I finally finished a full campaign as USA player. During which I found, particularly toward the later years, that the game required a lot of micromanagement to keep Blockade Fleets deployed in the Ocean Blockade box. I had to regularly check them every turn to send some back for resupply and others to allow them to reorganize since their Cohesion fell off so much.
My question is "Is this typical?"
Is there a way to keep them from running out of supplies so fast?
Is there a way to recover cohesion without returning to port?
And while on the subject of Blockaders, does the offensive/defensive stance selection do anything to ships on station?
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kwhitehead
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gchristie
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My question is "Is this typical?"
It has been typical for my games. Some players don't bother. Soundoff in his AAR with Banks ignored the blockade saying he found it too tedious to manage.
Is there a way to keep them from running out of supplies so fast?
Keeping them on defensive stance lowers cohesion loss, not sure if it also slows supply loss. Don't think so. Your seamen need to eat, and combat consumes ammo regardless of the ROE.
Is there a way to recover cohesion without returning to port?
Not that I'm aware of. Ships needed to refit, and the game doesn't allow you to do that at sea. The larger the port they return to, coupled with one naval engineer unit in the port, speeds up repairs and cohesion recovery. I think higher national morale will also boost cohesion recovery for ships. It does so for land units.
And while on the subject of Blockaders, does the offensive/defensive stance selection do anything to ships on station?
If you're asking whether it effects ability to intercept or fight better, then no, so it is recommended to keep them on a defensive stance to slow cohesion loss. Do not press the avoid combat button, but you probably already know that.
That's what I know, matey
It has been typical for my games. Some players don't bother. Soundoff in his AAR with Banks ignored the blockade saying he found it too tedious to manage.
Is there a way to keep them from running out of supplies so fast?
Keeping them on defensive stance lowers cohesion loss, not sure if it also slows supply loss. Don't think so. Your seamen need to eat, and combat consumes ammo regardless of the ROE.
Is there a way to recover cohesion without returning to port?
Not that I'm aware of. Ships needed to refit, and the game doesn't allow you to do that at sea. The larger the port they return to, coupled with one naval engineer unit in the port, speeds up repairs and cohesion recovery. I think higher national morale will also boost cohesion recovery for ships. It does so for land units.
And while on the subject of Blockaders, does the offensive/defensive stance selection do anything to ships on station?
If you're asking whether it effects ability to intercept or fight better, then no, so it is recommended to keep them on a defensive stance to slow cohesion loss. Do not press the avoid combat button, but you probably already know that.
That's what I know, matey
"Now, back to Rome for a quick wedding - and some slow executions!"- Miles Gloriosus
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Captain_Orso
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This is from my readings here in the forum and my experience and pertains to the blockade and shipping boxes:
- The posture of ships in the blockade and shipping boxes have no affect on combat within those boxes.
- The adverse affects of their posture does still occur. That is, ships in an offensive posture will lose cohesion even thought the posture has no advantage.
- Ships in the boxes will also lose cohesion through storms and bad weather, which occur mostly during the winter months, though I have had a storm reek havoc on a blockage box in June.
- I'm not certain at the moment if ships regain cohesion outside of ports and harbors, but if they do, it is minimal and only if they are in a defensive posture.
- Because there is no advantage to having your ships in an offensive posture within the boxes, there is no point in doing that. However, I always change my ships to an offensive posture while transferring them between the boxes and port, unless I don't want them to engage in combat while moving through the sea zones. This can be important in the Gulf, because the CSA often has ships either moving to and from the gulf blockade box and Mobile, AL or patrolling along the cost. Once the ships have reached the boxes, I put them back into defensive posture. If they have move to a port I set them to passive posture and the retreat stance. This allows them to recover the quickest.
- In the blockade boxes I always have about one transport squadron (two ships) per 2 blockade squadrons. It should make no difference if they are in the same stack or not. As long as the weather permits it, the blockade squadrons will draw supplies off these transports, leaving their own supply in tact. During bad weather however all the ships in the boxes can start taking hits due to the bad weather much the same as land units do, and this is taken off the ships own supply. I've often noticed that even during good weather that these ships do not replenish (increase) their supply from the transports if they lose it due to hits taken from bad weather. They will also lose cohesion due to the bad weather. So in general you will have to send these ships back to port starting in about late April or early May, depending on the weather conditions, to replenish their supply and recover cohesion.
- I always send only one blockade squadron at a time back to port and don't send the next until the previous has returned to patrol, unless circumstances force me to do otherwise.
- The war ships patrolling in the shipping box do not need to have their own transports for supply, because they are drawing supply from the transport fleet in the shipping box.
- One more tip, if it does occur that one of your blockade squadrons is suddenly so low on supply (can happen through bad weather) that it won't make it back to port before its supply runs out, stack it with one of your transports and sent the stack back to port immediately. Once in a stack, the average of the stack is used to measure the supply status for all the units in the stack, and even if the supply of the blockade squadron is at 0, it will not suffer adverse affects from it, if the stack itself still has supply.
Hope this helps. Happy sailing.
- The posture of ships in the blockade and shipping boxes have no affect on combat within those boxes.
- The adverse affects of their posture does still occur. That is, ships in an offensive posture will lose cohesion even thought the posture has no advantage.
- Ships in the boxes will also lose cohesion through storms and bad weather, which occur mostly during the winter months, though I have had a storm reek havoc on a blockage box in June.
