CSA Transports as Blockade Runners?

[TheDoctorKing]

Can transports function as blockade runners for the CSA or is that role reserved for brigs?

Can CSA transports perform some function in the shipping box instead of the blockade boxes?

How is the amount of money and WS brought back by blockade runners calculated?

[Big Ideas]

Any ocean-going ship with a transport capacity can be a blockade runner. So yes the naval transports can do this- but their much lower stats make it very difficult for them to perform for too long.
brig: evade= 5 hide= 4
trans: evade=2 hide= 1
and when discovered early their small weapon and defences make them easy targets.
Also brigs cost only 2 CC and transports cost 4 CC.

The message: You have no naval supply capacity thereby preventing you from transporting your supply over the seas: in the CSA message window at the top of the screen has prevented me from trying to use them there. Also even if they could their poor stats would make them easy targets again.

As I understand the rule: each element in the blockade boxes will earn one dollar and one WS each turn, though this is reduced by the blockade percentage. But the shipments are weighed in favour of your least between the credits and WS. So if you have more money at the start of the turn then you receive more WS, while the opposite is true if you have more WS than money. That's why you don't normally get an even split. So you can manipulate slightly by keeping more dollars than WS or the opposite if you need more money.

[Vegetius]

I usually have a 10-12 brigs fleet in tne Mexico Gulf area wich bring around 13 and 22k$ a turn but really few WS.

I think that blockade runners are efficient to make money but if you wish to increase your industrial capacity, you will have to invest in the states.

in my opinion, transports in the blockade boxes are a gift to the USA.

[Big Ideas]

I try to have 18-20 brigs by the end of 61. I find that if you keep your dollars 80 higher than the WS you will receive a respectable return of WS. I leave them out until their supply is 44% then return to base for resupply. Send them out again quickly so that you spend too many resources repairing them. In five PBEM as the CSA I haven't industrialised at all- as you can't count on enough improvements for the costs. Also any new factories appearing on the coasts can make a new inconvenient site you have to defend- when you are already too spread out. Also, the new factories are subject to NM so in the latter part of the war your WS can be going down when you might need it most. You can lose some ships to direct fire from the USA in the blockade box but usually your brigs are damaged rather than out right sunk- unless the ships have some damage from earlier battles.

[Pocus]

There is a diminishing return on investment in all boxes, you don't really think we will allow a linearly scaled income from them?

[TheDoctorKing]

Some experimentation has demonstrated that transports do not have any blockade-running ability. That is, when a blockade box contains no brigs, only transports, it consistently does not produce any WS or money.

Is there some random factor determining how much WS/money each blockade runner delivers? Is it related to the speed or hiding capacity of the unit? If the unit is intercepted by Union blockaders does that reduce the amount of WS/money it delivers?

Enquiring minds want to know.

[Major Tom]

Some experimentation has demonstrated that transports do not have any blockade-running ability. That is, when a blockade box contains no brigs, only transports, it consistently does not produce any WS or money.

Is there some random factor determining how much WS/money each blockade runner delivers? Is it related to the speed or hiding capacity of the unit? If the unit is intercepted by Union blockaders does that reduce the amount of WS/money it delivers?

Enquiring minds want to know.

DoctorKing –

I’ve been doing some testing of the economy in a game with AI off.

I ran through the end of 1861 doing nothing but industrialization and blockade runners.

Here are the main things I figured out about blockade runners–

[INDENT]1) They’ll bring back $/WSu in almost exactly opposite proportions to the $/WSu you have in stock on the ledger screen. There is very little variation and most of that comes from rounding. (So if you have twice as much money as war supply, the blockade runners will bring back twice as much war supply as money).
2) There’s a pretty significant diminishing return beyond 10 brigs per blockade box. That’s just 5 squadrons of 2. Beyond about a dozen brigs per box, you have to wonder whether industrialization is a better investment. By the time you get to 30 brigs per box, the yield has dropped by more than half.
3) Combat damage has no effect on the yield of blockade runners.
4) Even in turns when they are intercepted, attacked, and badly damaged, their yield does not decline noticeably.
5) Size of USA fleet doesn’t seem to have any effect on the yield of blockade runners.[/INDENT]
Because I was using passive AI, there was only the basic USA fleet presence in each box. That was 5 blockade fleets in the Atlantic and just one in the Gulf. Even with minimal US Fleet presence in the Gulf, the blockade runner yield there was the same as the Atlantic.

