Let me add something: I emailed the devs my concern about the Sea Raider perk not actually causing import prices to rise. They checked and assured me it does, but there's no easy way for us to see it right now. They are considering ways to make more information available to the player. So, go ahead and take it if you're going to do the economy war.
Why not remove the decimal points on the total cost chart, or add decimal points to all numbers. As it is it's difficult to tell the difference between a 6 digit number and a 7 digit number when one has two digits past the decimal and the other has no decimal point?
That part where adding more ships in same fleet actually reduces Blockade efficiency really helped , creating multiple fleets rather than putting them all together is a solution however, AI will be able to pick them up one by one. And like you said, the main cost of Navy is the damn provisions, Whenever my Frigate fleet would go to my harbour after any battles I would always end up taking a loan, and Naval replenishment was the main cause for my loans, not the land Armies. Now I know its the provisions, I wish we would talk about how to reduce this costs in future videos. Informative as always o7
If the fleets are in attack stance, they will move to support others who are engaged, so I don't think the multiple tiny fleets in area is a huge security problem. Provisions seem huge, if I'm correct they need to fully re-supply those provisions every time they return to port. It also costs each frigate and steam frigate about a half million dollars to fully re-stock their ammunition. Off the top of my head I suspect trying to drive down provision prices would be the best fix. I think it will be at best very difficult in the vanilla game to do that because of the subsidy system.
@@greatscots I think the consumables costs are actually even worse than they appear at first glance - at least for ammo, I've watched fleets out to sea get resupplied with ammo after a battle. That cost has to be applied somewhere, and it's not only occurring while in port. I think that it's therefore likely that ship types with significant "capacity" in game terms are actually even more expensive to operate than a simple raw count + comparison to days at sea will necessarily reveal.
This seems like a flaw in how the game calculates the blockade rating - I can see a sense of diminishing returns (i.e. if 1 Frigate is 30, the second being half that or 15 more), the first ship imposes the threat of blockade, the extras make it better but not as significant as the first. And there should be an upper limit, there is always a chance someone slips through. However, having the number decrease when you add smaller ships doesn't make sense - how does a Tender make a Frigate less effective? I could see having the efficiency based on the best available ship, with smaller ships not contributing much, but they should never go negative. I also like the discussion on the cost of provisions, seems like using that and some factor for days on station (subtract a few days each rotation to get to port and back) would be the best way to get an actual cost over the course of a year. Is this something you have shared with the Devs?
Also just thought about looking at how much the policy of Arming Civilian Ships would help - where you can get the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd rate steamers for 25% cost. That could really boost the efficiency per cost rating (although I assume it doesn't affect the provisions cost, which is the bigger part in the long run).
@@JustusII Yeah, I thought about that one too, but I'm not sure about whether I'd want to pay the cost. And, as you say, it's really the upkeep cost that would be the issue.
I'll add there's one additional situation you want to look out for when attacking forts from the sea: Is there a fleet in the port right next to it? The AI has either purposefully or accidentally defended their fort + port this way, and I always lose to it, even with Ironclads. It's happened at Norfolk and Savannah recently, but it looks like it could happen in several other places. Unrelated to that situation, but some better news for those who will attack Level 2 forts from the sea: I've had a good run of luck pairing smaller ironclad fleets (5-7) with comparable sized wooden fleets, as long as they have a frigate or two. Send the Ironclads in first and do a good amount of fighting. Then I send in the wooden ships at their max range and they're usually able to take a significant chunk of damage out of the forts. The Ironclads are good at tanking and dodging damage but they lack a lot of guns to bring those forts down quickly and sometimes have to retreat due to loss of Readiness.
That percentage makes sense. All the ships in a fleet move together in the same amount of space. So it makes sense there would be a curve. You put multiple ships in same fleet not for blockading but defense of the fleet. Multiple fleets in same area would thereby increase the percentage better sense they are acting independently of each other
Other than checking the code, is there a way to see how long a ship can stay at sea before returning to port, I was going to attempt blockade of the Europe trade nodes, but, it makes sense to put a ship(s) with a high duration at sea. I understand the bigger the ship, the longer, but, I don't want to waste frigates on something that might have little affect on enemy trade, know what I mean? All the best. Cheers.
