Naval Blockade and Com. Raiding

[Predator145]

Historically, control of the seas has been of vital strategic importance to war efforts. The sea is vital to trade and obtain resources. Belligerents use their navies to blockade and commerce raid the enemy. This aspect IMO is not sufficiently represented in Civ3 where the AI's naval presence is mostly a nuisance while you could just focus on destroying them on land.

1) First is blockading. This is present somewhat in stock game esp in the early game where harbors are only connected by a strip of coastal terrain. An single enemy galley blocking that strip could cut off your trade route and ruin your reputation. But when Astronomy and Navigation come along, you'd need to have units on every tile around a single to coastal city to block that harbor. This is not really feasible and gets easily broken. And when airports come along it's pretty pointless.

2) Commerce raiding is not represented at all since there are no trade units like in other civ games to attack. "Commerce" is represented by having coastal city and terrain improvements generating extra food, commerce and shields from the harvested water tiles. That means the real world main commerce raiders: privateers and subs can't do that in stock game besides sitting on those tiles.

With both resource trade and commerce represented by coastal city improvements the solution would be for commerce raiders to destroy them. And that can only be done via bombardment. If you play with stock game settings on naval bombard, city improvements with a sea bombard value (like that of the coastal fortress) will be the first targeted by naval bombardment. According to default rules, pop and city improvements have a defense value of 16, making them very resilient to early warships. By giving harbors, com. docks and offshore platforms a sea bombard value of let's say 4, they would be targeted first by enemy warships and destroyed, landlocking your city. A coastal fortress with higher sea bombard value then serves the purpose of absorbing that. As long as the coastal fortress stands, everything else is safe.

But personally I don't like C3C naval bombard rules. C3X patch 16 will allow you to easily convert bombard units to PTW/Vanilla style targeting. This means while your coastal improvements are still flimsier than the other improvements and pop, they will now no longer be targeted first. But this makes the coastal fortress far less useful. All I can think of is making it dirt cheap at 10 s, have a very high sea bombard value and a sea attack value of a max 1000. If the enemy warship randomly targets the coastal fortress, it will be likely to miss. Bypassing one will almost always result in loss of 1 HP. But the more improvements you have, the less useful the coastal fortress becomes.

Some mods have coastal fort. auto produce immobile coastal batteries. But I don't like having an unlimited amount of stationary units in a city. Maybe if we can limit each city to 1 unit then it looks attractive. Or it could be a C3X prerequisite to producing Magnetism naval units. How did they manage to get all those cannons to their warships without Metallurgy to begin with?

Another idea would be to create a couple more identical copies. Now you'd have CF, CF2, CF3, CF4 all perfumed with C3X. Building all of them would take you 40 s with no maintenance. The PTW style targeting will be far more likely to hit them. Imagine having a harbor and 4 CFs. Enemy warships would have a 1/3 odds of targeting improvements. Out of these 1/3 odds, only a 1/5 would be your harbor.

Historical commerce raiders the privateer and subs get bombard ability and value. Yes, sub deck gun bombardment was a thing like the bombardment of Fort Stevens and Ellwood. I just use the fidget animation for deck gun attack with the firaxis sub. For modern subs without deck gun animations, I use the SAM launch animation. Subs with stealth attack, stealth bombard shall be terrifying wolf packs being able to weaken transports and carriers before finishing them off as well as sneak up coastal cities to bombard them. To balance that out, destroyers get detect invisible. There are also cheap slower warships with that ability to represent sub chasers, DD escorts/frigates and corvettes. The AI gets them auto produced. And I'm pretty it cheats and can see your subs anyway.

Privateers upgrade all the way up to modern age. Auxiliary cruisers were used to great effect during both world wars. Use them to weaken your rivals' coastal economy without having to go to war. But since they're hidden nat, they're fair game to everyone's navy. I'm not sure how strong escorting privateers with your own national navy, park that stack outside of the AI's territory, bombard with the privateers and then retreat back to the stack to avoid retaliation would be. Maybe all naval units should have the stealth attack ability vs all hidden nat privateers? That way they can't hide.

And while air trade means that it would be as easy to cut off an AI's access to resources in late game one can still cripple their coastal economy, depriving them of food, commerce and shields. Naval play should be a vital part of the game, not just an after thought even on water maps.