These two graphs tell the story pretty well, but PM me if you want the raw data:



Total yield/turn in $+WSu is approximately:

2 per brig with up to 4 brigs in a box.
2.3 per brig with 6-8 brigs.
2 with 10 brigs
1.3 with 12-18 brigs
1.2 with 20-24 brigs
1.1 with 30 brigs.

For payback time on brigs, remember that it takes 4-5 turns after you buy them before they start bringing in income. And once they’ve paid off, you have to factor in down time for repairs and supply runs, and the cost of repairs.

Brig cost at 0% inflation is $18 + 2 CS + 12 WSu for a squadron of 2. Ignoring the CS cost and looking at just the 30 $+WSu, with a small fleet in each box the payback time is about 12-13 turns, and once in place the yield for a squadron is about 4 $+WSu per turn, minus the substantial time for repairs and resupply. With a larger fleet of raiders, the payback time is longer for each one. My early estimate (need more testing) is that the average WSu payback time on industrialization is about 20 turns (but much less reliable results), and industrialization also yields general supply and ammo. And once the payback time is reached, there’s a larger and more reliable stream of WSu, although no $. I’m going to continue testing for industrialization, and I’ll post the results if they’re interesting. But my gut tells me that it’s under-rated on this forum.

Also take into account the repair cost of brigs. Combat damage costs $ and WSu for repairs equal to the building cost (I think – correct me if I’m wrong, someone). I had an unusually large fleet – 42 brigs (21 squadrons) active in the blockade boxes at the peak, but not many in the early turns. In the 13 turns I had fleets in the blockade boxes, and with just the base USA fleets to hunt me, I suffered about 70 points of damage, for repairs equal to the cost of 3.5 squadrons: $63 and 42 WSu – about 22% of the combined 470 in $ and WSu that the blockade runners returned.

Also, I got some preliminary data on CSA raiders in the Shipping Box.

I was not focusing on the shipping box, but I still tracked the results. The USA had two fleets: a transport fleet with 12 transports and a battle fleet under Palmer with 1 brig and 2 frigates. CSA started out with 1 brig under Semmes, to which was added 2 frigates. After several turns I moved the brig to the blockade box and was surprised to see a big drop in my effectiveness against Union shiping.

With just the brig I was sinking $1 and 2WSu per turn.
With the brig and 2 frigates I was sinking $8 and 14 WSu per turn.
With only the two frigates I was sinking $4 and 6 WSu per turn.

There was no variation at all in these results.

So, because of its spotting and/or patrol ability, the brig was more than doubling the effectiveness of the frigates. And this was done with no purchases – the brig was the free one that arrives with Semmes in the shipping box, and the frigates came free in Richmond. I’ve always moved that free brig out of the shipping box and into the blockade box, but it’s clearly more effective leaving it in the shipping box, at least until the US builds up their fleet enough to prevent the raiding. It’s hard to know how effective this would be with an active AI or even worse, a human opponent.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[TheDoctorKing]

Given what Major Tom has said about the return on investment of brigs, I think that industrialization is probably more cost-effective. Perhaps Grey when you adjust the cost of militia upwards you might also want to adjust the take from blockade runners. I'd say they ought to be at least 50% more effective in order to make the 'payoff time' something on the order of three or four months, taking into account cost of repairs and downtime for the trips back and forth to the blockade boxes. If the payoff time for industrialization is five months, right now it doesn't make sense to send blockade runners except to distract Yankee shipping. And in that case, it sounds like they would be better used in the shipping box than the blockade boxes.

Major Tom, you didn't ever try any transports in the blockade box? They don't appear to have any effect but I'd love some independent confirmation of that. Grey, you may want to look into this too - perhaps give transports a higher payoff than brigs as blockade runners but they are obviously more vulnerable to USA blockade ships. They would be an option for the CSA to really increase its income if the USA strips the blockade boxes for whatever reason.

