Privateers and Blockading

[=DrJambo=]

Few quick questions for those in the know:

Does the AI use Privateers?

Does the AI know how to blockade ports?

Does the AI blockade during peacetime? In fact is there a way to know if the AI is blockading you, i.e. is there a ship symbol?

Cheers

[onodera]

I haven't seen the AI use privateers, but they would give the same 'Enemy sighted near X' warning like other enemy units.

[=DrJambo=]

In my first game I never noticed the AI using Privateers either. My naval technology was however, always just a little bit more advanced than my opponents.

[Flhaus]

Originally posted by onodera
I haven't seen the AI use privateers, but they would give the same 'Enemy sighted near X' warning like other enemy units.

In Solver's review he sattes that teh privateer is nationless. Are you sure you still get a warning or can see it? Have you actually played and confirmed this?

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Flhaus


In Solver's review he sattes that teh privateer is nationless. Are you sure you still get a warning or can see it? Have you actually played and confirmed this?

They show as barbarians, and you get warning for barbarians spotted, so yes.

[Flhaus]

good to know. Thanks.

[patcon]

I can only conjecture on this since I can't get BtS until tomorrow, but based on what I've read, is this how blockades work?

Situation 1 (easy, I think I know the answer)
You, civ X, and civ Y are trading with civ Z via Z's port P. You are at war with X, but peaceful with Y and Z.
You station your ships at P (or perhaps blocking all water tiles around P?) so that X can't enter or get to P - blockade established, cutting off that trade route. You and Y can still trade since your blockading ships wouldn't attack your own or Y's merchant vessels.

Situation 2 (more complicated, I know I don't know the answer)
Civ X and civ Y are trading with civ Z via Z's port P. You are at war with X and Z, but peaceful with Y.
You station your ships blocking all water tiles around P. Now X's and Z's merchant vessels can't get through, but presumably Y's merchants wouldn't be attacked by your ships so they would get through. So does Y's trade remain intact?
The RL situations that come to mind (and give differing "that's how it should work" answers) are the German U-Boat interdiction of American trade with England before the US entered WWII and the initial US reluctance to interfere with shipments to North Vietnam followed by the decision to mine NV ports. Another point to consider is the modern strategy of "humanitarian" blockades.

Situation 3 (and why my questions are in this thread)
You have stationed privateers blockading port P. Obviously, if the privateers block all trade except your own then everyone knows who the privateers belong to. (Just like if you sail through a tile with a privateer within sight of another civ.) So does a blockade established by privateers cut off all trade?
But, IRL letters of marque only allowed the taking of vessels of certain countries, so maybe a "more realistic" way would be to have privateers create a "selective" blockade which only blocks trade from certain civs. They're privateers, after all, not bloody barbarian pirates!

While there could be some really cool options for what happens once you establish a blockade, I'm guessing it's pretty much a go/no-go situation.

[onodera]

First of all, I've thought that trade routes were more generic and rerouted themselves to any tradeable city automatically.

Originally posted by patcon
Situation 1 (easy, I think I know the answer)
You, civ X, and civ Y are trading with civ Z via Z's port P. You are at war with X, but peaceful with Y and Z.
You station your ships at P (or perhaps blocking all water tiles around P?) so that X can't enter or get to P - blockade established, cutting off that trade route. You and Y can still trade since your blockading ships wouldn't attack your own or Y's merchant vessels.

Blockade blocks enemy trade routes only, so X's route to Z is cut off and is rerouted to some other place with vacant trade route slots. you should block X's ports.

Originally posted by patcon
Situation 2 (more complicated, I know I don't know the answer)
Civ X and civ Y are trading with civ Z via Z's port P. You are at war with X and Z, but peaceful with Y.
You station your ships blocking all water tiles around P. Now X's and Z's merchant vessels can't get through, but presumably Y's merchants wouldn't be attacked by your ships so they would get through. So does Y's trade remain intact?
The RL situations that come to mind (and give differing "that's how it should work" answers) are the German U-Boat interdiction of American trade with England before the US entered WWII and the initial US reluctance to interfere with shipments to North Vietnam followed by the decision to mine NV ports. Another point to consider is the modern strategy of "humanitarian" blockades.

