Naval Blockades and the AI

[HazieDaVampire]

Does the AI know how to create naval blockades, and when to use them!?

[Fidel]

um, it would take a lot to block any empire that has more than one port

[campmajor!]

Well it can be done of course. I also block land areas with defensive units if possible. You can draft enough units to do such a thing!

But naturally the AI does not use such strategies, at least I have not seen them doing so. They prefer gathering a large pile of units and march them into your land and seek for an easy target...

[Flanker]

Does any human player actually use naval blockades? I find it very hard to totally block the trade for a large empire - if they have airports it is really impossible. Often the large empires also have all the things they need in their own territory and are selfsupplied. So does naval blockades actually do any real use? I think there are more important uses of your navy then just being on sentry duty outside enemy ports.

[HazieDaVampire]

Does the AI get annoyed when you do it?

[dunk]

No, the AI would never create a blockade.

Why? Because it moves every unit it has the maximum allowable tiles every turn.

[Inverse Icarus]

the AI pillages more than it blockades. teaching an AI to blockade contains too many algorithms for soren. calling the createAIunit(); infinateAIgold(); cheatcheatcheat(); functions wouldn't help too much.

[Grrr]

I do, but the AI doesn't.

[Jaybe]

Naval Blockades don't work because...

... you would have to blockade every port of EVERY civ that is not at war with and does not have a trade embargo with your blockade target.

Could easily get you into a war with all those civs whose ports you are blockading, since you would have to physically have ships stationed within their borders.

OTH, If your target was an island/small continent, it could at least be an endeavor worth considering (but I play LARGE continents).

JB

[Ethelred]

I have done it occasionly. Its hard to do when the target civ has a lot of harbors but early on the AI often has only built one harbor. I once got annoyed and blockaded a port with privateers but I don't know if it really worked.

I have never seen the AI try a blocade. They usually like to move bombard and then move away. Of course I usually have too many harbors for a blockade to be effective anyway.

[Cyclotron]

I have only done it when a civ I am attacking, who is on an island with only a few harbors, does not have the strategic resources to fight me but is trading them from the other AIs, and I can't get trade embargos with everyone.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by LaRusso
um, it would take a lot to block any empire that has more than one port

That's why naval blackades are useless.

Merchant shipping and sea trade routes SHOULD be threatened and damaged by privateers and subs which were not intended in reality to attack other warships. Firaxis got that wrong too. I could have a hundred privateers and subs on a trade route and it would accomplish nothing

[nato]

I succesfully blockaded a large empire just once. The Russians had a lot of cities, but only a few on the coast. My large navy was able to do it, by using every ship, including obsolete ones. I also made a point of conquering along his coast first, like Alexander denying the superior Persian navy its ports by going along the coast.

It would be better if one or two warships in a coastal city's sea squares were enough to count it as blockaded. This would be much more feasible than literally ringing the city with ships.

What I would really love would be for ships to be able to blockade coatal cities a different way ...

Like if warships in an enemy city's sea squares each inflicted say 10 gold (or some number) on the enemy civ (maybe only if they sat in the square the whole turn). This would show up as an expense like corruption ... like "Blockade: -40 gold".

Submarines should get a big bonus for doing this. Like say each surface ship deducts 10 gold, but each submarine deducts 20.

This would not work for strategic resources ... perhaps they would continue to work under the existing model.

This would make blockading easier, and less of an ALL OR NOTHING thing like it is now. Also it would make submarines unique and more useful.

Unfortunately it would require programming.

[Ijuin]

How about a port should be blockaded if there is one or more enemy ships FORTIFIED within the city radius?

[Stuie]

Originally posted by nato
It would be better if one or two warships in a coastal city's sea squares were enough to count it as blockaded. This would be much more feasible than literally ringing the city with ships.

Well, that's what a blockade is - completely obstructing access to something, in this case water access to a city. Remember the scale here. The little squares are an abstraction meant to represent thousands of square miles.

As for your other ideas, the defending civ already loses use of the resources (food/trade/shields/fish/whales) in the square(s) you occupy. Additional penalties would just unneccessarily complicate the game.

I think it's fine as implemented.