[Major Tom]

Given what Major Tom has said about the return on investment of brigs, I think that industrialization is probably more cost-effective. Perhaps Grey when you adjust the cost of militia upwards you might also want to adjust the take from blockade runners. I'd say they ought to be at least 50% more effective in order to make the 'payoff time' something on the order of three or four months, taking into account cost of repairs and downtime for the trips back and forth to the blockade boxes. If the payoff time for industrialization is five months, right now it doesn't make sense to send blockade runners except to distract Yankee shipping. And in that case, it sounds like they would be better used in the shipping box than the blockade boxes.

Major Tom, you didn't ever try any transports in the blockade box? They don't appear to have any effect but I'd love some independent confirmation of that. Grey, you may want to look into this too - perhaps give transports a higher payoff than brigs as blockade runners but they are obviously more vulnerable to USA blockade ships. They would be an option for the CSA to really increase its income if the USA strips the blockade boxes for whatever reason.

No, I've never tried CSA transports in the blockade box. I've never built an ocean transport as the CSA. I'm surprised they don't work in the blockade box, but even if they did they would get cut up so badly I don't see how it would be cost-effective.

As far as payback times...I'm still researching industrialization, and I want to get a lot more data. At this point, I don't have enough info to change my own play strategy , which favors brigs over industrialization. Right now I have data for only 32 industrialization attempts, and with such a low probability of success I think I need a much bigger sample to get decent handle on it. I expect to work on this some more over the next few days. Based on the data I have so far, the overall payback time on industrialization (for WSu only) is about 20 turns, but on a state-by-state basis, with only 8-9 attempts per state, the payback time from LA is 7 turns and from GA it's 66 turns, just reflecting better or worse "rolls of the dice."

With brigs, there is a great deal of reliability in your results. With industrialization, your basically gambling, though in the long run your payback odds are pretty good.

[Major Tom]

It doesn't look like I'm going to get a definitive answer on industrialization.

Last night I loaded up a game I've been running to test various aspects of the economy and started investing in industrialization. Starting with Jan 1862 and going for 9 turns I invested every turn with light industrialization in VA, NC, SC, GA, TN, AL, MS, and LA.

WIth that much indistrialization, I was getting a lot of successes, all of wheich I meticulously kept track of. Problem is, I was getting almost all Generalk Supply. In fact, with 40 "hits," 60% were general supply, 30% ammo, and only 10%, or 4, were War Supply successes. That's just 4 war supply hits out of 81 tries, and a LOT less than I was getting in my earlier test.

I re-read the manual on industrialization and found that factories are "semi-randomly chosen from between war supplies, general supplies, and ammunition, with an emphasis on less developed resources."

I would think that means if a city already has a factory making war supply it's more likely to get somwthing else. But nw general supply, war supply, and ammo in your ledger. But now I'm thinking it might be looking at the relative levels of the commodities in your ledger.

That would explain the wierd results. My test game was already 19 turns old and I had not spent one single war supply point, so I started industrializing on turn 20 with over 1000 WSu in the bank. Also, I hadn't done any combat, so I wasn't using any ammo. General supply, on the other hand, was being consumed by my stationary troops. So general supply was in a shortage, relatively speaking, which is why 60% of my industrialization success went towards that.

In my previous test game, I was spending war supply from the start on industrialization and brigs so I never had a lot left in the bank. As a result, I was getting war supply on 38% of my industrialization successes.

Because the relative levels of general supply, ammo, and war supply are hard variables to control, I'm not sure there's a lot more I can get out of testing, but I'll noodle it through some more over the weekend.

As it looks now, out of 123 industrialization attempts I had 89 successes at an average cost of $18 and 22 WSu per "hit." The average war supply "hit" was nominally worth 3 WSu (4.25 including the hidden bonus).

You're probably never going to have a lot of war supply saved up, so assume you'll get at least 33% of your successes in war supply. In that case, you'll average a new 1.4 WSu factory for every $18 and 22 WSu spent (40 combined economic units).

