 Anne Arundel, MD (Annapolis - USA): 191 / 760 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 216 Prince George, MD (Washington DC - USA): 2213 / 1086 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 244 Williamsburg, VA (Williamsburg - CSA): 193 / 540 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 255 Richmond, VA (Richmond - CSA): 3420 / 1383 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) ***** Sea Resupplying - Start *****
10:52:41 (Reporting) ***** Sea Resupplying - End *****
10:52:41 (Reporting)
10:52:41 (Reporting) Dumping supply stocks after Naval Resupply
10:52:41 (Reporting) 212 Anne Arundel, MD (Annapolis - USA): 191 / 760 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 216 Prince George, MD (Washington DC - USA): 2213 / 1086 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 244 Williamsburg, VA (Williamsburg - CSA): 193 / 540 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) 255 Richmond, VA (Richmond - CSA): 3420 / 1383 / 0
10:52:41 (Reporting) Ending MakeSupplyDistribution
10:52:41 (Reporting) Time from MakeAdvSupplyDistribution to CheckSupplyDecay : 221 ms

Will all the cities in play, you can imagine how large this section is.

Also, there is a resources file generated in the Logs folder, which seems to represent the resources a the top of the map, which looks like this:

T2735-Resources.csv
-----------------------------
United States of America (before AI spending)
Money;9250
Victory Points;1056
Rail Pool;376
River Pool;435
Morale;100
Conscripts;500
War Supply;2150
Confederate States of America (before AI spending)
Money;8533
Victory Points;1056
Rail Pool;377
River Pool;436
Morale;100
Conscripts;500
War Supply;1965
Foreign Entry;10
United States of America (after AI spending)
Money;9250
Victory Points;1056
Rail Pool;376
River Pool;435
Morale;100
Conscripts;500
War Supply;2150
Confederate States of America (after AI spending)
Money;8533
Victory Points;1056
Rail Pool;377
River Pool;436
Morale;100
Conscripts;500
War Supply;1965
Foreign Entry;10
United States of America (after turn processing)
Money;9625
Victory Points;1060
Rail Pool;369
River Pool;431
Morale;100
Conscripts;500
War Supply;2225
Confederate States of America (after turn processing)
Money;8908
Victory Points;1060
Rail Pool;369
River Pool;431
Morale;100
Conscripts;500
War Supply;2040
Foreign Entry;10

So with only one location for each the CS and US producing $ and WSU, I could use this to record the affects of the blockade by comparing this file from turn to turn.

But I have no idea what modifiers are in play, from Capitals, city sized, harbor sizes, or what ever. Without a way to decode the .hst file to discover the city productions displayed in the Regions list there is simply no practical way to analyze the situation from turn to turn.

The tool-tips of the aforementioned MegaBanks and MegaIronWorks show $100 and 100 WSU production, respectively, which is simply that which is configured in their structure files, and not what they actually would produce if not blockaded, nor what they actually do produce at a given time in the game.

That's the plight of trying to decipher production in the game.

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Fri Nov 18, 2016 11:58 am

Gray Fox wrote:FYI, in pgr's OP, Norfolk and the James river cities do not remain blockaded.

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Bombard_and_Blockade

"bloAdjFriendlyFort = -4 // brown water blockade, bonus given by adjacent fort
bloAdjEnemyFort = 4 // same, for an enemy fort (malus)"

Once an artillery battery in Norfolk is entrenched sufficiently, the region and the river can no longer be blockaded by Fort Monroe or a Union fleet or even both together. Attempts to brown water blockade other ports may suffer this same fate. So the entire max blockade effort may be of no use against anyone who just entrenches counter batteries of 6-lbers on nearby regions.


At least in respect to directly BWB'ing an harbor, those parameters only influence the number of war ships necessary to BWB.

In general you need 8 war ships to BWB an harbor exit-point. If an harbor has multiple exit-points, each must be blockaded individually, for the harbor to be blockaded.

