Any tips for un-blockading ports?

[ginger_hammer]

Hi,

Playing as Ottomans I'm having cash flow problems due to all my ports being blockaded by 3/4 full stacks of enemy fleets. Venice, Russia and Austria all have large fleets sat blocking my ports and I have only 2 ships (fenced in).
This is sucking up lots of my cash so I can't afford even a 1/2 stack of ships. Relationships with these factions are all below -200 so they never accept peace. Bit of a chicken & egg situation, my only idea so far is to wipe out the factions on land so destorying their fleets (ok for venice, not so great for austria & russia). My ministers are all the best they can be, besides the 2 star king who just won't die! Have been selling tech, etc and have only 1 peasant unit garrisoning most cities, tax on medium/low and can't go higher or else red.

Any sneaky ideas for diverting these money sucking fleets away?

[eXistenZ]

Wel, keep a unit in the port,, so the port is only blockaded and not damaged. Somehow a blockaded port still makes money, only less.

I noticedit when playing russia. They blockade my krim port, but i still make money.

[morteduzionism]

Hi,

Playing as Ottomans I'm having cash flow problems due to all my ports being blockaded by 3/4 full stacks of enemy fleets. Venice, Russia and Austria all have large fleets sat blocking my ports and I have only 2 ships (fenced in).
This is sucking up lots of my cash so I can't afford even a 1/2 stack of ships. Relationships with these factions are all below -200 so they never accept peace. Bit of a chicken & egg situation, my only idea so far is to wipe out the factions on land so destorying their fleets (ok for venice, not so great for austria & russia). My ministers are all the best they can be, besides the 2 star king who just won't die! Have been selling tech, etc and have only 1 peasant unit garrisoning most cities, tax on medium/low and can't go higher or else red.

Any sneaky ideas for diverting these money sucking fleets away?

For the king, if you're so close to going red then engineer a revolution. That won't help the blockade problem but it will get rid of the king.

Do you absolutely need a garrison in "most" cities? If not, disband those units which will add to revenue/per turn.

If you're going to use garrisons, as eXistenZ said, it's best to garrison your trade ports to prevent total blockades and the constant need to repair damage.

What kind of ships are they using? If it's a bunch of light galley's, sloops and brigs then a 1/3 stack (6 ships) of frigates with heavy support (I play as Spain so I can get galleons I don't know what you have available) will handle them easily.

I use three frigates (5th rates), two galleons and an admiral's 5th rate to keep Venice and Austria off of my trade routes and noticed that in the early/mid stages (50-60 yrs) that they mainly used light ships and rarely had heavier ships...I repeat, this is the case in the early/mid stages later they do have heavier ships (i.e. 4th's and 3rd's).

NOTE:
In one of my campaigns Venice brought the Ottoman's to their knees with a single brig. They parked it in the port...Thessalonica (?) and the Ottoman's never got it out. I, Spain, got tired of the trade being blocked so I started raising a fleet to go protect the port. Granted I waited a loooong time to make the decision because I couldn't believe the Ottoman's couldn't handle a single brig blockading their port.

By the time my fleet was nearing completion the Venetians had begun to take Ottoman territory...

In the campaign I just finished (a different one from the one mentioned above) the last of the territories I gained to get the victory were: Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Anatolia...all taken from Venice.

[Lumina]

Make Allies with a major Naval Power before going to war with anyone, You'd be suprised how much it helps in the oceanic part of the campaign. Also try to keep a defensive fleet near your coast even if composed of weak small Frigates like 6th Rates, anything helps to repell, and you may capture larger ships long before you researched the ability to make them. Saxony I have 3rd/4th/5th Rates despite only being able to build 6th Rates since Saxony has no naval collage.

[ginger_hammer]

Cheers for the tips, rep all round.

I've eventually managed to get a peace deal with venice out of the blue then austria decided to stop blocking on the same turn. Then the one settlement that I had a toe hold in india was wanted by mysore (sp?) for the handsome some of 21000! I kindly accepted and now I'm back up on my feet again and happily invading spain

[Red Hue]

My best advice in preventing blockades is to put a small fast ship in front of each port, not in it. Sloops work best.

In relieving blockades station a small fast ship near but not in the intercept zone of the blockading fleet.

Then it is a matter of following a slightly exploitive battle plan. Remember that the defender needs only to survive the battle to win so with your ship you need to play keep away from the enemy fleet for the time length of the battle.

By winning the little game of tag you force the enemy to withdraw. You may have to fight him nearly every turn but it keeps you from running out of cash.

My advice for that is to change the battle length for that engagement to 20 min. and play on high-speed. That way it lasts about 5 min of real time.

[Gabrieln1]

Quite as morteduzionism said, it's all in the ships. For example I was playing as Great Britian and a massive French fleet had blockaded Newcastle, so I sent a 1/2 fleet of 4th ships of the line and dealt them immediate death. As well took alot of their ships as my own. Great Victory, all they had were a bunch of sloops and 5th rate ships of the line anyway. As well it was a full bar fleet of them, an easy kill.

[dunkdafunk]

If you want a navy in the med, try take Malta, or get St Johns to be protectorate.
Later in the game they get a naval hospital and if they are your protectorate your ship will get repaired even outside of the port.

To stop your ports being blockaded, send a unit in to the ports. And then build a fleet big enough to put others off attacking you.
Then when u have upper hand, you blockade their ports. And strangle their trade.

[dutch81]

I also use sloops for port defense and they can also be used in a pinch to blockade enemy ports. But, any faction that depends on trade for a large share of its income must have a fleet to protect that income. For the Ottomans I used a large cheap fleet of galleys early on ... when attacking head-on in an abreast formation they are rather deadly for even the biggest ships. Then as your tech evolves build a few 4th rates ... they are not as good as the 3rd rate but will beat the pants off an entire stack of light ships and they come quite a bit earlier ... and I am talking about 3-4 of them. But, once again the Ottomans must dominate the Med. it is a great faction to make alot of money quite early but they can only do this by trade as your home provinces are POOR!