Blockade Rules

[tortugapower]

I can't remember if I've already brought this up (though I mutter to myself about doing so all the time), but I'd like to have a discussion about the current game blockade rules.

Honestly, I think more than 10% of ship percentage should be necessary. Every war I fight lately turns into a race against the blockade, for one nation or the other.

To put 10% in perspective, that means if I have 10 battleships and you have 11, you can blockade me. I disagree with this. To fully blockade someone, you need overwhelming superiority of ships. I motion for the value to be changed to at least 20% and maybe as much as 50%.

Thoughts? Cheers,
Tort

[Deleted]

prefer a 2 to 1 ratio even. if it's 3:2 the lesser adversary can still pose serious challenge i reckon.

[JagdFlanker]

i don't mind how it is currently, but if your ships are blockading i'd assume they'd be spread out which might leave you more vulnerable to being out-numbered in battle. plus wouldn't that mean there'd be no (full) fleet battles since part of your fleet is busy looking for and/or intercepting blockade runners?

if you are being blockaded and you get a defend convoy battle and win, or the other side declines, perhaps you shouldn't get blockaded the next turn as a reward

[srndacful]

IMHO, being blockaded is not so much a question of material advantage, but of morale advantage. 

Even an (numerically) inferior navy (i.e. Japanese at Port Arthur) can maintain the blockade if the enemy is too afraid (i.e. doesn't feel confident enough that he'll win) to come out and fight. 
Sun Tsu sums it up the best: "When a Tiger camps on the river's crossing, not even 10,000 deer dares to cross."

So, yeah, current blockading rules aren't all that grand (with one battleship more or less determining who gets blockaded) but it'd take a whole 'engine overhaul' (or at least a major one) to put the more 'realistic' ones in, so I'm not holding my breath.

[tortugapower]

It seems we all understand that the system is over-simplified. It's [very?] unlikely that a really advanced system would be implemented, but that's why I suggest an increase in the point difference as a stopgap measure.

JagdFlanker
Perhaps you're the best person here to defend the current system. Have you experienced the constant blockade that happens in the Northern Europe and the Mediterranean when appropriate powers fight? Most wars for me now deteriorate to waiting for the enemy to collapse due to said blockade, or fighting to keep my head above the rising blockade VP count or, worse, against my home people rioting. It's a breath of fresh air when I get a Germany vs. Italy type situation where the only thing you have to worry about is your fleet vs. theirs. I also feel that's more the point of this game anyway.

As an alternative, if anyone knows an easy way to mod this number, please let me know.

[chaosblade]

Hmmm... a blockade would need fast zippy ships (DD and CL) to interdict commerce plus a number of heavy hulls (CA+) to ensure the enemy battlefleet does not come into play.
So, more value of Capital ships, not tonnage or Hulls or Rifles, that must be higher than the blockading nation and an X number of screens and escorts (perhaps in function to ports?)

[JagdFlanker]

Nov 28, 2016 12:08:35 GMT -6 tortugapower said:

It seems we all understand that the system is over-simplified. It's [very?] unlikely that a really advanced system would be implemented, but that's why I suggest an increase in the point difference as a stopgap measure.

JagdFlanker
Perhaps you're the best person here to defend the current system. Have you experienced the constant blockade that happens in the Northern Europe and the Mediterranean when appropriate powers fight? Most wars for me now deteriorate to waiting for the enemy to collapse due to said blockade, or fighting to keep my head above the rising blockade VP count or, worse, against my home people rioting. It's a breath of fresh air when I get a Germany vs. Italy type situation where the only thing you have to worry about is your fleet vs. theirs. I also feel that's more the point of this game anyway.

As an alternative, if anyone knows an easy way to mod this number, please let me know.

i play to destroy the enemy fleet with a smaller fast hi-tech navy so i'm always blockaded at the beginning of the war until i carve up the enemy fleet enough to reverse the blockade.  victories (mostly) negate the negative effects of a blockade (if you can keep them coming), and sinking ships is a massive VP boost compared to blockade VPs so both are my remedy

germany vs italy type wars are only good for your first or 2nd war to get the cash boost and to keep the fighting low key, because otherwise if one side goes to the other side's home waters to fight, any damaged ships are interred for the rest of the war and attrition could mount

[fredsanford]

In WW 1, historically the British actively conducted the blockade the Germans using AMC's and the like. The Grand Fleet stayed together and mostly in port, waiting for the Germans to come out in force. FWIW, the capital ship force ratio was about 3:2 in favor of the British, but they had lots more smaller and older ships than the Germans. And better geographical position (which also already comes into play).

