Navy questions

[kirk1226]

Hello,
I have a few questions on the naval aspect of this game. As the union, it looks like Frigates, in all likelyhood, are only going to be useful when attacking ports defended by confederate ships. Is that correct? If I plan to simply blockade all southern ports,without actually attacking them, is there a real need for me to build frigates? It looks like I just need 3 ship units(30 strength pnts) blockading each southern port to get VP at the end of the game. It would appear that frigates would be important if there was a real danger of rebel war vessels coming out of port to attck the blockading ships, but how realistic is that? Lastly, what is the importance of fleets? Thanks for any insight on this. Kirk Hutzel

[terje439]

30 strength points to blockade a port. This also helps reduce the ammount of goods the South recieves from Europe.
Frigates are anti-ship-ships, yes. Depending on the scenario, the South might have two ships, and a Southern player might very well spend some iron on an IC later on if he is doing well.

Fleets are important in that you need those 30 strenght points to be in one to make the blockade, and if you have a large enough fleet to spare, you could always try to launch an invasion behind the enemy lines.