@@general-cromwell6639I haven't done navy stuff in probably 6+ months, so I'm not sure. It should show you supplies remaining. I'm not sure if you hover over it long enough whether it tells you how long supplies remain.
@GreatScots Good vid. Interesting and informative. Question: Starting as USA in Spring '61 , when war starts you have a 'Gulf Blockading Squadron' just off the Florida Keys that cannot move due to readiness and lack of supply, at least I think that's why. What do you do with this squadron? ( As it seems useless to me where it is I just move all these ships into harbour , deleting the 'squadron' , then I just add these ships to other fleets)
@@greatscots Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately it won't move back to port when ordered to. It won't move at all, it's just 'stuck' there. Clicking on the 'return to port' button doesn't do anything. Regarding the readiness.. Does that ever build back up? Lack of supply hits readiness very hard, as far as I can tell.
So is it more effective to blockade with a swarm of individual small ships, plus keep fleets built for naval combat in proximity of each swarm? Sounds like what a blockade would look like IRL, no?
Awesome video, thanks for doing this! I have a few thoughts in response to your data and some of your conclusions: - I think I disagree with the "patrol with starting frigates to protect blockading fleets of 2-3 ships" conclusion. My thinking is that blockading fleets are now incentivized to have 1 of each of as many different kind of ships as possible. So, put 1 Frigate with your 1 tender + 1 4th rate + 1 3rd rate, etc.. You get the percentage impact from the Frigate adding to the blockade, plus you have the increase in relative strength for the blockading fleet to defend itself. You also reduce the number of 1-ship fleets that you have to micro. This seems particularly ideal for blockade points like the Norfolk/Chesapeake area, where you're not able to put a smaller fleet right on top of the ports like you can in, say, Texas. - For river/internal fleets, I think there's still one compelling reason to set all of them to blockade - the amphibious assault perk. That seems to be by far the best way to deal with the forts, and if it still makes sense to have at least small river fleets to interdict enemy army movements (or at least river transport of them) from Day 1, you might as well get some perked-up fleets to add your river ironclads to later when it's time to take some of those Tennessee/Cumberland/Mississippi river forts down. - Much like Port Royal, the fort protecting Morehead in NC is also a juicy "Take a fort, get a port!" target on the Eastern seaboard. Those two seem like the most obvious early targets, particularly to get away from the suicidal "Union fleet takes direct path to Chesapeake from SC/GA/FL region" pathfinding of the AI fleets when they are left to their own devices. My Union fleets just love to do quick drive-bys of that stupid fort going both directions, at least until it gets taken out. - Port Royal seems to have another potential perk, if you're willing to be a bit gamey about it. I've noticed in the New Orleans/Mobile area that CSA AI raiding fleets take a *very* direct path to try to get at my blockading fleets. It's to the point where fleets attacking from Texas appear to just get stuck on the west side of Louisiana, and never actually get through to attack! Raiding fleets built in New Orleans/Baton Rouge also seem to just get stuck in some kind of pathfinding do loop where they can't figure out to go down the Mississippi river to THEN head northeast to attack my fleets. So, if the raiding fleet pathfinding logic is that epically stupid...can a Union player put their Charleston/Savannah blockading fleets right in Port Royal, and lure the raiding fleets into the fort's firing range? Likely not as efficient in terms of pure blockading vs being on top of the ports (when possible), but it would be the least micro-intensive way to protect a few smaller/weaker blockade fleets without having to set a bunch of bigger ships to patrol the area. Haven't tested this yet, so purely theoretical for now.
