Beach Landings and great commanders

[shapecharge]

Just finished a game with a archapelo (sp), map and noticed that the AI would declare war and never brought units across the sea to invade my island, they would bring the frigates and bombard cities but never attempted a beach landing. I haven't played regular civ in a while but I don't remember this being the case there (seemed many a transports escorted by destroyers would assualt my lands with stacks of troops). On anthor thread I thought I remember someone saying they no longer played Island or arch. maps because of the faulty AI in this area. Was wondering why this was the AI seems to be programed to load troops since small Isles were settled and they had to get settlers or troops to take barb. cities there.
The other question is how do I get great commanders, I relize the meter for great generals no longer applies and I see the annocements for great commanders for AI civs, but never seem to find reference to them in the pedia or the FFH manual, and have never recieved them myself.
Well if anyone has the time to anwser I would appreciate it hope you all from the states had a great thanks giving thursday.

 

[xienwolf]

Some buildings (Command Post) grant Great People Points toward gaining a Great Commander

 

[shapecharge]

thanks xienwolf

 

[Fafnir13]

I have seen the AI make landings, but it took it a long time between the declaration of war and the showing up of troops. While there is probably something in the code for it, it really isn't working that well right now.
Some AI's probably aren't even researching the appropriate techs, I'd wager. They seem to do that a lot.

 

[shapecharge]

I have seen the AI make landings, but it took it a long time between the declaration of war and the showing up of troops. While there is probably something in the code for it, it really isn't working that well right now.
Some AI's probably aren't even researching the appropriate techs, I'd wager. They seem to do that a lot.

I just don't remeber the AI having a problem with it in Vanilla civ and I have seen others mention it on the FFH site before, figured maybe it was a problem in the old left over vanilla civ coding,
With the AI still thinking of frigates as warships only and not having the capability of transporting troops...or it doesn't regonize a queen of the line as a great troop transpot since its still looking for Galleons and transports in its computer head as troop transports.....no big deal just curious why the AI problem in FFH.....maybe its more along the lines of the bottom of your quote where each AI civ kinda has a locked in thought process for its tech advancement and doesn't factor in the type of map and adjust for it. Maybe AI Lanun would perform better but hard for me to tell since thats who I was playing.

 

[Willgar]

I only play pangea maps now for this reason, orginal civ was never great at this either but it is considerable worse in FfH. I think a lot of people play MP games so that element of the AI has never really been fixed, Although i am not even sure if it is actually possible to make the AI conduct a well planned amphibous landing.

If you think about the planning needed to conduct a good beachead, city capture and defend and then ferry in reinforcements - it would require some really good AI programming.

 

[shapecharge]

Both good points Wilgar, and unfortunately I do not have the opportunity to play MP really, so I am always curious for ways to make the AI a little "smarter" instead of just beefing up its stats. But I am not a modder so I try not to back seat quarterback something I am not capable of doing myself, but your probly correct it would be pretty tough and last thing I want is changes made that would make the AI just start spamming ships when it doesn't need them. i also usually play pangea or tutonics or something with greater land masses, and randomly have the civ picked, but since I had never played the lanun I decided to choose them and go with a seafaring map to fully use thier "flavor", but will probly just go back now that its done.

 

[Willgar]

I just play single player due to time constraints and it would be great to play maps with multiple continents but i seem to win these quite easily - was toying with the idea of maybe going up one level to diety and trying a non pangea game....

 

[Sarisin]

There are two other ways to get a Great Commander that I can think of:

1. Be the first civ to research Military Tradition.

2. From exploring a lair/dungeon. You have to be lucky to get one this way, but if you do, especially in the early going, you can use it to build a Command Post in your capital city and start generating Great Commander points.

Also, I think the Heroic Epic generates Great Commander point.

Honestly, I find less need for a Great Commander in FF than I do in FFH. In FFH you need to attach one to your unit to exceed the 100 XP cap. In FF, I have plenty of units well over that cap without a Great Commander.

 

[the343danny]

Sarisin, the XP cap for FFH is just for barbarians, unless if you have the raider trait iirc.

 

[Honor]

does raider still grant an xp bonus?

