CSA Fleet Strategy

[CoachMac]

Hi everyone,
I am new to this game which is absolutely amazing.

I started the early campaign 1861, and i wonder what to do with fleets. A fair part of the southern navy is under repair at the beginning of the campaign.

I noticed as well that unlike troops you cannot transfer ships between different fleet commands.

Firt i kept a reasonable force to cover Vicksburg and support operation near Memphis. SO I will for sure keep a river fleet force for that.

But then I hesitate between few options:

a) consider the blockade and union fleet superiority as a totally lost cause and just disband all fleets except the river strength covering Vicksburg basically to reduce my fleet upkeep costs.

b) invest into a few ironclad ships and try the to reduce blockade effects. But that will use lots of resources for potentially a limited result.

In the end i dont see the point in keeping fleets outside of the one covering the Mississippi river. So would love to hear your views.

[Mittens]

To transfer ships, you can move them to the harbor, and then move them to a different fleet. You can't put river ships in a fleet at sea, or sea ships in a fleet in a river, and I think you need to be by a port to add a ship.

My personal strategy is to
1) Garrison all my forts with at least 1 battery once I get two year contracts. This saves a lot of need for a big coastal fleet.

2) Right at the start I lay down about 12 gunboats for the river side of things.

3) I lay down six ironclads or so as soon as I get access to them.

I mostly try and protect the river, though you can start taking the fight to the union once you have ironclads in a decent number.

[akula]

Originally posted by Mittens:

To transfer ships, you can move them to the harbor, and then move them to a different fleet. You can't put river ships in a fleet at sea, or sea ships in a fleet in a river, and I think you need to be by a port to add a ship.

My personal strategy is to
1) Garrison all my forts with at least 1 battery once I get two year contracts. This saves a lot of need for a big coastal fleet.

2) Right at the start I lay down about 12 gunboats for the river side of things.

3) I lay down six ironclads or so as soon as I get access to them.

I mostly try and protect the river, though you can start taking the fight to the union once you have ironclads in a decent number.

6 ironclads? that is a lot of strain on the economy for upkeep, did you also abandon the useless ships like schooners, etc?

my strategy for the CSA navy is to control the Mississippi by immediately moving all fleets into the river systems of the interior. and keeping only like 2 on the atlantic side of things. build enough forts along the rivers and at their entrances, and you will have no problems. right now i have more forts along the rivers than i can count, a bunch on the peninsulas of Virginia, and one fleet (three ironclads) currently blockading the DC area and one fleet (one steam frigate) blockading the New York/New England area. if you can blockade them, and control the rivers, you can essentially prevent them from sending any more fleets out of their ports.

[akula]

also, remember to click and drag the image of the ship, no its name

[CoachMac]

Yes i did scrap most of the rest except the river force to cover the Mississipi.
It is my first game so maybe i should have just accepted to leave the fleet but at least i will test it.

[H0gs_tooth]

I saw someone post a strategy of building 4 ships of the line in Texas at the very start of the game. Well i tried this and about a year later they were done, I moved every sea going ship I had into the same fleet and went to take on the home squadron. We actually won, but lost every single ship except for a ships tender gunboat and a 4th rate steamer lol. Honestly seems like more investment than it's worth.

In short, I agree with Lester's strategy

[CoachMac]

Kind of a similar question

I do not see how i can transfer two "repaired" ships to one of my fleet.
I dont see in which harboor they are located either.
So not sure what to do.

Screenshot here just to make eventually easier to understand what am i talking about.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198007903900/screenshots/

[CoachMac]

Bump, any idea on that last question ?