[Deleted]

if anyone wanna mod this:

in BNat.dat, blockademodifier=

by default, blockademodifier=10. this 10 does not mean 10 times the naval strength, but 1+0.01*10.
so if blockademodifier=12. this means naval strength ratio needs to be 1.12
blockademodifier=8. naval strength ratio needs to be 1.08

so if I wanna set naval strength ratio as high as 1.5 to blockade -> blockademodifier=50

will further test but tis seems correct

[bcoopactual]

But if you set a blockade modifier to to 50 you are only affecting that one nation right?  Each nation has their own even if it isn't listed because then it's assumed to be the average 10.  The ones I remember having different values are GB, Japan, A-H and Russia at 12,11,9,and 8 respectively.  

[director]

I would support a sliding scale of blockade points based on the ratio of naval strength of the two sides, with of course an upper cap.

[Deleted]

yes every nation needs to be edited. like for russia 40, AH 45, or something similar.






actually, my own thought is the way this game is designed, blockade provides a way to end the war faster so the default setting is fine as is. but,, if one wants to have less blockades for whatever reason it is good to have an option.

[konstantinua00]

From my experience, politicians of player's country really don't like blocade-without-fight wars and will white peace even if you disagree...

[bcoopactual]

Maybe blockades should require a couple of things.

First, you would need a number of ships (could be no more than AMC's, large 1,000 ton MS's as gunboats and small cruisers) to stop/capture merchants trying to move into and out of port based on the number of ports your enemy has and the Geography.  For example, there are more large ports and few to no geographical choke points on the east coast of the United States compared to Germany in the North Sea and Baltic so just from a numbers standpoint you would need more vessels to blockade the US than you would Germany even if there was no navy to defend the coast.

So every nation could have a number assigned modified by fleet sizes (small - Very large) that the enemy must meet to be able to blockade.  For very large fleet sizes for example, the US and UK numbers could be 40, Germany 20, Russia and A-H 12, etc.  I'm just throwing numbers out there as examples not as what I think they should be if RTW2 were to implement it or whatever.

This would provide an additional incentive to build vessels like small cruisers and AMC's where the RTW format currently doesn't really favor them.  For this idea, I think I would exclude destroyers from being eligible because If I understand their development correctly, in the game's timeframe (but maybe by the late 30's for RTW2) they historically didn't have the cruising endurance to spend weeks steaming around waiting for merchants to try to slip past them. 

Second your fleet would need to be large enough to counter the defender's battlefleet which is essentially the same mechanic that exists now but those ships wouldn't be on the active patrols (blockades are much different in the age of coal and oil than they were in the age of sail because of the constant fuel usage of coal and oil fired ships) but rather staged at a base or anchorage ready to sortie if the defending fleet does.  So perhaps those ships wouldn't count for the numbers needed above and you could add a "blockade" status to the Active, Reserve, Mothballs, CP/ASW, FS choices now for the AMC's and gunboats and small cruisers actively patrolling the enemy ports and shipping lanes.

[klavohunter]

I am curious why I am not seeing Britain being Blockaded in my current war.

I am the CSA, and my ally is Germany. I've kept a fast CA or two and some raider CLs in European waters to take some pressure off myself, and to try and trigger a Blockade against the UK with Germany doing the heavy lifting, on the turns when the UK sends their whole navy to the Caribbean or East Coast. Nonetheless, no matter how great of an advantage the Germans have over the Brits (24 Predreadnoughts to 4!) I haven't seen any Blockade established.

I know the Brits get a modifier in their favor to represent their geographical advantage, but I know it can be beaten, and I know my AI ally should have been beating it at least some turns.



Edit:  Before the end of the war I did see a blockade.  I forgot, is the little numerical value to the right of the fleet listing on the map page, like 2 BB, 4 CA, 12 B, 20 DD (###) the Blockade Value?    Germany's number was finally bigger than Britain's on that occasion, and I'd just won two great victories with my fast CAs off Britain in the preceding two months.