No blockading?

[Kuciwalker]

I hadn't really noticed this until recently, because the AI never seems to build harbors. You know how Firaxis said you could block naval trade routes by moving a ship up to the harbor or harbors that make the route, and tell the unit to "blockade?" Well, is it just me, or did they take this feature out of the game? I haven't had a chance to test this out because no one but me ever builds harbors, but there is nothing in the editor, manual, or civilopedia that even bears reference to blockading, or if there is, I haven't noticed it.

[Sevorak]

I think you misunderstood.

A city with a harbor (and with the right advances) treats every water square as a road to any other harbor on the oceans. You can blockade a harbor, choking off its connection to the rest of its empire, by occupying every water square around it with a naval unit. That's what Firaxis meant by blockade. Not a special command, just a swarm of ships.

-Sev

[barefootbadass]

Yeah, just block the all routes from every harbor the ai has and he can't trade by sea, however if he has a land route to another civ that he is at peace with that has harbors the blockade won't work. Also, I would suggest putting your ships two squares out if the city has a coastal fortress.

In my experience the ai builds harbors in most coastal cities, at least by early industrial age they are usually up.

[HalfLotus]

It has been my experience that the AI ALWAYS builds harbors.
Can this blockading be done with Privateers?

[MadWombat]

Yes. You can also blockade FRIENDLY ports using privateers, and there is a cheap tactic/exploit that means that stacking a battleship with your privateer still blockades the port, and makes your blockade MUCH harder to break....

[Sevorak]

Well, sure you can...if you blockade with the stacked battleship/privateers in a ring outside that city's territory. That could go to 14+ units, and I personally wouldn't tie up that many units blocking one harbor.

Remember, they can request that your battleships get out of your territory, and stacking them with a privateer does not change that.

-Sev

[MadWombat]

I think you can actually have B.Ships in their territory while stacked with privateers, but I could be wrong....

[Sevorak]

You are.

I think you're confused about the aspects of the real stack with privateers exploit - that AI go after Privateers wherever they are, and you can stack a battleship with a Privateer, get the AI to attack that tile, have your battleship defend(blowing the AI ship out of the water), and still not be at war.

-Sev

[Venger]

CTP had something like this, that may be where the confusion is coming from.

That said, I posted a suggestion a long time ago to make privateers and other navy ships more interesting - a privateer or hostile warship within X number of tiles from a city means it cannot use it's harbor for trade.

This make the privateer actually useful, and also gets a piracy component in the game (come on, it's a Sid game, it ought to have some Pirates!)

Venger