 

[Ozymandias]

Sub gun attacks against unarmed merchant ships was always preferred over torpedoes simply because a sub could carry many more deck gun shells. Land attacks were so rare that I’m not certain that working this in would be worth the effort - but it does (of course) become a different matter entirely once we get to multi-target cruise missiles. Now that subs can readily carry 64 of these I wouldn’t bother to “keep count” for resupplying.

 

[timerover51]

I would agree that naval warfare is not nearly as important in the game as it has been in the Real World. What you could do to get around this to an extent is have a special unit representing a large number of Shields which can be built and then transported to a coastal city which is not producing a large number of Shields to increase its output.

As for the classic Close Blockage of a coastal city, that pretty much was eliminated by torpedo-carrying ships and naval mines around 1900. Even Jackie Fisher had to admit that attempting a close blockade of the German North Sea ports was not going to work. Submarines and aircraft simply were icing on the cake. What the British did then was establish the Northern Patrol, mainly using auxiliary cruisers, covering the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, and making sure that the Germans were not acquiring overseas supplies through neutral countries: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Loses of the auxiliary cruisers were fairly heavy. In World War 2, the British attempted to establish the same patrol, and lost the Jervis Bay and Rawalpindi to attacks by German surface ships. As only Sweden was neutral in World War 2, blocking shipments to the other nations was not that difficult. Some blockade running was done from Japan to Occupied France using surface ships, but it was a hit or miss proposition. Submarines were also used, but had limited cargo capacity.

As for privateers and subs having bombardment, that should be a non-starter. Coastal cities should have some coastal defenses, including coast batteries. The US liked 12 inch, 14 inch, and 16 guns, along with 12 inch seacoast mortar batteries. The British preferred 9.2 inch and 6 inch guns. Either way, a sub would be committing suicide to attack a defended port. The same would hold true for your privateers, which are actually private warships. Their prey was merchantmen, not attacking ports. Typically, a privateer was designed for speed first, and was therefore lightly-built. Damage was to be avoided. Defended ports were anathema except to say a pirate fleet. I have had coastal fortresses auto-produce cannon, upgraded to artillery, in some of my mods.

 

[timerover51]

If you are looking for a mod that has a vessel that can be used as an auxiliary cruiser, you need to check Theov's mod out here. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/expanding-civ3-a-theov-mod.559222/

He has an ocean liner which I use as an infantry transport, but can easily be set up as an auxiliary cruiser. However, you might want to check out the following books on Project Gutenberg to get some idea as to combat between two auxiliary cruisers: Stories of the Ships by Lewis R. Freeman and The Battle of the Falkland Islands, Before and After by Henry Edmund Harvey Spencer-Cooper. Both books cover the battle between the British auxiliary cruiser Carmania and the German auxiliary cruiser Cap Trafalgar. That would give you are good idea as to how much damage a ship like that could take. The Carmania sank the Cap Trafalger in an hour and forty minutes despite mounting only six 4.7 inch guns, with only four of the capable of broadside fire.

The ships were built as cargo liners, not as warships, so did not have the ability to withstand a lot of damage. Using such a ship for shore bombardment would be equivalent to loosing the ship if the port had any defense at all.

 

[Theov]

A line of Hidden Nationality pirate ships spices up the naval game a lot.
No more care-free sailing bc around every corner there could be a raiding party waiting.
Delay map trading and your exploration period actually becomes fun again.
As for blockades .... those trading routes have become much harder to come by.

 

[Predator145]

The thing is the AI has no clue how to use a trading/merchant ship unit even if they get them auto produced. Bombardment of harbor/com dock and offshore platforms may or may not seem realistic but I've yet to see anyone offer a better alternative to represent commerce raiding.

I have land "trade units" which are just maintenance-free caravans/trucks that I can keep at the ready to disband to speed up cash rushing or avoid waste. Of course the AI would not be able to use them. They could have their own version auto produced that can "finish improvements" with the AI strat of "Leader" but no "build army" special command. They just don't know how to disband an auto-produced high shield cost unit. And I doubt they know how to move these units into different cities either. They just use it to finish the improvement in the city that auto produced them.