1. I do, too, at least in most cases. I thought about it after I made the video and just left it as it was because I hadn't done any tests. I would hesitate to put frigates in with other low level ships because, from my tests, frigates actually blockade worse when combined with very low level ships. I would just set them to blockade but leave them in attack stance so they can support weaker fleets that might be attacked. When I get around to a campaign, I'll actually try it. 2. I agree about blockading to get the first perk. I usually do that in campaign. Plus, brown water navies can become blue water navies when you switch ships into and out of them. 3. Yup, that's a good one. I don't know if the fort near near Fernandino (sp.?) on Florida's Atlantic will be able to capture that port, but it would allow slow-moving ironclads that constantly need to refuel a final stop before you might try to send them against Key West. 4. I haven't noticed those issues yet, but I've only started looking at this stuff recently. If you haven't already, you should let the devs know. I emailed them a month or two ago about the lack of Union blockading south of Chespeake and the devs thought it was a pathfinding issue related to Albermarle Sound. It seems like whatever they did worked because both AI navies are using the whole Atlantic coast south of New Jersey much better now.
@@greatscots On item #1 - I am now really, really wishing that it was possible to transfer existing ships between existing fleets without having to create a new fleet at port with a zero readiness level. It's much harder to test the "Frigates alone vs Frigates in a mixed fleet" blockade efficiency conditions when it's so painful to do these fleet composition changes. Even in Norfolk, you have to wait for Yellow readiness to even turn the standalone Frigate "on" in blockading mode...
@@greatscots On #3 - The fort is close enough to the port to get this effect. Took a couple tries to take it, but my "I built too many Frigates and might as well downsize via fort attacks for the side benefits" fleet got it done. Tampa Bay is another obvious candidate after this.
Let me add something: I emailed the devs my concern about the Sea Raider perk not actually causing import prices to rise. They checked and assured me it does, but there's no easy way for us to see it right now. They are considering ways to make more information available to the player. So, go ahead and take it if you're going to do the economy war.
Why not remove the decimal points on the total cost chart, or add decimal points to all numbers. As it is it's difficult to tell the difference between a 6 digit number and a 7 digit number when one has two digits past the decimal and the other has no decimal point?
That part where adding more ships in same fleet actually reduces Blockade efficiency really helped , creating multiple fleets rather than putting them all together is a solution however, AI will be able to pick them up one by one.
And like you said, the main cost of Navy is the damn provisions, Whenever my Frigate fleet would go to my harbour after any battles I would always end up taking a loan, and Naval replenishment was the main cause for my loans, not the land Armies.
Now I know its the provisions, I wish we would talk about how to reduce this costs in future videos.
Informative as always o7
If the fleets are in attack stance, they will move to support others who are engaged, so I don't think the multiple tiny fleets in area is a huge security problem.
Provisions seem huge, if I'm correct they need to fully re-supply those provisions every time they return to port. It also costs each frigate and steam frigate about a half million dollars to fully re-stock their ammunition.
Off the top of my head I suspect trying to drive down provision prices would be the best fix. I think it will be at best very difficult in the vanilla game to do that because of the subsidy system.
@@greatscots I think the consumables costs are actually even worse than they appear at first glance - at least for ammo, I've watched fleets out to sea get resupplied with ammo after a battle. That cost has to be applied somewhere, and it's not only occurring while in port. I think that it's therefore likely that ship types with significant "capacity" in game terms are actually even more expensive to operate than a simple raw count + comparison to days at sea will necessarily reveal.
This seems like a flaw in how the game calculates the blockade rating - I can see a sense of diminishing returns (i.e. if 1 Frigate is 30, the second being half that or 15 more), the first ship imposes the threat of blockade, the extras make it better but not as significant as the first. And there should be an upper limit, there is always a chance someone slips through.
However, having the number decrease when you add smaller ships doesn't make sense - how does a Tender make a Frigate less effective? I could see having the efficiency based on the best available ship, with smaller ships not contributing much, but they should never go negative.