I think Y's trade with you and X remains intact, it and X reroute their routes from P to other cities if they can, but Z's trade through P is over unless it can find more land routes.

Originally posted by patcon
Situation 3 (and why my questions are in this thread)
You have stationed privateers blockading port P. Obviously, if the privateers block all trade except your own then everyone knows who the privateers belong to. (Just like if you sail through a tile with a privateer within sight of another civ.) So does a blockade established by privateers cut off all trade?
But, IRL letters of marque only allowed the taking of vessels of certain countries, so maybe a "more realistic" way would be to have privateers create a "selective" blockade which only blocks trade from certain civs. They're privateers, after all, not bloody barbarian pirates!

I think it blocks all trade and you get a little gold from every blocked trade route, including intra-civ. But don't take my word for truth, wait for someone who can dig in Civ bowels to find the algorithm.

[Proteus_MST]

For me it souinds like privateers block all trade to the port regardless of your relationship with the tradepartners of the nation that owns it.


That brings me to another question:
If I sink a privateer of another nation will it in any way affect my relations to this nation? (normally I would suspect a clear "No" as the ship doesn´t officially belong to this nation)

[=DrJambo=]

Privateers appear to take money from the port/trade route. As to whether one on its own can completely blockade commerce generated from the trade route, I'm not convinced.

Simply putting a ship outside a city on an island and clicking the blockade button didn't appear to do anything to the city's overseas trade in my game. I knew this because I could investigate the enemy city. However, when I blockaded each city on the entire island, it seemed to do the trick. So it may be that overseas trade just comes via another route when the primary one is blockaded and only by blocking all routes can you force a city to lose its overseas trade and trade internally.

If this IS the case, then it's hard to the imagine the AI being capable of doing this in entirety. Nevertheless, I'd like to hear from the knowledgeable beta testers, since they should know the inner workings more than anyone else.

I've yet to see the AI utilise Privateers...

[mkorin]

Solver, good review and it makes me really anxious to get the game. As you may remember I was hardcore critic of Warlords as not being worth the money or time. However, regardless how it affects my play, this expansion is sounds like the real deal.

Also, don't take too much to heart with people you say you gloss over the negatives or are biased. Of course you're biased, if I wrote the review it would be biased towards how to warmong (like my new verb) in the new game. Also, if the reader knows how to read, you have made it very clear which aspects you think are not that great. I may not always agree with you, but I always enjoy reading your posts as being well thought out and informative.

Mike

[mkorin]

Not sure how my last post got here, I was reading Solver's review post. Could the admin please move it.

Thanks
Mike

[Simplicity]

Originally posted by =DrJambo=
Privateers appear to take money from the port/trade route. As to whether one on its own can completely blockade commerce generated from the trade route, I'm not convinced.

Simply putting a ship outside a city on an island and clicking the blockade button didn't appear to do anything to the city's overseas trade in my game. I knew this because I could investigate the enemy city. However, when I blockaded each city on the entire island, it seemed to do the trick. So it may be that overseas trade just comes via another route when the primary one is blockaded and only by blocking all routes can you force a city to lose its overseas trade and trade internally.

If this IS the case, then it's hard to the imagine the AI being capable of doing this in entirety. Nevertheless, I'd like to hear from the knowledgeable beta testers, since they should know the inner workings more than anyone else.

I've yet to see the AI utilise Privateers...

Oh no... hahaha. The city will still get OVERLAND trade. And it could even connect to foreign cities via overland routes through other ports IIRC (though I think the value of those routes may be less). So, you really do have to cut everything off, I would think. Just pillaging a few roads should do it.