An age of sail frigate could bombard a Civ3 city with coastal fortress with impunity in stock game. The coastal fortress in Civ3 is a passive shield, not a offensive tool as ZOC is very easy to avoid. I have the attack value cranked up to the max of 1000 already. But if a 1000 t wooden ship with 17th cannons can do that then a 10 000 t aux cruiser with a buncha 15cm guns certainly can. Most coastal cities wouldn't have defenses in Civ3. And these bombardments don't represent actually shoot outs with the forts but sneaky raids on commerce shipping off the coast. That's why coastal improvements have been given low sea def value.

The thing I don't like about immobile coastal artillery units is that there is no limit on how many a city could make. They're supposed to be part of the fort. If there is a mechanism to limit the numbers a city could have it would be great. But for now I'll pass. Remember, these coastal forts can bombard land units as well. Having these assets make coastal cities suddenly better defended than their landlocked counterparts. Unless we just do away with the the coastal concept and just have immobile artillery pieces that can't be loaded and cost no maintenance. These can be flagged with "cruise missile" AI strat and the AI will use them to defend their cities. Them being static isn't too bad since the AI doesn't know how to use artillery defensively well even with C3X. Having a couple of cheap static pieces helps.

 

[Civinator]

The thing I don't like about immobile coastal artillery units is that there is no limit on how many a city could make. They're supposed to be part of the fort. If there is a mechanism to limit the numbers a city could have it would be great.

The mechanism to limit autoproduced coastal artillery is the interval of the production of these units in combination with the obsolescence of that building. Another setting for a limitation of autoproduced coastal artillery units (at least for the AI) would be the simple possibility of upgrading them to a different unit. In CCM the coastal battery improvement (with a coastal fortress in the city as prerequisite) can autoproduce a maximum of 4 coastal artillery units (mostly less) before getting obsolete. In the screenshot below the autoproduced unit was still named coastal battery, too.

Coastal artillery in CCM is an immobile naval unit, that can be upgraded to mobile flight boats (so this type of units is integrated into CCM, too).

 

[Predator145]

One can still technically stop research and milk it. And don't you wanna move on to auto-producing newer guns? Coastal fortifications and artillery didn't end with the age of sail. You'd have industrial and modern versions. I guess having them upgrade into something mobile is one way to clean house and start new.

Interesting making these batteries sea units. That way with a high def stat they could shield your own ships from being bombarded.

Right now I'm leaning towards immobile maintenance-free land artillery that is capturable and upgrades but need to be built, not auto-produced under the "cruise missile" AI strat. You'd either need to build a land fortress or a coastal fortress to be able to build this immobile artillery piece.

C3X only allows one improvement to be the requirement for building but you can do it like this for example: "Star Fort" is required to build "Fortress Battery" upgrading into "Coastal Battery" that requires the improvement "Coastal Fortress". These 2 artillery units are identical in stats but for cosmetic reasons you could use different units. A coastal city with a Coastal Fortress will always train the Coastal Battery instead. Landlocked cities still get the to train the identical "Fortress Battery" so that they're not left out. If you're even more OCD, have the "Star Fort" and "Coastal Fortress" cost the same.

And of course these artillery pieces can upgrade up the tech tree. Their required improvements can either have different graphics for eras or go obsolete and your new upgraded units will then require the new improvements. "Fortress Battery" upgrades into "Fixed Artillery" and requires a "Bunker" instead of a "Star Fort".

Now we have the option of either making them expensive and powerful with both high defense and AA value. There are bunker and turret units and would suit that profile. They'd cost as much as major improvement at 120 s or more. That will limit how many you'd want to build. For the human player, being maintenance free is the only boon they have besides maybe being able to give a higher defensive bombard stat than any mobile artillery unit. Or we can make them cheap and still maintenance free. That way the AI doesn't get punished too bad for building them in places that don't matter.

The beauty with these immobile static defense units is that they supplement the AI's much stressed city garrison in C3X where the mobile the defenders get pulled off to escort artillery. These static defense/artillery units don't need to be flagged as defensive AI strat. They could be anything from "Cruise Missile" AI strat that allows them to bombard to useless things like "Explore" ,"Flag Unit", "King" that would have them just sit there fortified if they don't need the former function. With C3X perfume any AI strat could be built.