If you are BWB'ing an harbor, and can also bombard into its exit-point, the number of war ships necessary to BWB is reduced by 4. If the enemy can bombard in to the exit-point, the number of war ships necessary is increased by 4. If both sides can bombard into the harbor exit-point, the modifiers negate each other, and you again need 8 war ships.

From my understanding, the 'distant blockade' regions simply add a region from which you can BWB. I haven't test this, but I believe each is assessed separately, and not in conjunction with each other. So, to BWB Richmond, either 8 war ships in Hampton Roads, or 8 in James River, but not 4 in each with a cumulative of 8; I believe.

User avatar
Gray Fox
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1583
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:48 pm
Location: Englewood, OH

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Fri Nov 18, 2016 2:11 pm

I had Ft. Monroe and enough ships to BWB (the message told me so)...but I got no blockade symbol in Richmond or the other cities on the James because Norfolk had entrenched artillery.

I believe that the two sides negate each other once and that's it. What if the Union had 3 times as many ships to BWB and the CSA had 4 times the number of atillery to negate this mathematically. It just seems reasonable that it would be counted once and either you BWB or not. The ships can't sink the shore batteries so they would have to stand off. The opening of the port is free of ships.

As you pointed out and was my intention, this is only for forts or ships making a BWB of CSA ports and would not affect ships in the blockade boxes.

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Fri Nov 18, 2016 7:34 pm

Gray Fox wrote:I had Ft. Monroe and enough ships to BWB (the message told me so)...but I got no blockade symbol in Richmond or the other cities on the James because Norfolk had entrenched artillery.


Did you test this? I mean really test it, and not just observer part of it?

Test would be something like:
  1. Richmond, Norfolk, etc. were BWB'ed.
  2. CS player dropped eligible artillery in Norfolk at entrenchment level 3+, and BWB was gone on the next turn, without that the US player changed anything.
  3. CS player removed entrenched artillery from Norfolk, and BWB was resumed on the next turn, without that the US player changed anything.
  4. Change of status repeatable on will.

I'd really not want to setup a test, if it's already been done Image

Gray Fox wrote:I believe that the two sides negate each other once and that's it. What if the Union had 3 times as many ships to BWB and the CSA had 4 times the number of atillery to negate this mathematically. It just seems reasonable that it would be counted once and either you BWB or not. The ships can't sink the shore batteries so they would have to stand off. The opening of the port is free of ships.


The bonus/malus are once 'per side, per water region' only. Neither the number of batteries one side has, which can bombard into a region, nor the number of land regions, from which one side can bombard into a water region play a role. As soon as one side has counted one of the bonus or malus conditions once, that's it.

Shore batteries do not negate a blockade. Charleston had dozens of forts and batteries, non of which negated the blockade.

Gray Fox wrote:As you pointed out and was my intention, this is only for forts or ships making a BWB of CSA ports and would not affect ships in the blockade boxes.


Yes, the Blockade Boxes are ... special :blink:, they are also, far less effective than a BWB. There are many things with the Blockade Boxes which deviate from a BWB Image

    Trivia of the Day: Did you know that the Blockade Boxes were an afterthought? Originally there was only BWB, but so many players complained about having to manage the blockade ships, that Pocus invented the Blockade Boxes.

User avatar
Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
Posts: 619
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sat Nov 19, 2016 2:16 am

Captain_Orso wrote:The thing with finding out what is produced where, and why is difficult, if not practically impossible in general.

As far as I can tell, the Regions list <F8> does tell you the correct Money, WSU, and CC production, but I know of no way to 'dump' that list to a file. Also, it does not tell you anything about a reduction in production from blockading or any other variations from NM for example. One would have to analyze changed from turn to turn and asses why there are there.


Ya, it is a bit of a pain in the asses. :innocent:

That is how I pulled all the numbers for the blockade graph; Comparing the results from turn to turn. A second monitor helps make it go much smoother.

At least the region list <F8> data updates itself to any changes made in the host file after a reload. If you up one sides NM by X in the host file and then load up the game you can see the change without running the turn.


