Shipyards producing merchant fleets

[Jonathan Pollard]

According to the rules, "Shipyards located in ports spontaneously produce transport replacements or a new full Merchant Fleet if enough excess replacements accumulate." (p. 36) Has anyone ever actually seen a new full Merchant Fleet appear in a shipyard as a result of this?

[loki100]

yes, I got 2 such fleets, they were single elements as opposed to the usual 4. So that is once in 55 years of game play.

[Jonathan Pollard]

Were the shipyard(s) responsible turned on for the entire 55 years? I'm going to have my first shipyard as China completed soon and want to see if it's worthwhile to keep it turned on in the hope of getting merchant ships. The game has been modded to turn Chinese coastal gunboats into sail-powered merchant ships, but maybe I'll be able to get steam-powered merchant ships via shipyards (in a regular unmodded game China cannot normally build any merchant ships whatsoever).

[loki100]

The bonus units turned up at Genoa which I think was the shipyard I had at the start. Since then I've acquired and/or built 3-4 more. But I've had that full set since the end of the 1870s, so around 25+ years and only seen this version of the event once. No idea what the trigger was. I get the 'shipyards have produced replacements' event roughly every 3 years though.

[czert2]

jup, speed of replacemet is depending on amount of shipyars so more shipyards = faster free mecrhants ships (depending if and in what amounts you consume these free replacement, if none you get them fastes).
And very nice things is if you have enought shipyards you get warships (booth light and heavy) replacement for free too, but in much lower amount that for merchants.
Running 5 shipyards can be expansive, but is sure way to get free warship replacements (which nicely can go over manual ordering limit - very usefull if you plan great naval battles - still no free warships) and free merchants is nice too - since this way you can go over force limits for merchants.

[Jim-NC]

I have seen replacements for Light warships and Merchants. Once (Phillipe's 1880 game) I got a fleet created out of thin air, but that was once in 5 years there, and don't remember ever getting any in any other game so far.

[Christophe.Barot]

Hi

your shipyards don't need to be on - perhaps an oversight and ahistorical/illogical, but I find the balance OK as it is - they're costly and produce only supply, which you should have in plentiful, and prestige, which will win th egame, but have no economic value, and the consume a damn lot of coal and other assets - yes, for realism, you should keep them on - I pesently do this for germany, but , contrary to Russia, I have a lot of coal

production depends on the number of shipyards - but there is a ceiliong - you can find it in events - if enough shipyards, you get merchant, light ships and a handful of heavy ships replacements every february

buiildings of merchant ships happened 4 times for me (2 in a Russian game, 2 in my current german one) - I also have updates of transport ships (had one as an event, and system builds bigger transport as complement in the units), also had long ago obsolete ships destroyed replaced by current models to complete an existing unit, but I don't think it is lnked with shipyards (rather replacement system)

hope it helps

[sagji]

There are two sets of events.

One set produces replacements every February - if you have 1, 3 or 7 shipyards turned on.
The second set produces merchant ship units - this is triggered by the number of transport replacements stored (I think 6 for the first, 12 for the next) and the tech available.

[Jonathan Pollard]

There are two sets of events.

One set produces replacements every February - if you have 1, 3 or 7 shipyards turned on.

Are you sure the shipyards have to be turned on? Christophe.Barot seems to think that "shipyards don't need to be on." (see post #7)

[Kensai]

Read the CMN Shipyards Events file. The prerequisites are there. From what I see in the conditions, it does not require the shipyard to be active. It is agnostic to that regard.

[Christophe.Barot]

I confirm
biggest use of keeping shipyard active is providing victory points (a lot compared to other same level industrial facilities), and some manufactured goods (very few in regard to their high operating cost)

so keeping them active is a choice of opportunity for managing economic scarcity of resources - In my Russian game I stopped operating them because of (world as well as domestic) shortage of coal - endgame requires a lot of consumer goods production just to keep people somehow happy, consumption skyrockets much faster than production

note that script works, if adapted, to produce other class of ships - like warships - I know, I adapted the script and tested it, it worked (another did not work at once, but was only because I forgot to remove a time condition, and he complied to it, lol)