No naval engagements?

[olperfessor]

Playing my first game, and having reached July 1863, I wonder why (apparently) there have been no naval engagements. In addition to my beginning ships, nearly all with better guns now, I have built one frigate and one ironclad. I'm blockading three CSA ports, have one fleet at sea looking for trouble, and every fleet is set to seek battle (there's a second button selected that seems to matter, but I cannot recall what it is). The CSA has gotten several naval upgrades; I see no map icons (other than blockade runners at sea) suggesting that any CSA port has ships at anchor, but they must be somewhere. Have I failed to click an option, do you think? If I RTFM correctly, USA ships cannot engage single blockade runners at sea. Must a player attack a port to see if there are any ships there?

[madgamer2]

It could just be me but the first time I played I built up the blue at sea box with lots of shios and had the percentage up to like 30% and I have noticed that doing this had about the same effect as not building any more ships.  I did see a lot of ship combat at the james river sea outlet and much riverine action as well.
   The south did have some very good sea raiders but the North had a much better navy so I say spend you bucks on something else if playing either side.  You can go into ports and bombard but you need ships with big guns and equiping the navy you start with costs a great deal so I say don't bother unless you are willing to pay the price.

Mqdgamer

[Joram]

Well, I believe in the early scenarios, the CSA has exactly two combat ships, one in Mobile, and one in New Orleans.  I have never seen the AI actually move them out or build new ones to be honest.  So that's why you probably aren't seeing any naval battles!

[olperfessor]

Thank you both. I'll play on and see what happens.

[Gil R.]

The CSA is strapped for cash and therefore doesn't always get around to building up its navy to sufficient strength for there to be naval engagements. The fact that it is getting upgrades isn't relevant, since even if it does nothing at all its starter naval college (or colleges, I can't remember) and schools will eventually give it enough points for naval upgrades.

[olperfessor]

Is there a report that can tell the USA what effect, if any, the blockades are having? Did I overlook this somewhere?

[decaturkev]

The two bloackade runners are the initial vessels for CSA. I find addtional runners as early as possible give a boost to the CSA economy.

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: olperfessor

Is there a report that can tell the USA what effect, if any, the blockades are having? Did I overlook this somewhere?

No, I don't believe so. Eric will weigh in if I'm wrong.