Note that I only industrialized the below average states plus Georgia (the CSA's only "average" state for industrialization).

I think it looks like brigs have an advantage in payback time, at least until you've got a dozen or so in each blockade box, but with industrialization you also get more general supply and ammo (but no $).

One thing's for certain: if you're looking for war supply, onl yindustrialize when you hae a low WSu balance.

[Brochgale]

The Law of Diminishing returns is well documented in economic history. In war I would expect that Law Of Diminishing returns to kick in earlier and perhaps more aggresively than it would in peace time.

Initially before operation Anaconda gets into full swing the CSA might get a decent level of returns from its initial investment but as operation Anaconda gathers steam then actual retuns on initial investment and any additional investment would diminish considerably.

Perhaps it was the effectiveness of operation Anaconda that forced the CSA into developing at least some industry to feed its war effort.

[Yee Haa]

The Law of Diminishing returns is well documented in economic history. In war I would expect that Law Of Diminishing returns to kick in earlier and perhaps more aggresively than it would in peace time.

Initially before operation Anaconda gets into full swing the CSA might get a decent level of returns from its initial investment but as operation Anaconda gathers steam then actual retuns on initial investment and any additional investment would diminish considerably.

Perhaps it was the effectiveness of operation Anaconda that forced the CSA into developing at least some industry to feed its war effort.

The Law of Diminishing Returns is indeed well documented in economic history but as with every law/rule there are exceptions. I am fairly confident that the squeeze produced by Operation Anaconda encouraged the south to develop at least a basic domestic armaments industry, but I believe that strenuous efforts would have been made to create the means to produce armaments and munitions in the Confederacy even had there been no blockade at all. What fledgling country faced with almost certain war to establish itself as an independant member of the world community of nations would wish to be completely reliant on foreign powers for the weapons and other war materiel required to fight for their independance. This assumes of course that our new country is financially viable to purchase all the arms and armaments necessary for a possibly long drawn out conflict! No I believe that we can safely assume that any country, in a similar position to the Confederacy would attempt to construct the means to service as much of its arms and munitions requirements itself as possible, whilst at least initially (or until it had a sufficient industrial base of its own) supplementing their supplies with imports from abroad. General Winfield Scotts Anaconda plan recognised the Confederate dependancy on imported weapons and ammunition and proposed a close blockade of the South's ports as part of the slow squeeze of the new Confederacy that would eventually result in the rebellion (as he saw it) starving for lack of means to oppose Union forces. However and here is the crux - The Anaconda plan in AACW is not an abstract, the Operation has to be executed by the Union player, ATHENA or HUMAN. By executed I mean that if the Union player neglects to deploy strong forces to the blockade box, he should be penalised accordingly. In the early days of the war the Union's declared blockade was more of a political statement than a physical barrier to shipping entering or leaving southern ports. At the outbreak of war the Union navy was woe-fully inequiped to enforce a blockade. The Navy was small and what there was of it was dispersed all over the world. The southern coastline was 1500 miles of inlets and shallow sounds, river estuaries and natural harbours. Port cities along the entire coast continued business as usual throughout most of 1861. Large amounts of arms and munitions were imported from Europe, shortly before the battle of Shiloh, Richmond forwarded 4500 Enfield Rifles to the Army of the Mississippi that had been brought in by Blockade runners. In these early days almost any vessel could be used to run the largely theoretical blockade. The ships only needed to bring their cargoes from nearby harbours of convenince, foreign flagged ships would not risk entering southern ports (even though the blockade runners knew their was little risk at this stage) and so they discharged their cargo to a blockade runner in Nassau or Cuba or any French,Spanish or British port in the Carribean. Later as the blockade began to gain effectiveness, the blockade runners tended to gain speed becoming specialist shallow draught, fast bullet shaped vessels with no superstructure to present as small a target as possible. In the real timeline the Union expended huge resources making the blockade a reality, hundreds of ships were commissioned for blockade duty and throughout 1862 the blockade became progressively more effective, and blockade running ever more risky! From the time the Union blockade became a reality huge profits could be made by the blockade runners who oft times rather unpatriotically packed their holds with consumer goods, lace from France along with brandy and wine and other luxuries that were becoming harder and harder to come by in the Confederacy. It was estimated that a blockade runner could pay for itself in two trips! The Confederate Congress even had to pass ordinances requiring blockade runners to allocate a certain percentage of their hold space to strategic materials (war requirements). From a gaming point of view the Union player should have to dedicate himself to creating a Navy capable of maintaining the blockade or suffer the Confederacy importing LARGE quantities of WSU and $ through blockade runners. In fact why not also allow the Confederate player to allocate Sea Transports to the blockade box IF the Union player is not allocating enough naval assets to the blockade to make it effective then the CSA could/should be able to employ transports to import huge cargoes (ergo large amounts of WSU/$). Initially as the war begins if the Union player allocates the majority of his starting fleet to blockade duties then there should be an effect on the yield of Confederate blockade runners, but really there should need to be considerably more naval strength deployed to blockade duty than is initially available to the Union player. As more blockade assets are commissioned and deployed to the blockade boxes then the Confederate yield should be effected. If the Union player doesnt allocate enough resources to the blockade (which was after all one of the central pillars of Winfield Scotts Anaconda plan) then the CSA player should be able to capitalise on that and reap the reward with major economic bonuses through super high yield blockade running. Throughout the war the south posessed a viable currency in cotton which only grew in value as the war dragged on. The CSA actually issued bonds (rights issues) to raise funds on European exchanges which were massively oversubscribed, the value of the bonds was under-written in cotton, the only catch was you had to take delivery of your cotton in a Confederate Port. Whatever, the point is this shows the buying power of cotton and that if southern vessels could get to a neutral Carribean port they could easily swap cotton for whatever WSU or $ they might require. Perhaps in 1861 the CSA blockade runners should get a say 30% bonus yield (the exact figure would need to be playtested) and then yields should be commensurate to Union allocation of resources to blockade ships deployed to the blockade boxes. The point being that if the Union player human or ATHENA neglects to allocate sufficient (playtested levels) of resources to the blockade they should be very vulnerable to the CSA importing large amounts of WSU/$ if they choose to exploit the deficiency by operating more blockade runners. Good Lord I went on a bit but I think the point is a good one, there was a whole world beyond North America that could have supplied all the CSA's shortcomings and requirements if the Union didnt preventr it