Back to the topic, these coastal/fortress batteries could have radar+detect invisible ability to help them punish marauding submarines lurking off the coast should they end their turn in the 2 tile radius.

 

[Civinator]

One can still technically stop research and milk it. And don't you wanna move on to auto-producing newer guns? Coastal fortifications and artillery didn't end with the age of sail.

Stopping research for "milking" the autoproduction of coastal artillery in CCM would be a very unwise strategy as this would include the renounce of many other autoproduced unit lines. In the settings of the complete Civ series naval warfare is a niche feature, as Firaxis unfortunately always treated ocean as "another kind of a desert". In CCM the setting for the coastal artillery works well for all purposes of its existence until a cornucopia of industrial naval units (among them torpedo boats and later WW1 and WW2 destroyers, protected, armored and later light and heavy cruisers) overtake these duties.

Interesting making these batteries sea units. That way with a high def stat they could shield your own ships from being bombarded.

The not so high defense value in the settings of the CCM coastal artillery is sufficient against attacks of most units of the Age of sail and even can provide damage against early industrial naval units. Their main purpose is to attack other ships and here it is mostly helpful, that most of those naval enemies are slowed down in coastal waters so there is a chance that these ships are attacked by the coastal fortress (building), too. If a coastal town is bombarded with the standard C3C bombardment setting, the coastal artillery is the first target to be bombarded.

Back to the topic

Yes back to the ships.

Auxiliary cruisers, so there were some very successful German auxiliary cruisers even in WW 2, in my mods and scenarios are coming too late to play an important role in the game. CCM uses another interesting unit in the early industrial age: The Commerce Raiders of the US Civil War.

Wikipedia: During the American Civil War, the Confederate Navy operated a fleet of commissioned Confederate States Navy commerce raiders. These differed from privateers as they were state-owned ships with orders to destroy enemy commerce rather than privately owned ships with letters of marque. These included Sumter, Florida, Alabama, and Shenandoah.

Delta_Strive made a very nice ship for these duties (so it came a little bit too late for the Civil War):

These ships and their settings with the HN flag until today provide a lot of fun to the players of the CCM mod.

Spoiler :

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm2-epic-mod.625812/page-13#post-15413163

 

[Predator145]

Naming convention for Hidden Nationality ships:

Privateer-Commerce Raider-Merchant Raider-Aux. Cruiser-Missile Aux. Cruiser

I did intend on using Delta's CSS Louisiana steam corvette to represent the CSS Alabama "Commerce Raider" but they looked too similar to the contemporary steam corvette in my mod also made by Delta. So I ended up using Aaglo's paddle wheelers. During the US civ war, many paddle wheelers were also used for raiding and blockade running.

"CSS Ivy was a sidewheel steamer and privateer purchased by Commodore Lawrence Rousseau for service with the Confederate States Navy,"
"As a privately owned commercial vessel, Ivy had been known as Roger Williams and El-Paraguay. CSS Ivy began her Civil War career as a New Orleans-based privateer V.H. Ivy, sent out to capture Union commercial vessels once Jefferson Davis authorized the distribution of letters of marque and reprisal to private citizens after hostilities began in April 1861. Ivy did well at this, capturing four northern registered vessels."

CSS Ivy for example was an actual steam privateer.


Wyrm made a Troop Ship that fired multiple guns in a broadside that would make it look far more formidable than your avg transport so I use that for the WWI era "Merchant Raider". For WWII era he made a dedicated Aux. Cruiser.

If anyone wonders what a "Missile Aux. Cruiser" is:

China is building long-range cruise missiles launched from ship containers

China is likely to build a variant of its YJ-18, the YJ-18C, long-range cruise missile that could be fired from shipping containers

www.navyrecognition.com

Wyrm made a container ship as well. There's no combat animation. But it's easy to copy paste the SAM launch animation on to it.

