Ship Problems

[ojohnson]

I just got this game yesterday, and I built some ships, only to find that they were taking attrition because they did not have the adequate maintenence goods, even though I have automated trading, and 100% naval stockpile. How can I fix this?

[Henry von Minden]

Do you have any of the game expansions? If you have the last one, then all ships take attrition if your ports cannot support them (meaning you would need to get rid of some to lose the ship-maintence attrition).

[ojohnson]

I have the complete edition, but I only have 2 clipper ships in a level 1 naval base

[Henry von Minden]

Ok, then you will need to look at the top right where it shows how many ships you can support. If it's red then you cannot support them, though I doubt it since clippers shouldn't count for that much.

[Lembley42]

Exceeding your naval support only gives you a supply throughput malus, which will mean less supply share will actually reach your ships.

Your ships take attrition if you get less than 25% of their required supplies - early on its very common for many non-UK powers to have problems getting them, since the UK is virtually the only producer of clippers at game start and uses them almost all up (the rest of the GP's uses the rest up).

(The order of who gets to buy / sell on the world market first / second / etc. is ranked by the country's rank (Prestige+Industry+Military Score) - so if you're lets say Rank 50, you virtually have no way getting anything bought if there isnt an outright oversupply)

[ojohnson]

I actually am around 50, I'm playing as Haiti. So should I try to make my own navy supplies?

[Lembley42]

Check if that's the problem - go to budget and hover over the ship stockpile slider to see what goods are bought and what is required. If so, then yeah maybe, although Industralization with Haiti might be difficult :P
If you rush very early on prestige techs and so on and really focus on literacy / prestige , you can even get a GP solely on that , just sayin' :)

[TentacleMayor]

Every time I start a new game, even if I'm in top 10, for a while clipper convoys are extremely scarce, leading to this attrition. There just isn't enough production to supply everyone for the first couple years (?)

[Lembley42]

Yeah, check the Trading Screen and hover over Clippers. There isnt that much supply at the start and as I said, the UK usually uses up almost everything.