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Yee Haa]

Is there a AACW2 in the pipeline then Gray? If there was I would love to help out with any of the historical research and historicity issues. Not so good with the actual mechanics of software but I am a wiz when it comes to designing ways to simulate historical effects and researching the actual history.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[Rafiki]

All of AGEOD's resources are almost exclusively involved with PON and RUS.

And between these two, PoN is the one receiving the Phil's attention; RUS' efforts are covered by the RUS dev team

Only the Phils know for sure what happens, but till PoN is out and enjoying a happy life, I doubt any concrete plans will be laid down for the next title(s), IMHO

[Yee Haa]

I slept on it and woke up thinking "it will come eventually" its a successful title and successful titles are always followed up in the long run.(It makes sound financial sense) Besides I was thinking about it and I have only been playing AACW for a coupla mnths, I sometimes think we wish for round two before we have gotten anywhere near all the enjoyment we can get outa round one! I have knowhere near explored all the options of AACW yet, in point of fact I have only completed one campaign, I still want to play as the Union, try again as the CSA and see if what I have learnt has impacted on my performance. Its a great game - Thanks for one, I will look forward too two as and when knowing deep down it will be when!

[TheDoctorKing]

Blockade is one of those things that ought to be fixed in AACW2 and I believe it has been discussed in that thread. But just in case you ought to repost your very informative discussion there. The current system requires that ports be blockaded essentially from within their harbors in order to reduce their production of the various supply points, especially WS. Union ships in the blockade boxes produce a generalized decrease in CSA production. Most players have determined that the blockade boxes are the way to go, while as a matter of fact the USA maintained squadrons outside most CSA-controlled ports as soon as they could, as you say. But changing this requires a coding change which, as Grey and Rafiki point out, is not going to happen.

[Gray_Lensman]

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