I also like the discussion on the cost of provisions, seems like using that and some factor for days on station (subtract a few days each rotation to get to port and back) would be the best way to get an actual cost over the course of a year.
Is this something you have shared with the Devs?
Also just thought about looking at how much the policy of Arming Civilian Ships would help - where you can get the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd rate steamers for 25% cost. That could really boost the efficiency per cost rating (although I assume it doesn't affect the provisions cost, which is the bigger part in the long run).
@@JustusII Yeah, I thought about that one too, but I'm not sure about whether I'd want to pay the cost. And, as you say, it's really the upkeep cost that would be the issue.
I'll add there's one additional situation you want to look out for when attacking forts from the sea: Is there a fleet in the port right next to it? The AI has either purposefully or accidentally defended their fort + port this way, and I always lose to it, even with Ironclads. It's happened at Norfolk and Savannah recently, but it looks like it could happen in several other places.
Unrelated to that situation, but some better news for those who will attack Level 2 forts from the sea: I've had a good run of luck pairing smaller ironclad fleets (5-7) with comparable sized wooden fleets, as long as they have a frigate or two. Send the Ironclads in first and do a good amount of fighting. Then I send in the wooden ships at their max range and they're usually able to take a significant chunk of damage out of the forts. The Ironclads are good at tanking and dodging damage but they lack a lot of guns to bring those forts down quickly and sometimes have to retreat due to loss of Readiness.
That percentage makes sense. All the ships in a fleet move together in the same amount of space. So it makes sense there would be a curve. You put multiple ships in same fleet not for blockading but defense of the fleet. Multiple fleets in same area would thereby increase the percentage better sense they are acting independently of each other
Other than checking the code, is there a way to see how long a ship can stay at sea before returning to port, I was going to attempt blockade of the Europe trade nodes, but, it makes sense to put a ship(s) with a high duration at sea. I understand the bigger the ship, the longer, but, I don't want to waste frigates on something that might have little affect on enemy trade, know what I mean?
All the best.
Cheers.
I believe it’s in the Excel sheet Modding Tool.
@@greatscotsThanks for putting in the effort for all of us lazy people. I wish there was some indication "in-game" on the fleet status panel.
@@general-cromwell6639I haven't done navy stuff in probably 6+ months, so I'm not sure. It should show you supplies remaining. I'm not sure if you hover over it long enough whether it tells you how long supplies remain.
@GreatScots
Good vid.
Interesting and informative.
Question:
Starting as USA in Spring '61 , when war starts you have a 'Gulf Blockading Squadron' just off the Florida Keys that cannot move due to readiness and lack of supply, at least I think that's why.
What do you do with this squadron?
( As it seems useless to me where it is I just move all these ships into harbour , deleting the 'squadron' , then I just add these ships to other fleets)
My first inclination is to do exactly what you did. I guess the alternative is to order it back to port or wait for it to get its readiness back.
@@greatscots
Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately it won't move back to port when ordered to.
It won't move at all, it's just 'stuck' there.
Clicking on the 'return to port' button doesn't do anything.
Regarding the readiness..
Does that ever build back up?
Lack of supply hits readiness very hard, as far as I can tell.
So is it more effective to blockade with a swarm of individual small ships, plus keep fleets built for naval combat in proximity of each swarm? Sounds like what a blockade would look like IRL, no?
That would be the most cost efficient, but a pain to micro.
Awesome video, thanks for doing this! I have a few thoughts in response to your data and some of your conclusions:
- I think I disagree with the "patrol with starting frigates to protect blockading fleets of 2-3 ships" conclusion. My thinking is that blockading fleets are now incentivized to have 1 of each of as many different kind of ships as possible. So, put 1 Frigate with your 1 tender + 1 4th rate + 1 3rd rate, etc.. You get the percentage impact from the Frigate adding to the blockade, plus you have the increase in relative strength for the blockading fleet to defend itself. You also reduce the number of 1-ship fleets that you have to micro. This seems particularly ideal for blockade points like the Norfolk/Chesapeake area, where you're not able to put a smaller fleet right on top of the ports like you can in, say, Texas.
