Fort Fisher blockade

[USSLockwood]

The tool tip for the fort Fisher harbor indicates that 4 naval elements are required to
blockade Reaves Point. I have a blockade squadron there, containing 8 elements, yet
the port is not blockaded. What gives?

[Lecivius]

There are several issues with blockade in this game

Lookie here

[Aurelian]

It's the same as the first game. You need a combination of blue and brown water blockade.
 
The best way of course is to take the port.

[Lecivius]

I am also trying to blockade Mobile. I have the 2 forts protecting the bay. I have squadrons both outside the forts, and another sitting off the docks. I still have Ft. Pickens with a flotilla off of it, and just to experiment I put another blockade group up the coast. So I have Left, Right, Center, and Docks covered, and it still will not lock up [&:] I even landed Sailors and surrounded it. I'm working on getting a river group just upstream from it.

[Q-Ball]

One thing I noticed is that you need to have an artillery unit in the fort in order for it to blockade the harbor. Check that.

If you have Ft. Morgan, and it has an artillery unit, there is no reason Mobile should not be blockaded

[Lecivius]

Nope, both forts now have guns (I had to strip 2 ships to do it). I landed sailors & took the little town across from it. Only thing left it to get a bunch of river ironclads to run don from up North. I posted in the Ageod forums. I was amazed at the amount of nast PM's I recieved [:(] This whole game now is about getting that port locked up. I seriously think there are some issues with this game. None are "game breakers", but if I'm the only one thinking so, maybe it's just me.

I did get New Orleans to lock up, and I only took the 2 forts at the river mouth. No ships at all. The fort covering the entrance to Pontchartrain is still in rebel hands. Pickens blockades it's river as well if I pull the squadron. So I'm not sure what the mechanics are.

[Toro12]

There is a difference between guns and port guns. Dropping guns from ships is usually just field cannon, if I recall. You need the larger variety.

[Lecivius]

ORIGINAL: cassmj

There is a difference between guns and port guns. Dropping guns from ships is usually just field cannon, if I recall. You need the larger variety.

Ah, and here is a follow on rub. I have seized several forts in roughly 10 games I have started so far. Most of the time, the fortress artilley vanishes. I could live with that, they did spike guns and do other more permanent things after all. So I made a new battery in New York, but it will not load to a fleet with 4 transports in it. I even got totally frustrated & did a wipe & reload of the game. Am I the only one experiencing these types of issues?

[Toro12]

I've noticed that sometimes capturing forts does not afford me the coastal guns. I leave it up to spiking, because other times I do recover them. Just circumstantial here, but it seems when I capture the fort from a landing (i.e., amphibious assault), I capture it in same-turn. If I don't capture same-turn, the coastal guns disappear. (Not sure on that, but it seems rational to me.)

You can build them, as you said, but it's interesting you can't load -- haven't tried that. I'll look at this when I get home.

[Toro12]

Ok, I was able to load a coastal gun I built in Brooklyn to a ship. It's weight is 4, so one transport worked fine.

Did you build the coastal gun in a port city, or a non-port city? There's a zone north of NYC that can build coastal guns, but I'm not sure you can move them to a ship outside a port.

[The Red Baron]

In one game I executed an amphibious assault against Vicksburg. I landed, rested my troops for one turn, then ordered an all-out assault against the city. I captured both coastal artillery units during the assault. In the same game I captured Island 10 in Lake, TN; I captured the coastal guns at Island 10 as well, although it took me several turns to take the place. The turn following my capture of Island 10, I loaded the coastal guns onto transports and sent them to Cairo, IL to receive replacements. They moved but very slowly. Transit time was almost 30 days. It took something like 23 days to load the guns, which makes perfect sense considering their size & the time period, and only 4 days for movement to Cairo.

Coastal artillery has a 50% capture percentage; so, if most of the time you fail to capture coastal guns, I would just chock it up to bad rolls; likewise, my "luck" in that game was probably just that - luck. I captured some nice war booty because I had good rolls.

Edit: Loading coastal guns onto riverine transports using assets from your riverine transport pool works; however, you cannot use discrete transports, i.e. those on which you spend $$ and WS to build, to transport captured guns.