 

[Civinator]

Naming convention for Hidden Nationality ships:

Privateer-Commerce Raider-Merchant Raider-Aux. Cruiser-Missile Aux. Cruiser

In CCM 2.6 the HN ship upgrade chain (all autoproduced or enslaved) is:

Pirate Ship - Privateer - Pirate Frigate - Commerce Raider

For later HN ships (like auxilary cruisers) in CCM or SOE and WW2 Global Gold there is no real place, as in those eras nearly all civs are in war and the only advantage of those ships - the HN-flag - is no longer of any real importance. It is a pity, that Civ 3 is lacking a merchant navy, as this in my eyes would change a lot. Civ 2 had caravans that had commercial output where it doesn't matter in wich direction of an ocean the caravans were sent. The supply shipments of AOI (reverse capture the flag) work to some degree at a fixed map with preset victory locations and even less in CCM for random maps with the capture the princess setting. With both settings HN ships loose most of their importance when nearly all civs on the map are in war and there are much stronger ships available for attack duties.

I ended up using Aaglo's paddle wheelers. During the US civ war, many paddle wheelers were also used for raiding and blockade running.

Yes, in my eyes this is a good setting, too. I use the paddle wheelers as one of the prebuilds for later torpedoboats and destroyers with higher mobility in coastal waters. For me the Louisianas offer a little bit more the feel of doing a "bigger punch".

Wyrm made a Troop Ship that fired multiple guns in a broadside that would make it look far more formidable than your avg transport so I use that for the WWI era "Merchant Raider". For WWII era he made a dedicated Aux. Cruiser.

Yes, he made these units for the SOE scenario, but even in this scenario unfortunately they only have an unimportant function.

 

[Predator145]

Privateer line can also serve another purpose by not requiring resources to build. After all, they're either private vessels or converted from merchant ships. I have the ancient and medieval age of sail stuff converge and upgrade into the industrial era commerce raider so that one doesn't end up with total useless junk should oil and coal RNG be bad.

 

[Civinator]

Privateer line can also serve another purpose by not requiring resources to build. After all, they're either private vessels or converted from merchant ships. I have the ancient and medieval age of sail stuff converge and upgrade into the industrial era commerce raider so that one doesn't end up with total useless junk should oil and coal RNG be bad.

Yes, in my eyes this is a good and consequent step of setting naval units in a C3C mod. I did the same in the CCM mod. Here those units end in upgrades to torpedo boats and later WW1 and WW2 destroyers without needing additional resources.

 

[Ozymandias]

As for the classic Close Blockage of a coastal city, that pretty much was eliminated by torpedo-carrying ships and naval mines around 1900. Even Jackie Fisher had to admit that attempting a close blockade of the German North Sea ports was not going to work. Submarines and aircraft simply were icing on the cake. What the British did then was establish the Northern Patrol, mainly using auxiliary cruisers, covering the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, and making sure that the Germans were not acquiring overseas supplies through neutral countries: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Loses of the auxiliary cruisers were fairly heavy. In World War 2, the British attempted to establish the same patrol, and lost the Jervis Bay and Rawalpindi to attacks by German surface ships. As only Sweden was neutral in World War 2, blocking shipments to the other nations was not that difficult. Some blockade running was done from Japan to Occupied France using surface ships, but it was a hit or miss proposition. Submarines were also used, but had limited cargo capacity.

It is worth remembering the roots of how the majority of first-line naval ships, around the world, came to be called nearly ubiquitous how the name of our first-line warship surfaces came to all but uniform name of our Destroyers.

Torpedo boats appeared before the Sub, during the late 19th century, relatively contemporaneous, with the first (technically) combat-capable submersible.

Yet, it was the notion of stealthy (meaning: operable at night) to sneak close enough to a Dreadnought to cause major mayhem.

So many navies, most definitely counting the UK embarked up a state of mass-producing, "Torpedo Boat Destroyers ...

... And the rest is History.

As for privateers and subs having bombardment, that should be a non-starter. Coastal cities should have some coastal defenses, including coast batteries. The US liked 12 inch, 14 inch, and 16 guns, along with 12 inch seacoast mortar batteries. The British preferred 9.2 inch and 6 inch guns. Either way, a sub would be committing suicide to attack a defended port. The same would hold true for your privateers, which are actually private warships. Their prey was merchantmen, not attacking ports. Typically, a privateer was designed for speed first, and was therefore lightly-built. Damage was to be avoided. Defended ports were anathema except to say a pirate fleet. I have had coastal fortresses auto-produce cannon, upgraded to artillery, in some of my mods.

