Naval Blockades

[PrinceBimz]

Anyone ever use naval blockades? I have done this only a few times and remember it worked pretty good. For example, if you are having trouble with a country you can find out where they are getting their resources from. If it is from over seas on another continent a naval blockade can be something to consider. You can really cut off a huge amount of resources coming into an enemy's country by doing this. For example if they are getting oil or rubber and building tough units, you can stop that. Then over time if you can continue the blockade their advanced units will gradually disappear.

The thing is a naval blockade is not always easy to achieve. There is alot to consider because you have to make sure their only source of certain resources and luxuries are from overseas. Then you have to know how many harbors they have. If they have a ton of harbors everywhere in several coastal cities, forget the blockade. You will have to block every square surrounding each harbor then. Not to mention have enough ships.

One thing I never tried is that in the manual it says you can do it from a chock point too. Like if there is a small waterway somewhere you can block it up. This will keep all resources from being traded through that waterway provided it is the only way to access the trading nation.

I think another interesting way to try a blockade is keeping enemy ships from passing through to your sea. Just sinking anything that attempts to pass the blockade. This will require a map that allows this though with a small waterway connecting you and the opposing nation. There were some maps I know that I could have done this but did not think of it at the time. Especially standard size maps or smaller.

Anyway I may try to create a map with the editor that will really allow for naval blockades. But I know there are many random maps that will build like this by themselves depending on the settings. So let me hear some other opinions on this

[Anaximander]

I wonder, can you use submarines to blockade other civs?

[Solomyr]

i won't think you could use subs to blockard, or at least it's not a good idea, becasue as soon as they try to move over that square, they attack your sub, and unless you mod the sub significantly, an attack is not a good thing.

and personally, blockades aren't worth trying to inforce, especially for a large civ. if they have any significant coastline, they can just build another harbor. and you are going to need at least 3 ships to blockade one city, so depending on how many cities they have, that's a lot of ships. better to just build troops and tear the cities down, or focus on sci and whip 'em in the space race

[bbaws]

I've got a sub blockade going against the french at the moment. Works fine. The AI can't move naval units in or out of three of it's cities without starting a war. First time I've managed to get a blockade running effectively, it's only for a luxury and it's costing me the upkeep of 15 subs.
More often rather than a trade blockade, interbellum later in the game I use my navy to inconvenience the AI. A big string of naval units jutting out from a coast can double even triple the movement time that enemy naval units take to get to where they want to go. If you are willing to move them about you can keep the enemy navy away from the scene of the action indefinitely. Obviously this works best if you are at peace with two warring AIs and have an rop with at least one of them. It's great fun to cut a swarm of AI naval units into managable chunks and watch another AI cut them down to size.

[alva]

Great strategy for makin sure both of them get hurt alot, without gaining anything.

[bbaws]

I always figure that any unit the AI loses is a unit up for me.

[Bambul]

Naval blockades, like fortress ZOC, have so much potential, but unfortunately are underpowered and hence rarely used.

[Meshelic]

Naval blockades are a more forceful way of enforcing a trade embargo, but without signing a treaty with someone else.
I used to put them to great effect in an archipelago shaped game where island hopping was the way to go militarily. It was a good preemptive way of saying "okay you're next" to that one civ that had always been annoyed with you since the beginning.

[DaveMcW]

Does a blockade work if you're not at war with the target civ? I thought trade routes could go through ships when you are at peace, just like they go through civs you are at peace with.

[Dom Pedro II]

I didn't realize that trade routes could be blockaded in peace time either.

It would be a lot easier though if naval units had their own ZOC so that you would only need to blockade every other sea square to enforce an effective blockade. All in all, this is the kind of thing to put against a country like Russia with narrow entrances to their ports and all in all very few ports.

[zanthus]

I prefer a more militaristic, rolling blockade. I was playing a game a while back, small continents, I believe. Anyways, the French were really irritating me, so I decided to wipe their collective grin off of their faces. I built about a dozen battleships as a start to a conventional blockade. I then got an idea. What if I permanently put the city out of commision for trading? So I either bombarded the city until the harbor was destroyed, blockading it at the same time, or I just bombarded the railroads to smithereens. Then I moved on to the next couple of cities. In doing so, I was able to enforce a blockade fairly well on a smallish continent with a small number of ships. Needless to say, the French were also softened up pretty well by the time my invasion force got there.

[bbaws]

Blockades do only work at war as far as I have been able to tell. The most effective way to mess with an enemy's trade is break up the trade network by isolating the capital. The submarine blockade above was operated in conjunction with capital cut off. Not sure if it stopped that luxury getting to other harboured cities in the French empire but I did what I could with it. Either way the French have gone the way of the dodo.
At any rate blockading is handy to avoid the settler in a trireme that leaves you stuck in a war forever with a virtually extinct civ.

[Tattila the Hun]

The best way to stop enemy from trading is to drop a nuke smack center of it's capital.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Tattila,

But then you have to clean up the mess after.

A cheap blockade with subs and some battleships to back them up is a good way to irritate the enemy, making it easier to kick them when they aren't looking. You know the old saying "Nice city. I'll take it." right?

If you nuke 'em till they glow, sure it's fun to watch their units wonder about at night, but it's a pain to try and sleep after when they glow like so many kid's night-lights...

D.

[bbaws]

Why would you have to clean up the mess? Surely abandon city if you take it. I would leave a nuked city as an object lesson to the unwary.
As far as tattillas comment goes. It works but so do stealth bombers, bombers, artillery any combat unit or a raft of explorers. Bit off topic though.