Trade war values?

[Maximillian]

So I’m into 1862 and built up the Union navy a lot, I’m blocking almost all of the sea trade nodes and blockading almost all of the CSA ports while having a couple levels of the trade war project researched.

The game thinks that the CSA is winning the trade war, and I can’t figure out how. As far as I can tell, they’re blockading Hampton roads at 1% effectiveness. Where do the numbers on the summary screen come from? They say that the union has lost more money to this than the CSA has.

What am I doing wrong?

[GreatScots]

I don't think it's you, I think it's the game. More often than not, this is the problem I have as well. Whether it's Union or the CSA (after I've cleared out the blockades), the AI's trade war values are comparable to mine. It's especially baffling when I'm playing as Union, I have the whole coast blockaded, the AI has no raids, blockading fleets of its own, and no armies on my territory, and they're doing comparable economic damage to me.

[Captain Müller (KGF)]

Could be project related, eg. trade warfare (private contractors).

[Maximillian]

Oh, I hadn’t put that together. There’s no real way to defend against that, right? It is abstracted out to them putting a lot of money into that project and doesn’t appear on the map?

Originally posted by Captain Müller (KGF):

Could be project related, eg. trade warfare (private contractors).

[HenryPigLatin]

Originally posted by GreatScots:

I don't think it's you, I think it's the game. More often than not, this is the problem I have as well. Whether it's Union or the CSA (after I've cleared out the blockades), the AI's trade war values are comparable to mine. It's especially baffling when I'm playing as Union, I have the whole coast blockaded, the AI has no raids, blockading fleets of its own, and no armies on my territory, and they're doing comparable economic damage to me.

Same for me, always is the case no matter what. I'm going tontry and bust the union blockade of Virginia and see if that changes it.

[GreatScots]

Originally posted by HenryPigLatin:

Originally posted by GreatScots:

I don't think it's you, I think it's the game. More often than not, this is the problem I have as well. Whether it's Union or the CSA (after I've cleared out the blockades), the AI's trade war values are comparable to mine. It's especially baffling when I'm playing as Union, I have the whole coast blockaded, the AI has no raids, blockading fleets of its own, and no armies on my territory, and they're doing comparable economic damage to me.

Same for me, always is the case no matter what. I'm going tontry and bust the union blockade of Virginia and see if that changes it.

Yeah, good luck. When I'm doing this I also take the blockading perks for fleets and the Trade War projects, and there's minimal difference between what I'm doing to the AI and what it's doing to me, although I recently had the values work as they should for part of a campaign. That was nice.

[calabrese88]

I have the same thing happening playing as the Union. I sampled some IIPs in the midwest, where a large Confederate army had just marched about before I chased them away, and I saw some pretty rough cumulative blockade losses even though nothing was currently blockaded. If yoh hover your mouse over the colored blockade icon every IIP has, it shows total blockade losses. I had one port near Cincinnati that had lost $1m to blockades by itself (still in 1861). So my theory is that invading (maybe raiding) armies also contribute to blockades and thus trade warfare.

That being said, there hasn’t been a Confederate army running free in my territory for the past few months, they have 1 naval blockade of 10% effectiveness down in Florida, but have been increasing it’s trade war advantage still so idk what is going on now. Maybe any presence of invading armies trigger blockades even if they are retreating/in battle? Maybe it’s more abstract and any town near the frontlines inevitably sees trade fall? Maybe it’s even more abstract and counts lost labor productivity of conscripted men and as the Union, you will inevitably see higher losses because the economy is larger?

[AssortedMistakes]

Since no real answer has been found so far, I might be able to provide one. There is of course the chance, that it might have been or still is (at least partially) a bug.

I had the same issue every one else seems to be encountering. I broke the union blockade as the CSA and blockaded the northern ports... only to be WORSE off then before according to the trade warfare balance. The reason for that might be a misunderstanding in what is actually shown on that slider.

While the manual states 'Trade Warfare: The amount of money lost to each nation due to enemy military actions. This number includes the effects of blockades, privateering and raiding.' in game it says 'Shows the accumulated and estimated costs of the war on trade...'

And I think it might be that the cost for the blockading is included in the values. I used to employ mixed fleets - including frigates and even ironclads - for blockading duty, which cost disgustingly much (GreatScots made some very informative videos about it on youtube). This leaves the blockading side with the worse balance.

In my last game I sent my heavy ships to their ports, once the northern navy had been sent to the bottom and exclusively used Schooners, 4th Rates and Tugboats (in that order) for blockading duty. These are the most cost efficient when comparing blockading value with their running costs (mostly provisions).

For the first time ever I saw the enemy number tick up faster then mine. Mine still went up, although the north didn't raid, blockade or in other ways harmed my economy. That would seem to give value to my point above. It includes the cost of the blockade (likely any fleet in the blockading stance). So while it did tick up, it did so MUCH more slowly then for the union.

This is a good thing I would say, because it gives the blockaded faction a better chance to attack the blockading squadrons, which are composed of weaker ships, or makes it more costly for the blockader then for the actually blockaded. It also helps to really evaluate how effective your blockade is.

For the north it might still be worth it, to just suffocate the south, even if the balance is negativ, due to inherent economic superiority and less dependency on imports.

[LCcmdr]

Great post, Nein!

[Oubley]

have you captured a city in enemy territory?

1) When I play union '61 what usually happens is that i can get out to about $100 million trade war lead but then that privateering kicks in,
the csa trade losses seem to slow down where mine begin to sky rocket.

2) I have usually also have captured Alexander by this point and sometimes some other places further south.

I believe somehow these places start taking "trade" losses. that are contributed to mine losses.

3) haven't ruled out a bug because sometimes things start to get really weird, but I think most things can be contributed probably to depot/town flipping.

[AssortedMistakes]

In my example, I hadn't taken any union territory yet. Just loaded a save to double check, but I can rule out that trade war value is gained by capturing cities, raiding or other land based effects (both sides)

Also I put up one of my frigate squadrons for blockading and the numbers on my side skyrocketed. This would more or less confirm it, unless I'm overlooking something or another situation came up at the same time, that I was not aware of.

[osheamat]

Add it to the list of inexplicable things - but hey DLC!