Captain_Orso wrote:But I have no idea what modifiers are in play, from Capitals, city sized, harbor sizes, or what ever. Without a way to decode the .hst file to discover the city productions displayed in the Regions list there is simply no practical way to analyze the situation from turn to turn.


So.. as you stumbled upon, it turns out that both factions have a multiplier of 5 on cash produced in their starting capital regions!

I went looking for any reference to the Richmond region in the host file, I found the region number with a value of 5 after it. I changed the 5 to 500, Richmond exploded in cash..

This value is written into all the scenario files. In the 1861 July Campaign.scn the values can be found on lines 138 (Union) and 90010 (CSA).

The multiplier seems bound to the regions of D.C. and Richmond. Moving your capital causes the multiplier to cease functioning, it does not relocate to your new capital.

User avatar
Gray Fox
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1583
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:48 pm
Location: Englewood, OH

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sat Nov 19, 2016 4:19 am

@Captain Orso

Yes I did test it. The 10-lber in Norfolk is fixed and cannot be moved or disbanded. So I can't test #3 and #4. However, programs don't use magic so it must be how it works.

User avatar
Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
Posts: 619
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sat Nov 19, 2016 8:18 am

Gray Fox wrote:@Captain Orso

Yes I did test it. The 10-lber in Norfolk is fixed and cannot be moved or disbanded. So I can't test #3 and #4. However, programs don't use magic so it must be how it works.


I think the magic is real.. I don't know about you guys, but my blockade symbols have never worked consistently. A long while back I reported it as a bug.

Half the time when I start a new April campaign there will blockades in Richmond and Charleston and sometimes not. If there aren't blockades when there should be, I can run the turn, then roll it back to restore the blockades. Other times I can save a game, exit the game completely, and then upon reload, blockades are missing.


Gray Fox wrote:FYI, in pgr's OP, Norfolk and the James river cities do not remain blockaded.

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Bombard_and_Blockade

"bloAdjFriendlyFort = -4 // brown water blockade, bonus given by adjacent fort
bloAdjEnemyFort = 4 // same, for an enemy fort (malus)"

Once an artillery battery in Norfolk is entrenched sufficiently, the region and the river can no longer be blockaded by Fort Monroe or a Union fleet or even both together. Attempts to brown water blockade other ports may suffer this same fate. So the entire max blockade effort may be of no use against anyone who just entrenches counter batteries of 6-lbers on nearby regions.


I think your game magically took away your blockades when it shouldn't have.

It only takes one non-passive artillery in any fort defined in USADistantBlockades.sct to impose a BWB on the regions listed. There is nothing the CSA can do to counter it aside from destroying the artillery.

If the malus worked against the fort blockade event then Charleston would not start blockaded in a new April '61 campaign. If an entrenched artillery was capable of countering it then one would be able to easily see it by starting an April '61 campaign, instead of taking Fort Sumter let the army entrench to 3. Charleston will remain blockaded despite the entrenched artillery. And if you happen to start an April campaign and you don't see blockades in Richmond and Charleston, then run the turn, then roll it back to restore them.. Maybe someone can confirm if I'm hallucinating or not..

User avatar
DrPostman
Posts: 3005
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2011 5:39 pm
Location: Memphis, TN
Contact: Website Facebook Twitter YouTube

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sat Nov 19, 2016 8:44 am

I've noticed blockade symbols being there and then not sometimes. Don't know if that
means the blockade is still there or not though.
"Ludus non nisi sanguineus"

Image

User avatar
Gray Fox
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1583
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:48 pm
Location: Englewood, OH

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sat Nov 19, 2016 9:51 pm

In strategy, luck, fate and destiny are what happens when prior planning meets opportunity. Either blockading works as advertised or it is beyond strategic scrutiny.

User avatar
Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
Posts: 619
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sun Nov 20, 2016 2:06 am

Would anyone else care to do a sanity check on your blockades, please? Are they preforming 100% consistently? Mine aren't.

1.) If you start up a new April campaign are the ports of Richmond, Charleston, Hampton Roads, and Pensacola blockaded?
2.) If not, does running the turn cause the blockades to appear?
3.) If you completely exit the game back to the desktop and reload it, are the blockades still in the exact same places?
4.) If you rollback the turn, are there now blockades where there were none before?