- For river/internal fleets, I think there's still one compelling reason to set all of them to blockade - the amphibious assault perk. That seems to be by far the best way to deal with the forts, and if it still makes sense to have at least small river fleets to interdict enemy army movements (or at least river transport of them) from Day 1, you might as well get some perked-up fleets to add your river ironclads to later when it's time to take some of those Tennessee/Cumberland/Mississippi river forts down.
- Much like Port Royal, the fort protecting Morehead in NC is also a juicy "Take a fort, get a port!" target on the Eastern seaboard. Those two seem like the most obvious early targets, particularly to get away from the suicidal "Union fleet takes direct path to Chesapeake from SC/GA/FL region" pathfinding of the AI fleets when they are left to their own devices. My Union fleets just love to do quick drive-bys of that stupid fort going both directions, at least until it gets taken out.
- Port Royal seems to have another potential perk, if you're willing to be a bit gamey about it. I've noticed in the New Orleans/Mobile area that CSA AI raiding fleets take a *very* direct path to try to get at my blockading fleets. It's to the point where fleets attacking from Texas appear to just get stuck on the west side of Louisiana, and never actually get through to attack! Raiding fleets built in New Orleans/Baton Rouge also seem to just get stuck in some kind of pathfinding do loop where they can't figure out to go down the Mississippi river to THEN head northeast to attack my fleets. So, if the raiding fleet pathfinding logic is that epically stupid...can a Union player put their Charleston/Savannah blockading fleets right in Port Royal, and lure the raiding fleets into the fort's firing range? Likely not as efficient in terms of pure blockading vs being on top of the ports (when possible), but it would be the least micro-intensive way to protect a few smaller/weaker blockade fleets without having to set a bunch of bigger ships to patrol the area. Haven't tested this yet, so purely theoretical for now.
1. I do, too, at least in most cases. I thought about it after I made the video and just left it as it was because I hadn't done any tests. I would hesitate to put frigates in with other low level ships because, from my tests, frigates actually blockade worse when combined with very low level ships. I would just set them to blockade but leave them in attack stance so they can support weaker fleets that might be attacked. When I get around to a campaign, I'll actually try it.
2. I agree about blockading to get the first perk. I usually do that in campaign. Plus, brown water navies can become blue water navies when you switch ships into and out of them.
3. Yup, that's a good one. I don't know if the fort near near Fernandino (sp.?) on Florida's Atlantic will be able to capture that port, but it would allow slow-moving ironclads that constantly need to refuel a final stop before you might try to send them against Key West.
4. I haven't noticed those issues yet, but I've only started looking at this stuff recently. If you haven't already, you should let the devs know. I emailed them a month or two ago about the lack of Union blockading south of Chespeake and the devs thought it was a pathfinding issue related to Albermarle Sound. It seems like whatever they did worked because both AI navies are using the whole Atlantic coast south of New Jersey much better now.
@@greatscots On item #1 - I am now really, really wishing that it was possible to transfer existing ships between existing fleets without having to create a new fleet at port with a zero readiness level. It's much harder to test the "Frigates alone vs Frigates in a mixed fleet" blockade efficiency conditions when it's so painful to do these fleet composition changes. Even in Norfolk, you have to wait for Yellow readiness to even turn the standalone Frigate "on" in blockading mode...
@@jasonfrye9188 Yeah, it's an odd design decision to not allow fleets to move ships directly to one another without first going to port.
@@greatscots On #3 - The fort is close enough to the port to get this effect. Took a couple tries to take it, but my "I built too many Frigates and might as well downsize via fort attacks for the side benefits" fleet got it done. Tampa Bay is another obvious candidate after this.
Thanks for the helpful video! Any way we can get the spreadsheets?
Good idea! I've added a link in the description to a Google Sheet. Anyone should be able to view it.
@@greatscots Awesome, thanks for sharing this!