Continents and AI

[cal_01]

Well, I just played a continents game, and from what I saw, the AI took forever to get even one ship out. I managed to circumnavigate the globe in 1300-1400 or so (and that's not beelining to Caravels), and they only managed to get Caravels and a force to attack me in 1700 on Epic/Prince. Is there something wrong with this AI?

Does that mean a navy isn't really needed in a continents game until much later on?

[Blake]

Right. The AI is a bit weak on water maps. Hopefully the AI's awareness of map type will be raised a bit by patches and user mods (once the SDK comes out).

[Drachasor]

It seems like some cultures (Russia in particular in my games) are a bit better about getting ships out earlier. However, I've never seen the AI manage to send more than three or so transports with units in an attack. This is usually a horribly inadequate number and the AI also doesn't seem to be able to judge wether it makes any sense to send those units out (e.g. if there are destroyers parked right outside a city it will send units out to certain death).

-Drachasor

[Proteus_MST]

Hm,
in my games (Noble Level, Huge Maps) the AI has no problems to obtain the techs to build caravels and to explore the globe (and even be the first to circumnavigate it).
In fact they´re more active there than my own civ

But they show some weaknesses if it is about invasions across the ocean. Normally upon declaring war they have a single invasion armada staioned just outside of your borders carrying troops, which is O.K.
But it doesn´t seem to believe in the importance of reinforcements. Even if the AI manages to capture a city with its initial invasion force and therefore establish a bridgehead on your continent you don´t see it exploit this advantage and send reinforcements there so that there are fresh troops on the bridgehead to withstand my counter attacks or even push further into your terrain.
In one of my games Saladin declared war and landed an invasion force in one city at the eastern tip of my continent. Even though it was defended with 2 modern infantry units and 1 machine gunner, the defenders had no chance against the hordes of cavalry units (more than 10 units) and maybe 1-2 crossbowmen and macemen (although I managed to destroy most of the cavalry units so that upon capturing the city had maybe 3-4 of them left).
Dunno how long It took me to assemble a reasonable force to stage a successful counterattack, but it was maybe 10 turns or more (most of my army was at the western tip of the continent to keep my old enemy, the chinese, at bay, so they had to be transferred from west to east; and it was a very very large continent ).
Saladin hat enough time to get these galleons home and send them back, filled with reinforcements. But there were no reinforcements in sight, not even when I managed to recapture the city (but at least he upgraded his invasion force so that, instead of the mace- and crossbowmen I had to face riflemen ).

In another case the romans declared war on me. After destroying the intitial invasion force I waited for another roman armada to appear.
Several turns later the romans sent a lone galleon into my territory. Filled with a settler and 2 longbowmen

[Blake]

The AI loves to explore! But where they suck is in colonizing and inter-continent conquest. I've noticed that when they do start colonies, they usually remain at size 2 forever...

[cal_01]

I've noticed that the AI doesn't really go for Caravels if it's an ocean-dominated map. When it's on Terra, it will go for Caravels relatively early. On the other hand, if it's on Continents (I've never played Archie maps), it seems to stall on any naval development.

[MasterDave]

I am playing a large continents map and I have noticed inconsistent behavior from the various AI's. Most of them had only a few token ships, but for some reason Japan has TONS of both modern and lo-tech ships wandering around (he has to have at least 30-40 vessels floating around, probably more inside his dozen or so cities), and Monty had probably about 35 frigates and galleons ( no oil resource I suppose) for my battleships, destroyers and attack transports to gain xps from. The other AI's probably have a dozen or less ships.

In my three weeks of playing, I have never seen the AI build more ships than this pair. Do the AI personalities have different attitudes towards navies, or is this just some random number generator weirdness.

[khumak]

My biggest problem with the AI's amphibious assaults is that they don't build escorts for their transports. Early in the game when your best ships are galleys or caravels it's not that big of a deal but when I'm building destroyers and subs the AI is still sending unescorted caravels my way. Why is the AI transporting mechanized infantry in caravels?

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by khumak
My biggest problem with the AI's amphibious assaults is that they don't build escorts for their transports. Early in the game when your best ships are galleys or caravels it's not that big of a deal but when I'm building destroyers and subs the AI is still sending unescorted caravels my way. Why is the AI transporting mechanized infantry in caravels?

It seems to me that the AI would rather build new ships than upgrade the old ones. In almost all of my games, AI's that did not fight wars and get their old stuff killed always have a mix of galleys and frigates to go with their modern ships (assuming they have oil or uranium). They seem to prioritize upgrading their land units before their ships.

[Quillan]

The AI opponents rarely seem to have much of a treasury. They probably can't afford to upgrade the boats. For some things it's not too bad, but it's 445 to go from a caravel to a destroyer. I have yet to see any AI opponent with 445 in the treasury. Rarely do I see one with over 150. So, they can't upgrade, and they never disband that I've seen. What does that leave? Obsolete units hanging around.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by khumak
My biggest problem with the AI's amphibious assaults is that they don't build escorts for their transports. Early in the game when your best ships are galleys or caravels it's not that big of a deal but when I'm building destroyers and subs the AI is still sending unescorted caravels my way. Why is the AI transporting mechanized infantry in caravels?

The AI shouldn´t be able to transport combat units in caravels.
Caravels are there to transport things like great people, missionaries or spies (and therefore are able to enter foreign waters even if there is no open border treaty without causing a war).
So, if you really have seen unescorted caravels, it seems to be pretty normal. The AI prbably decided to send them unescorted because warships would only be enter foreign waters if war has been declared.

I noticed different behavior. If war is declared the ships carrying the invasion force will always be escorted by a fleet of warships. On one occasion there were maybe 4-6 galleons accompanied by 5 frigates. In another war I encountered a transport ship escorted by a destroyer.

In the only occasion where a nation with which I had a war sent an unescorted galleon into my waters, it contained a settler and 2 longbowmen.
Therefore I assume that the AI makes a distinction between peaceful missions (sending settlers to found a new city can be considered peaceful ) and war missions (this might also be another explanation for the unescorted caravels, as they probably can´t be sent on war missions)