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sun Nov 20, 2016 12:22 pm

Gray Fox wrote:@Captain Orso

Yes I did test it. The 10-lber in Norfolk is fixed and cannot be moved or disbanded. So I can't test #3 and #4. However, programs don't use magic so it must be how it works.


To affect a BWB, your artillery must be able to bombard.

To be able to bombard, Artillery:
  • May not be in PP (Passive Posture).
  • May not be lead by a leader who is unactivated in the turn in question.
  • Must have some amount of ammo; I don't know offhand how much.
  • If the above conditions are met:
    • If your artillery inside a fort, redoubt, or stockade, it will automatically bombard.
    • If it is at entrenched at level 3+, it can select the Bombard Passing Ships SO, to allow it to bombard.

If you arrange for any of those conditions to fail, then the artillery cannot affect a BWB.

Anyway, I actually did some testing, which I will post below.

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sun Nov 20, 2016 1:32 pm

This is giving me such a headache :cuit:

Firstly, it has actually been reported previously in the The Blockade System Explained stickied thread, that the Distant Blockade symbols are not working correctly in this post.

What I discovered is that after executing a turn, if the conditions for Distant Blockade are met, the distant-blockaded harbors are correctly marked. If you then quit the game and reload the scenario, the harbors are no longer marked :crying: . Harbors which are BWB'ed are marked.

The rest is complected and uncertain for reasons I will explain later.

One must understand blockading to understand its implications. When only Blue Water Blockading is done, in other words the Union has only ships in the Blockade Boxes, an 'overall' blockade value is calculated using the sum-total of the blockade values of all the ships in the Blockade Boxes, factoring in the CS harbors, which are not Brown Water Blockaded (BWB'ed harbors add a value to the overall values, and non-BWB subtract from the overall value, and captured cities with harbors are treated as being BWB'ed). This total, from may understanding, is what is displayed on the Blockade Boxes as a percentage, and is then divided by 2 to give the actual percentage affect on production in all CS Coastal Harbor Cities, whether they are in the Blocked Harbors list or not. Additionally, if a harbor is directly BWB'ed its production is directly reduced by 50%, in addition to it's value being added to the overall blockade value, if it is in the Blockaded Harbors list.

Distant Blockading is done through scripted events, which each turn evaluate the ownership of the regions containing coastal forts, which historically enhanced the effectiveness of the blockade of harbors further up river or inland from those forts.

I understood previously that the Distant Blockade of a city was equivalent to it being BWB'ed, but I can find no actual evidence for this assumption. It appears to me now, that if Distant Blockaded, either the Blockaded Harbors list value is added to the overall blockade, or the SetDistantBlockades script command is broken, as I can find no evidence of production being greatly influenced in a Distant Blockaded harbor city, let alone it being halved :( .

I can however see the production of BWB'ed harbors being halved, if the Regions list is to be trusted, an I'm not so sure of this. During my testing I was running a turn, quitting the game to gather logs etc., restarting the game, and reloading the scenario. When I went to look at the production values of Richmond, which was being Distant Blockaded through Fort Monroe, I could see no influence on production.

Then through chance, I checked the Richmond production in the Regions list before quitting the game, and low-and-behold, production was halved for $ and WSU, which is shown in the list. However, when I loaded the scenario again, it was not listed as halved :mad: .

Also, evaluating GS and Ammo production in Richmond through the !HostLog.txt' file with Debugging and SupplyVerbocity turned on, I can directly see the before and after numbers of GS and Ammo, and use those to calculate production, and there is no indication of their production being directly influenced by Distant Blockading, but the 50% reduction through BWB'ing is very apparent.

So, working or not? I'm not sure Image

User avatar
Gray Fox
AGEod Guard of Honor
Posts: 1583
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2012 7:48 pm
Location: Englewood, OH

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Sun Nov 20, 2016 2:42 pm

Danke viel mal, Herr Hauptmann!

A lot of food for thought.