 

[jprc]

I do agree with the landing problem.
I even use it for 1 thing: win a deity level!!!
Any one can win EASILY at deity level, in ffh2.4, with, say the Lanum and Archipelago...
Found or get the OO religion. Find or buy Priesthood: create priests with the over-powerful tsunami, then pack 2 of them in the Black Wind. No one, no thing can resist the firepower of this "infernal" set: you are on your way for a Domination victory!... being almost certain that nothing will happen in your back as they are all stuck on their islands!!

Not using well naval pathes is also true for settlers: at deity level, on archipelago, many civs will just expand only 1 or 2 cities, build 15 or 20 triremes (!!!), and never send a settler to an island that is 2 or 3 cells from them (reachable with any kind of vessel).


What I strongly suspect is that the AI has trouble knowing which units should be included in the task force for invading another land. As ffh units are very specialized, there is obviously a misundesrtanding in knowing if disciples, recon, arcane, mele, etc units should make it to the other side, in which order, when, etc... in doubt, the AI builds naval units and assume it will do the job...

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

yea, I'll second the motion that the AI never seemed to have much of a problem settling islands in vanilla BTS... and I frequently remember seeing stacks of transports waiting outside my borders before a war declaration and 20 units sitting on my shores. One particularly memorable game had them constantly ferrying units back and forth until I managed to build enough subs to break the invasion.

Oh, and I've rarely if ever played a vanilla civ game to the end and not seen every speck of land and island settled. In FFH, I've played continent or tectonic maps where large islands (about 1/3 of the total landmass) are swarming with barbarians in the 500th turn and lots of small nearby islands aren't settled at all.

Could it just be a matter of too many things that the AI needs to choose between and naval conquering got pushed to the bottom?

 

[Valkrionn]

The new version of FF has redone the Naval units in a way the AI seems to understand... Declared war on the Sheiam, and the Orcs declare on me and invaded me. Actually had several beach landings scattered around my continent... Was amazing. Difficulty was only set to monarch, also.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

The new version of FF has redone the Naval units in a way the AI seems to understand... Declared war on the Sheiam, and the Orcs declare on me and invaded me. Actually had several beach landings scattered around my continent... Was amazing. Difficulty was only set to monarch, also.

Is that new version as in 0.34? or 0.40? Because they still have a hard time invading in 0.34... to the point where I don't even worry when a powerful empire across water is mad at me.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I'm almost positive it is a lack of ocean fairing techs being owned by the AI. The biggest hit to the FFH AI is that the tech tree is so broad... in vanilla civ it can research fairly balanced-ly and get most of the key techs. In FFH you have rivulets of important techs that are much more dependant on the situation.

If they build frigates, but don't send troops, it might be because they were bribed into war and don't really have a naval force ready to attack. I believe the AI also needs to know whether the role of a ship is as a transporter or as a combat vessel, and I think frigates are considered the latter, and will never carry troops.

 

[Valkrionn]

Is that new version as in 0.34? or 0.40? Because they still have a hard time invading in 0.34... to the point where I don't even worry when a powerful empire across water is mad at me.

It's FF, not FfH, so 0.43.

 

[Valkrionn]

I believe the AI also needs to know whether the role of a ship is as a transporter or as a combat vessel, and I think frigates are considered the latter, and will never carry troops.

That's basically what Vehem and Xienwolf did... Each naval tech has a transport, a combat, and an escort/explorer... AI seems to understand it much better.

 

[Sarisin]

Sarisin, the XP cap for FFH is just for barbarians, unless if you have the raider trait iirc.

Well, almost.

Sadly, even with the Raider Trait, you cannot exceed the 100 XP limit when killing a barb unit (even a barb hero!) unless you have Valor or the Great Commander attached. I understand Kael's reason for making the change in .34, but in a raging barb game you really should get some XP for killing those invading barb hordes. I have tons of units with 100 XP and go through the dopey exercise of passing around the Great Commander so I can exceed that cap for each unit.

 

[The Bramble]

I hope the AI's inability to mount a competant sea-borne invasion is something that gets fixed soon. I like playing Erebus maps a lot and navies and ocean invasions play an important part on those maps. As it is I can just sit on my island or isolated valley with a warrior guarding each city in the end-game and never have to worry.