Yup - I hereby think that we are close to remaining Same Page.

 

[timerover51]

I am currently playing Theov's Civ3 Mod, with a variety of hidden nationality raiding ships. Currently, I am at peace, sort of, with the Hittites. I say sort of, as I am 8 turns into a 20 turn peace treaty with them, after having fought a vigorous, but somewhat one-sided war with them. I could see it coming and planned accordingly. The situation is that I have a coastal city located, about 5 tiles from one of his, and with my own hidden nationality ships watching it. As we are supposedly at peace, I can conduct Espionage on the city. I could see him building a hidden nationality corsair, then my two much stronger hidden nationality ship-of-the-line watched as his corsair slipped out of the port, between my two ships to sink one of my corsairs, and then dashed back into the port to repair damage.

He has been doing this for a while, and I have caught several of his ships building, then attacking, and then running for cover. Needless to say, I have not been amused by there antics, and retribution is about to occur.

If anyone would like a SAV of this game, I have one that I can post, but you will need to have Theov's mod on your computer to follow it. I do like the mod.

 

[Civinator]

timerover51, these are quite normal tactics when dealing with HN ships: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm2-epic-mod.625812/page-13#post-15413394 The best tactics against this behavior, with normal C3C bombardment activated, is to bombard the harbor city of that civ with your own HN-ships and to cover them after bombardment with your own strong normal warships. The bombardment of the harbor city destroys or at least damages the units inside that harbor city, starting with ships, and here including the HN ships of the other civ without triggering war.

 

[timerover51]

timerover51, these are quite normal tactics when dealing with HN ships: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm2-epic-mod.625812/page-13#post-15413394 The best tactics against this behavior, with normal C3C bombardment activated, is to bombard the harbor city of that civ with your own HN-ships and to cover them after bombardment with your own strong normal warships. The bombardment of the harbor city destroys or at least damages the units inside that harbor city, starting with ships, and here including the HN ships of the other civ without triggering war.

I am not planning to bombard the city. I am planning on capturing it.

 

[Civinator]

I am not planning to bombard the city. I am planning on capturing it.

In the CCM mod HN ships can enslave to other HN ships (of a lower level) and here it can be interesting to do a HN ship bombardment before capturing a city.

 

[Theov]

I am currently playing Theov's Civ3 Mod, with a variety of hidden nationality raiding ships. Currently, I am at peace, sort of, with the Hittites. I say sort of, as I am 8 turns into a 20 turn peace treaty with them, after having fought a vigorous, but somewhat one-sided war with them. I could see it coming and planned accordingly. The situation is that I have a coastal city located, about 5 tiles from one of his, and with my own hidden nationality ships watching it. As we are supposedly at peace, I can conduct Espionage on the city. I could see him building a hidden nationality corsair, then my two much stronger hidden nationality ship-of-the-line watched as his corsair slipped out of the port, between my two ships to sink one of my corsairs, and then dashed back into the port to repair damage.

He has been doing this for a while, and I have caught several of his ships building, then attacking, and then running for cover. Needless to say, I have not been amused by there antics, and retribution is about to occur.

If anyone would like a SAV of this game, I have one that I can post, but you will need to have Theov's mod on your computer to follow it. I do like the mod.

Thanks for the kind words.
Yes the AI is pretty good at using HN ships, or HN units in general (the Mongols have them).
You could use a Black Pearl, HN, to bomb the city. Since you have Ships of the Line I guess you have Black Pearls, too?
Or you lure the ship out and use another ship to kill it. The AI often sends them patrolling.

Is this an older version? Bc I replaced the Hittites in the mean time.

 

[timerover51]

Thanks for the kind words.
Yes the AI is pretty good at using HN ships, or HN units in general (the Mongols have them).
You could use a Black Pearl, HN, to bomb the city. Since you have Ships of the Line I guess you have Black Pearls, too?
Or you lure the ship out and use another ship to kill it. The AI often sends them patrolling.

Is this an older version? Bc I replaced the Hittites in the mean time.

Yes, it is an older version. The Hittites are crazy aggressive. They make the Mongols look peaceful.