User avatar
Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
Posts: 619
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Mon Nov 21, 2016 4:24 am

Captain_Orso wrote:I understood previously that the Distant Blockade of a city was equivalent to it being BWB'ed, but I can find no actual evidence for this assumption. It appears to me now, that if Distant Blockaded, either the Blockaded Harbors list value is added to the overall blockade, or the SetDistantBlockades script command is broken, as I can find no evidence of production being greatly influenced in a Distant Blockaded harbor city, let alone it being halved :( .

I can however see the production of BWB'ed harbors being halved, if the Regions list is to be trusted, an I'm not so sure of this. During my testing I was running a turn, quitting the game to gather logs etc., restarting the game, and reloading the scenario. When I went to look at the production values of Richmond, which was being Distant Blockaded through Fort Monroe, I could see no influence on production.

Then through chance, I checked the Richmond production in the Regions list before quitting the game, and low-and-behold, production was halved for $ and WSU, which is shown in the list. However, when I loaded the scenario again, it was not listed as halved :mad: .


You are 100% correct, sir. But, you are also wrong, sir.

I can consistently produce evidence of Distant Blockades working, but.. but... never on the first turn of a session.

I believe that if you only ever run one turn per session, exiting the game between each execution, then you will never see any evidence of production being influenced in a Distant Blockaded harbor city because it never works on the FIRST turn of a session.

It appears to me, that if the blockade symbol is not present prior to turn execution then it will have no impact. In fact, if you rollback the first turn in a session and re-execute it, without exiting the game, it will produce different income amounts than the same exact turn that you previously ran.

I have a scenario where Richmond makes over 1,000$. If I run that game without exiting between turns, I can use the artillery in Fort Monroe like an on-off switch to cause the CSA an obvious loss of 500$.

Another easy way to see the first turn difference:
Starting a new April '61 campaign as the CSA and running one turn I consistently end up with 258$ and 69WS. If I then do the same thing, without exiting the game, I consistently end up with 248$ and 63WS.

Also, :bonk: :bonk:

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Mon Nov 21, 2016 7:22 am

I believe you CA. With the exception of DB, all income displayed in the game is historic; ie the income from the previous turn is recorded in the hst file and displayed at the top of the map, or in the the Regions list. But the affects of a city being DB'ed appears to be taking place after income is recorded, but before they are displayed, at least regarding $ and WSU. But that questions whether the affect is actually even taking place, if it appears to only change the display of the income in the Regions list.

I'm going to have to modify my previous IncomeTest scenario to include Fort Monroe, Norfolk, James City, and what ever else might affect or be affected by Fort Monroe DB'ing Richmond, because that is the only way I know to isolate the income of a single city so that it's income is equivalent to the faction's income, and not having to factor changes of other cities into an analysis.

User avatar
Cardinal Ape
General of the Army
Posts: 619
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Mon Nov 21, 2016 8:43 am

Its good to know I'm not seeing things..

When I tried to isolate the affect of Fort Monroe on Richmond, I changed the value of the capital cash multiplier from 5 to 50, that way it made so much cash that any change to it came in big, easy to notice chunks. I only tallied the results of the on hand cash, though.

principes romanes
Sergeant
Posts: 89
Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2016 9:32 pm
Location: Genève

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Mon Dec 19, 2016 1:44 am

Cardinal Ape has also pointed out here that the problem is only with the first load of CW2, not of a scenario. As such, he proposed this work around:

Cardinal Ape wrote:The host should run a dummy turn before running the PBEM turn; give the game a warm-up turn to get its sea-legs. :cthulhu: Any turn in any scenario should do. That should get rid of the hiccups that come with the first turn of a session.


Evidently, you can do the same in single player.
Currently writing:
The Coming Fury - an excessively detailed AAR on Union strategy

User avatar
Captain_Orso
Posts: 5766
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:02 pm
Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: Blockade Stratigy

Mon Dec 19, 2016 10:29 am

I have my doubts, whether that will work, and CA doesn't say he tested it, only that he's guessing it would work.

Return to “Civil War II”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests