A blockading we shall go, a blockading we will go, here are the facts that we know:

• A 95% blockade costs the CSA 40% of its city cash income per turn.
  
• A 40% blockade can be achieved by using your starting 11 blockade flotillas split between the boxes.
  
• A 95% blockade can be achieved without conquest by using 22 blockade flotillas in each box. This would require building 33 flotillas at a cost of $6,270.

Here are the numbers run against a standard CSA economy that has not lost any cities. Nor has it built any buildings. It's NM in the constant range of 102-104. The Flotillas are listed in pairs, one for each box. The 5.5 is your starting 11 flotillas, 5 in one box, 6 in the other.


As noted above, a 95% blockade only costs the CSA 40% of its city cash income per turn. The difference between the starting 40% and 65% is roughly a $23 loss to the CSA income. In order to achieve this number without conquest it would require building 13 flotillas at a cost of $2,470. It would take around 6? turns to get the resources for construction and another 16 turns to build them. Throwing out the first 22 turns and the last 10 (because new units don't really matter at that point) this leaves around 83 turns of operating time. Increasing the blockade to 65% from 40% with an operating time of 83 turns loses the CSA an additional $1,900.

Can the South easily replace this loss? I'm not too sure... It doesn't seem that bad, not when it is spread over 4 years. That is $2,470 worth of infantry and artillery they don't have to contend with in the early years - that is a major boon. One way to think about it is: As the CSA would I be willing to pay $1,900 to not lose a major city before the autumn of '62? I think I would.

Obviously my numbers for the CSA income are not going to be the same in each game. The more industry the South builds the more effective the blockade will be. Same with their NM.

In the above I only addressed furthering the blockade by building flotillas. Increasing the blockade through other means, namely conquest, things look quite a bit different.

In my opinion, if you are serious about instituting an effective blockade you must take a major coastal city or pursue brown water blockades. The returns on a pure blue water blockade diminish too quickly. As an example here are how the numbers look with the conquest of New Orleans.


Taking New Orleans and having only your starting blockade flotillas in the boxes is equivalent to having 21 blockade flotillas in each box. That is worth 31 additional flotillas or $5,890. Add on top of that NO makes roughly 10% the CSA's conscripts...

Lets take it one conquest further. One of the easier, often overlooked targets, Fort Sumter. Taking Fort Sumter and placing a single artilery therein will induce a brown water blockade on Charleston. Charleston is the richest un-blockaded city the South has. The effect in addition to New Orleans:


Following this path would drop the CSA income to 119. If you put all your Union recruiting officers to work then you now make more conscripts per turn than the CSA makes money.