AI insists on escorting transport vessels

I have a fast sea transport vessel - the clipper. These ships moves fast - 10 tiles regardless of whether its coast, sea or ocean. On archipelago maps, the clippers are powerful tools when waging war across the ocean. However, AI will always escort the clipper ships with slower warships. In addition these warships slows down in ocean tiles, so the whole group of ships only move 3 tiles in ocean rather than 10 tiles. I have made sure the flag "Requires escort" is unchecked for the clipper. It has defense strength of 8, but zero attack strength. Is it perhaps it's unability to attack that causes AI to always escort it, or does AI always escort vessels with AI strategy "Sea transport" checked?

All loaded transports receive an escort if one is available. Only if none is available it will make a run on its own.

Only empty transports are allowed by the KI to travel unescorted (but they receive an escort if possible).

If a ship has "Requires Escort" checked it will never leave port without escort (like Aircraft Carriers). They will not even move unescorted if they lost their escort in the middle of the sea.

Actually the "Requires Escort" backfired for the KI as I had initially marked transports with it.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13814333&postcount=22

But so far the KI seems to look only for the strategic role of its ships, but not at there performance (latest example without screenshot was a Zulu Aircraft Carrier escorted by an ancient Catapult Tetrareme... ).

Thanks for the answer and the link to the thread. I destroyed an enemy clipper's 3 escort vessels, and the next turn it fled towards it's homeland without disembarking any troops. Just like the behaviour you have observed.