- I'm not certain at the moment if ships regain cohesion outside of ports and harbors, but if they do, it is minimal and only if they are in a defensive posture.
- Because there is no advantage to having your ships in an offensive posture within the boxes, there is no point in doing that. However, I always change my ships to an offensive posture while transferring them between the boxes and port, unless I don't want them to engage in combat while moving through the sea zones. This can be important in the Gulf, because the CSA often has ships either moving to and from the gulf blockade box and Mobile, AL or patrolling along the cost. Once the ships have reached the boxes, I put them back into defensive posture. If they have move to a port I set them to passive posture and the retreat stance. This allows them to recover the quickest.
- In the blockade boxes I always have about one transport squadron (two ships) per 2 blockade squadrons. It should make no difference if they are in the same stack or not. As long as the weather permits it, the blockade squadrons will draw supplies off these transports, leaving their own supply in tact. During bad weather however all the ships in the boxes can start taking hits due to the bad weather much the same as land units do, and this is taken off the ships own supply. I've often noticed that even during good weather that these ships do not replenish (increase) their supply from the transports if they lose it due to hits taken from bad weather. They will also lose cohesion due to the bad weather. So in general you will have to send these ships back to port starting in about late April or early May, depending on the weather conditions, to replenish their supply and recover cohesion.
- I always send only one blockade squadron at a time back to port and don't send the next until the previous has returned to patrol, unless circumstances force me to do otherwise.
- The war ships patrolling in the shipping box do not need to have their own transports for supply, because they are drawing supply from the transport fleet in the shipping box.
- One more tip, if it does occur that one of your blockade squadrons is suddenly so low on supply (can happen through bad weather) that it won't make it back to port before its supply runs out, stack it with one of your transports and sent the stack back to port immediately. Once in a stack, the average of the stack is used to measure the supply status for all the units in the stack, and even if the supply of the blockade squadron is at 0, it will not suffer adverse affects from it, if the stack itself still has supply.
Hope this helps. Happy sailing.
One option you can use to keep your fleet sailing for months at a time is to rotate out the transports. They (transports) attempt to fill the warships supply holds (empting themselves out in the process). When the transports get low, send them back. The warships will be able to wait for the transports to come back on station. This way, you can keep your ships out until cohesion makes them go to port. Always guard your transports when using this maneuver.
Remember - The beatings will continue until morale improves.
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kwhitehead
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I'll have to look up what the Option is that was referred too. I assume it is one of the overal game settings.
Putting transports in with the blockaders sounds like a workable idea. I will try that.
Since posting I had some disconcerting observations. One of my opponents withdrew all his blockade ships, reason unknown. He was at about 40 level and it dropped to 5. What bothered me as the CSA player was that the amount of war Supplies and money coming in did not change measurably. It is hard to be certain with all the things that affect the amount coming in each turn but this would indicate Blockades in the Ocean Boxes is a waste of resources.
Putting transports in with the blockaders sounds like a workable idea. I will try that.
Since posting I had some disconcerting observations. One of my opponents withdrew all his blockade ships, reason unknown. He was at about 40 level and it dropped to 5. What bothered me as the CSA player was that the amount of war Supplies and money coming in did not change measurably. It is hard to be certain with all the things that affect the amount coming in each turn but this would indicate Blockades in the Ocean Boxes is a waste of resources.
Yes, you have the option on the options menu 
Regarding your worries... if i recall correctly, what you (CSA) get from the boxes depends of your runner numbers, not the USA blockaders.
So everything looks OK to me
The north blockaders affect the % blockade you can see on the box and that affects to the whole south economy.
(a 100% blockade would mean all your cities and regions will produce only 50% of the money, conscripts, food, WS, ammo... everything you get every turn.
Regarding your worries... if i recall correctly, what you (CSA) get from the boxes depends of your runner numbers, not the USA blockaders.
So everything looks OK to me
The north blockaders affect the % blockade you can see on the box and that affects to the whole south economy.
(a 100% blockade would mean all your cities and regions will produce only 50% of the money, conscripts, food, WS, ammo... everything you get every turn.
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kwhitehead
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arsan wrote:Yes, you have the option on the options menu
Regarding your worries... if i recall correctly, what you (CSA) get from the boxes depends of your runner numbers, not the USA blockaders.
So everything looks OK to me
The north blockaders affect the % blockade you can see on the box and that affects to the whole south economy.
(a 100% blockade would mean all your cities and regions will produce only 50% of the money, conscripts, food, WS, ammo... everything you get every turn.
Interesting. I thought I would see an affect on the runners. I will have to watch the other numbers and see how they change when he returns them from resupplying.
As Mickey says, the blockade fleet does little to effect blockade running. If and only if it catches one of the CSA ships does it attack. Unless it outright sinks a ship, you can usually get that ship back to port. It is very hard to sink a runner (unless the CSA player gets careless and leaves the ship out after being hit by the union). The runners bring in the same amount no matter what the union player does. Major Tom did an analysis some time ago about this, and the ships bring back the same amount (until you hit a certain number of ships, at that point the value goes down). I can't seem to find it currently.
Bottom line - you get the same amount each turn no matter what the union does.
Bottom line - you get the same amount each turn no matter what the union does.
Remember - The beatings will continue until morale improves.
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